Star-Spangled Banner: how the anthem became central to the story of American sports

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/12/history-national-anthem-sports-military-flag
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Star-Spangled Banner: how the anthem became central to the story of American sports

How did the United States military and a song about the War of 1812 become so inextricably associated with American sports? It didn’t happen overnight
The playing of the Star-Spangled Banner is so familiar and perfunctory a trapping of sporting events in the United States that few Americans even bothered to consider what it means and why it’s a tradition until last year when Colin Kaepernick chose to take a knee in protest of police violence and racial inequality. The stakes were redoubled this September when Donald Trump called on NFL owners to fire any players who kneel, recasting Kaepernick’s movement as not a protest of social injustice but an affront on patriotism and an insult to the military soldiers who paid the ultimate price for freedom.

But how did a song about the War of 1812 that wasn’t even adopted as the national anthem until the 1930s become so indelibly bound to the American sporting experience? It didn’t happen overnight.

While the first documented performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at a sporting event was before an 1862 baseball game in Brooklyn, the anthem as game-day ritual became crystallized in the national consciousness during Game 1 of the 1918 World Series between the Red Sox and Cubs at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. These were the days before stadium sound systems that blast pop music at ear-splitting volumes during even the thinnest slivers of down time. Live music was a luxury that incurred the cost of hiring a military band, which left renditions of the anthem for special occasions like opening day or the World Series.

The United States had lost more than 100,000 soldiers in the 17 months since entering the first world war and morale had been further undercut by the bombing of the Chicago Federal Building only four days earlier, an attack that killed four people and injured 30 more. Attendance for the opener was low and public morale was lower, while a pitchers’ duel – ultimately won by Boston pitcher Babe Ruth! – did little to stoke passions in the stands.

That was until the military band on hand played the Star-Spangled Banner during the seventh-inning stretch and Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas, playing the Fall Classic while on furlough from the US Navy, stood at attention toward the flag atop the pole in right field.
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