What Was the Controversy?

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Jose Feliciano's "controversial" rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at Game Five of the '68 World Series that, reportedly, had veterans throwing their shoes at their TV sets.

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Good thing those vets didn't make it out to Woodstock a year later.

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Star Spangled Baseball

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[Zvon]

Look at those eyebrows. Yikes.

[Lefty Specialist]

Prior to when Feliciano did his rendition, every other singer did it exactly like Robert Merrill. Feliciano treated it like a song.

Seems tame now but it was blasphemous in 1968. Credit Tiger announcer Ernie Harwell for getting him invited to sing it at the Series.

[ashie62]

Most of todays anthem singers seem more concerned about making the song their own.

[Lefty Specialist]

It's an EXTREMELY difficult song to sing well. Everyone knows the words, but the vocal range between 'twilight's last gleaming' and 'land of the free' is enormous. It's an old drinking song, designed to trip up the inebriated.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

A World Series in the daylight!

[Frayed Knot]

It was October 1968, and the country was fighting in Vietnam and had already lived through the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that year. Protests were boiling over in the streets at home, and the Detroit Tigers were hosting the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
Jose Feliciano was a 23-year-old blind folk singer from Puerto Rico who had scored a hit on the U.S. charts with a cover of The Doors' "Light My Fire," and Tigers radio legend Ernie Harwell invited him to sing the national anthem at Tiger Stadium prior to Game 5.

Feliciano was accompanied in left field by his acoustic guitar and his guide dog, Trudy, and he launched into an emotional, heartfelt, and, well, different version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." He strummed the guitar in a slightly syncopated, Latin-influenced rhythm, careened back and forth from the traditional vocal melody to something more adventurous, and offered the finishing flourish of "Yeah, yeah."
It was bold and innovative and fresh, but it was also many years ahead of its time. Feliciano was booed heartily by the crowd and caused a public uproar that took years to live down.
"Back then, when the anthem was done at ballgames, people couldn't wait for it to be over," Feliciano told The Guardian last month. "And I wanted to make them sit up and take notice and respect the song. I was shocked when I was booed. I felt, 'God, what have I done wrong?' All I was trying to do was create a soulful rendition. I never in my wildest dreams thought I was going to have the country against me, radio stations stop playing me.
"But in part, it was good -- because I ended up meeting my wife. She couldn't understand the injustice and started a fan club, even though we'd never met. We fell in love and the rest is history."

On Oct. 14, 2012, prior to Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco, the same stylized, heartfelt version of the national anthem was performed by Feliciano on his acoustic guitar.
This time the crowd roared.


Baseball and the Anthem