Crowd Belts out National Anthem After Stadium Announces It Won’t Be Played

After an announcer said the “Star-Spangled Banner” would not be played again before a game in Fresno, California because it was played before an earlier game Friday, the crowd took things into their own hands by singing the National Anthem anyway.

The crowd at the Clovis-Buchanan high school softball championship game at Fresno State’s Margie Wright Diamond decided to stand up and sing the anthem a capella, with their attention toward the American flag flying in centerfield.

“Honestly, I was shocked (when) the announcer stated, ‘There will be no anthem, let’s just play softball,’” Tiffany Marquez, who attended the game and uploaded a video of the scene to Facebook, told the Fesno Bee. “Within seconds, you could hear people in the crowd singing and the volume of their voices building. There I was, standing in the middle of a true testament to unity and patriotism.”

The players even stopped their warmups while the crowd sang. After it was over, the crowd gave a round of applause for their show of patriotism.

Event coordinator Bob Kayajanian of the Central Section later told the Fresno Bee it was a mistake not to play the anthem again, although it is not standard procedure to do so.

“The national protocol is the first game of the session you have the national anthem,” Kayajanian explained. “The games after that are just played. We got caught (off-guard). Both the teams turned to face the field and they all started singing the national anthem. They started to play some music and the people took that as the national anthem and they all started singing, which I think is obviously a wonderful thing to show off their patriotism.”

Kayajanian added, “We try to follow with what normally gets done. It’s all a learning experience for everyone and (going forward) we’re playing the national anthem at every game.”

This is not the first time this happened before the second game of a softball session. Back in 2015, a video of fans singing the anthem before the second game at the Lafayette Regional went viral. The NCAA stressed that the anthem was played before the first game, but not before the second game, following the usual procedure.

According to SportsAnnouncing.com, the “general consensus” for baseball doubleheaders is to play the anthem only once, at the start of the session, where both games would be under the same admission. But if there is a day-night doubleheader, the National Anthem should be played before both games.

Photo credit: Twitter/Anthony Galaviz