![]() The pre - game ceremony on that afternoon had been minimal. In the inning-by-inning recap of the first game, the report of the bottom of the seventh - inning notes that as the Cubs came to bat the band delayed play by playing "The Star Spangled Banner.'" Players and fans stood in civilian salute, most holding their caps over their hearts, while Red Sox' third baseman Fred Thomas, a Great Lakes sailor, assumed "the military pose" (NY Times,, p. The playing of "The Star Spangled Banner" can first be verified by a New York Times report of the 1918 World Series. Consequently, the government cut the season short, requiring the end of regular season play by Labor Day and the completion of the World Series by mid - September. At the height of the 1918 season, baseball was classified as a non - essential occupation. But following the completion of the 1917 season, players enlisted and were drafted into the armed services. A year earlier the World Series had been unaffected by the United States' entry into the World War. The premature series in 1918 featured Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox winning their last Series against the even more hapless Cubs. The first indisputable record of the playing of "The Star Spangled Banner" for a Major League game was for a unique World Series. ![]() And at least one other report identifies that the song was played by a band at the opening game between Cleveland and New York for the 1917 season. The era was one that featured live brass bands because public address systems and amplification technology had not yet been developed and would not be installed at a ballpark until 1929, again in New York, again associated with the Yankees - in "The House that Ruth Built." Anecdotal accounts indicate that "The Star Spangled Banner" was played at a ballgame in 1916 following a request by President Woodrow Wilson. ![]() ![]() Although the song was occasionally played at important public events at the turn of the twentieth century, "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean" was much more popular for bands to play at ballparks. Association of "The Star Spangled Banner" with Major League games began, according to others, when the New York Highlanders (Yankees) played on April 30, 1903. According to some, the earliest connection between "The Star Spangled Banner" and baseball occurred on May 15, 1862, when a band is thought to have played the tune at the opening of the Capitolene Grounds in New York.
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