Posted on 09/25/2017 8:15:54 PM PDT by Helicondelta
While the NFL led protests against President Donald Trump's recent railing against NFL player Colin Kaepernick and other players kneeling during the "Star Spangled Banner," NASCAR remained standing.
The national anthem played without protests at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series pre-race festivities at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, USA Today reports. Athletes and crew, including numerous African-Americans, stood as normal.
Many NASCAR owners spoke out against the protests from other sports.
When asked what he would do if one of his employees protested during the anthem, team owner Richard Childress replied that he would "get you a ride on a Greyhound bus when the national anthem is over. I told them anyone who works for me should respect the country we live in. So many people have gave their lives for it. This is America."
Richard Petty, a team owner who won a seven championships as a driver, also said there would be consequences for those who didn't respect the anthem.
"Anybody that don't stand up for that ought to be out of the country. Period," Petty said. "If they don't appreciate where they're at ... what got them where they're at? The United States."
(Excerpt) Read more at people.com ...
NASCAR wants everyone to forget about the confederate flag thing they pulled and will back Americans this time. They too want it both ways, just like Jerry Jones.
I’d kneel before Danica Patrick. A real cutie and good driver.
From the Sept. 19, 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine:
THAT STORY BEGINS, as so many tales in modern American sports do, with Babe Ruth. History records various games in which "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played dating from the mid-1800s, but Ruth's last postseason appearances for the Boston Red Sox coincided with the song's first unbreakable bond with the sports world, in 1918. Game 1 of that year's World Series was notable for many reasons...There was also World War I, which blackened everything, including the national pastime. The U.S. had entered the war 17 months earlier, and in that time some 100,000 American soldiers died. Veterans who survived often came home maimed or shell-shocked from encounters with modern warfare's first mechanized mass-killing machines. At home, the public mood was sullen and anxious. The war strained the economy and the workforce, including baseball's. The government began drafting major leaguers for military service that summer and ordered baseball to end the regular season by Labor Day. As a result, the 1918 Series was the lone October Classic played entirely in September.
World War I wasn't the only issue weighing heavily on fans. On Sept. 4, the day before the first game, a bomb ripped through the Chicago Federal Building, killing four people and injuring 30. The Industrial Workers of the World were thought to be behind the attack, a retaliation for the conviction of several IWW members on federal sedition charges...
Although the Cubs festooned the park in as much red, white and blue as possible, the glum crowd in the stands for Game 1 remained nearly silent through most of Ruth's 1-0 shutout victory over Chicago's Hippo Vaughn. Not even the Cubs Claws, the forerunners to Wrigley's Bleacher Bums, could gin up enthusiasm...
With one exception: the seventh-inning stretch. As was common during sporting events, a military band was on hand to play, and while the fans were on their feet, the musicians fired up "The Star-Spangled Banner." They weren't the only active-duty servicemen on the field, though. Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas was playing the Series while on furlough from the Navy, where he'd been learning seamanship at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Chicago...
Upon hearing the opening notes of Key's song from the military band, Thomas immediately faced the flag and snapped to attention with a military salute. The other players on the field followed suit, in "civilian" fashion, meaning they stood and put their right hands over their hearts. The crowd, already standing, showed its first real signs of life all day, joining in a spontaneous sing-along, haltingly at first, then finishing with flair. The scene made such an impression that The New York Times opened its recap of the game not with a description of the action on the field but with an account of the impromptu singing: "First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field. It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day's enthusiasm."
The Cubs front office realized it had witnessed something unique. For the next two games, it had the band play "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the seventh-inning stretch, to similarly enthusiastic crowds. By Game 3, a bigger crowd of 27,000 was in attendance. Not to be outdone, the Red Sox ratcheted up the pageantry when the Series relocated to Boston for the next three games. At Fenway Park, "The Star-Spangled Banner" moved from the seventh-inning stretch to the pregame festivities, and the team coupled the playing of the song with the introduction of wounded soldiers who had received free tickets. Like the Chicago fans, the normally reserved Boston crowd erupted for the pregame anthem and the hobbled heroes. As the Tribune wrote of the wounded soldiers at Game 6, "[T]heir entrance on crutches supported by their comrades evoked louder cheers than anything the athletes did on the diamond..."
Still, the Series' most enduring legacy belongs to a song. Other major league teams noticed the popular reaction to "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1918, and over the next decade it became standard for World Series and holiday games. In subsequent years, through subsequent wars, it grew into the daily institution we know today...
Congress didn't officially adopt the "The Star-Spangled Banner" until 1931 -- and by that time it was already a baseball tradition steeped in wartime patriotism. Thanks to a brass band, some fickle fans and a player who snapped to attention on a somber day in September, the old battle ballad was the national pastime's anthem more than a decade before it was the nation's.
-PJ
Don’t post about what you “think” you know. It just shows your ignorance.
So childish it leaves me speechless.
LOL!
Yep - I watched some golf last weekend because football is off the agenda - used to watch racing but got out of it years ago, might be time to revisit the STP commercials...
Only for the first half of the race schedule, I think thru July. NBC has the rest of the season.
I expect some other drivers to do so soon. Dale is retired, and can speak his mind without blowback.
So we may see most of professional sports implode in a rather quick manner. So be it.
So Earnhardt didn’t run into other cars on purpose leading to his demise and his son isn’t virtue signaling jerk? Enlighten me share your wisdom. Or did you watch for crashes
If they want something to protest, try the countless black on black murders in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis and countless other inner cities and the liberal politicians who let it go on and on. F*cking prima donnas. Pfft!
I wonder if he’s going to have “one of them racin deals” Sunday.
I suspect his car will be pretty bashed up. Perhaps not enough to take him out of the race, but enough to make it very very difficult to drive.
Let’s seeeeeeee-—
Should I follow Richard Petty’s advice or should I listen to LeBron James???
Not a very tough decision from where I stand.
I wonder how long it will take the NFL to dry up & die when ONLY Black fans & viewers are involved???
White people have had enough of this crap & the insults to our military & our flag.
He gets it.
He knows he’s in the entertainment business.
“...I wonder how long it will take the NFL to dry up & die when ONLY Black fans & viewers are involved???...”
Very good question. I’ve got a small bet going with a friend on which commie dies first: McCain or the NFL. My money is on the NFL croaking first. I could be wrong, but either way is a winner as long as they both go.
“...NASCAR wants everyone to forget about the confederate flag thing they pulled...”
Yep. That one cost them almost half the audience base if not more. Perhaps, they learned a “hard knocks” lesson from it.
Cannot wait to see the boos for Earnhardt Jr. at any race track he shows up at. He has always been a traitor to his own kind.
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