Rogers Centre, Toronto (MLB #18, Anthem envy)

 

We’re in Toronto, so I have anthem envy. O Canada is so much better as an anthem than the Star-Spangled Banner.

One of the things that Kerry and I keep in the scorebook is information on the national anthem. It started when we were taking our two boys to baseball games (that experiment didn’t take – they didn’t become fans), and the four of us would each rate the national anthem, on a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best). Anyone who has been to even a few sporting events in the U.S. knows that the national anthem is a standard, and that the length and quality of the performance are highly variable.

Lengths of performances of The Star-Spangled Banner vary from about a minute to somewhere north of two minutes. Shorter is almost always better, although the version at the 2025 Kentucky Derby, which clocked in at over 3 minutes, got a five or better from both Kerry and me.

The variation in quality is mostly because the range is large enough, more than an octave and a half, that most amateur singers have trouble reaching all the notes. Even if it’s in the perfect key for the vocalist’s range, the rockets’ red glare can give the bravest a scare. OK, the rhyme’s not original with me (although the only place I can find it on the web is in a 1918 college student newspaper), but I do find it fitting. Add the fact that many singers feel the need to personalize it by changing everything from the time signature (seriously – I’ve never heard a 4:4 version I liked, but I’ve heard quite a few, some in the last week) to the notes (sometimes intentionally) to the key (usually unintentionally), and we use the full range from 1 (lowest) to 10. Fewer singers is usually better, so you’d think solos would be the best, but small high-quality choral groups that trade the melody around the parts do well (one of my favorite recorded versions is by the Oak Ridge Boys). The worst tend to be pre-school choirs (although it is cute watching to see which ones will pick their noses) and large bands or choral groups that are spread out so far that they can’t stay together. But generalizations are often wrong: the highest score we’ve given to an anthem on this trip was the (Canadian) elementary school choir last night. They performed it straight up, and quick (at 56 seconds, it was the shortest we’ve heard all season), and got a 6.5. But they were also good. Their O Canada got a 7.5, but we were debating whether that was fair, because the level of difficulty is so much different.

It also varies by vocation. Anthems performed by people with a military connection, whether singers or bands, are usually better – they take it seriously, and if the military is putting them in front of a crowd, they’re likely to be good enough musicians to pull it off. Pop or country singers trying to turn it into a ballad or a love song are usually painful to watch.

We do have one rating that defines a 10. One rare occasions, the scorebook will just say “Jesse!” That’s Jesse McGuire, a phenomenal professional trumpeter from Phoenix who performed several times during the Diamondbacks’ run to the 2001 World Series, and on special occasions since then. Here is his performance before Game 7 that set the feel of a magical evening. That version is neither short, nor straight-up, but he’s a professional, so he can make it spine-tingling.

On the other hand, O Canada is much easier to sing, with a range of only one step more than an octave.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not a fan of The Star-Spangled Banner, but I don’t think it’s that I’m unpatriotic. It’s mostly because its difficulty means that it gets performed so badly so often, which I frankly find disrepectful. But in recent years, I learned more of the song’s history, and have become even less enamored with it. It’s widely known that the tune was an English drinking song, and the lyrics come from a battle in a war that most of us know very little about, the War of 1812. Jesse McGuire proves that the tune can be done well, and I don’t really care exactly where the lyrics come from. However, I have a serious problem with what the lyrics are in the later verses. Thankfully, we only hear the first verse, because there’s one verse that says,

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave”

That’s referring to the fact that one of the causes of the War of 1812 was that the dastardly British were accepting runaway slaves into their navy, in return for freedom and land in the Caribbean (i.e., fleeing the “land of the free” to acquire freedom). Star-Spangled Banner didn’t become the official national anthem until 1931. In Baltimore, where it was written, there was an official ceremony celebrating its new status, with the flags of the U.S., the state of Maryland, and the Confederacy leading the parade.

Although I’ve heard magnificent performances of the Star-Spangled Banner (Jesse!), my personal favorite performance of a patriotic song at a baseball game is from a couple of hours after a Jesse McGuire anthem, when Ray Charles performed America the Beautiful  during the seventh-inning stretch of Game Two of the 2001 World Series, seven weeks after 9/11. The song is easier to perform well (a range of just over an octave, like O Canada), but the thing I’ve always liked best about it that it emphasizes the theme that we have an obligation to our country and to each other (“crown thy good with brotherhood”, not “crown us” or just “bless us”). In contrast to The Star-Spangled Banner, the later verses are better than the first. Ray Charles’ version starts with the verse about “Oh beautiful for heroes proved, in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life” and “’til all success be nobleness, and every gain divine.” It still brings a tear to my eye when I watch it on YouTube. Another very good (though non-baseball) version of America the Beautiful  is by Willy Nelson and a cast of celebrities performed at a benefit a month earlier, which includes all the verses. In a country where the first sentence of the preamble to the Constitution talks about trying to form “a more perfect union” (implying to me that we aren’t, and never will be, perfect, but are trying to do better), a song that calls for patriotism, rather than just boasting about a battle, seems more appropriate. And did I mention that the two versions I linked are very, very different styles, but both spectacularly good?  

Incidentally, like America the Beautiful, O Canada does have the theme of patriotism in it, concluding with “We stand on guard for thee.”

There has been some sentiment for many years for America the Beautiful to be declared the national anthem or national hymn, but alas, the Star-Spangled Banner won the competition a century ago, and still waves. And torments singers and listeners alike.

I’m in Toronto, and I do have anthem envy, but it’s not that I want O Canada. I want an anthem as good as O Canada.I want America the Beautiful.

The game: Toronto Blue Jays 5, Arizona Diamondbacks 4

This is the first time on this quest that we’ve seen our hometown team, the Diamondbacks, play on the road. Being one of the five (OK, not an actual count, but in the whole evening, I saw one other person with a D’backs logo, out of the hundreds or thousands I saw) people in the stadium rooting for the visitors made it particularly painful when the home team came from behind in the ninth inning on back-to-back home runs. Walk-offs are much more fun when you’re for the team walking off.

A few comments:          

It was a bad night to be a center fielder for the Blue Jays. In most MLB games, the only position that gets substituted out is the pitcher. On rare occasions, there will be a pinch-hitter to get a more favorable matchup against a certain pitcher, or a team will bring in a better defensive player when they’re ahead in the last inning or two. Last night, Toronto used four center fielders. The starter, Jonatan Clase, had to leave the game after being hit just below the knee by a fastball. He was replaced by Miles Straw, who, minutes later, crashed into the centerfield wall while on a futile chase after a deep fly ball. He was on the ground several minutes, then finally walked off the field, with assistance, to be replaced by Alan Roden. He played there a couple of innings, then Will Robertson, who had started the game in left field, finished in center after the Jays, behind by two runs, brought in Davis Schneider, a better hitter, to pinch hit for Roden in the seventh (Schneider then played left field).

The Diamondbacks have had problems with injuries to pitchers this season. Their top two starting pitchers and their top two relief pitchers are all out for the season with arm or shoulder injuries. That means that in a close game, their relief pitchers for the night included two rookies (one of whom had three previous games of major league experience). However, they held together until the 9^th inning, when they brought in Shelby Miller, who has been making the most of a second chance this season.  In 2015, the Diamondbacks acquired Miller in a high-profile trade, and he was awful in the three years he pitched for them – it was the worst trade they’ve ever made. Ten years later, they reacquired him as a backup reliever, and it has been one of the best low-profile signings they’ve ever had. In fact, he’s the only relief pitcher I trust right now. Or trusted until last night, when he gave up those back-to-back home runs in the 9^th.

The diversity, or lack thereof, of MLB teams is interesting. I noticed our first night in Philadelphia that of the 20 starting players (nine hitters plus a pitcher, for each team), every single one was a White guy born in the U.S. Last night, each team started players born in five different countries. There’s no single recipe for success.

Rogers Centre was the first retractable roof in the majors. The stadium is now a little long in the tooth (nearly 40 years old, although it underwent significant renovations in the last few years), but I really like it. I like a view, and the view of the retracted roof, with the CN Tower looming next to it, is unique.

Finally, one thing that softened the blow of losing on a walk-off. As the crowd was going nuts after the game-winning home run, a guy in front of us, whom we’d been talking to off and on throughout the evening, turned around and apologized. How stereotypically Canadian, and how empathetic.