October 20, 2001: The Concert for New York City

Sir Paul with cops and firemen

October 20, 2001, 20 years ago: The Concert for New York City is held at Madison Square Garden. Played just 6 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, emotions were still running deep. Most of the audience was cops, firemen, rescue workers, and people who had lost family members in the attacks, many of them holding up photos of the victims. Billy Crystal was the master of ceremonies.

David Bowie opened the show with Simon & Garfunkel's "America," then did his own "Heroes" with a full band. Also on hand: Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Goo Goo Dolls, Destiny's Child (including Beyoncé), Eric

Clapton & Buddy Guy, the Backstreet Boys, Macy Gray, James Taylor, John Mellencamp & Kid Rock, Five For Fighting, and Janet Jackson.

Billy Joel showed up drunk, and went into rehab not long thereafter. Of course, he played "New York State of Mind." But first, he played "Miami 2017." On September 10, 2001, it looked like the apocalypse he'd predicted for The City in 1976 had been prevented. But on the 11th, it came far too close to reality: "I watched the mighty skyline fall" -- although it was the World Trade Center, not the Empire State Building, that he saw "laid low." He later joined Elton John, who had played his New Yorker-themed "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," for a performance of Elton's "Your Song."

Melissa Etheridge's microphone went out during her acoustic performance of "Come to My Window," but everybody was singing along anyway, and none of those hard-edged, blue-collar cops and firemen gave a damn that she was openly gay. Her mike went out again as she did an acoustic version of Springsteen's "Born to Run" -- and nobody flinched as she sang lines of love and passion to a woman named Wendy.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones sang "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You" (with its reference to walking through Central Park in the '70s). When they were done, Mick said, "If there's one thing we've learned from all this, it's that you don't fuck with New York!" True.

The Who came out, with Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey filling in on drums for the late Keith Moon, and it turned out to be bass player John Entwistle's last performance. They did a nasty "Who Are You," an intense "Baba O'Riley," a melancholy "Behind Blue Eyes," and a roaring "Won't Get Fooled Again." Crystal said, "I'd never seen The Who live before. It was great to see these middle-aged men get out on stage and kick ass."

With Elvis Presley dead and unavailable, it was appropriate that the show closed with a surviving Beatle, Paul McCartney, who played, among others, "Yesterday," his new song "Freedom," and "Let It Be."

Peyton, Cam, Beyoncé and Rudy

Peyton Manning! You just won the Super Bowl in what was probably the last game of your career! Now, what are you going to do?

Essentially, the question that has traditionally been answered in commercials, "I'm goin' to Disney World!" was asked by Tracy Wolfson of CBS, after Manning's Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10 in Super Bowl 50 last night.

Manning did not say he was going to Disney World. Here's what he did say:

You know, I'll take some time to reflect. I got a couple of priorities first. I want to go kiss my wife and my kids. I want to go hug my family. I'm going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight, Tracy. I promise you that.

He started off on the right foot. Then, he promoted binge drinking.

And people want to get on Panthers quarterback Cam Newton for how he reacted after the game? Idiots.

This was a few minutes after Dame Helen Mirren appeared in an ad for, yes, Budweiser -- I thought she had more taste than that -- and said:

If you drive drunk, you, simply put, are a shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution, a Darwin Award-deserving selfish coward. If your brain was donated to science, science would return it. So, stop it... Don't be a pillock.

She could have used a stronger word, also common in British street speech or pub talk, but it would never have gotten onto American television.

Peyton Manning, for promoting heavy drinking and unfair labor practices (through shilling for Papa John's pizza) before a tremendous worldwide TV audience...

You, sir, are a pillock.

And, if the rumor is true, and you also used human-growth hormone or some other performance-enhancing drug throughout your career, joining with your nemesis Tom Brady -- who, along with his team, has been caught in multiple cheats -- to do what performance-enhancing drugs did to baseball, which is cast doubt on the legitimacy of an entire era...

You, sir, are a... word that Dame Helen probably wanted to use.

See You Next Tuesday.

*

I'm just glad the game's Most Valuable Player award was given to Bronco linebacker Von Miller. I've often criticized the expression "Defense wins games"/"Defense wins championships." Defense never won a damn thing without offense failing. You can't win unless you score. You can't score unless you have the ball. If you have the ball, even if you're a traditional defensive player who's intercepted a pass or picked up a fumble, by definition, you are now on offense.

The Broncos' defense was the 2nd-biggest factor in the game. The biggest factor was the Panthers' inability to adjust to it.

That said, Miller was the player on the winning side who had the biggest impact, and was thus deserving of the MVP.

I was sure they were going to give it to Manning, what with him being beloved by the media, and what with it (probably) being his last game.

Because when the media loves a quarterback, they... how can I put this politely... never shy away from showing you that love. We've seen it before. Johnny Unitas. Joe Namath. Roger Staubach. Joe Montana. John Elway. Brett Favre. Now, Brady and Manning. (Not so much Eli Manning, though -- because he beat Brady in 2 Super Bowls, thus ruining the media's narrative.)

Yes, Elway retired as a back-to-back Super Bowl winner, and as the reigning Super Bowl MVP. But he wouldn't have won a Super Bowl without Terrell Davis in the backfield -- Sammy Winder was good, but, back then, Elway didn't have someone who was TD good, and that's a big reason why he went 0-3 before going 2-0 in the biggest game -- and Peyton wouldn't have won this Super Bowl without Von Miller and his defensive compadres shutting down the Panther offense.

Just in case Peyton was thinking it was all about him. Maybe he wasn't. But, going in, the media sure was.

*

As for Cam Newton: I could criticize him for his postgame reaction. Instead, I'll say that Newton is lucky on 2 counts: He didn't screw up that big for a New York team (or Boston, or Chicago, or Los Angeles), or for his alma mater, Auburn University, against their arch-rivals, the University of Alabama.

However, I can and do criticize Newton for not picking up that fumble that turned a decent shot at a winning touchdown drive into a final score that did not, at all, indicate how close the game was until that point.

Some people are telling him, "Act like you've been there before." Well, he hadn't been there before.

And he may never get back. That's the hard part: In the biggest game of his career, he froze. I'm reminded of Chuck Knoblauch in the 1998 Playoffs, although Knobby is white, was playing a much less important position, and was not in a Game 7, as Newton's game amounted to. On the other hand, Knobby also isn't nearly as smart as Newton.

If this had happened to Newton in a regular-season game, we'd talk about it until the next game. Instead, we talk about it forever, because it was in the Super Bowl. Ask Jackie Smith. Ask Scott Norwood. Ask Kevin Dyson -- and he didn't even do anything wrong; quite the contrary, he did his damnedest, and came up a few inches short.

But look at this list: Daryle Lamonica, Joe Kapp, Vince Ferragamo, Ron Jaworski, Ken Anderson, David Woodley, Dan Marino, Tony Eason, Boomer Esiason, Stan Humphries, Neil O'Donnell, Drew Bledsoe, Chris Chandler, Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme, Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck. Most likely, Rex Grossman will end up being added to this list. Possibly, so will Colin Kaepernick.

Each of those quarterbacks went to one Super Bowl, lost it, and never got back in.

There's a lot of talent there. Marino is in the Hall of Fame. McNabb becomes eligible next year, and will probably get in, if not on the 1st try. Lamonica, Jaworski, Anderson, Esiason and Bledsoe are all worthy of Hall consideration. At the very least, Newton should end up with a career as good as those last 5.

But this could have been his only chance, and he blew it.

The truly sad part is, the game wasn't even interesting until that play. And then, it got interesting in a bad way.

*

About the halftime show: Thanks to Newton, no one is going to remember that Coldplay never should have been selected. Not that they were offensive. They were just... weak.

But Beyoncé Knowles upstaged the whole thing. As she usually does. She gave a Black Power salute, a la Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. The dancers behind her wore black berets, like the Black Panthers, founded just up the road in Oakland 50 years ago.

And Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, saw it as an attack on his favorite people (whom he refused to ever give a raise), the police. Here's what he told Fox News this morning:

This is football, not Hollywood, and I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive.

And what we should be doing in the African-American community, and all communities, is build up respect for police officers. And focus on the fact that, when something does go wrong, okay, we'll work on that. But the vast majority of police officers risk their lives to keep us safe.

Well, gee, Rudy, maybe African-Americans would have more respect for police officers if they didn't see some of them -- not 1 every 10 years, but several times in the last few, from Staten Island to Baltimore to Cleveland to Ferguson, Missouri and so on -- get away with murder. Who didn't "keep us alive." (I'm using "us" in this case even though I'm white.)

And that doesn't even include Trayvon Martin's murderer, a cop wannabe that the cops didn't think was mentally stable enough to join them.

You want black people to build up respect for police officers? Start by demanding that police officers respect them. The motto is, "To serve and protect." "Serve" comes before protect, Rudy, you fascist... pillock!

Rudy needs to shut the bloody hell up. His great achievement as Mayor, reducing crime, would never have happened without the crime bill pushed and signed by President Bill Clinton. (A liberal Democrat and Hillary's husband, in case you've forgotten.) And even at his moments of triumph, we all knew, even if we didn't want to say it out loud, that Rudy was a racist.

As the late Sidney Zion, a columnist for the New York Daily News and a strong supporter of Rudy's, put it, "The problem with Rudy Giuliani is that he's not a peacetime don." In other words, he can never accept victory, because he's always looking for a new war to fight.

And rather than accept the truth, which is that Beyoncé and the people who agree with her have a point, he attacks.

But you're not going to win a popularity contest with either of the 2 most popular women in the country. He's already lost one popularity contest to Hillary, when he refused to run against her for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

And now he's launching one against Beyoncé? Fool.

As the lady herself might have said, If you didn't like it, then you shoulda put a sock in it.

A Post About Music, Yesterday's and Today's

Before I discuss last night's awful Yankee game, I want to talk about music, and how it now compares with what came before.

I saw this article posted on Facebook, lamenting the sound of rock and roll, and the attitude of "rock stars," today, as compared with the past, particularly the 1970s.

You can click the link to get the full article, but, in particular, the author was comparing Led Zeppelin (never one of my favorite acts) to Mumford & Sons (one of the biggest bands today, although I wouldn't know a note of their music if I heard it):

Rock Stars in the '70s: You'd travel in a big-ass jet plane with your band's logo on the side of it. You'd put out a concert film that featured fantasy sequences where you rode around on horseback, and it would NOT be pretentious, it would be AWESOME. There'd be legendary stories about hotel rooms being trashed...

Rock Stars Now: Today, if you want to be a rock star, you buy some sweaters, I guess.

He also mentioned David Bowie, saying:

Rock stars in the '70s were so huge, they could create completely different personas and their alter-egos would become rock stars too.

Bowie has been Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Man Who Sold the World, The Thin White Duke, and the leader of Tin Machine -- and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. All those personae did well at the time, and all of the music he made in those roles has held up pretty well.

Coming up with the ideas made him a genius; making it still work 40 (or, in the case of Tin Machine, 25) years later makes him an artist who knew what he wanted and knew what he was doing -- which is not the same thing as genius, but is insight, and might make you better off.

Remember when Garth Brooks tried The Life of Chris Gaines? It totally flopped. Personally, I liked the idea, mainly because he wasn't being Garth Freakin' Brooks! (I hated him because I thought he was the country equivalent of a poseur. I have since turned around, and realized his songs didn't sound so bad.) It was a great idea, but it didn't work because it was too different from what he'd been doing: Unlike Hank Williams Sr. and his "Luke the Drifter" persona, Chris Gaines was so different from Garth Brooks that the fans he already had hated it, and people who didn't previously like him (like me) had another reason to dislike him.

Take another example: Vanilla Ice. We thought he was an obnoxious prick, ripping off both Queen and black performers, and we were right. Well, Robbie Van Winkle might have gotten away with it had simply done an interview, saying, "Look, Vanilla is just a character I'm playing. It's not the real me. I'm just lampooning guys like this, white guys who want to rap but can't, think they're cool but aren't. I'm no more Vanilla Ice in real life than David Seville was really the leader of some singing chipmunks."

Then again, the Beastie Boys eventually drifted away from their "You gotta fight! For your right! To par...ty!" persona, because people didn't get that they were parodying kids like that. Same with Right Said Fred, parodying models (men and women alike) in "I'm Too Sexy." Sometimes, people think the joke is the reality.

A few years later, people praised Sacha Baron Cohen for being in character as Ali G, Borat, Bruno and Admiral General Aladeen. He got away with it, because people knew he wasn't really those guys. But Van Winkle insisted that he really was this hard guy from Miami, instead of some cushy kid from the suburbs of Dallas.

Not that Dallas doesn't have some hard streets and serious crime issues, but what the hell did he know about them? I tell people I'm from Bloomfield, which is true. It's certainly a less easy place to live than East Brunswick, where I've lived most of my life. But I don't say I came from the Newark ghetto, just a few miles away from Bloomfield -- or from the New Brunswick ghetto, just a few miles away from East Brunswick.

So it's not just that music "sucks" today, it's that it's "sucked" for a while now. It's an extension of the author's point.

But I don't totally agree with it. The best performers under age 40 today may not measure up to the ones we grew up on. On the other hand, there was a lot of crap back then, too. I saw something in SPIN magazine in 1990 or so where the author actually (Brace yourself: Poor taste is coming) praised Milli Vanilli.

He said that when the early-'90s nostalgia wave comes (any day now, I fear), you'll understand that anybody who didn't like Milli Vanilli, or Paula Abdul, or C & C Music Factory, would have been sitting in some damp Greenwich Village coffeehouse listening to folk music while everyone else was Dancing In the Street. (1964)

Riiiight. Had this same guy been a teenager in 1968, he probably would have been listening to "bubblegum music," like the Lemon Pipers ("Green Tambourine") and the Ohio Express ("Yummy, Yummy, Yummy"), instead of going to the movies and watching Monterey Pop and all the hard rock and psychedelic acts, including many who would be at Woodstock like The Who, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

There's always going to be crap on the radio and in the "record stores" (man, did I just date myself by using that term), and there's always going to be good stuff.

I watched the Grammys a few years ago, and I was prepared to not like many of the performers. I saw Bruno Mars, and figured this was just a gay kid trying to look like Elvis. I was wrong: He was fantastic (and, apparently, straight). I saw Nicki Minaj, and figured this was a girl trying to be the next step after Lil' Kim, or a black version of Lady Gaga. I was right, and she was horrible, making those two look like geniuses (genii?) by comparison.

That was also the night when Pink did the harness thing and didn't miss a note, showing she was as good as any female vocalist ever.

There's always going to be great performers, but that usually gets followed by a bunch of second-and-third-raters copying them. I couldn't stand Nirvana, and so many acts tried to copy them and looked both stupid and contagious. I did like Alanis Morissette, but her fellow Franco-Ontarian Avril Lavigne fell short, and she's still the best of the Alanis wannabes.

Too many singers are still trying to be Britney Spears, who's still trying to be Madonna, who, on her best day (which is now long past), couldn't touch Cher.

On the other hand, I think Beyonce is the one singer now who approaches Cher -- or Tina Turner, for that matter -- for a combination of great sound and great show. And, as she said a few weeks ago on Twitter, Cher agrees. High praise, indeed.

For every Elvis, there were a few Pat Boones. For every Beatles, there were a dozen Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas. For every Who, there were a bunch of Ohio Expresses. For every Elton John, Billy Joel, Harry Chapin, etc., the early-to-mid-'70s had a slew of one-hit-wonders with awful story-songs that often did better ("The Night Chicago Died," "Timothy," "Run Joey Run").

For every Judas Priest, there were a few Quiet Riots. For every Dire Straits, there were a hundred Glass Tigers. For every Josh Groban who can actually sing superbly well, there's a bunch of Biebers with no Direction, thinking they're acting like a great classic rock band, but actually acting like idiots.

There's always going to be crap. But, eventually, the cream (if not necessarily a group with someone as talented as Eric Clapton in it) will rise to the top. So, take heart: The next great singer or band might be on the way up right now, and he, or she, or they, will win out in the end.

Ravens Put a Ring On It

"If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it."

In her halftime show, complete with a reunion with former Destiny's Child mates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, Beyoncé Knowles generated so much power she shorted out the Superdome.

Maybe the Dome should've paid its electric bills, bills, bills.

*

The Baltimore Ravens led the San Francisco 49ers 21-3 going into the last play of the 1st half, before the Niners kicked a field goal. Jacoby Jones returned the 2nd half kickoff 108 yards -- going from 8 yards deep in a 10-yard end zone to the other end zone. That made it 28-6 Ravens.

And the lights all went out in Massachusetts. I mean, Louisiana.

The blackout lasted 34 minutes, and led to a lot of jokes.

Cue the ghost of Don Meredith: "Turn out the lights, the party's over!"

The Superdome's main lights are in a ring on the roof, so... "The roof! The roof! The roof is ill-wired!"

And quite a few people, remembering what happened after Hurricane Katrina, said, "Now that it's the rich people trapped in the Superdome, suddenly everyone cares."

There was even a new Twitter account: @SuperBowlLights. It got over 26,000 followers before the NFL's legal team got involved. At this writing, it's down to 390 and hasn't tweeted in 10 hours.

Gee, with all those powerful lawyers, you'd think the NFL would find a way to prevent devastating brain injuries. And, you know, make the officials get every call right (or at least most of them). And properly punish the New England Patriots for their cheating -- simply not having won a Super Bowl since they got caught is not enough.

When power was restored, the 49ers suddenly remembered that they are the team that gave us Joe Montana, and scored 17 unanswered points. They turned what was looking like the 1st Super Bowl blowout in 10 years into a thriller.

But Colin Kaepernick, while clearly talented, is not Joe Montana. The Ravens held the Niners on a 2-point conversion that would have tied the game, instead leaving a 31-29 lead. Justin Tucker's 2nd field goal of the 4th quarter and a strategic safety with 4 seconds left gave the Ravens a 34-31 win, despite the Niners' last-play attempt to copy another Bay Area football team, the 1982 University of California squad with their rugby-style "The Play" against arch-rival Stanford.

I never thought I would ever see the 49ers lose a Super Bowl. But now, they have. They are 5-1 in Roman numeral games.

As for the Ravens, they have won their 2nd Super Bowl, their city's 3rd, the 5th overall NFL Championship for Baltimore, and the 9th World Championship won by a Baltimore-based team:

1948 Baltimore Bullets, NBA
1958 Baltimore Colts, NFL
1959 Baltimore Colts, NFL
1966 Baltimore Orioles, MLB
1970 Baltimore Orioles, MLB
1970-71 Baltimore Colts, NFL
1983 Baltimore Orioles, MLB
2000-01 Baltimore Ravens, NFL
2012-13 Baltimore Ravens, NFL

If you want to count the 19th Century Orioles of the National League -- winning Pennants in 1894, 1895 and 1896 -- then it's 12 World Championships.

In addition, the '47 and '71 Bullets, the '64 and '68 Colts, and the '69, '71 and '79 Orioles all reached their sports' finals, but lost.

There were actually 2 sets of Baltimore Bullets in the NBA. The 1st one went out of business in 1954. The 2nd one had been the Chicago Zephyrs and arrived in 1963, but moved to the Washington area in 1973, and the Washington Bullets changed their name to the Washington Wizards in 1997. Baltimore has never had an NHL team, and very briefly had a team in the World Hockey Association in 1975, the Blades.

When there's no obvious pick for Most Valuable Player, it usually goes to the winning team's quarterback. And it did, to Audubon, New Jersey native Joe Flacco, who said -- on live television -- that it was "Fucking awesome!"

Joe Flacco, you've just been named MVP of the Super Bowl! Now what are you gonna do? "I'm gonna get my mouth washed out with soap!"

Naturally, I put Rutgers alumnus Ray Rice in my photo. His teammate Alex Silvestro also went to Rutgers, as did the 49ers' Anthony Davis. So RU was guaranteed to have another Super Bowl winner.

Rice and Silvestro become the 6th and 7th Rutgers players to play on a Super Bowl winner, following Bill Pickel of the 1983-84 Los Angeles Raiders, James Jenkins of the 1991-92 Washington Redskins, Gary Brackett of the 2006-07 Indianapolis Colts, Shaun O'Hara of the 2007-08 New York Giants, and 3-time winner Harry Swayne: 1997-98 and 1998-99 Denver Broncos, and 2000-01 Ravens.

And middle linebacker Ray Lewis, the greatest player the Ravens have had since they arrived, who announced he would retire after the season, regardless of how it ended, goes out a World Champion.

They've all put a ring on it.  A Super Bowl ring.

But let's see if Flacco can get back to the Super Bowl next year, when it's outdoors at the Meadowlands. We'll see how "retarded" it is then.

Top 10 Pregame National Anthems... and Bottom 10

Robert Merrill at Yankee Stadium, 1996 World Series

Can I possibly let Xtina off the hook? Nope. But since it's only about 25 hours old as I type this, her version hasn't "stood the test of time," so I'll give her a slight break. Besides... She wasn't trying to disgrace her country or its National Anthem. She just blew it. It's a misdemeanor. Read... and move on.

Bottom 10

All of these are what somebody (I forget who) named "Star-Mangled Banners."

10. Christina Aguilera, Super Bowl XLV, Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, Texas, February 6, 2011. It's not just that she goofed the words, it's that she decided to "style" it. Come on, Christina, we know you can sing like that, but it's the National Anthem, in front of the biggest TV audience you'll ever have. Unless you sing at the World Cup, and both Shakira and Alicia Keys managed to get that right. (Of course, neither actually sang a national anthem at that time.)

9. Frank Drebin, regular-season baseball game, Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium), Anaheim, California, early in 1988. I could use the excuse that he's not a professional singer. I could use the excuse that he was actually trying to impersonate an umpire, rather than the opera singer he was introduced as. I could use the excuse that the actor who played him, Leslie Nielsen, was Canadian -- although the character was all-American. Instead, I'll use the excuse that it was only a movie, The Naked Gun.

Very funny movie, except... O.J. Simpson played a cop, and Reggie Jackson played a "Manchurian Candidate"-type killer. Remember? "I... must kill... the Queen." Fortunately, Drebin stopped Mr. October from making the Prince of Wales become King Charles III far too early.

All that was missing was for the actress playing Elizabeth II to say, "Ricardo Montalban brainwashed Reggie Jackson to kill me? Lieutenant Drebin, surely, you can't be serious?" "I am serious, and, please, Your Majesty, don't call me 'Shirley.'"

Note that both Reggie and Jay Johnstone, who came to bat for the Seattle Mariners during the movie, were already retired at the time.

8. Jesse McCartney, Pepsi 500, Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, California, October 11, 2009. For the purpose of this post, I'm counting auto racing as a "sport." (May George Carlin, if he turned out to be wrong and God let him into Heaven, forgive me.) He skipped the "what so proudly we hailed" part. Let's just say that Jesse isn't related to Paul McCartney, not by blood or by talent.

7. Scott Stapp, Ford 400, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Homestead, Florida, November 20, 2005. On 2 occasions (the 1995 World Series in Atlanta, and a Monday Night Football game in Charlotte), I heard South Carolina native (thus "near" both cities) Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, sing the anthem. It sounded, well, like Hootie & the Blowfish singing the National Anthem.

Not as much as the Creed singer did, though. Even the NASCAR drivers were wincing. And... "As the twilight's last gleaming"? Idiot. I don't think he'll be welcomed with arms wide open into another such event.

6. R. Kelly, Middleweight Championship fight, Bernard Hopkins vs. Jermain Taylor II, Las Vegas, Nevada, December 3, 2005. A man then under indictment on child pornography charges is singing the National Anthem before a sporting event? Well, it's not like it was a high school girls' basketball game...

"By the twilight's last gleaming"? If that was the only thing wrong with it, he probably would have gotten away with it -- pun intended. But it got worse from there. R. Kelly tried to sound like Marvin Gaye, and ended up sounding like a damn fool. Scoop Jackson of ESPN said, "It was enough to make Jeff Kent turn black. Or John Chaney turn white." This version should have stayed... wait for it... "trapped in the closet."

5. Caroline Marcel, Canada vs. U.S. junior hockey game, Le Colisee, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2005. To be fair, she had to sing 2 anthems, 1 of a country not her own, and that anthem in her 2nd language. Still, she should have known the words to "The Banner."

But she mixed it up early, said, "I'm sorry," turned, and went back into the tunnel to find the lyrics. She got booed. Mind you, this was in Quebec, so this wasn't Americans booing the botching of their anthem, this was French-Canadians, her own people.

She came back, and... she fell. Okay, it was on ice, and she wasn't wearing skates. Still... That had to be the most embarrassing Anthem ever. At least, for a professional singer. At least, for one not named Michael Bolton.

4. Michael Bolton, American League Championship Series Game 4, Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, October 13, 2003. Not the most disgraceful thing that's ever happened at Fenway, not even that week. (Game 3 was when Pedro Martinez tried to kill Don Zimmer and Karim Garcia, and threatened to kill Jorge Posada. Still hasn't even been arrested, much less prosecuted, for that.)

But after "o'er the ramparts we watched," he looked at his hand! He had crib notes for the National Anthem! That's worse than Sarah Palin's crib notes for one of her political speeches. That's even worse than George's "crib notes for sex" in the Seinfeld episode "The Move"!

The Red Sox fans booed the hell out of him. For once, I agree with them! Besides... it's Michael Bolton.

3. Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock Music & Art Festival, Yasgur's Farm, Bethel, New York, August 18, 1969. I know this one has become iconic, but I hate it. I don't know what point Jimi was trying to make with it, but I really, really hate it.

Yet when Brian May, the guitarist for Queen (as fate would have it), played "God Save the Queen" at Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee (marking 50 years on the throne) in 2002, it was electric, and it was rock, but it was very respectful, and it got a tremendous ovation.

2. Roseanne Barr -- or Roseanne Arnold, or just "Roseanne," or whatever she was calling herself at that point -- regular-season baseball game, Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California, July 25, 1990. It was the screeching. It was the gestures. It was the crotch-grab and the spit at the end.

San Diego is a city noted as a major homeport for the U.S. Navy. She pushed a lot of buttons, and pushed a lot of envelopes. That day, she really pushed her luck.

1. Carl Lewis, regular-season NBA game, Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey, December 25, 1993. Merry Christmas, everyone, here's your present: The worst "Star-Spangled Banner" ever! What makes this the worst one is that he was really, really, trying to get it right, but... His voice cracked at "And the rockets'... red glare! Uh-oh!" Unless you're Buddy Holly or Jimmie Rodgers, you should not include the words "Uh-oh!" in a song.

He may have been the greatest track & field performer ever, and he may be a New Jersey native (although from Willingboro, the Phillies/Eagles/76ers/Flyers side, not the Yankees/Giants-Jets/Nets/Devils side), but that doesn't give him a pass for this.

Top 10

You'll notice Whitney Houston's rendition before Super Bowl XXV is not on this list. That's because she was lip-synching. Automatic disqualification.

10. Lucy Lawless, regular-season NHL game, Arrowhead Pond (now Honda Center), Anaheim, California, October 22, 1997. She really can sing, and does a mean version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart." And, as a native of New Zealand, she almost certainly didn't grow up knowing the words to The Banner.

But that's not what made this one memorable. She sang it wearing an Uncle Sam top hat (well, if you're going to wear a hat during the National Anthem, which you're not supposed to do... ), and a star-spangled bustier that would have made Wonder Woman blush. (By the way, Lynda Carter is an amazing singer, too.)

At the end of the song, Lucy had what would later be called "a wardrobe malfunction." She finished the song with one of her "Xena" yells. Whether she was already aware of the malfunction when she did that yell is not clear. But then, who's going to tell the Warrior Princess that she futzed up the National Anthem? Not me. Especially now that she's also been a Cylon on the new Battlestar Galactica.

9. Kelsey Grammer, MLB All-Star Game, Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 9, 1996. Kelsey Grammer? Frasier Crane? I know NBC wanted to promote its shows, but... Kelsey Grammer? "Hey, baby, I hear the blues a-callin', tossed salads and scrambled eggs, quite stylish." Kelsey Grammer to sing the anthem? Are you freakin' kiddin' me?

No, they weren't: He was great! He really can sing. (And play the piano, although he sang a cappella on this occasion.) It really put Fox's later show-promotions to shame, including Lea Michele of Glee doing "America the Beautiful" at the Super Bowl just passed.

8. Faith Hill, MLB All-Star Game, Coors Field, Denver, Colorado, July 7, 1998. She wore a jersey of the host team, the Colorado Rockies. A maternity jersey, the 1st time I'd ever seen that. I'd also never heard a visibly pregnant woman sing the Anthem before. Is that fair, adding your baby's vocal power to your own? Faith didn't need it. Her daughter Maggie was born later that year.

Faith is married to another country music superstar, Tim McGraw, the son of a baseball legend, Tug McGraw. Although I've never heard Tim sing the Anthem. (No video of him singing it appears to be on YouTube.) Together, Faith and Tim now have 3 children.

7. Carrie Underwood, Super Bowl XLIV, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Lakes, Florida, February 7, 2010. The American Idol voters don't always get it right, but they sure got it right when they chose her. The people selecting Anthem singers must agree, because they've chosen her many times, including for the 2006 MLB All-Star Game in Detroit and the 2007 World Series in Denver.

The original Idol, Kelly Clarkson, also does very well with it. She sang the Anthem at the 1st game at the new Yankee Stadium, which puzzled me: I knew they couldn't get Robert Merrill, who died in 2004, but I figured they'd go with a New York native, and Kelly is from Texas. Her performance was excellent; I certainly can't complain about its quality. 

But I would have preferred a New Yorker such as Alicia Keys, who did come to the Stadium in the World Series to sing "Empire State of Mind" with Jay-Z.

6. Marvin Gaye, NBA All-Star Game, The Forum, Inglewood, California, February 13, 1983. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is listed in some hymn books, but Marvin turned it into a gospel song. And, unlike R. Kelly, he made it sound both funky and respectful. This is a lot of people's choice as the best Anthem ever.

Because he was so loved and, at least publicly, had such a classy image, Marvin had been invited to sing the Anthem many times before, including at Game 4 of the 1968 World Series in Detroit, a good choice since he was signed to that city's Motown Records, but, on that occasion, he sang it totally straight. And he was great. But the next day, the Anthem was sung in a way that, like Hendrix' version a year later, would change it forever.

5. José Feliciano, World Series Game 5, Tiger Stadium, Detroit, Michigan, October 7, 1968. He sang it in a way no one had heard before. He sang it while wearing dark glasses. (He is blind.) He sang it while wearing long hair. (In America, it was 1968; in "Baseball America," take whatever the actual year is and subtract 10 years.) And he sang it while a scary-looking German shepherd was by his side. (His seeing-eye dog.)

People were furious. They thought this little Puerto Rican kid was un-American. Never mind that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.

As Gaye was the day before, and as Detroit native Margaret Whiting was before Game 3, he was selected for the performance by Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who was a a published songwriter, an ordained minister, and a Marine Corps veteran of World War II. You gonna question his patriotism? Or his taste in music?

Ernie knew what he was doing, and, for the rest of his life, he stuck up for Jose, whose career was hurt by this for years, until he was asked to sing the theme song for the NBC sitcom Chico and the Man in 1974, starting a comeback that has made him a much-admired performer ever since.

When Ernie died in 2010, Jose was invited back to sing the anthem at Comerica Park, the Tigers' new home, at their next home game. He sang it the same way, his voice still clear after 42 years, and he got a massive ovation. As well he should have back in 1968. But America was just too on edge that year for something so American, yet so different.

4. Julie Anthony, Opening Ceremony, Olympic Games, Stadium Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, September 15, 2000. This was the Australian anthem, "Advance Australia Fair." She had previously been selected to sing it at the country's Bicentennial celebration on January 1, 1988.

I'd never heard "Advance Australia Fair" before that Opening Ceremony, and it was wonderful. Maybe it was her talent, maybe it was the similarity of the name, but she reminded me of Julie Andrews.

3. Beyoncé Knowles, Super Bowl XXXVIII, Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas, February 1, 2004. Maybe it was because she was in her hometown. Or maybe she wanted to show Janet Jackson who was the best singer in the stadium that night. Or maybe she's just great. But she knocked it out of the park. (If you don't mind me mixing my sports metaphors.)

Of course, in order to remember this one, you'll have to put Janet's own performance at that game's halftime show out of your mind. Not easy.

2. Robert Merrill, Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York, 1969 to 2003. For a generation of Yankee Fans, my generation, he was the singer of "The Star-Spangled Banner." And he always played it straight, even on Old-Timers' Day, when he wore a Yankee uniform with the Number 1 1/2 on it.

Cleveland Indian fans may speak up for Rocco Scotti, and people who remember the Brooklyn Dodgers may mention Gladys Gooding, singing and playing the Ebbets Field organ, but Robert Merrill was the best regular anthem-singer of them all.

In this country, anyway.

1. Roger Doucet, Montreal Forum and Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Quebec, 1970 to 1981. He sang the anthems at Canadiens and Expos games. When he sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," he didn't sound so good. In fact, to me, he sounded drunk. Then again, we took the music for our anthem from "To Anacreon In Heaven," an English drinking song. So maybe it's not so inappropriate.

But when he sang "O, Canada," I've never heard an anthem sung better. He would begin by singing in French, facing the east stands of the Forum, since the East End of Montreal is the more French, more "Quebec nationalist" side of town. In mid-song, he would turn and face the west stands, since the West End is the more English, pro-stay-in-Canada side.

Roger Doucet at the Montreal Forum

He died of cancer in 1981, but his version was so revered that a clip of it was played at the Canadiens' last game at the Forum in 1996. The Yankees didn't even do that for Robert Merrill.