Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abercant.

This day, September 6th, 1918, during the seventh inning stretch of a World Series game between

the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, the band in Chicago played the Star Spangled Banner.

So a little context for this, if you're thinking early September seems a little early to play the World Series,

that is because the series had been moved up.

The regular season had ended early due to the war, and there was talk of cancelling the world series entirely but

President Wilson among others felt that the troops overseas and the folks everywhere in this country

and elsewhere who were battling the flu pandemic would kind of have their spirits

lifted by the series being played out. So the Cubs decided to play the anthem in the

seventh inning. There was a very positive reaction. They did so in the next two games as well and then in Boston

the Red Sox decided to continue the new tradition but play it before the game

and give or take the National Anthem has been played at every sporting event since.

So let's talk about the origins of the National Anthem and sports and why sports and

patriotism and especially in the last few decades militarism have all been linked.

I'm joined as always by Nicole Hammer of Columbia who may be picking up on the same trend I am

as we do this show that 80% of American history seems to happen in either 1918 or 1968?

Yeah, I mean, I think that seems about right, and I think it says something about 20-20 that those two

inauspicious years seem to be the ones structuring our lives these days.

And it's sort of a random coincidence.

We went looking for the year in which the anthem first

started getting played and lo and behold it was 1918.

...