It's Time

Since we're looking ahead now to the 2012 season, I think I need to say what a lot of us have been thinking for a long time now. I realize it's going to be controversial, that some Yankee fans will believe me to be a bad person for saying so, but it's something I can't avoid saying any longer.

It's time to put "God Bless America" and Kate Smith in the rear view mirror during the seventh-inning stretch.

Yes, I realize it is meant to focus our attention on the horrors of the 9/11 attacks, and to remember those who serve the country at home and abroad. I get that, and I appreciate the sentiment. I was here in 2001, and I knew people whose lives were affected horribly. I lost at least one friend, depending on how you view the scope of the attacks. It is an awful thing, and like the horrors of the Holocaust, something that must never be forgotten. I'm with you on all of that.

What it has to do with going to a baseball game completely eludes me.

The seventh-inning stretch used to be a fun time. The proper song sung was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," which was only strange because we were already AT the ballgame, but it was a celebration of the event and the game and our love for it. Later on, the Yankee Stadium people added nonsense like "Cotton Eyed Joe," but at least the idea was to have fun and be happy we were at the ballpark.

Kate Smith, who died 15 years BEFORE the 9/11 attacks, and "God Bless America" are just a plain downer. They remind us of sad things and scary things and evil things when we were hoping to escape that for just a few hours by taking in our National Pastime. It's like someone decided to halt Star Wars just after Luke, Han, and Leia escape the Death Star to remind us that someday we're all going to die.

And the reaction of the Yankees, the players, the management, the whole Stadium staff, is beyond over-the-top. When a guy decided to go to the men's room during Kate's belting a couple of years ago, a Stadium cop decided he was being sacrilegious or unAmerican or something and threw him out of the ballpark. The idea of taking off your hat and standing for a moment of silence during an Irving Berlin song is just bizarre.

It's been 10 years, guys. Enough is enough. Let us have our fun seventh-inning stretch again, and trot out Kate and the eagle and all that stuff on September 11, if you must. The other 181 games of the year, let's just play baseball, okay?