You can also view this here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070630032027/www.agouti.com/feature.aspx?id=70 and you used to be able to view it here: http://www.agouti.com/feature.aspx?id=70.
American music is as, well, American as baseball and apple pie. But sometimes when these things get interspersed, the end result is not so desirable to pretentious little me.
I like baseball. I like going to baseball games. They have nachos there. Just like Gerald Ford and Homer Simpson, I like nachos (although they seem to like it with football better). And they have great organists at baseball games, or at least recorded renditions of organic classics. They aren’t pre-recorded, mind you. It wasn’t taped before it was taped. It was taped when it was taped.
There are zillions of traditions in baseball that have stood the test of time. My favorite is the seventh-inning stretch. They play Take Me Out to the Ballgame. This is karaoke at its finest. I hate karaoke, but in the middle of the seventh inning, it’s a different story altogether.
And now it’s time for the vegetarian (that’s me) to have a beef (it’s not for dinner).
I will point out that Take Me Out to the Ballgame has not always been played in the seventh-inning stretch. But it’s inoffensive and fun, just like baseball. So the last thing I want is to have something that can offend people to go on at a game. And that’s what has happened in the wake of Sept. 11.
Explain to me the point of playing God Bless America at a baseball game. It makes no sense to me. At best, this makes Christians, who are naturally insecure, feel better about themselves. At worst, it polarizes people at a time when we need to all stick together. Music is the great unifier. Guitar doesn’t speak different languages (unless you count acoustic and electric — I think of them as dialects). But unifying people over something that not everyone agrees with only serves to increase us-vs.-them paradigms. This is bad, people.
Explain to me who benefits from playing God Bless America at a baseball game. No one is going to start going to games because they play this song, which incidentally has some arrogant-ass lyrics. But will people stop going to games because they play this song? Of course!
This is highly rhetorical, but why do Americans insist on doing things that don’t benefit anybody? Do you theists really think playing this song at a ballgame will appease your supreme being? He already has the Yankees winning and the Red Sox losing (albeit not yet this season) — if he wants something else, he’ll make it happen. A supreme being does not need your help! He’s a supreme being! If he can’t do it, then it ain’t worth doing.
At any rate, Americans always absent-mindedly do things that make no sense, and this is a perfect example. Playing God Bless America at ballgames does nothing but make fat white guys happy, and not even cool fat white guys like Fat Mike from Fat Wreck Chords.
Is it harmless? Many would say yes, but I disagree. It’s main purpose is certainly not to promote an agenda, but it is certainly a side effect. The whole thing is just so unnecessary.
To address an earlier point, yes people discontinue going to baseball games because they hear this song being played. With baseball attendance declining and all their scandals and whatnot, they need all the help they can get. Playing God Bless America is not going to make anything better.
Do you want to know someone who won’t attend these games anymore? Well, for one, there’s me. I will, however, go to Oakland A’s games, because they only play one song in the seventh-inning stretch, and that’s Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Quit shooting yourself in the foot, baseball. Unlike what I read on a shirt at the gym last week, God does not “have your back.”
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Didnt know the forum rules allowed such blriliant posts.