Hey everyone! I know I’m rarely here any more but when I want to have something answered, who am I gonna call? Ghostbusters! But their number was disconnected so I figured SDMB was the next best thing
Anyone know of a list compiled online anywhere of “alterations” (not quite the right word) to the national anthem by sports fans? For example, Orioles fans yelling “O”, Braves fans yelling “Braves” (for “brave”), Winnipeg Jets fans yelling “True North”, etc? I wouldn’t even know what Google search terms to use I’m that lost in ways to research this.
Oh I’m not saying I approve or that it’s a good thing to do. It’s just that it is a thing, and I’m kind of curious if someone has compiled them somewhere, or written about them in some way.
There was a baseball team that had a star player named Jose (I don’t think it was Canseco), whose crowd would yell “Jose!” in place of “Oh, say” at the start of the final verse.
At the Caps hockey games, “RED” is yelled as well as “Oh”. I think the latter comes from Baltimore fans but in some creative back-explanations people try to say it is “O” for Ovechkin.
My wife is in a women’s chorus that sometimes sings the anthem at local sporting events. They are generally warned by the staff to not be startled by the crowd yelling “Oh”. This warning was given at a George Mason University basketball game and at a DC United pro soccer game. As above, I think it is just something that spread from the Baltimore baseball team since the cities are less than an hour’s drive apart.
The Baltimorons (hey it’s what we called them I didn’t make it up) would yell O during the anthem at University of Maryland games when I was there. It didn’t make any sense. I suppose it was because there were no lyrics that mentioned turtles.
Calgary Flames fans yell over the words “see” and “red” in the American national anthem as tribute to the “C of Red” (the “sea” of fans wearing red home jerseys that make up the crowd).
ETA: The “C” is also the “flaming C” that makes up the team logo.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is always sung properly in Cleveland, from what I’ve observed. But while singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch, the lyrics are often altered from "“If they don’t win it’s a shame” to “If they don’t win it’s the same.”
Every once in awhile, a solitary Os fan will do it at Nats Park and everyone kind of looks at him like he’s crazy.
At the little league park near the Hall of Fame, they make a point of asking fans from yelling out any stuff like that during the anthem.
If too many people add the missing cymbal crashing sounds to the National Anthem at the base movie theatre, the Base Commander will send a nastygram to all units on the base the next day. At least, that’s how it worked at Governor’s Island when it was a Coast Guard command.
so I figured SDMB was the next best thing