Seth Swirsky

This book of letters encompasses a very diverse group of people, including both George Bushes, Paul McCartney, Buzz Aldrin, Barry Williams (of The Brady Bunch, and he has gorgeous handwriting, by the way!), Samuel Goldwin, a hilarious letter from Walter Cronkite, as well as plenty of actual baseball players themselves. The letters are reproduced as they were sent, mostly hand-written, some typed. Some are funny, some a tad dull, some poignant, such as the letter from the sister (97 at the time of writing) remembering her brother, Ray Chapman, the only major league player to be killed on a big-league field, in a game (he was hit in the head by a pitch and died 4 hours later, in 1920). There are also plenty of archival photos.

One of the letters was from Ernie Harwell, longtime announcer for the Detroit Tigers, as he recalls being the one who selected the singers of the National Anthem for the 1968 World Series games. For game 5, he had selected Jose Feliciano. The NYT wrote a front page article the following day, trying to explain why Feliciano was booed and why so many fans disliked his rendition of the anthem. They said he had long hair (like a hippie) and that he slowed the song down. They said it was too *folk-soul*. In the photo, I would hardly call his hair long, especially for those days!

So, I had to google and here is the youtube clip of the performance. I am not American so this anthem is not part of my DNA, as it were; but I have been to, and watched, enough sporting events to say that I have always thought that song had an irregular and difficult to sing cadence. I have to say, though, that I think this is possibly the best rendition of the American anthem I have ever heard. It is melodic! I wish it could always be sung like this!!

The Anthem and the Controversy

I just want to add here that the photo in this article is not the original photo of Feliciano performing at the stadium as a 23-year old that appeared in the book. In the original photo, his hair barely comes to the bottom of his earlobes. Think the very early Beatles cut.

I found it odd that during that clip, the camera didn't once focus on Feliciano, except for a few seconds at the beginning of the clip.
And good thing there was no social media back then. Can you just imagine...!?

And one more clip, reminiscing, 41 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Api8xCezU9Q… (mehr)