Tony Bennett slams home 'God Bless America' at World Series Game 1

   

Tony Bennett took the field for the first seventh-inning stretch of the 2010 World Series on Wednesday night, delivering a rendition of "God Bless America" that had fans singing along in serious fashion while the San Francisco Giants took the Texas Rangers 11-7 at home.

John Legend sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" to kick off the game (see that performance here).

In keeping with the Giants jacket he sported at AT&T Park, Bennett more typically stirs hearts with his signature tune, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," which he sang on the field after the first inning. In addition to accenting various sporting events over the decades and marking Giants' wins at home, that song was invoked by the crooner at the reopening of the Bay Bridge a month and a day after the Oct. 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake -- which occurred during Game 3 of that year's World Series between the Giants and the Oakland A's -- left a 50-foot section of the bridge pancaked, killing one person on the bridge and 57 people total.

Enjoy Bennett, 84, singing America's unofficial national anthem, above, and revisit the Loma Prieta quake from the Candlestick Park POV in the video below. The quake hits just before the 4:40 mark; the Giants played their last game at Candlestick in September 1999.

The 2010 World Series continues by the Bay for one more game Thursday night before moving to Texas for Saturday's contest at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

-- Christie D'Zurilla

 

Photo: Tony Bennett sings before Game 1 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers. Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press

 Related dispatch from the Ministry of Gossip:

Kate Smith gets a postage stamp -- God bless America

 

Comments

[John Hibbert]

Please stand and remove your caps for "God Bless America?" I don't recall GBA being made the national anthem.

[Dottie Lamb]

John - well it should be - at least everyone can sing it!! Tony B. and I are contemporaries and his rendition was way far above most of the so-called singers at the 7th - golly, he is an inspiration!!