I remember going to a ball game with my old man. I remember the smells. Stale beer, human sweat, and the odor of unnaturally pink hotdogs that turned your bowels into stone.
I remember before the game, things got very quiet. All 30-odd thousand people rose. The throngs of stadium chairs creaking sounded like the world was splitting.
Everyone’s dad put down his non-evangelical beverage, SLOWLY, careful not to spill. Thousands of American grandpas removed lit cigars and balanced them, with surgical-like care, onto armrests.
Back in those days, the anthem was handled differently than it is today. Back then, guest artists did not take the mound, wearing asymmetric haircuts and crotch-revealing trousers. Neither did singers demonstrate 10 minutes of vocal gymnastics until their anthem performance resembled a febrile seizure.
No. Back then the organ played. And everybody sang.
We used to be a nation of singers. Remember that? Singing was just normal for us. Our childhood classrooms had upright console pianos, and our teachers knew how to play them. Mrs. Moore would bang out “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” before each class. Mrs. Smith played “This Land is Your Land” every Friday after the Pledge.
Well, that was a long time ago.
Recently, I attended a modern baseball game. It was a very different experience. My wife and I ordered $34 nachos from a kiosk, and the cashier asked whether I wanted to leave a 25-percent tip. Beers were $18 apiece.
During the game, a huge LED timer runs between pitches so TV producers can fit in more commercials on broadcasts. The bases are now bigger, the distance between bases is now shorter. They’re changing our game.
But none of that bothered me. Not really. A Major League park is what it is. Get over it. At a ball game, you get what you get, and you don’t pitch a fit.
What I was most interested in, truthfully, was the anthem. I was curious about it. I wondered: Do people still sing together the way they did 40 years ago?
After all, our world is nothing like it was. Our current world, for example, is almost devoid of classroom pianos. In 1938 the New York Times reported that 5.8 million pianos were sold in America each year. Whereas last year we barely sold 30,000.
So anyway, the moment of truth arrived. The announcer asked everyone to rise for the anthem.
People stood. Chairs creaked. Dads placed beers beneath seats. People who were vaping, expelled a final blast and hid their devices from security.
Everyone looked at the flag. The music began.
Everyone knew the words. Everyone sang. The stadium sounded like it was going to crumble beneath the volume of mass singing.
The boy next to me held his hat over his heart, singing so loudly the vein in his head showed. The old man beside the boy was singing even louder.
But when the song finished, the people were not. In fact, the crowd was only just getting warmed up. They kept cheering. For whole minutes, they cheered.
Fists pumped into the air. People were hugging. A flag waved on the mega-tron screen. The sound of unified voices was engulfing. Fighter jets flew overhead. Fireworks. People were amazingly, wholeheartedly, demonstratively together. Even if only for a few seconds in time.
And in that beautiful moment of oneness, that moment of palpable joy, do you know something?
Nobody seemed to care about Cracker Barrel’s sign.
