Despite the fact that my Arizona Diamondbacks were eliminated from the post-season playoffs, I’m still watching the last games of the 2011 World Series.
Calling the championship of an American sports league the “World” Series has always been a bit pompous, but it’s a slightly more accurate moniker today, as baseball is played the world over. It’s the national game in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and numerous other nations. It’s played in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and Australia, and more and more international players are making it into America’s Big Leagues.
Oddly enough, as the game has become more international, “America’s Great National Pastime” has also become more jingoistic. But let me back up a sec.
I am proud to be an American. I vote in every election, fly my flag on all National Holidays, I actually show up for jury duty, and my heart races at the sound of a John Phillip Sousa march. Heck, I married a girl born on the Fourth of July! I’m the son and grandson (and nephew, cousin and brother-in-law) of military veterans, and I volunteer for veterans’ causes because it is the right thing to do. I consider myself a Patriot with a capital “P.”
When I attend a baseball game, I always get there early enough to hear the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I doff my cap, place my hand over my heart and either stand at attention or sing along, whichever is more appropriate. Rising for our National Anthem is a fitting way for Americans to affirm our faith in and allegiance to our nation, and I enjoy being part of it. I owe that respect to my country and my fellow countrymen, especially those who fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy.
In the last decade, singing “God Bless America” has become common practice during the seventh inning stretch at Major League Baseball games. After 911, when the nation was looking for common purpose, this patriotic gesture seemed a way to heal the wounds caused by the criminal attacks on our country. Playing the song continued at every Major League game during the 2002 season. In the years that followed, some stadiums only played it on Sundays.
But somehow, it has crept back into baseball. It’s now played during every seventh inning stretch of the World Series, replacing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the time-honored reminder that the reason we watch baseball is to have fun. No longer can we get up in the middle of the seventh and stretch around, find a restroom or yell for the beer guy… we must instead stand and deliver a second demonstration of national fealty.
What is it about baseball that demands two shows of loyalty? Are we required to do this at pro football or basketball games, when we board an airplane or get our driver’s license renewed? Do we get up half-way through a business meeting for a rousing Pledge of Allegiance, or stop at church between offertory and communion to sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag?” Does anyone sing “God Bless America” after the first nine holes at the golf course? The answer, of course, is “of course not.” So why do this at baseball games?
Maybe the folks who started our two non-declared Asian land wars thought this was a swell way to make Americans feel, despite doing absolutely nothing for the war effort, that watching a baseball game is somehow a patriotic sacrifice. Perhaps it’s a reminder to stay fearful and on a constant war footing. Or maybe it’s to make us feel that if we stand and sing a second patriotic song, we’ve done more than enough for our country.
Whatever the original intent, when no one can offer an explanation why we’re doing it (other than the catch-all “To Honor America”), the song becomes a forced vestigial display. Baseball doesn’t need this, nor do Americans need patriotism reduced to mindless, effortless compliance or false jingoistic conceit. True patriotism requires participation, not just the momentary postponement of a gratifying trip to the snack bar.
You want to sing “God Bless America” at games on national holidays? That’s fine, and I’ll sing along with you. But give it a rest at the World Series. My guess is God won’t be paying attention to the World Series until the Diamondbacks are back in it anyway.
