September 14, 2016

National Anthem standoff.

There's that NFL kneeling, but there's also the MLB standing and standing to the point of not being able to stand it anymore.
Hernan Iribarren of the Cincinnati Reds and Manny Pina of the Milwaukee Brewers engaged in a pre-game standoff after the national anthem.

Both players stood with their hats and hands over their respective hearts as their teams walked back into the dugout before the game.

Pina moved first, which gave the Reds the victory.

55 comments:

mockturtle said...

I hope it catches on!

rhhardin said...

Black lives matter is idiotic.

Doing away with the anthem at sports events is a good idea.

People in charge of the flag want constant expressions of gratitude.

Patriotismwise it's cheap grace.

Maybe the conflict of PC causes will find the solution. Sporting events are for sporting events.

rhhardin said...

Sporting events should start with breast cancer awareness instead.

Blatant commercial pandering to women.

William said...

The taking of the knee seems a respectful form of protest. You kneel before a higher power. The NFL should make it mandatory that all players take a knee during the playing of the national anthem as a sign of respect for our country. That could be a way of branding the superior patriotism of the NFL. Kaepernick could protest by standing.

CJinPA said...

Doing away with the anthem at sports events is a good idea.

OK. So when should we take the opportunity as a people sing our national anthem together? How common will such opportunities be?

Ann Althouse said...

"The taking of the knee seems a respectful form of protest. You kneel before a higher power."

That's what I thought until Meade schooled me. In football, "to take a knee" is the equivalent of sitting down. The coach says "Take a knee" when he's going to give you a talking to. In a setting where you are away from any chair, taking a knee is the substitute for sitting down, because you would never just sit down on the field.

rhhardin said...

OK. So when should we take the opportunity as a people sing our national anthem together? How common will such opportunities be?

Have services. Whatever turns you on. Maybe you can go door to door like Jehova's Witnesses and gin up members.

The national anthem is there in sports as a gimmick to get the crowd to shut up and pay attention. Kneecap-bashers in the crowd enforce it. Good patriotic stuff.

Meade said...

"OK. So when should we take the opportunity as a people sing our national anthem together? How common will such opportunities be?"

here

Wilbur said...

For 40 years I've questioned the playing of the national anthem before sporting events. I tend to fall on the side of not playing it, because when it's played so indiscriminately it loses its impact and for many becomes something to be endured instead of savored or cherished.
.
And why only before sporting events?

CJinPA said...

Have services. Whatever turns you on. Maybe you can go door to door like Jehova's Witnesses and gin up members.

So, never?

I guess I'm throwing the question out there: What are national anthems for? When are they supposed to be played, outside of sports?

Are you mocking phony patriotism or the notion that a nation's citizens can/should ever display collective patriotism? Or has patriotism itself become a bad thing?

Unknown said...

Ah yes, rhhardin is back on his 'I hate American values being expressed publicly because that means someone is pressured to support America and that's evil" kick. We get it, he hates America and the flag and the anthem and so forth.

Somehow, I bet he has no problem with burning the flag, or spitting on veteran graves.

Tell me, rhhardin, do you also think that anyone who flies an American flag should have it chopped down because it "pressures" others to be patriotic? I'm sure you agree that the school districts suspending students for not saluting the Mexican flag or who otherwise fly the American flag are correct.

In a town next to me, someone was flying an American flag attached to their pickup truck at school. Perhaps you or your relatives were the ones that set fire to the flag and burned it, along with the truck? A-ok, no doubt. Are you proud of your fellow (likely non) citizen? Or fellow Democratic lowlife?

--Vance

CJinPA said...

"OK. So when should we take the opportunity as a people sing our national anthem together? How common will such opportunities be?"

here

So another vote for "never."

(I had to sit through a 30-second Hillary ad to get to that gag. It featured a Vice President with fake hair and fake teeth lecturing me that I didn't know how "real" Hillary is, but he does.)

Wilbur said...

My experience with football coaches was when they wanted to get your attention, there was no knee-taking. They would grab your facemask by the hand and let loose a spittle-inflected, high volume, ass chewing. You felt fortunate if it wasn't followed by a kick in the ass.

They taught us to be men, of course. Catholic men, at that. Just ask them.

MAJMike said...

Not a fan of public patriotism or public prayer. That said, standing respectfully during such public demonstrations is not asking too much from a bunch of over-paid clowns playing children's games.

If these millionaires wish to make difference, they should tutor troubled young students and fund neighborhood centers for disadvantaged children.

Darrell said...

Football is dead to me now. Not one dollar spent ever again.

Meade said...

So another vote for "never."

How do you read that a vote for "never" when it's a vote for "whenever you feel like it"? Even better when it's spontaneous and heartfelt. Best when it drowns out nazis patriotically singing about their fatherland.

rhhardin said...

It's not patriotism at all. It's a marketing gimmick. and,

The veterans already got what they deserve, namely a free country. - Andy Rooney

They don't need constant displays of gratitude. If they want gratitude, they're in the wrong business.

Flags are for post offices so you can locate them, and US embassies in foreign countries so you know there's someplace normal people can be found.

The military has a diffent use in reducing individualism and producing team cohesion, but that's the military.

It's just cheap grace in ordinary life. It saves you the trouble of actually being patriotic. You'll vote for taxing the rich and child care for women in the next breath.

Meade said...

Sing it loud, sing it proud. Force the nazis to take a knee.

mikee said...

The first person to stop clapping after speeches by Stalin was sometimes sent to Siberia, or even shot. Long applause times resulted, up to half an hour.

In Catch-22, Milo Minderbinder's stupid and omnipresent Loyalty Oaths, required to obtain food in the mess hall, for example, were destroyed by one Colonel yelling, "Gimme eats!"

Obama was criticized for not wearing a flag lapel pin during the 2008 election.

Reagan was criticized for making a joke during a microphone check while in office.

Rosanne Barr demonstrated her lack of class by performing a drunken Anthem at a ball game, ending with her grabbing her crotch. She was criticized for it.

A beautiful, but slow-cadenced and thus overly long, Anthem performance by a pop diva (Whitney Houston? IDK) was criticized.

Jimmy Hendrix electric guitar Anthem, and an impersonator's reprisal of it in a Cheech and Chong movie, were both criticized, and lionized.

I think if you want attention, seeking it with threats works, as does using raw authority in the presence of idiocy. And if you thoughtlessly do something normal, you can be criticized for that, too. And if you are an ass or an artist in public, you can get unwanted attention from critics, professional or otherwise.

And if you do something outside what is considered normal ranges of behavior, you get attention, criticism, and praise, varying in degree with source thereof and time after the action.

Play ball.

Brando said...

"They don't need constant displays of gratitude. If they want gratitude, they're in the wrong business."

I don't think people stand because veterans demand gratitude. Most veterans would never demand it. Rather, it's a way for the rest of us to show respect for them. No one is forced to--forcing someone to would defeat the purpose--but it's a fine tradition to get us all to step back from our usual differences and show respect for the one thing we should all agree on--the great things about this country.

What's so bad about that?

rhhardin said...

Why can't you just have respect.

CJinPA said...

How do you read that a vote for "never" when it's a vote for "whenever you feel like it"? Even better when it's spontaneous and heartfelt.

OK. I was looking for times when citizens do it collectively. That's why asked what is the purpose of a national anthem? Seems odd that the purpose would be to just sing it alone or with a few buddies.

I don't look over the landscape and think, "We have entirely too many displays of national unity in this damn country." We're coming apart at the seams as it is, no need to rush it along.

rhhardin said...

Ein Volk was more than just the first German car.

CJinPA said...

t's not patriotism at all. It's a marketing gimmick. and, The veterans already got what they deserve, namely a free country. - Andy Rooney

1. We don't sing the anthem to honor veterans. That's a new talking point deployed to oppose NFL players who sit during the song. Since we can't simply argue "No, black Americans are not being oppressed. Stand up..." we have to hide behind veterans. The only safe way oppose anthem protests.

2. What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?

rhhardin said...

2. What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?

When you don't vote yourself free stuff.

Marc in Eugene said...

My recollection is that the Symphony performs a version of the N.A. once a year, at the beginning of the first concert of the season. Entirely appropriate, I think.

rhhardin said...

Or you might support enforcement of contracts, or freedom of association, or free speech.

J Melcher said...

I take this an an opportunity to discuss a big difference between football and basketball vs baseball and hockey.

No, NOT that the former sports are dominated by black athletes and the latter by whites. Don't think such terrible thoughts.

The big difference is that for most of the country football and basketball are financially supported by the school system. Sometimes starting as early as among 11 year olds in sixth grade, and certainly continuing thru college. Very few pro athletes in either sport have not been on school teams.

Baseball and hockey tend to be supported (less extravagantly) by clubs and municipal funds. Little league and church league ... Young adults coming out of their clubs and youth leagues don't necessarily hone their career as unpaid "scholars" in college, but can attempt to earn a very modest paycheck in minor-league play.

I infer from my observations that young people growing up in state-funded, school-oriented, "honor of our institution" sports tend to acquire a sense of entitlement -- almost the way military veterans develop their own sense of earned honor. "I worked hard, I sacrificed, and now I am OWED..."

Oddly, those who beg, borrow, and scramble for funding and paychecks in little league play, who can see their budgets dry up and blow away, or who worry about breaking a bat ... these players in my experience give me the impression they are a bit more appreciative of their sport, their opportunities, their fans, and the overall system -- including the nation.

YMMV but IMHO this helps explain why so many people think the last two words of Francis Scott Key's stanza are "Play Ball!"



rhhardin said...

People stand for the Halleluja chorus because the king did, the king thinking it was over.

Now it's a matter of controversy, how bad it was because everybody stood up or because somebody didn't.

It's the madness of crowds.

There's no way offered to believe that this ritual is idiotic. You're for it or you're against all that's good and true.

A crowd at work.

mockturtle said...

Or has patriotism itself become a bad thing?

For many, it has. My brother is one to whom both patriotism and nationalism represent the utmost evil. I love my brother but he is an uncompromising nitwit.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

CJinPA said...2. What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?

Congress Sings God Bless America

Firemen - flag

There are many more recent examples, of course.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

CJinPA said...2. What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?

Salute American Flag

Curious George said...

I think it's pretty amazing that neither Iribarren or Pina are American, but Venezuelan. Not sure of their motivation but I would like to think they are honoring the country that allows them to make a fortune by playing a game.

rhhardin said...

I like politicians giving a speech with a dozen flags in the background. You know they're patriotic a dozen times more than you.

CJinPA said...

"What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?"

When you don't vote yourself free stuff.

Which is not a display. So, your answer is "none." (Sorry to keep interpreting your answers, but it's sometimes necessary in comment sections, where direct answers aren't considered cool.)

In conclusion, when people say they don't like displays of "phony patriotism" they really mean they can't stomach displays of actual patriotism. We've been conditioned over 40 years to believe that.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

CJinPA said...2. What displays of patriotism do not turn your stomach?

Podium American Flag

TreeJoe said...

Since when did a sizable portion of the population believe that the USA should be criticized for not being utopia?

The US was never a perfect nation, it wasn't founded as a perfect nation, and it won't be a perfect nation anytime soon. It was a nation built by flawed individuals seeking the ability to be free. It's founding was drenched in blood to obtain freedom and the country was again drenched in blood to end slavery. Within 8 generations of ending forced servitude, in essence the creation of a lowest caste system, a member of the face of those slaves was elected to the highest office in the land.

It's a nation where change and improvement have the greatest foundation to be achieved. The moment you reject the nation for it was founded to be, and not what you want it to have achieved already, is the moment you become unpatriotic.

CJinPA said...

HoodlumDoodlum,

Those are nice, but I mean displays of patriotism by average folk, not historic events or politics. Like, real life.

rhhardin said...

Which is not a display.

It can be. Coleridge said that a conflict of interest is the pulley on which good character is raised into public view.

CJinPA said...

If we can just snuff out the few remaining rituals of national unity, surely we will usher in a new age of social fragmentation. It's why the Left favors the new "tossed salad" metaphor over the old "melting pot." We just inhabit the same geography, people. That's enough to be a nation.

rhhardin said...

It's American rules that bring us together as Americans, not rituals.

You divide the country by overturning the rules that brought us together.

Beach Brutus said...

In the age where everything is made political, it's a shame this has happened to the National Anthem. Playing the NA prior to public events has never been an endorsement of the government, veterans, politicians, wars, political parties, or specific policy agendas. It is a civic demonstration of the "Unum" in e pluribus unum. No matter where we or our ancestors came from, no matter what our political persuasion, we Americans are A people, a unique nation. Stripping away or undermining these benign civic demonstrations of our mutual commitment to one another and the melting pot theory of inclusion that defines us, strikes at the very unity needed to maintain a distinct cultural identity. As for Kaepernick - where are the Hanson Brothers when you need them.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

CJinPA said...Those are nice, but I mean displays of patriotism by average folk, not historic events or politics. Like, real life

Ok. It's a trick question for me, of course, since I don't find any genuine acts of American patriotism stomach-turning. I'd argue that the NYC firefighters are average folk as were the vast majority of MLK's audience/supporters, but ok.

I got a little misty looking at the Marietta GA national cemetery with row upon row of neat headstones with US flags after last Memorial Day, and those were all placed by average folk, but that's just me. People put flags on the civil war graves here, too, and I find that heartening, but again--just me.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Normandy Cemetery

Average folk.

William said...

I have always thought that the Muslim prayer position is too obsequious and suppliant. God wants his creatures to be obedient and respectful to His commands, but He also wants them to retain their dignity. This asses up and forehead to the ground position is just too much. Plus it's got to be difficult for the elderly to pray in such a position. When Kaepernick, as he inevitably must, converts to Islam, I hope he continues his icon breaking ways and takes the knee during prayer service. I'm sure many Muslms will see the practicality of such a prayer position and support his brave but respectful efforts.

Anonymous said...

Back when the message of the National Anthem was "we love our country", I would have been more annoyed to see the likes of Kaepernick taking public issue with it. Now that the message has become "this pop diva's ability to sing 20 notes for each one that's actually in the song should surely earn her a bigger contract", it's harder to get worked up.

traditionalguy said...

This is all BLM's (Dem Soros Funded) War on patriotic American culture. It is as slimy and hateful as it gets.

The enemy's design is to convince black men to call out the Star Spangled Banner as a racist token that is as offensive to them as the the Southern Battle flag that has been totally slandered and trashed.

It doesn't matter that it is the Star Spangled Banner is the flag that Sherman's Army brought south to free the slaves.

It is now deemed a flash point to start a Great Race War designed to end the American Republic and leave North America undefended and UN Administered.

Of course, no one has ever sung nor heard any other stanza of the Star Spangled Banner than Number one which what we stand to honor. But, but, but...stanza 3 says something insulting to blacks circa 1814 if you look hard enough to find it and see it just the right way.

Michael K said...

The black NFL players are playing with fire. This is a BLM thing and Kaepernick, of all people, has nothing to do with real racial issues. He has a new Muslim radical girlfriend who may have put him up to this.

U of Missouri black football players pulled this stunt last year and the U is going broke. Freshman class way down.

It wouldn't take a 50% boycott of NFL games and merchandise to bring the league to its knees.

10% might be enough. Black kids build their hopes on NBA and NFL careers, They should be planning on STEM degrees but that is the way it is. This could become a real clusterf**k for the league. The NCAA is doing what it can to kill college basketball.

It's interesting and depressing to see the First Black President preside over a move to return to segregation by blacks.

Brando said...

"It wouldn't take a 50% boycott of NFL games and merchandise to bring the league to its knees."

I'd suggest we start with pressuring our government, which subsidizes the hell out of pro sports. Push them to stop building stadiums with taxpayer money, stop giving the teams big tax abatements, stop allowing businesses to deduct any part of box seat tickets as "business expenses", deny FCC licenses to any channel that goes along with the "blackout rule".

Then yes, boycott the games and the buying of merchandise. Put the squeeze on these monopolists who are practically printing money, returning the favor of public financing by charging up the nose for tickets and concessions. It's more enraging that the government plays this game.

Doug said...

I salute those two guys!

Mountain Maven said...

Makes me enjoy sports less. If you don't precede the symbolism with concrete action, you are a poseur.

Josephbleau said...

If you play Waltzing Matilda in any venue of 'Straya people are reduced to tears.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Look, rhhardin, it's okay that you're an Aspie. We know you love ham radio and recoil from a woman's touch. But everyone isn't like you. It would help you get through life if you could try to understand that.

mockturtle said...

Mountain Maven pronounced: Makes me enjoy sports less. If you don't precede the symbolism with concrete action, you are a poseur.

This sort of rubbish does distract from the sport and can only result in decreased fan interest. It would be nice if the TV cameras pointed AWAY from these antics instead of toward them.

Here's an idea: For every illegal immigrant who really wants to be an American, we can trade a disgruntled athlete. Do you think Mexico could afford them?

richardsson said...

I don't watch sports much; too many other things I'd rather be doing. I get the impression they don't ask people to sing the Anthem any more... too many yodellers?