National anthem still long-running hit at U.S. sports events
possibly self-proclaimed anarchists and labor activists, had the day before tossed a bomb into a downtown federal building and post office, killing four people and injuring dozens more.
The World Series was in town, with the Cubs playing host to Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox. The Chicago games were played at Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox, instead of their new home at Wrigley Field (called Weegham Park at the time) because it held more fans. But in a city jittery over the bombing and weary from the war, Game 1 that day attracted fewer than 20,000 fans, the smallest World Series crowd in years.
When they got there, they didn’t make much noise, though that could have had something to do with the 1-0 masterpiece Ruth was pitching — yes, pitching — for the Red Sox.
“There was no cheering during the contest, nor was there anything like the usual umpire baiting,” reported one Boston newspaper.
Then, in the seventh inning, a band from the Navy training station north of Chicago started to play “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The song had been played before at major league games, from at least 1862 and on opening day in 1897, in Philadelphia, Thorn said. But this time, reported The New York Times, something happened that was “far different from any incident that has ever occurred in the history of baseball.”
Players took off their caps as they faced a flag that fluttered atop a pole in right field as the 12-piece band began to play. All of them except Red Sox infielder Fred Thomas.
Thomas was in the Navy during the series — he played on the team fielded by the Great Lakes station that was also home to the band — but was granted furlough so he could play. When the Wisconsin native heard the music, “he turned toward the flag, kept his hat on and gave a military salute,” said Jim Leeke, author of “From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During the Great War.”
A few fans began to sing. Then others joined in “and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody band at the time was conductor rolled across the field,” the and composer John Times reported. And when Philip Sousa. He was not at it ended, “onlookers exploded the game, but had recently into thunderous applause arranged the standardized and rent the air with version of the song that is a cheer that marked the still played today. highest point of the day’s The 1918 World Series enthusiasm.” The Red Sox would have been one of the went on to win the game first times the band could and the series, part of a test drive the new version, Cubs’ championship according to Mike Bayes, drought that ultimately senior chief musician for lasted 108 years but was a the Navy Band in Washington. mere decade old in 1918.
Not everyone thought “It was a very important what happened was a big thing for him to put the anthem deal. Chicago sportswriter on a national stage in Ring Lardner mentioned it, its new form,” Bayes said. but only as a punch line as It wasn’t until 1931 that he reported that Thomas Congress and President had stood at attention three Herbert Hoover officially times in the game, once during designated the song as the the anthem and twice national anthem. Still, it when the umpire was calling was clear the song was on him out on strikes. its way after that day in Chicago.
The leader of the Navy
It was played when the series got back to Boston. And, as one story goes, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was so impressed with the way the song quieted rowdy fans that the next season that he ordered the band to play it while the flag was presented on the field.
“It was a turning point and, from then on, it was played at all opening days and World Series games,” Leeke said.
The song was played just on holidays or special occasions for years, in part because ballparks didn’t have the kind of sound systems they do today and owners were loath to pay for a band more than they had to.
It wasn’t until the 1940s during World War II that major league teams started playing it every day.