NYC columnist wants baseball to ban ‘God Bless America’
Here’s a take hotter than your grill this Fourth of July weekend: A New York Daily News columnist wants baseball to rid itself of “God Bless America.”
The man who chose to go after both religion and patriotism a few days before Independence Day is Gersh Kuntzman, whose beefs with “God Bless America” are many. They range from the fact that it’s not our National Anthem (true) to that it offends just about everyone, including “believers” and “foreigners” (highly debatable).
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Kuntzman — who identifies himself as an atheist — is angry that the Yankees play “God Bless America” every game during the seventh-inning stretch and the Mets play it on Sundays and holidays. He’d prefer baseball just stop using it. Permanently.
Here’s the heart of Kuntzman’s argument:
Part of my outrage stems from ponderous Mussolini-esque introduction of the song, when fans are asked to rise, remove their caps and place them over their hearts. Reality check, friends: “God Bless America” is not the National Anthem. The only songs Americans should stand for are “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Here Comes the Bride.”
Even Irving Berlin, who wrote “God Bless America” in 1918, considered it so maudlin and depressing that he stuck it in a drawer. Twenty years later, as the world prepared for war, Kate Smith asked Berlin for a patriotic song for her radio show. He pulled out “God Bless America” and changed one lame line — “the gold fields up in Nome” — to an even lamer line — “oceans white with foam.” You know the rest: Smith’s version became as much a symbol of post-war patriotism as the flag, the space program and all the white people moving to the suburbs.
The song still embodies great things about America, but also our worst things: self-righteousness, forced piety, earnest self-reverence, foam.
Look, I hate The Wave, so I’m not going to stick up for ballpark tradition simply because it’s ballpark tradition. But going after “God Bless America” as most Americans are filling their propane tanks is an obvious troll move.
If Kuntzman wanted to rid baseball of “God Bless America,” that’s a fight better to pick around opening day. When Americans are revved up on pyrotechnics and patriotism, it just comes off as a cry for attention.
As for the song itself? There’s a lot of bad music that gets played at sporting events. If we’re going to start banning songs, shouldn’t we at least start with Flo Rida?
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
