From the sublime to the ridiculous, sports fans have seen and heard it all when it comes to national anthems. Truth be told, there's been an awful lot more of the latter. From political statements (and misstatements) to awful, off-key renditions, too many games have been sullied by some kind of musical blunder.

South of the border, where 'The Star Spangled Banner' is a song that requires enough range to make it a tall task for any amateur singer, fans have heard their fair share of versions that sounded more like a cat screeching away in a dark back alley. Remember when Roseanne 'sang' the anthem at a baseball game in San Diego, capping things off by grabbing her crotch and spitting on the ground as howls of derision rained down from the stands? Just as memorable was sprinter Carl Lewis, who never quite hit full speed when he took on the anthem before an NBA game, crashing hard on the high register “rocket's red glare” line, promising to “make up for it," then forgetting the final line. Whoops.

Sometimes, the song that's heard is even further off the mark. Last month, British field hockey officials were left tugging at their collars in embarrassment after playing South Africa's pre-apartheid anthem before the opening match of a women's tournament. In response to the musical insult, the mixed-race South Africans went out and upset their higher-ranked British hosts.

Elsewhere, it wasn't racist overtones but inappropriate praise for prostitutes that caused confusion at a shooting championship in Kuwait, of all places, back in March. When a female winner from Kazakhstan climbed the podium to pick up gold, organizers serenaded her with the spoof anthem from the 2006 Borat movie, a tune whose lyrics tout Kazakh call girls as “the cleanest in the region, except of course Turkmenistan.” That was the second sporting anthem slight in a month for the Central Asian nation, coming weeks after a ski event inside its own borders mistakenly blared out the first few bars of Ricky Martin's “Livin' La Vida Loca” instead of the actual Kazakh anthem, which came on shortly after.

All those examples, insulting though they may be, are the result of individual ignorance. Far worse are the anthems that are insidiously milked for political effect. In the post 9/11 United States, and even here in Canada, we've seen anthems accompanied by all manner of massive flags covering the field, flypasts from roaring jets and enough pre-packaged pageantry to make you puke all over your patriotic self.

Unlike our American neighbours, Canada's national anthem lacks a lusty call to war. Even so, it can still inflame both passion and prejudice. Alberta's long-standing enmity towards French Canada, a sentiment that dates back to Pierre Trudeau's ill-fated National Energy Program, was perceived to be behind the decision to play an English-only version of “O Canada” for several nights at the ongoing centenary edition of the Calgary Stampede. Conscious of their status as a national event, Stampede organizers were quick to blame the omission on a rapid re-do of their special recording and promised to get the choir back behind the microphones to belt out a few lines en Francais before the rodeo wrapped up.

In a climate where flag pins worn on lapels have become an important (if not mostly empty) part of political posturing, it's a shame more leagues and teams don't have the courage to handle things the way tiny Goshen College did for years, and play no anthem at all before games. Still, even the Mennonite school in rural Indiana, where pacifist beliefs are considered part of many a student's core values, couldn't steer clear of the entrenched tradition forever. After a group of Goshen classmates made an appeal to the president, the school began playing “The Star Spangled Banner” before baseball games in March 2010. They went with an instrumental version to avoid any mention of bombs bursting in air, and the song was followed with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, which begins “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Goshen, whose athletic teams are nicknamed the Maple Leafs, literally changed its tune after a year's trial with the anthem, deciding “America the Beautiful” was a more appropriate musical number with which to send its teams out to play ball.

Personally I'd prefer a return to silence, not just at Goshen but at almost every other game, too. Save the anthem, if you must have it, for special occasions only, like World Cup finals, Olympic medal events, or matches played on national holidays. That way it's not just another silly song, but something with special meaning for everyone who hears it. Case in point: the rendition that kicked off the recent Canada Day Blue Jays game, where 2nd Lieutenant Scott Newlands sang the first few lines, then stopped and let the crowd take it home. With Newlands resplendent in his best military dress, and the field dotted with colour guards carrying the flag, the moment wasn't entirely free from schlocky symbolism. But when the fans started singing, the lyrics flowed with strong, passionate pride. It was, to its credit, that rarest of sporting anthems, the sublime performance we so seldom get to hear.