

Gate Haven - Hall of Obscurity - Assorted Tidbits - Cleavant's Anthem

In the June 1997 DragonCon panel, Tracy Tormé revealed a scene cut from the Pilot...





We did shoot--we went up to Candlestick Park in San Francisco, and in fact, the Atlanta Braves were playing there, and 40,000 people were attending and Cleavant went out to the pitcher's mound, we all stood out next to him. It was really exciting. He sang his version of the National Anthem before the game and with cameras on him and his version is hilarious. It's like an 8 minute version of the National Anthem. (Laughter.) And people in the stands had no idea what we were doing but they loved it. They gave him a huge ovation afterwards. And we had planned to use that in the scene where he's in jail in communist America and he's daydreaming. We were going to use the daydream of him singing the National Anthem at Candlestick Park. And that was not in the piece really because that was an editorial decision. That kinda slowed the story down a little bit at that point.



...and on May 23, 2002, Grizzlor posted the following interesting discovery.





http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B19940678.htm I think this is most surely the game because 94 [when the Pilot was filmed] was the miserable strike season, and the giants hosted the braves only ONCE all year, May 30-June 1. This was Monday-Wednesday series, tuesday and wednesday were night games, drawing less than 30,000. May 30 was a day game, Memorial Day I assume, and the crowd was just about 40K [39,348]. Well, I find it a bit odd that they had Cleavant singing a "humorous" anthem on memorial day, but its san francisco after all. I don't remember seeing anybody actually figure out what the game was, but I could be wrong of course.



So apparently the Braves won 4-3, in 11 innings. The Retrosheet link has further details, including stats for each player. As for eyewitness accounts from spectators, only one has yet to surface... a post to Cleavant's old guestbook on his official site:





Cleavant, okay this will sound a little weird but when you guys were filming the Pilot episode (i'm pretty sure) I was up there visiting my cousins. It was '94 and I was almost eight years old, and I remember you (i'm pretty sure it was you, dressed up in that funny suit) actually singing the national anthem, which was weird because I guess nobody in the audience expected it, and kinda just thought you were weird. I remember it was like 20 minutes long or something, and I asked my cousin what you were doing and I don't remember her response exactly, but I KNOW IT HAD TO BE YOU!!!! Did you do something like that?! It wasn't in the episode, if so. It is just SO cool to me now though cuz I figured this out when the actual thing aired on FOX, because I recognized you, but that actual scene was not there....anyways, Cryin' Man, you are awesome! Christina



Gate Haven - Hall of Obscurity - Assorted Tidbits - Cleavant's Anthem





