Heartwarming for a Memorial Day weekend:
A crowd at a high school softball championship game burst into song after the announcer said they wouldn’t be playing the national anthem Friday in In Fresno, California.
According to Fresno Bee the stadium started booing after the announcer said: ‘There will be no anthem, let’s just play softball.’
Fan Tiffany Marquez said she was ‘shocked’ when the announcer said they weren’t going to play it. ‘Within seconds, you could hear people in the crowd singing and the volume of their voices building. There I was, standing in the middle of a true testament to unity and patriotism.’
Go here to read the rest.
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
Abraham Lincoln, September 11, 1858
A heartening story indeed. However, it appears that the decision not to play the anthem was more likely an honest mistake than any kind of unpatriotic malice:
Event coordinator Bob Kayajanian said that when more than one game is played in a day, the anthem is generally played only before the first game.
‘We try to follow with what normally gets done,’ Kayajanian said. ‘It’s all a learning experience for everyone and (going forward) we’re playing the national anthem at every game.’
I suspect the organizers simply were confused about the protocol for playing the anthem before a “classic” doubleheader in which the same teams and same crowd are present for both games, vs. two completely separate games with different teams and spectators who would not have been present when the anthem was played for the first game.
Correct Elaine. The point of the story is the patriotism of the crowd, rather than any malice in the persons in charge of the game not playing the national anthem.
I like how he made it very clear that, going forward, they’ll be doing it at every game. 🙂
Separation of church and state and the state from God using that principle has been struck a fatal blow. “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave”
Fresno is second only to Mpls/St. Paul in the population of Hmong people. They are very respectful and patriotic, And grateful to this country.