So, a Vegas Crooner Is Singing the Anthem at the World Series. Are We Okay With This?
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Let’s get this straight. The Toronto Blue Jays are on the brink of winning their first World Series in three decades, a moment of pure, unadulterated national pride for Canada, and the MLB’s big idea for the American national anthem is… some guy named John Vincent?
The press release calls him an “indie singer.” Give me a break. A quick search for `singer john vincent` pulls up a guy who looks like he belts out Sinatra covers for tourists two shows a night on the Vegas strip. “Indie” used to mean something. It meant raw, it meant undiscovered, it meant authentic. Now it’s just corporate-speak for “we couldn’t get anyone you’ve actually heard of, but we need a label that sounds cool.”
So, `who is john vincent`? He’s a performer. A professional. And I’m sure he’s got a perfectly fine voice. But his selection feels less like an honor and more like a transaction. It’s a symptom of the spectacular, soul-crushing hollowness at the center of professional sports. It’s another box checked on a pre-game ceremony checklist that exists purely to fill airtime between commercials for light beer and pickup trucks.
This isn't just a bad choice. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of cultural apathy. We’re supposed to stand, hand over heart, and feel a surge of patriotism stirred by a lounge singer who probably has a residency sandwiched between a magic act and a struggling comedian? What does that say about the sanctity of the moment? Or, more accurately, what does it say about how little the people running the show actually care?
The Spectacle Machine Churns On
The whole thing is a carefully produced, perfectly sterile television product. You’ll have Devon White, a legitimate Toronto legend, throwing the first pitch. That makes sense. The crowd at the Rogers Centre will go nuts. Then you’ll have a Quebecois singer-songwriter, David Grenon, for “O Canada.” Smart. Local. Respectful.
And then, for the “Star-Spangled Banner,” we get the wild card. The guy from Chicago. The crooner. The `john vincent singer chicago` transplant now making a name for himself. It feels so random, so disconnected, like they pulled a name out of a hat labeled “Serviceable Vocalists Who Will Work for Scale.”
I can just picture the production meeting. A bunch of executives in slick suits, scrolling through headshots. “Who’s available? Who won’t cause a scene? Who has a clean record?” The anthem itself has become a minefield, and their solution isn’t to find someone with genuine soul, but to find someone with maximum neutrality. The goal isn't inspiration; it's risk mitigation.
Is this the guy who’s going to have a big `john vincent iii tour` after this? Are we all going to be looking up `next to you lyrics john vincent` tomorrow morning? I doubt it. This is a gig. A high-profile one, sure, but a gig nonetheless. It’s the illusion of ceremony, a pantomime of patriotism designed to sell you more stuff. And we just sit there and eat it up.
Meanwhile, Back in Reality...
While a stadium of 50,000 people and millions more at home are getting ready to analyze the `john vincent national anthem` performance, let me paint you another picture. This one is from Akron, Ohio. It’s not under the bright lights of a ballpark. It’s a line of people shuffling in the November chill outside the St. Vincent de Paul John Hilkert Ozanam Center.
Here, you’ll find Deona Ray, 23 years old, with her 7-month-old daughter, Amarionna, bundled up in a stroller. You’ll see Justina Kolesar with her two little girls, Bella Jean, who is 4, and Aliseeona, who is 2. They aren’t waiting for a concert to start. They’re waiting for the doors of a food and clothing pantry to open.
Inside, 88-year-old volunteer Carl Traina is checking the bags. He has to explain to people that the only meat they have today is hot dogs and bologna. Let that sink in. Not steak, not chicken, not even ground beef. Hot dogs. Bologna. Another volunteer, Lee Buchwalter, is grabbing boxes of macaroni and cheese to fill the bags.
This is the America that John Vincent will be singing about. A place where an 88-year-old man is handing out processed meat to a young mother so her kids can eat. Its a stark reminder of the world that exists outside the stadium walls. A world where SNAP benefits are a lifeline, not a political talking point. A world where a guy named Eric Heaton, who once needed help himself, comes back to the pantry to donate clothes because he knows what it’s like. He’s closing a circle of quiet, desperate dignity that the spectacle of the World Series can’t even begin to comprehend.
They're handing out hot dogs and bologna to families while a league worth billions pays some crooner to sing a song, and we're all just supposed to...
The Bread and Circuses Are Getting Stale
Don’t get me wrong. This ain't an attack on John Vincent. I’m sure he’s a decent guy just trying to make a living. This is about the system that elevates his performance to a national moment while the quiet desperation in Akron goes unnoticed. The `john vincent world series` appearance is the circus, loud and distracting. The food pantry is the bread, and for too many, the supply is running low.
We’ve created a culture where we are more likely to debate the vocal runs of an anthem singer than we are to ask why a 23-year-old mother needs a food pantry in the wealthiest country on Earth. We’ll tweet about a baseball player’s heroics but ignore the heroism of an 88-year-old volunteer showing up to serve his community.
What are we even celebrating anymore? Is it the freedom to choose between 15 different kinds of breakfast cereal at the supermarket, or the freedom to wait in line for a box of donated macaroni and cheese? The dissonance is deafening.
Maybe I’m the crazy one here. Maybe we need these distractions to keep from staring into the abyss. But looking at the pictures from that pantry—the tired faces, the small children, the simple bags of food documented in The Food & Clothing Pantry by St. Vincent de Paul John Hilkert Ozanam Center—I have to ask: Who are the real performers here? The singer on the field, or all of us, pretending that this is normal?
We're Cheering for the Wrong Team
So, are we okay with this? No. We absolutely should not be okay with this. We shouldn't be okay with any of it. The manufactured hype, the obscene amounts of money, the casual indifference to the world just outside the gates. The problem isn’t the singer; it’s the song we’re all being forced to sing along to—one that celebrates an illusion while ignoring a brutal reality. The most patriotic thing you could do during the anthem tonight might just be to turn off the TV and find your local food bank’s website. That’s a performance that actually matters.
