Two Songs at the Ballpark
By LONNIE KING
On Sunday afternoons, I often have baseball on while writing or sorting through ideas. It is one of my favorite weekend rituals. But, last weekend, the local ball game actually prompted a few thoughts.
Not about the current pitching woes of the local nine. Not about the injuries that are taking a toll on our hometown heroes. Not about the new ABS system the MLB is employing this season.
It won’t shock you to learn it was something on the periphery of the game—and something I’m not sure should be anywhere near it.
During the seventh inning stretch of a Houston Astros game, two songs played back-to-back, and I found myself reacting to them in completely different ways.
First came God Bless America.
Then, immediately after, the stadium organ rolled into Take Me Out to the Ball Game, followed—as it has so often in Houston—by Deep in the Heart of Texas.
One left me uneasy. The others made me smile.
That contrast stayed with me.
Not a New Discomfort
I’ve long been uncomfortable with patriotic rituals embedded in sports—whether the national anthem before first pitch or “God Bless America” in the seventh inning. That discomfort isn’t rooted in hostility toward the country, but in a suspicion that these ceremonies often ask sports to carry something they were never meant to carry.
They turn a game into a stage for civic liturgy. And sometimes they confuse belonging with conformity.
Stand. Remove your cap. Hand over heart. Signal reverence.
Maybe many people experience that as meaningful. Fair enough. But it has always struck me that sports already possess their own rituals of belonging, and they are often far more generous.
Nobody has to prove loyalty to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It asks nothing of your politics, your theology, your passport, or your biography. It simply says: you’re here—sing with us.
That feels different. And in an era when Major League Baseball is profoundly international, that difference matters.
Ignoring the Audience
Roughly half of the Astros roster hails from outside the United States, and the club draws a deeply diverse and immigrant fan base. Those players and those fans may respect The Star-Spangled Banner as the host nation’s anthem without experiencing it as a song of personal memory or identity.
But, courtesy is not the same thing as shared emotional allegiance. And we shouldn’t assume these songs carry the same meaning for everyone in the ballpark.
In fact, patriotic ritual can sometimes do the opposite of what it claims to do. It can unite those already centered by it while quietly isolating those whose histories sit outside its assumptions.
That’s one reason I’ve come to question whether national anthems belong in professional sports at all.
The Exception that Proves the Rule
I will clarify here that I make exceptions to this objection in international competition between teams representing their nations. In those cases, celebrating pre- or postgame by singing the nation’s anthem can be a bonding experience.
But club and professional sports are drastically different. And baseball, with its own time-tested hymn, does not need jingoistic performances.
Because baseball already has a liturgy. The crack of the bat. Popcorn vendors shouting in the aisles. The Hammond organ. Scorecards. The seventh inning stretch. Old songs sung badly by strangers.
Those things create belonging without demanding ideological agreement.
And maybe that’s what struck me last Sunday.
“God Bless America” feels like a ritual asking for assent. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” feels like a ritual offering hospitality.
One can function as performance. The other feels like shared joy.
The Power of Memory vs. the Frailty of Constrained Nationalism
And then came “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” carrying all its old echoes for me—childhood, Houston summers, radio broadcasts, the old rhythms of baseball memory.
Not nationalism…memory. There’s a difference.
Maybe that’s my larger point.
Love of place is not the same as ideology. Communal affection is not the same as civil religion. And sports work best, I think, when they create belonging without demanding agreement.
The older I get, the more sacred that seems.
Grace and grit to you! — LK
This is SO good, I've gotta share it!
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Randomly Rudimentary Life Stuff 
Two Songs at the Ballpark
By LONNIE KING
On Sunday afternoons, I often have baseball on while writing or sorting through ideas. It is one of my favorite weekend rituals. But, last weekend, the local ball game actually prompted a few thoughts.
Not about the current pitching woes of the local nine. Not about the injuries that are taking a toll on our hometown heroes. Not about the new ABS system the MLB is employing this season.
It won’t shock you to learn it was something on the periphery of the game—and something I’m not sure should be anywhere near it.
During the seventh inning stretch of a Houston Astros game, two songs played back-to-back, and I found myself reacting to them in completely different ways.
First came God Bless America.
Then, immediately after, the stadium organ rolled into Take Me Out to the Ball Game, followed—as it has so often in Houston—by Deep in the Heart of Texas.
One left me uneasy. The others made me smile.
That contrast stayed with me.
Not a New Discomfort
I’ve long been uncomfortable with patriotic rituals embedded in sports—whether the national anthem before first pitch or “God Bless America” in the seventh inning. That discomfort isn’t rooted in hostility toward the country, but in a suspicion that these ceremonies often ask sports to carry something they were never meant to carry.
They turn a game into a stage for civic liturgy. And sometimes they confuse belonging with conformity.
Stand. Remove your cap. Hand over heart. Signal reverence.
Maybe many people experience that as meaningful. Fair enough. But it has always struck me that sports already possess their own rituals of belonging, and they are often far more generous.
Nobody has to prove loyalty to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It asks nothing of your politics, your theology, your passport, or your biography. It simply says: you’re here—sing with us.
That feels different. And in an era when Major League Baseball is profoundly international, that difference matters.
Ignoring the Audience
Roughly half of the Astros roster hails from outside the United States, and the club draws a deeply diverse and immigrant fan base. Those players and those fans may respect The Star-Spangled Banner as the host nation’s anthem without experiencing it as a song of personal memory or identity.
But, courtesy is not the same thing as shared emotional allegiance. And we shouldn’t assume these songs carry the same meaning for everyone in the ballpark.
In fact, patriotic ritual can sometimes do the opposite of what it claims to do. It can unite those already centered by it while quietly isolating those whose histories sit outside its assumptions.
That’s one reason I’ve come to question whether national anthems belong in professional sports at all.
The Exception that Proves the Rule
I will clarify here that I make exceptions to this objection in international competition between teams representing their nations. In those cases, celebrating pre- or postgame by singing the nation’s anthem can be a bonding experience.
But club and professional sports are drastically different. And baseball, with its own time-tested hymn, does not need jingoistic performances.
Because baseball already has a liturgy. The crack of the bat. Popcorn vendors shouting in the aisles. The Hammond organ. Scorecards. The seventh inning stretch. Old songs sung badly by strangers.
Those things create belonging without demanding ideological agreement.
And maybe that’s what struck me last Sunday.
“God Bless America” feels like a ritual asking for assent. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” feels like a ritual offering hospitality.
One can function as performance. The other feels like shared joy.
The Power of Memory vs. the Frailty of Constrained Nationalism
And then came “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” carrying all its old echoes for me—childhood, Houston summers, radio broadcasts, the old rhythms of baseball memory.
Not nationalism…memory. There’s a difference.
Maybe that’s my larger point.
Love of place is not the same as ideology. Communal affection is not the same as civil religion. And sports work best, I think, when they create belonging without demanding agreement.
The older I get, the more sacred that seems.
Grace and grit to you! — LK
This is SO good, I've gotta share it!
Related