With so much negativity going on these days, it’s great to see some sweet, positive things still happening across the country. One such fun, heartwarming, and patriotic video went viral on X in early May of 2024, with obvious reason: it shows young men standing with their hands over their hearts for the National Anthem before a high school baseball game, then, as the Anthem wraps up, a propellor-driven plane flies over.
“Big Timber Custom,” a Marine Corps veteran, posted the video to X, saying, “One of my old pals at work just showed me this. Small town 🇺🇸. His grandson’s ball game over in ‘Bama. The man singing our Anthem is a Marine vet & the high school principal. That’s my buddy with the flyover. Pretty good timing, for an old Navy Tomcat driver. 😜 Play ball!”
The commenters on the video were overwhelmingly positive. One commenter, for example, said, “Thanks for the goosebumps 🫡” to which Big Timber Custom replied by saying, “It got me too.” Another person replying to that comment about goosebumps wrote, “Fly overs always make me feel so giddy and patriotic.”
A different commenter noted that the video shows that the community in which the young men were playing ball is a strong one, saying, “That’s a damn good community right there 🇺🇸💪🏻” to which Big Timber Custom replied by saying, “Sure is.”
Yet another commenter chimed in to note that Alabama contributes greatly to America’s military, saying, “AL had the highest percentage of those who serve per capita and their National Guard was as large as CA’s.” Big Timber Custom noted, “Good people in general” and another person replying wrote, “Best state in the country…no lie. Mountains and beaches.”
Still another commenter noted that the video is a welcome reprieve from the negativity, saying, “Thank you! That just made my day, that was wonderful! 😀😎🇺🇸🇺🇸” Agreeing, Big Timber Custom wrote, “There’s lots of good stuff happening all of the time in our country. It’s easy to get overloaded with the negativity sometimes. There’s still a lot of people doing things the right way.”
Watch the video here:
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Tuscaloosa News added some context to the video in a report on the heartwarming incident, reporting, “Gordo baseball had a special addition pregame prior to its playoff series against Lauderdale County on Wednesday.” It added, “Following the conclusion of the national anthem, Jody Richardson — with stepson Michael and grandchildren Millie and Reese — performed a flyover at Jonathan Pate Stadium in Richardson’s 1947 Navion aircraft.“
Mr. Richardson, who is a retired United States Navy Captain and whose grandson is on the baseball team, said, “If it had been anybody asking me to do a flyover, I would have said ‘I don’t know, let me think about it. Because of the way they do their national anthem here at this field, I said, ‘Yes, I would love to be part of that.” Unfortunately, his grandson’s team lost both games, thus dropping out of the playoffs.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video