“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve always admired people who venture out of their comfort zone and core competence to try new things. Over the years I’ve seen Michael Jordan play baseball, Steve Martin play banjo, and recently I attended Bernie Taupin’s art show.
Before it was ever called a Bucket List, I use to write down my life goals and one of them was to Singing the National Anthem at a pro baseball game. In the Summer of 2010 I received an e-mail that the OC Flyers were looking for national anthem singers. I volunteered, and without an audition, I was scheduled for the July 7th game against the Calgary Vipers, which means that I had just committed to perform two national anthems.
Now, just for the record, let me share with you my thin singing resume. I sang in the kids choir at church, and was a chorus member in my high school’s production of Oklahoma!. Since then, my singing has been limited to infrequent drunken nights at karaoke bars. Singing accapella alone on the field, completely sober in front of a crowd of baseball fans, would definitely be a personal stretch.
On the day of my performance, I arrived at Goodwin Field about an hour before the start of the game to worry and practice my “la, la, las.” Around 7:00 the stadium’s announcer introduced me to the crowd. As they rose and removed their hats, I walked towards home plate where I was handed a cordless microphone. I figured that my singing wasn’t my strong suit, so I conjured up a little variety act to go with it. I was wearing an Orange County Flyers t-shirt, and just before I started to sing, I removed the shirt exposing a maple leaf flag t-shirt of Canada, and began singing “Oh, Canada.” I doubt that there were any Canadians present to critique my performance, so I’ll just go ahead and say that it was great, eh?
I then removed the Canadian flag t-shirt to expose my Old Glory t-shirt underneath that one, and belted out, “Ohh, ohh, say can you see…” The Star Spangled Banner is much more difficult to sing than Oh, Canada, but I was able to get through it without cracking or squealing. The only mistake I made was at the end, I sang “the land of the brave, and the home of the brave.” Admittedly it wasn’t Whitney Houston, but it wasn’t Roseanne Barr either.
As I started to walk off of the field, I had a quick word with Paul Abbott, the manager of the Flyers, and an old schoolmate of mine. Paul had a twenty year professional baseball career, so I asked, “Paul, you’ve probably heard that song about 10,000 times, where do I rank?”
Without missing a beat he stoically said, “Ten Thousand.”