Sunday, September 16, 2001
Oh say, can you sing? Then do it
Joe Nuxhall has heard the national anthem as much as anyone: 16 years as a major-leaguer, 35 years as a broadcaster. Three years in high school. Countless offseasons at prep games. Ten thousand dawn's early lights, give or take. Nuxhall says he will sing the anthem at the Reds' next game, from the radio booth at Cinergy Field Tuesday. Loud and clear. How about you?
It is a small gesture. But great movements begin with the slightest of notes: Wearing a flag pin on your lapel or offering an unrehearsed smile. Gathering in prayer. Looking at life through eyes that are at once sad and appreciative. Dispirited, yet renewed. I've seen lots of that this week.
Let's sing at the game
Tuesday, shall we? Lift up our hearts and voices, as the preachers say, to all that is good.
“I think everybody should,” Nuxhall said. “Nothing upsets me more than a father and his 5- or 6-year-old son with their hats on during the anthem.”
Express yourself
Sing it Tuesday. Really sing it.
Do not stand politely. Do not talk. Remove your hats and inhibitions. Heaven help you if you're on your cell phone.
It's as easy to sing as a 16th-century hymn. The anthem takes the vocal range of Ella Fitzgerald to climb the high notes. Managing a decent “rocket's red glare” is like assaulting Everest on a Big Wheel.
Tuesday, give it a shot.
Cynical sportswriters laugh if the anthem singer misses a note. We grimace when he takes that last “free” and makes it two syllables. We sigh if it takes too long.
We take it for granted. We take lots of things for granted. All of us.
Until Tuesday.
And, hopefully, never again.
“It's our country,” Nuxhall said. “It represents our country.”
Not just background
If you write about sports for a living, or describe the games on the radio, you hear the anthem enough it becomes background noise. You know when it's good (Whitney Houston, Super Bowl, 1991) and when it's not (Roseanne Arnold).
You know when it makes you cry (Miracle on Ice, 1980). I know when it made me laugh: During the '94 strike, I was in Bluefield, W.Va., writing about Reds A-Leaguers.
The Bluefield general manager — who was also the team's PR man, promotions guy, traveling secretary and grounds crew — put a 45 rpm rendition of the anthem on a record player in the tiny press box. It sounded like sand in a blender. It skipped.
“Whose broad stripes and bright stars ... stars ...”
This being Bluefield, W.Va., and those being salt-of-the-earth country people, rno one blinked. The GM cued the anthem, then left to set up an in-game promotion. Bat-spinning, I think. Or maybe human bowling.
He'd locked the press box door. For several minutes, we got stars, stars, stars, until the poor guy climbed through the press box window.
Maybe this wasn't what Francis Scott Key had in mind.
Go to the game Tuesday. Be a star. Sing.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at www.enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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DAUGHERTY: Oh say, can you sing? Then do it
