Larry Brown Sports

Poor Alexis Normand. Prior to a Memorial Cup game between the Halifax Mooseheads and Portland Winterhawks on Saturday in Saskatoon, the Canadian singer delivered one of the worst renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner we have ever heard.

Normand got off to a nice start with the song, but her first error came when she got the “twilight’s last gleaming” part wrong. She continued along but began to trail off when she couldn’t remember how to close the next line. Normand then paused for several seconds to regroup, but she began mixing the lines all over the place, leading to groans from the crowd. Some of the players on the bench could even be seen trying to contain their laughter.

Normand continued to jumble the lyrics and re-sing parts of the song she had already sung.

As Normand started to end the song, the crowd tried to pick her up by singing some of the words to get her back on track. Mercifully, the performance finally came to an end after a painful minute and a half. It was like watching the answering machine scene from “Swingers” — you have your hands on your head in frustration just hoping it will finally stop.

As bad as the performance was, it’s possible that Normand wasn’t really at fault. According to TVA Sports reporter L.A. Lariviere, Normand has a pretty solid excuse for her poor performance:

Alexis Normand claims she was told only a few hours before the Mooseheads – Winterhawks game to learn Star-Spangled Banner. #MemorialCup

— L.A. Lariviere (@L_A_theRiver) May 18, 2013

Normand also tweeted an apology:

I’m embarrassed and deeply sorry. I wish I’d had more time to learn the American anthem. Thanks so much for the crowd’s help! #memorialcup

— Alexis Normand (@Alex6Normand) May 19, 2013

Normand probably only prepared to sing “O Canada,” which is the Canadian national anthem, and didn’t realize she would also have to sing The Star-Spangled Banner because a team from Oregon was playing.

Here’s hoping they bring her back for Portland’s next game on Monday so that she gets a shot at redemption.

And why do the anthem screw-ups generally involve a Canadian and American team?

Here’s Alexis’ website if you want to learn more about her.

H/T Deadspin

Poor Jeff Fuller. The tenor was supposed to sing the national anthems for Canada and the US prior to the Toronto Blue Jays-Houston Astros spring training game on Wednesday, but he botched both versions.

As captured in the video above, Fuller stumbled while singing “O Canada.” According to USA Today, Fuller screwed it up the first time he tried singing it and just started over. But after messing up the second time, he reportedly moved right on to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Though the video doesn’t show it, USA Today says Fuller also stumbled while singing the US national anthem but managed to regroup and finish.

The crowd treated him well and still applauded despite the mistakes. Toronto manager John Gibbons reportedly gave Fuller a pat on the back.

When it comes to singing in front of a large audience, it doesn’t matter how many times one practices a song, because there’s no accounting for how someone will perform under pressure.

H/T BuzzFeed Sports

William Dillon spent nearly half of his life behind bars after being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Thanks in part to the help he received from the Innocence Project, the now 52-year-old Dillon was released from prison in 2008, where he spent 27 years after he was convicted of murdering James Bvorak back in 1981. The man who actually killed Bvorak hitchhiked to a bar after beating him to death and left his bloody clothes behind in a car. Dillon was arrested after a police dog matched the scent on the clothes to him, but a DNA test conducted in 2008 proved his innocence.

On Wednesday night, Dillon performed the National Anthem at Tropicana field before a game between the Rays and Indians. He was an aspiring baseball player before his encarcoration and has a love for the game, so he asked the team if he could perform the Anthem to celebrate his freedom. His wish was granted, and Dillon proudly sang wearing a shirt that read “Not Guilty” across the front.

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At the Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait on Thursday, Maria Dmitrienko of Kazakhstan won gold in the 75 target event, but during her medal ceremony, instead of “My Kazakhstan,” she was forced to sit through the spoof national anthem heard in the movie “Borat.”

If you haven’t seen “Borat,” it stars Sacha Baron Cohen as a farcical Kazakh TV host who makes a documentary about his experiences in America. It’s hilarious, it’s raunchy, it was extremely controversial when it was released six years ago, almost every Arab country banned it, and, obviously, Kazakhstan hated it.

Some of the lyrics of the spoof anthem? “Kazakhstan’s prostitutes are the cleanest in the region, except, of course, for Turkmenistan’s. Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, you very nice place … come grasp the mighty penis of our leader from junction with testes to tip of its face.”

As you can imagine, while the “Borat” version played, Dmitrienko appeared uncomfortable but forced a smile at its conclusion. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov called the incident a “scandal” and demanded an investigation. Organizers said they accidentally downloaded the wrong version from the Internet. The Asian Shooting Federation President Sheikh Salman al-Sabah also apologized to the Kazakh team. The ceremony was reportedly done over with the real anthem. Great success!

Thanks to Fourth-Place Medal for the video

As the new sheriff in town and a guy who is known for not taking any crap, Ozzie Guillen likely has several rules in place for the upcoming season in Miami. However, he already knows which rule is at the top of that list. All of the members of the 2012 Miami Marlins had better be on the top step of the dugout when the National Anthem is performed.

“The National Anthem is 10 minutes before the game starts,” Guillen said according to the Sun Sentinel. “We’re going to start in 10 minutes and you’re late? National Anthem, they’re going to be there…That’s the only (rule) I have. You’re not going to go by that easy one? We’re going to have problems.

“A lot of people have been killed trying to make this country free for us. You should be there for at least two minutes. Respect that, especially if you come from another country. You should be there an hour before. I think it looks good for baseball if you’re in the stands and you look at the team respecting the flag and the National Anthem…Kids can see that, the respect.”

Guillen also pointed out that being on the can is not an excuse for missing the Anthem, either. In other words, you had better anticipate when nature will be calling or there will be consequences. What have we learned over the course of the past week? Ozzie really loves Bed Bath and Beyond and America. I dare you to say you don’t.

Sometimes when I see a National Anthem screw-up I can’t help but wonder how often this happened before the internet era. I’m sure musicians and artists messed up singing the National Anthem just as often 20 or 30 years ago, but it was much easier to keep a secret.  If you make a mistake now the world knows about it before you can even say “and the home of the brave.”  Oh well.

The latest viral mess-up victim is the famous Cyndi Lauper, who decided to not incorporate the words “were so gallantly streaming” during her rendition on Saturday at the U.S. Open.  Check out the Cyndi Lauper National Anthem screw-up video, courtesy of Busted Racquet:

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We’ve seen some pretty bad national anthems at sporting events before but I don’t believe the reaction was nearly as harsh as Buck Showalter’s was to this one:

Classic. There was as much incredulousness in that face as Mr. Hand had when he talked with Spicoli. Different eras my friend, different eras.

Thanks to Parker Hageman at Over the Baggy and Bubba Prog for the video