Good Night Irene

[GMDino]

You must get dizzy spinning that much.

(08-17-2018, 11:18 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Why did the tradition of playing the National Anthem start at ball games? 

http://time.com/4955623/history-national-anthem-sports-nfl/

Quote:“The earliest documented performance [of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at a baseball game] occurred on May 15, 1862, during the opening game played at Union Base Ball and Cricket Grounds in Brooklyn, New York,” Marc Ferris writes in Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem. But as he later explained to NPR, hiring a band was a big enough cost that the anthem was saved for “special occasions” like opening day.


One famous example of this kind of special occasion was the first game of the World Series on Sept. 5, 1918.

Americans were so rattled by World War I that the game “almost didn’t happen,” according to the World War I Centennial Commission. “Out of respect for the soldiers, baseball officials wanted to cancel the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. When it became known, however, that American soldiers fighting in France were eager to know the Series’ results, the games commenced.” (On a more local level, Chicagoans were particularly on edge after a bombing at a federal building that housed a post office left four dead, with many suspecting that labor activists were behind it at a time when anti-union sentiment was high.)

Red Sox third baseman and furloughed U.S. Navy sailor Fred Thomas’ rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was so moving that the New York Times led its recap of the game not with a rundown of the athletes’ performance, but rather with an assessment of Thomas’s performance:

Far different from any incident that has ever occurred in the history of baseball was the great moment of the first world’s series game between the Chicago Cubs and the Red Sox, which came at Comisky Park this afternoon during the seventh-inning stretch. As the crowd of 19,274 spectators…stood up to take their afternoon yawn…the band broke forth to the strains of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The yawn was checked and heads were bared as the ball players turned quickly about and faced the music. Jackie Fred Thomas of the U.S. Navy was at attention, as the stood erect, with his eyes set on the flag fluttering at the top of the lofty pole in right field. First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field. It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day’s enthusiasm.

The mind of the baseball fan was on the war. The patriotic outburst following the singing of the national anthem was far greater than the upheaval of emotion which greeted Babe Ruth, the Boston southpaw, when he conquered Hippo Him Vaughn and the Cubs in a seething flinging duel by a score of 1 to 0.

However, while the Times referred to the song as the national anthem, that was not technically the case yet. The song was then just an anthem for the U.S. Army and Navy, but it would prove to have legs (even if the Cubs’ World Series record would not). “The outpouring of sentiment, enthusiasm, and patriotism at the 1918 World Series went a long way to making the (song) the national anthem,’’ John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, told the Associated Press in July.

(08-17-2018, 11:18 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree that they don't have a problem with the military. I do not know how many more times I can type that.

But....

(08-17-2018, 11:18 AM)bfine32 Wrote: But purposely not rendering honor when asked to is disrespectful. I don't know how anyone can see it as any different.

I think most people would think asking for honor allows for not "rendering" honor in the US.

More importantly, in this country, we do ask...not demand. And we don't whine when we don't get what we ask for...right?

(08-17-2018, 11:18 AM)bfine32 Wrote: The left wants to have it all their way:

The can kneel

Their employer cannot tell them not to kneel

They can fail to show respect but not be considered disrespectful

As for me: I agree with the first one. 

Very few people on the "left" have said their employer cannot tell them not to kneel. Most understand what Freedom of Speech means in relation to employment.

However the "right" wants to keep focusing on made up issues like that so they can ignore the cause that inspired people to kneel in the first place.

Your personal opinion of respect matter as much as mine no matter what you did in this life.

I can think of 100 different ways they could actually disrespectful that are not kneeling quietly during the anthem.

But keep up the good fight. At least we can see what you are fighting for...and it's not freedom.