Last time I had a job at which I had to generate my own content ideas, I found the easiest way to do it, given my particular limitations as a lazy, unmotivated layabout, was to kind of mechanize the process. I came up with three or four ideas that I could apply to every new day; I worked in the adult industry, and so I latched onto the idea of pairing, for instance, the birthdays of porn stars with days of celebration – National Pancake Day, International Unicorn Day, et cetera. That way all I had to do was go to a couple of sites and there would be ideas just waiting for me to pick them up off the ground, like gold nuggets in California in 1849.
When I started thinking about this blog, my first ideas involved making it about first dates. I was going to set up profiles on dating sites – OKCupid, Tinder, Feeld and so on – and just invite potential partners to games: “Come to a ballgame with me! You don’t have to like baseball, you just have to be able to sit next to me for three hours!” In retrospect, the idea that I would be able to arrange 81 dates feels like hubris. However, even assuming I could find a date for every game, I felt like there would be a lot of space to fill, so I started thinking of ways to do what I had done at the work blog – lay down a couple of basic ideas that would serve to fill a couple of inches every day. I thought, for instance, of getting a different food item at every game (this was before I discovered that I never wanted to eat anything but brisket from the Carvery), of associating the score of the game with whether or not I scored on the date (the answer to that one was going to be, every single day, “A gentleman never tells”), and of offering a review of the national anthem.
The national anthem has become a troublesome and complicated experience for America, in some ways. I should note for the record that I am in favor of athletes and anyone else who feels the urge being able to kneel or otherwise abstain from observing the rituals of patriotism, but that I also believe the anthem, like the flag, exists as a symbol of what we believe we should be as a nation and not just a reflection of what we are. You may believe that the anthem, like the country, was born in a state of original sin, and I can’t really argue with that, but I can say that I believe the anthem, the flag, and the nation are eligible for reclamation. We offer up redemption for words and concepts that no longer belong to the oppressors, we repurpose institutions and traditions whose original meanings no longer fit our ideas of what is correct in the world. I think the ceremonies and symbols of national pride deserve the same chance.
That said, I choose to stand for the anthems at games as a gesture of respect for the performer presenting it, but not to remove my hat (or other headgear). I offer that as a gesture of alliance with and respect for the people who are being failed by the nation, harmed by the directions it may take, or disadvantaged by its institutions. I live in a place of privilege in almost every way – I don’t belong to any of the groups that routinely suffer from the depredations of the greedy, the cruel, or the inhumane, but I recognize that am far luckier than most.
Politics aside, though, I have decided not to offer reviews of the daily performance of the anthem. It’s a sad truth that most of the performances are not great – overachievers trying to turn it into a showpiece for a middling voice, creative types offering up weird arrangements and bizarre instrumentation, Metallica*. Mean criticism is really fun to write; it allows for a creativity that just doesn’t obtain when you’re trying to be nice – nice is kind, nice is generous, nice is good, but it’s not as funny as not-nice. Still, on the very first day of the season, I realized that every performer who goes out on the field to present the anthem deserves to hear applause and not petty (however fun) sniping. At the very least, they are doing a better job of it than I would, and I have gone up on stage and known the whispering, breathtaking terror of the moment before you open your mouth.
So, going forward, I am going to try to limit myself to only noting terrible national anthem performances when they are also somehow delightful: children’s choirs where you can hear one kid louder than all the rest or a half-second behind, for Instance, or Easy-E.
Or my favorite national anthem ever. I wish I could remember exactly what day it was so I could go back in the MLB.TV archives and listen to it again, although I doubt it would have the power it had in the ballpark. It was a couple of years ago, before the pandemic, and it was performed on a night celebrating Girl Scouts. The singer was something like ninety-seven years old, and she had become a Girl Scout in the 1930s. In my memory, she was announced as a member of the first class of Girl Scouts to graduate or be confirmed or coalesce or however Girl Scouts reach their final form, but a little research shows me that that is unlikely – the Girl Scouts were formed much earlier, so maybe it was the first troop in California or San Francisco or something.
She sang the National Anthem; her voice was thin, she missed most of the high notes and some of the middle ones, and even with the microphone, she faded in and out. It was one of the most touching, heartbreaking, beautiful things I have ever heard, and I say that as someone who is fully capable of getting weepy over a particularly sentimental car commercial. I am an easy touch when it comes to this kind of thing, but this was something special. Even thinking of the power of it – power that lifted it above any guitar solo or marching band or operatic tenor – gets me misty.
Maybe I’ll go try to find her name or see if I can dig up a recording, but for now I am content to let it be a memory.
*Feel free to complain at me in person, at a ballgame.
81 Dates 