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Lighting a fire

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94 comments

Lighting a fire

POSTED: Sunday, October 14, 2012, 9:09 PM

Jose Feliciano performed a rockin' version of the Star Spangled Banner tonight before the first game of the National League Championship Series (sigh) in San Francisco. It felt like closing a loop to watch it. In my first year as a baseball fan -- 1968, when I was 9 -- Feliciano was asked to sing the National Anthem before the World Series at Detroit's Tiger Stadium, and when he did his soulful, very non-tradional version, it caused a national uproar. This was the year of the RFK and MLK assassinations, the Tet offensive, and riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago, and now people thought the counter-culture was invading baseball. Nothing was safe!

You can read the fairly amazing backstory here. Now it's 2012, and no one says "boo" about the same version. A sign that we've come a long way, baby. Or is it...just San Francisco being San Francisco. The final bizarre kicker is that I suspect the Cardinals and Tigers will meet again in the World Series -- a 1968 re-match.

Programming note: I'm taking a well-deserved day off tomorrow. See you Tuesday for Debate Night in America.

Will Bunch @ 9:09 PM Permalink | 94 comments

94 comments

Comments (94)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:56 AM, 10/15/2012

"A sign that we've come a long way, baby." /// As Dennis Prager always says, the Boomers (i.e., the counterculture libz, media, academia, politicans) ushered in the Era of Stupidity. The resultant human and financial wreckage immeasurable. Thanks losers.

— teardownthisfishwrap

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:54 AM, 10/15/2012

Poster child for the Party who wants to return us to the 1950's. They weren't great times for everyone. The Era of Stupidity was from 2001-2009 when Republicans controlled all three branches of government for six long years. It will take atleast that long to dig out of the hole they left.

— wokmaster

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:18 PM, 10/15/2012

really? guess you missed 2006 when the dems controlled congress and jumpin jim jeffords a few years earlier. but hey spin all u want. lol fail

— rysagr

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:25 AM, 10/16/2012

"Jumpin Jim Jeffords"? That man was truly bipartisan. Unlike Arlen Specter, Jeffords could have won re-election in '06, but chose not to run. When he left the GOP to become an Independent, it was the beginning of the extinction of moderates in the Republican Party.

As to Dem Control in 2006, you might want to reread my post.

— wokmaster

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:25 AM, 10/15/2012

I think the only people that work less than Will Bunch are public school teachers.

— CD75

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:34 AM, 10/15/2012

Bunch is onsessed with 1968. Every morning he wakes up wishing he was there first hand, he wasn't he was 9 years old, pretending he was/is Todd Gitlin.
I was there and it wasn't so glamorous.

— tudorcity

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:39 AM, 10/15/2012

meant obsessed.

— tudorcity

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:47 AM, 10/15/2012

I thought Will was talking about the cars that were torched in the NE.

— LouDiamondPhillipsheadScrewdriver

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:28 AM, 10/15/2012

The most amazing part of the story is that Feliciano is still alive. I would have lost that round of "Dead or Alive" if his name came up.

— General Turgidson

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:51 AM, 10/15/2012

I can't blame you. Jose Feliciano was blacklisted so badly that he went from platinum-records to small clubs and stayed there for 30 years. Thirty years in the black list was truly undeserved punishment.

— DonQ

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:32 AM, 10/15/2012

I think once Marvin Gaye did the National Anthem, it was acceptable to do a different version.

— Commentdant_Klink

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:20 AM, 10/15/2012

Feliciano played a mean third base. What an arm.

— Mr. Smith

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:22 AM, 10/15/2012

We've come a long way Willie ???, or are we now a "watered-down" version of the proud nation we used to be? When the anthem starts being sung in English and then a Spanish version, (which may soon happen) it speaks volumes about where we're headed. Also,somehow I can't visualize you as a sports fan, let alone 9 years old...probably bullied in school.

— dogman5

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:26 AM, 10/15/2012

fear of a hispanic planet.

— high water

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:56 PM, 10/15/2012

Not planet, just a proud English speaking nation.

— dogman5

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About this blog

Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.

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