October 7, 1968: José, He Could See Better Than They Could

October 7, 1968: Game 5 of the World Series, at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The St. Louis Cardinals lead the Detroit Tigers 3 games to 1. The Tigers must win 3 straight against the defending World Champions to win their 1st title in 23 years.

Lefthanded pitcher Mickey Lolich steps in, and pitches brilliantly, and gets an unlikely assist from Lou Brock. On 2nd base in the 5th‚ Brock, normally one of the game's greatest baserunners, tries to score standing up on Julian Javier's single, and is gunned down by Willie Horton's throw from left field. Al Kaline's bases-loaded single off Joe Hoerner in the 7th scores 2 for the winning margin: Tigers 5, Cardinals 3.

The Tigers stay alive, but still need to win Games 6 and 7 -- in St. Louis, with Bob Gibson the potential Game 7 starter.

The bigger story, at least in the short term, is the modern rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by 23-year-old Puerto Rican-born, New York-raised singer and acoustic guitar wizard José Montserrate Feliciano García, better known as José Feliciano.

Born blind, Feliciano comes onto the field wearing sunglasses and being guided by a dog -- both of which are considered threatening by many in-person and TV viewers.

He does no vocal hysterics like some more recent singers we could mention; he just sings the National Anthem of the country he loves, of which he is a full citizen, as all Puerto Rico natives are, and which gave him the chance to become rich and famous. He simply sings the song a little differently, in his own style, which he calls "Latin jazz."

This is a time of the Vietnam War, race riots, assassinations and political unrest. Richard Nixon is about to be elected President in a squeaker because too many Democrats, turned off by the war and saddened by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, stay home and don't vote for longtime liberal hero Hubert Humphrey.

The reaction to Feliciano's rendition is muted in the Tiger Stadium stands, but was absolutely furious on telephones, talk radio and newspapers. NBC's switchboard got overloaded. The reaction gets so bad that his career stalls for 2 years, until the release of his Christmas song "Feliz Navidad."

Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell, authorized by the office of Commissioner William D. "Spike" Eckert to select Detroit's Anthem singers for the Series, defended his choice. Harwell was a published songwriter (he would later write "Move Over Babe, Here Comes Henry" for Hank Aaron), an ordained minister, and, although he saw no combat, a U.S. Marine in World War II. His patriotism, decency and musical talent were on display throughout his long and mostly happy adult life, and were absolutely unassailable. Or so one would think.

Ironically, the man he'd selected for Game 4 was Marvin Gaye, a superstar of Detroit's Motown Records. Gaye sang it straight, and very nicely. In 1983, at the NBA All-Star Game, Gaye, in the midst of a big comeback that would tragically end with his death the next year, sang the Anthem gospel-style. The times had changed: His version was greeted with thunderous cheers and applause.

For Game 3, he had chosen Margaret Whiting, a Detroit native who'd had several hits in the 1940s and '50s, and whose father was the great songwriter Richard Whiting.

"Mr. Ernie" had introduced Feliciano to his wife, Susan, who grew up in Detroit. In 2010, Harwell died, and a memorial service was held at Detroit’s Comerica Park. Feliciano was invited to sing the Anthem at this service, and was wildly cheered afterward.

His version was also included on The Tenth Inning, Ken Burns' 2010 sequel to his 1994 miniseries Baseball. Listen and judge for yourself. (As I have pointed out before, NBC no longer has color videotape of most of the World Series prior to 1975.)

Since Colin Kaepernick, then the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem during 2016 games, controversy has raged. Further gestures have been made. Right-wingers have foamed at the mouth over such things, led by Donald Trump -- as Trump's fellow Queens native, and Feliciano's fellow 1968 hitmaker, Paul Simon would say, "the neon god they made."

There is an obvious solution to the problem: Don't play the National Anthem before games at all.

Because the right-wingers are lying: Kaepernick's original protest didn't have a damned thing to do with the flag. Or the troops, present and veteran. It's about white policemen exercising their choice to murder unarmed black people, including children, because they know they will get away with it. And they do.

O, say, can you see that?

*

October 7, 1968 was a Monday. This was the only baseball game played that day. There would not be Monday Night Football for another 2 years. The NHL season began on October 11; the NBA season, on October 15; and the ABA season, on October 18. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

There was one other note from music: Thom Yorke, the lead singer and main songwriter of the English rock band Radiohead, was born.

March 3, 1931: The National Anthem

The actual "Star-Spangled Banner" described in the song

March 3, 1931: In its final meeting of the term, Congress ratifies Francis Scott Key's poem "The Star-Spangled Banner" as America's National Anthem.

Key had written it, under the title of "Defence of Fort M'Henry," while on a British ship stationed outside Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where he, then a 35-year-old lawyer from Frederick, Maryland, was trying to negotiate the release of American prisoners.

It was September 13, 1814, the height of what became known as the War of 1812, and he saw ships of Britain's Royal Navy shell the fort, as part of their attempt to take the important port city of Baltimore, just 18 days after their Army had burned the national capital of Washington, D.C., including the Capitol Building and the White House.

In the morning, the British realized they weren't going to win this battle, and backed off. The Fort's commanding officer, Major George Armistead, ordered the flag raised. At the time, federal law said that the American Flag should have as many stars and as many stripes as there were States in the Union. At the time, there were 18 States, but most American Flags had 15 stars and 15 stripes, as had been the case since 1795, following the admission to the Union of Vermont and Kentucky. The flag that Key saw flying from Fort McHenry had 15 and 15. In 1818, a new law was passed, limiting the stripes to 13, honoring the 1st 13 States, while adding a new star for each State.

When Key's poem was published, it was set to the tune of, oddly enough, an English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven," composed by John Stafford Smith. Since that song was already familiar in America, the song caught on, especially after the War of 1812 concluded with the Battle of New Orleans the following January 8.

Key's 1st verse is the only one that is usually sung. There are 4 verses, and the 3rd contains pro-slavery words: "No refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave." So, even America's National Anthem is tinged with slavery, "America's original sin." Smith died in 1836, Key in 1843.

The flag remained in Armistead's family, which became the Appleton family through a daughter of Armistead's, and was displayed on special occasions. Some pieces of the flag, including one of the stars, were given away as souvenirs, resulting in the flag being much shorter than it originally was.

In 1912, the Appleton family donated the flag to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which renovated it in 1914, and again in 2008. It is now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, at 1300 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington. It is now on display in a two-story display chamber that allows it to lie at a 10-degree angle in dim light, to protect it. The Flag House, where the flag was sewn in 1813 by Mary Young Pickersgill (1776-1857), is at 844 East Pratt Street.

In 1889, the U.S. Navy officially adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner." In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the song be played at military and other appropriate occasions. During the 7th inning stretch of Game 1 of the 1918 World Series at Comiskey Park in Chicago -- the White Sox let the Cubs use it because it seated more than Wrigley Field -- a band played the song, as a tribute to the troops then fighting in World War I, and the fans stood up and sang along. It began to be played before every Major League Baseball game in 1942, the 1st season of World War II, and has been played before American sporting events ever since.

Also in 1918, Representative John Charles Linthicum, whose Maryland district included Fort McHenry, introduced a bill to officially recognize "The Star-Spangled Banner" as America's National Anthem. He continued to reintroduce the bill, but it went nowhere, until 1930, when the Veterans of Foreign Wars presented a petition with 5 million signatures recommending the adoption. Congress finally passed the bill, and President Herbert Hoover signed it into law.

*

March 3, 1931 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers, 4-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Quakers, 5-1 at the Philadelphia Arena.

* And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Ottawa Senators, 1-0 at the Ottawa Auditorium.

February 13, 1983: Marvin Gaye Sings the National Anthem

February 13, 1983: The NBA All-Star Game is held at The Forum, outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. The Eastern Conference beat the Western Conference, 132-123. Julius "Dr. J" Erving of the Philadelphia 76ers (and thus the East) led all scorers with 25 points, and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

Nobody remembers. What they do remember was the National Anthem sung by Marvin Gaye. Gaye had sung the Anthem before Game 4 of the 1968 World Series in Detroit, done it straight, and gotten a nice hand. The next day, before Game 5, Jose Feliciano sang it differently, and got hate mail.

Times changed: This time, Marvin sang the Anthem as if it was a gospel song, and, along with Whitney Houston before Super Bowl XXV 8 years later, is regarded as one of the most beloved renditions ever. How beloved? Today, if you type "Marvin Gaye" into the Search feature of YouTube, this rendition is the 1st thing that comes up. The 2nd is his song "Let's Get It On," his 1973 Number 1 hit about sex.

Sadly, 14 months later, he was dead.

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February 13, 1983 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. And, this being the NBA's All-Star Break, there were no regular-season games. But there were 5 games in the NHL that day:

* The Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Hartford Whalers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Winnipeg Jets, 6-1 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* And the Quebec Nordiques beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-4 at the Chicago Stadium.