The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

At seemingly every sporting event in this country, the game is preceded by a singing of the National Anthem. I've often times wondered, especially in baseball (162 game season), if players and/or coaches either get sick of hearing the song or if they learn to just drown it out and focus on what they need to do that day to help their team win. I guess my question is - is it too much? When something is spoken too frequently, it begins to lose meaning. The word, the phrase, may have been magical at the start, but with each and every repetition within a short duration of time, that magic slowly starts to fade. Often times the magic of the holidays is because a group of people get together for the first time in a while. That's what makes that day (those days) stand out from the rest. If every day were like that, Christmas (or another major holiday) would be just like any other day. The word "love" can begin to lose significance if spoken too frequently, especially if t...