The Women’s Pro Baseball League opened its first season on Saturday with a historic matchup at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, pitting the New York Heights against the Los Angeles Queens.
The Los Angeles Queens edged the Heights 10‑8, marking the first U.S. women’s professional baseball league in nearly three decades and drawing a crowd eager to witness the milestone.
A Viral Anthem Moment
The ceremony featured an unexpected moment when 85‑year‑old Motown legend Martha Reeves took to the field to sing the U.S. national anthem.
Reeves’ interpretation of the ‘Star‑Spangled Banner’ quickly unraveled as her voice wavered on high notes, prompting audible chuckles from spectators and a flurry of online commentary.
A clip of the performance on X amassed over three million views and thousands of comments, many of which playfully mocked the vocal slip‑ups, with one user quipping that Reeves ‘ignored the key’ while another likened the scene to Fergie’s notorious 2018 NBA anthem rendition.
Even a defender noted that aging vocal cords can become thin and brittle, making the anthem a daunting challenge for senior singers, a sentiment echoed by the recent ridicule faced by Patti LaBelle, whose own anthem attempt at the MLB All‑Star Game drew criticism for missed lyrics and creative liberties.
Critics have long argued that the anthem should remain untouched, yet the difficulty of the piece — its wide range and demanding leaps — has produced countless awkward renditions at major events, a phenomenon underscored by Roseanne Barr’s lament that the song is ‘the hardest in the world’ to sing and the recent backlash against Ingrid Andress’s 2024 performance.
Despite the anthem’s stumble, the league’s debut signals a cultural shift, blending sports, music, and social media into a narrative that could reshape how women’s professional baseball is perceived.