If someone is demanding a source, you can consult numerous histories of baseball, including David Q. Voigt’s “American Baseball” or a 1996 Sports Illustrated article by Jack McCallum both of which state that the playing of the national anthem became commonplace during WWI.
The 1918 World Series took place from September 5 through September 11 that year. It was sparsley attended and the players almost went on strike and refused to play.
Babe Ruth pitched games 1 and 4 for the Red Sox and both were on the road.
While Ruth was popular at the time, he was nowhere near the star that he would later become. If the crowds were unruly, it was probably because they weren’t sure if there was going to be a World Series.
Now from this we reduce the statement to relevent facts asserted:
There were servicemen at the game (returning or not is irrelevant, they could have been on leave).
The game was during WWI.
Babe Ruth was an attraction.
The servicemen were rowdy.
The Star Spangled Banner was played to calm the unruly.
Now let’s examine BobT’s response for relevant facts:
Playing the anthem [sic] was begun during WWI. consistent with the OP story
It was done to appeal to patriotism. consistent with the OP story
It was played at first only at important baseball events like the World Series. consistent with the OP story
Thus, there is nothing in the OP story that is inconsistent with the assertions of BobT as to how the anthem’s playing got started. This is not to say that the story is correct: it might be totally false. It is to say that, so far, BobT’s offered response has not proven it false.
As for whether I or anyone else can go look it up somewhere, well, maybe so, but given that BobT is offering a specific denial, it seems to me that he should back up his assertions with some added information making it clear that the truth is inconsistent with the story, along with the data upon which he bases such assertions. Until then, all we have is a quaint story that may and or may not explain the start of a patriotic idea carried on to this day.
The first documented playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was on May 15, 1862 at the Union Grounds in Brooklyn. This information comes from “Baseball’s First Stars” by Ed Maher and Frederick Ivor-Campbell (page 21).
So, it can be stated that the playing of SSB occurred many years before WWI.
Ken Burns in his documentary “Baseball” (Inning 2) stated that the first playing of SSB before a baseball game was at Comiskey Park in 1917 (one year before Boyd’s assertion.)
Numerous baseball historians have had major beefs with Burns documentary. In this particular area (regarding the National Anthem), historians have been arguing for several different dates EARLIER than 1917.
The OP (quoting Boyd) seems to dwell on the importance of Babe Ruth playing in this particular World Series. His name is chosen because his is the most recognizable of all the players who participated in that particular World Series. (The great majority of the stars of the game were serving in the military at the time.)
From my perspective, Boyd asserts that SSB was only played to quiet down a rowdy crowd of servicemen at one particular event. However, I have shown that SSB had been played over 50 years earlier at a baseball game. It is likely that sometime in between May 15, 1862 and September 5, 1918 somebody else played the song before a game (e.g. Opening Day or a game where the President was attending).
I doubt this particularly satisfies DSYoungEsq, but I can also dig up microfilm copies of the accounts of all six games of the 1918 World Series to see if such an event was mentioned.
As another exhibit to enter into evidence, I do have the Chicago Tribune account of Game 1 of the 1918 World Series, which was played on September 5.
The National Anthem was indeed played at the game (the newspaper doesn’t say when, but the reference source “Total Baseball” mentions that it was played during the 7th inning stretch.) However, it was part of a larger patriotic celebration that was going on during the game, which also included six airplanes which did aerial maneuvers above the crowd at Comiskey Park (the Cubs were borrowing the stadium.)
However, the story does not mention two key elements of Boyd’s story.
Rowdy servicemen - There is no mention of any servicemen attending the game. There are mentions of servicemen showing up for Game 3, which was on the weekend. Only 19,274 people attended the game.
The crowd was not rowdy. A headline reads “All Primed to Yell, but Precise Hurling Gives Fans No Chance.” The story goes on talk about how quiet the crowd was (the Cubs lost 1-0) and that the band at the game kept trying to play songs to get the crowd excited.
The only reported incident of unruly fans occurred before Game 5, when the players threatened to strike before the game in protest over how the pool of money from the Series would be distributed. Before that game, to entertain the crowd, several wounded servicemen played an impromptu game. The crowd in Boston booed when they found out why the game had been delayed.
I was not disputing that the National Anthem was played at the 1918 World Series, but I was disputing the conditions described in the OP and whether or not the playing of the National Anthem in that instance was precedent-setting. I see no evidence to that effect.
Well done, Bob! Someone should sent your posts to Boyd.
One quibble, though. I hate to harp on this fact, but it is important to remember that the SSB had little more significance than “Over There”, “Yankee Doodle”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” or even “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, for that matter, in the era we are talking about.
I’m willing to bet that playing the SSB before games didn’t become SOP until after Congress made it the National Anthem.
