Oh Say Can You Sing: What it takes to make the 81-game national anthem roster at the K
Art by Teddy Rosen
Before any given Kansas City Royals home game, tens of thousands of fans file into Kauffman Stadium. Friends and families alike take their seats to enjoy America’s favorite pastime.
Fans enjoy a classic hotdog or bag of popcorn, a beer to take the edge off, maybe the “Z Man” from Joe’s KC BBQ, or any other high calorie concoction that their hearts desire.
When catching a contest at The K, the options are close to endless. However, there’s one thing everyone experiences on gameday: the national anthem.
Taking the field before the Major League Baseball players, a singer performs “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the pressure of thousands of eyes on their shoulders. As a notoriously difficult song to sing with remarkable range between high and low notes, one slip up could be mortifying.
But for Cyndy Mangan, that’s just Tuesday.
“Love baseball, love singing, why not combine them?” Mangan says. “Seemed like a pretty easy fit to me.”
With 81 home games during the 2025 season, there are 162 performances of the national anthem or “God Bless America”. Since 2013, Mangan, 56, has sung both at least once per season.
Having attended Royals games at Kauffman for over five decades, singing at games was more of a means to an end for Mangan.
“I wanted to be able to see the games because I’m such a baseball fan,” Mangan says. “I’ve been going to baseball games at that stadium since I was five years old. My dad’s company had tickets on the third base side, so I would root and cheer and yell at George Brett all the time.”
When the Royals began showing life in the early 2010s, Mangan, a wife and mother of two, sought to get out to more games. At every game she sings, the Royals offer four tickets and a parking pass.
“I started doing this because we were not at a place where we could afford tickets, parking, concessions, to take four people,” Mangan says. “The start of the impetus for me even auditioning was just to be able to afford to take my family.”
Aside from singing at her church, Mangan didn’t have much experience in front of live audiences, especially none comparable to Kauffman. Auditioning would be a challenge, but she was eager to face it.
Every February, the Royals send out a call for singers to submit applications for a shot at singing during the upcoming season. The first step includes a video submission where applicants must sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “God Bless America” in less than 90 seconds. Singing in less than 90 seconds is required to fit within the schedule of the game.
“I usually shoot for 1:26 to 1:28 to prove that you can definitely do it underneath,” Mangan says. “They won’t even look at it if it’s over 1:30.”
After her video submission, Mangan was called in for a live audition—the second step of the application process—and performed in front of a panel of five judges. In her very first season applying, she was approved, earning the chance to sing for the team she grew up loving.
A few days before her first performance, Mangan visited the stadium for a sound check where she was introduced with a new challenge: the reverb.
When a performer sings at The K, the sound goes outward only to bounce right back to its source. As Mangan describes, it’s like hearing an echo of yourself, or as if someone’s talking in your ear as you’re trying to sing.
“That reverb is seriously the hardest element,” Mangan says. “Other than an individual’s self doubt or fear, the reverb is hands down the hardest part of singing out there.”
What often happens is that new national anthem performers will wait for the reverb to die down before singing again, but that tends to ruin the timing of the song, so it’s important to power through.
Although the Royals Gameday crew provides earbuds to block the reverb, Mangan opts to use swimmers putty to block her ears more efficiently. The other solution is a larger audience. With more people in attendance, there’s more bodies to absorb the sound. The fewer the people, the more intense the reverb.
“I always wanted to have maximum people,” Mangan says. “If we could sell out, that’s so much better for the performance. Yes it’s scarier, but you’re not looking at the crowd, you’re looking at the flag, or you’re looking at the fountains.”
Fear, however, has never been a major factor for Mangan. She approaches every performance with a simple and logical deduction.
“It’s just part of the experience,” Mangan says. “I know that if I’m going to sing, then there’s going to be people there. Isn’t that the goal? So to be afraid of the very thing that is actually your goal doesn’t make sense.
“If you love to do something, then why would you ever be afraid of it?” Mangan says.
The variety of singers and performances the Royals present keep each game interesting. Whether it’s a solo singer, a group, or even instrumentalists, the application is the same. While Mangan has been singing for the team for 12 years, they’re always introducing new singers and groups to honor the nation.
And there’s even opportunities for some of the youngest, most inexperienced musicians around Missouri and Kansas to get involved.
On May 28, before Kansas City bested the Cincinnati Reds in a 3-2 victory, Jefferson West High School’s Lakeside Singers took the field in front of a home crowd of 15,430. For choir teacher Mitch Dziewor and his students, it was an experience unlike any they’d had before.
“Our biggest crowds are like high school football games or basketball games,” Dziewor says. “I think that was probably the biggest thing that we’ve ever done, and (the students) were ready for it and super excited about it.”
From Meridian, Kansas—a population of 744 according to the 2020 census—the group of 12 high schoolers performed in front of a crowd nearly 21 times larger than their hometown’s population.
To prepare the teenagers for the biggest audience they’ve ever seen, Dziewor introduced a new tactic in the weeks leading up to the game.
After starting practices normally and working through the national anthem, Dziewor had his Lakeside Singers run laps around the room and do jumping jacks, burpees, whatever they could to get their heart rates moving and lose their breath before singing again.
“I mean, you’re going to be in front of 10,000 people, so yeah, it’s gonna be pumping,” Dziewor says. “They know that song like the back of their hand, though, so I wasn’t really worried too much about it.”
Unlike Mangan, Dziewor’s group did not do a sound check prior to the game, so they discovered the reverb the hard way.
“As soon as we started going and I heard the reverb, I looked at them, and I could see the panic on their faces,” Dziewor says. “I mouthed to them, ‘Just stay with me, just stay with me’. It wasn’t something I was entirely prepared for, but luckily their dedication and their hard work throughout the year on all of the pieces that we’ve sung really helped us.”
Also unlike solo performers, the Lakeside Singers were required to sell 200 discounted tickets to the Royals game in order to perform. In a town of less than 800, this was no small task.
Aware of the challenge ahead of him, Dziewor didn’t reveal to his students that the Royals had selected them until after they devised a plan to reach the ticket goal.
“We ended up making posters and posting on our Facebook, and it was in the announcements, it was at the middle school and all that stuff,” Dziewor says. “We ended up selling, I think 250.”
When gametime finally came, Dziewor couldn’t make it far at Kauffman without seeing a familiar face.
“A whole bunch of people from home ended up showing up,” Dziewor says. “We had quite a good turnout for our little community, which was really something special.”
What Mangan and Dziewor and likely all singers share in their experiences are the Royals’ Gameday crew who work behind the scenes to ensure a smooth performance.
“The gameday experience crew, I have nothing but high praise for them,” Mangan says. “I’ve never had a negative experience with the crew that’s welcoming you. I would love for them to get some of the praise.”
Moments away from singing in front of tens of thousands of fans, the singers have enough on their minds, so the crew makes sure to guide the performers through every step.
“I was just very impressed with the professionalism and intricate timing that they were able to pull off, especially with a group of 12 excited high schoolers,” Dziewor says.
There’s a quiet choreography to it all—the kind that immortalizes the anthem’s impact. Whether it’s in front of a sell-out crowd or a modest midweek game, the “Star-Spangled Banner” binds fans, players, and performers in its shared moment of unity.
It’s not just a pregame ritual, but a stage where a personal passion can take the form of something bigger and join one of sport’s greatest traditions.
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