Basketball fans watching the NBA finals recently will have noticed something fundamental: no game can begin until, to honor America, a heavily-armed color guard of military men and women take over the basketball court and oversee the unfurling of an American flag the size of a Home Depot parking lot. Then someone, or everyone, sings “the National Anthem,” which is a song about the flag and bombs.
Basketball is not alone in this, of course. How “super” would the Super Bowl actually be, without the stirring display of military personnel, weapons, tubas, and flags, and the ear-splitting flyover of jet fighters? A World Series opener in which some guy doesn’t jump out of an airplane and parachute down to the pitcher’s mound would barely be worth watching.
But these opening ceremonies, however appropriately proud, bellicose and intimidating, are, sadly, no longer enough. We are, increasingly, a militaristic nation. To coin a phrase, We Are Sparta, not Athens. (Why else would we open sporting events with soldiers?) We’ve been involved in twenty-four wars since World War II. Our defense budget, if embodied in a single stack of hundred dollar bills and covered with maple syrup, would require tapping enough maple trees to cover the surface of Jupiter.[i]
And we’re not resting on our laurels — first, because we never rest, and second, because, as befits the toughest country on Earth, our laurels aren’t all that comfortable. Our nation has recently commissioned our beloved military-industrial complex to design and build the world’s largest aircraft carrier carrier—a floating behemoth capable of carrying up to twelve aircraft carriers, each capable of carrying enough aircraft to carry an entire aircraft carrier across the sky in such a way as to fool the enemy into thinking that it is another aircraft and not an aircraft carrier carrying aircraft.
We are, in short—and it is hardly hyperbole to say so—not only the world’s only remaining super-power, but the world’s only remaining super-duper-power. We are home, not only to the Super Bowl, but to Superman, Superboy (in tales about Superman when he was a boy), Supergirl, and, although we’re not sure if they make them anymore, the Super Ball. Amidst all this superiority, the opening ceremonies of our major professional athletic competitions are simply inadequate–20th century displays of tasteful restraint unsuited to a nation engaged in 21st century global domination.
For this reason, we would like to suggest some expansions and improvements for our major sporting events’ opening ceremonies.
EACH NBA FINALS GAME: The combined Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Marching Bands play “A Medley of John Philip Sousa’s Greatest Hits.” While they do so, an American flag the size of Rhode Island is gently lowered over them until they are completely covered. A Cub Scout from the home team’s city is escorted to one end of the floor by Miss America (in tasteful swim suit) and the Secretary of Defense. At the conclusion of the super-band’s medley, the boy leads the entire house in a recitation of, in order, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Gettysburg Address, and the first lines of the opening speech of the movie Patton (“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”) The flag is lifted, the entire crowd sings the (new) National Anthem, and Miss America throws home team t-shirts into the stands as the musicians exit.
EACH WORLD SERIES GAME: 50 M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks (one for each state of the Union) and a jeep (for the District of Columbia) deploy out of the bullpen and form a ring around the perimeter of the entire field. As, at second base, the combined Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force Jazz Bands play a jazzy version of “A Medley of John Philip Sousa’s Greatest Hits,” the vehicles move in a slow circle, completing a single revolution around the field. At regular intervals, a member of the tank crew emerges from the interior of each tank and waves to the crowd. When the music is completed, the tanks stop. The oldest woman in the country is carried on a sedan chair to a microphone on the pitcher’s mound, where she leads everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance, the poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, and the “Coffee is for closers” speech from Glengarry Glen Ross. The tanks make their way out of the stadium, the old lady is carried by sedan chair off the field, and the military bands double-time into the visiting team’s dugout. Then 400 members of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment parachute into the arena, disperse into the stands, and hand out bags of peanuts to the orphans as everyone else sings the (new) National Anthem.
THE SUPER BOWL: (If the game is played in a domed stadium, the dome must be opened before the following ceremony can be performed.) An F-35B, a jet capable of vertical takeoff, begins at the fifty-yard line and lifts off, straight up. As it rises, it disgorges a number of attractive red, white, and blue streamers that dangle beneath it and, ideally, are not ignited by the downward-facing engine. While the aircraft makes its slow, unbelievably loud ascent, a 300-member chorus of WACS, WAVES, WAFS, and Lady Marines (if there are any) gathers at mid-field and waves it a fond farewell. Once the jet has flown off, the women all reveal that they are carrying (acoustic) guitars. Playing all 300 guitars at once, they sing a jazz-“scat” version of “A Medley of John Philip Sousa’s Greatest Hits” as the Budweiser Clydesdale horses pull a wagon around the perimeter of the field. On the wagon is Dolly Parton, the First Lady (or First Gentleman), the Senate Majority Leader, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ten most popular walk-around characters from Disney World, all of whom wave to the crowd and sign autographs for each other. The music stops, a little girl recently voted “Cutest Kid on the Internet” leads everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer, and the introductory incantation from the old “Highway Patrol” television program starring Broderick Crawford. (“Whenever the laws of any state are broken, a duly-authorized organization swings into action. It may be the State Police, the State Troopers, the Militia, the Rangers…or the Highway Patrol.”) Then everyone joins the all-lady chorus in singing the (new) National Anthem.
Reference is made to a new National Anthem. We are creating an original, custom-written song to replace the worn-out, pre-digital age “Star Spangled Banner.” We must, and can, do better. That will be the subject of a future editorial.
[i] No documentation available. Also, Jupiter doesn’t really have a “surface.” It’s made of gas and liquid hydrogen, mostly, we think.
