minutia press.

I just came back from the Cardinals / Brewers game, and the Cardinals are winning by a landslide. Prior to the game, I had a few minutes of my 15 minutes of alloted fame, as I sang the National Anthem from the field with the Reed Elementary School Chorus. I was the only parent allowed to do so, and it's because I accompany the chorus (so to speak) on the piano every week and at their concerts. I'll write more about that later, but first, my report about our gig.

We showed up around 6:15, parents, kids, and teachers, and the kids and teachers (and I) warmed up outside the stadium by singing the National Anthem a few times. The National Anthem was designed to be unsingable, reaching as it does from the Bb below middle C to the F above high C. Maybe that's why nobody really sings it at a ballpark except the clowns on the field (us).

We were ushered in through the "wagon gate" -- the wide area that cars, tractors, mobile homes can use to gain access to the field. We got to see the cars parked there that belonged to the players -- they have some very nice cars, let me tell you.

We saw Jim Edmonds warming up from where we were standing. The kids started yelling and waving -- I was too cool to do this of course, but he waved back at us thanks to the uninhibited kids.

The only weird part of this was that there was a kerosene tank near where we were all standing while waiting to get on the field, with "No Smoking" written all around it. Of course, a guy was standing there, leaning against it and smoking.

We were ushered onto the field, and waited while the guy who caught McGuire's ball from last year stood in front of the whole stadium crowd and took his oath as a new attorney. Not a hard act for us to follow.

Our fearless leader Sandy Baldwin waved her hands and we took off singing. You could hear the sound reverberating in the stadium, it was really neat.

I'm not sure why, and it's hard to explain, but this was a high point in my life. I'm not a real baseball fan, but since moving to St Louis I do follow the Cards and it was moving to be able to do something patriotic at a baseball game with a group of incredible kids and teachers.

As we left the field, the players (Cards) in the dugout high fived us (yep, me too). The Cards went on to destroy (distill?) the Brewers. Maybe we had something to do with that.

Congrats on the anthem-singing, but I can tell you as a native Milwaukeean that the Brewers ability to lose is pretty much unchanging with respect to the opening ceremonies!