Celebrating America, one ballpark at a time

Joe Price, a professor of religious studies at Whittier College, is a man with a self-described "unusual hobby."
That hobby? Singing the national anthem at professional ballparks.

Price first sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a baseball game in 1977 -- Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck extended that invitation -- and began in earnest following a 1989 performance at Dodger Stadium. His hobby reached its apex, however, during the 2011 season. Price took a sabbatical, and he and his wife, Bonnie, went on a season-long RV journey during which he sang the national anthem at 104 Minor League ballparks.
This journey is chronicled in Price's new book, "Perfect Pitch: The National Anthem for the National Pastime."
"I sang ... in 40 states stretching from Lake Elsinore's Storm in Southern California to New Hampshire's Fisher Cats in Manchester, and from Everett's AquaSox in the Pacific Northwest all the way to Jupiter, where the Hammerheads make their home in Florida," Price writes in the book's introduction. "I sang it in urban settings in Memphis and Sacramento, in remote cities across Idaho and Iowa, and in tiny towns throughout Appalachia and along the mighty Mississippi." 
(Full disclosure: This reporter, who wrote a 2011 MiLB.com article about Price and his anthem trip, received an advance copy of the book and provided a promotional blurb.)
When he began his trip, Price's intent was to "write a book about the performance and reception of the national anthem.
"I hadn't planned to write about the experience at each ballpark," he said. "But after the first two weeks of keeping notes and blogging about various games, I realized that a different book might emerge. This led to more detailed notetaking and interacting at the ballpark beyond the anthem experience, to express what I discovered about America through the lens of baseball parks and the national anthem." 

Before embarking on his massive Minors road trip, Price plotted his route on this map. 
The journey began in April with the now-defunct Brevard County Manatees and ended five months later with the Inland Empire 66ers.
"As [Bonnie and I] drove that night in the RV, she remarked something to the effect of 'You did it. You really did it,'" he recalled. "I was a little surprised because once I started I never doubted it would succeed. I never doubted that baseball itself would provide that freshness on a daily basis. The difference in venues and the excitement that was unique to various communities, it carried its own weight." 
As for what made various ballpark locales stand out, Price offered a long list of highlights. This included but was not limited to a boisterous group of Lynchburg Hillcats boosters, the oversized grandstand ceiling fans of Charleston and Savannah, impressive feats of groundskeeping in Richmond, "superb art" in Albuquerque, a "dynamic sculpture" in Clearwater, stunning ballpark views in Corpus Christi and Quad Cities, trains in Birmingham, jets in Billings, "Bats and Balls" in Missoula and a "Human Home Run" postgame stunt in Lowell.

 
Price cited the Lowell Spinners' human cannonball performance as a trip highlight.  
"Perfect Pitch" features a wealth of such details, presented chronologically in ballpark-by-ballpark accounts that Price refers to as "chapterettes." Throughout, there are anecdotes regarding Price's nightly attempts at singing the national anthem. It's a task that he always took seriously, desirous of providing a rendition "with dignity, clarity and with a resonant air." (Indeed, this is the rare book that includes lines such as, "I started to vocalize braying sounds, focusing on my naso-pharynx resonance.")
"I was always surprised that there was often more warm-up prep allowed for the first pitch than for the national anthem, where I was rarely offered a place to warm up," he said. "The difficulty with feedback was often surprising, as at most ballparks there is not a chance to rehearse with a sound system. After the first four or five notes I was able to gauge at what speed I needed to proceed in order to minimize the difficulty of the rebound or echo.

"There was a fun experience in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the mic was dead," he continued. "I realized I was not being picked up by the amplification system. So I ratcheted things up, sang to the crowd, and no one was the wiser." 
The road from that 2011 season to the publication of "Perfect Pitch" was a long one, with Price rewriting the book several times along the way to "infuse it with the energy and excitement of the trip itself."
"Hopefully, it will cover an audience that's not only baseball fans, but also folks who love to read about travel in America and who are interested in local histories," he said.
While Price will soon retire from his professorial role at Whittier College, he has several more projects in the works. Among them is a book dealing with the closing rituals of ballparks, which Price describes as the "ceremony of deconsecration" that takes place after the final game. And, of course, Price wants to keep on singing the national anthem at professional ballparks. 
"I'm hoping to leverage the publication of the book into being able to sing at the last 10 MLB parks on my bucket list, where I haven't yet sung," he said. "The teams are flabbergasted that someone would voluntarily pay all of the expenses to fly cross-country to sing the anthem for one game in their ballpark, but that's me."