If there's one thing that all baseball fans can come together about, it's the importance of their traditions—and songs.
In the seventh inning at Wrigley Field during a match between the Cubs and the Cardinals, popular Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper was invited to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and brought two backup dancers with her.
Cooper performed in a booth at the stadium, playing only to the camera that was at the back of the booth, with her back to her audience, not once engaging with the crowd below.
To make matters worse, Cooper began singing in a very low vibrato, followed by slowly raising her pitch higher. She never reached a traditional pitch used for the song, her timing was inaccurate, and she frequently switched between screaming and yelling.
Though this song is traditionally a great honor and fun time to perform, Cooper behaved like someone might while enjoying themselves in the crowd, rather than while performing for everyone.
Because of her lopsided smile, throwing her head back, laughing mid-performance, singing off-key, and even yelling instead of singing at times, many assumed that Cooper performed while under the influence.
You can watch the incident here:
Some were disgusted by the performance and found the whole situation to be disrespectful.
Others agreed and found this to be a good example of why influencers and podcasters shouldn't be invited to occasions like this in lieu of an actual professional performer.
Though Cubs fans walked away happy with the score of the game, beating the Cardinals at 11 to nothing, it was hard for the crowd to shake off the disrespectful performance during the seventh inning.
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" might be a fun and rallying song, but because it's so deeply imbedded in baseball tradition at this point to rally the crowd and to get their minds back in the game for its final moments, there's still a particular way to sing it, and Cooper's rendition was a far-cry from tradition.
Thank goodness she didn't have an opportunity to sing the national anthem.
