National anthem

An article on cnn.com tackled the subject of athletes singing their national anthems during international competitions.

Most international sporting events play the anthems of the participants or the winners at the end of the competition.

In the medal ceremony of the Olympics, the national anthem of the gold medal winner gets played. 

In the European Football Championships or the Euro for short, the anthems of the competing teams for a match are played before kick-off.

It has also been observed that many seem to just look around while their anthems are played or probably don’t know the lines.

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During medal ceremonies in the Olympics, many athletes, including men, get very emotional when their national anthem is played. 

It is because this is the point that tells the whole world that somebody from the nation is the best.

I believe it is important that national athletes be reminded about how they should act when the national anthem is played.

It would also be important that they know how to sing it even if they have dual citizenship.

With the London Olympics just several weeks away, we again hope that the Philippine National Anthem would be played in one of the medal ceremonies, because that would mean that our quest for the elusive gold has ended.

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Without a team to root for in the NBA Finals, I am very happy that the New York Yankees have gotten off the roller-coaster that it was riding and is now on top of the American League (AL) East standings.

Winning ten of its last ten games, I hope the Yankees will continue to roll after their on and off performance that always had me wincing when I would watch the live games on TV or check out the Major League Baseball scores.

Alex Rodriguez, who at one point had a better batting average in dating lovely women from show business, has also tied Lou Gehrig with his 23rd career grand slam.

For those who don’t understand baseball, a grand slam is scored when a player at bat hits a home run with the bases loaded. Still confused? It means that with that one hit the team scores four runs.

If you still don’t get it, baseball, I believe is one sport where Filipinos can be world class. We try so hard to make it to the NBA but our players just don’t seem to make the cut as we are not built for basketball.

Major League Baseball has many South Americans and Asians. If we push baseball in the Philippines, it would not be long before we see one of our boys make it to the MLB.

It won’t be a long shot and I hope the sports leaders of the country would start doing something soon.

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MILESTONES: Belated happy first birthday greetings go to my goddaughter Sophia Yap Wee, who celebrated yesterday.

Today’s greetings go to my cousin Haisa Alfonso, The Freeman’s photographer and filmmaker Aldo Nelbert Banaynal, Teresita ‘Baby’ Schaap, Vanessa Delfino, and my Tao sister Carla Jane Pogoy.

Advance greetings go to Barry Casals, Cherry Tacudin-Callelero, Paul Pereyra, Giandi Pages, my cousin Irma Lebumfacil, June Heights Soriano-Uy, Michael Climaco, and Jesse Bacon, who are turning a year older tomorrow.

More power to all of you!