SAN DIEGO _ The 2016 All-Star Game at Petco Park began with a Canadian anthem controversy and as the game was played Tuesday night in San Diego, the internet lit up with outrage.
Two years after the All-Star Game was embroiled in controversy for something San Diego-centric that it didn't do during the entire game (honor Tony Gwynn), this year's contest at Petco Park became embroiled in controversy before it even began.
One member of the Tenors, on hand to sing "O Canada," the Canadian national anthem, changed the lyrics to include a reference to "all lives matter," a political statement that popped up in the wake of the political statement that "black lives matter."
The anthem only aired on television in Canada, according to Deadspin's Timothy Burke, but disbelief and anger and an apology quickly made their way to America.
With racial tensions high in the U.S. in the wake of two killings by police of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota and the killings of five police officers in Dallas at a rally to protest the police killings, the lyric change didn't go over well on Twitter.
Before the game was even over, the Tenors had blamed the lyric change on a "lone wolf" and said that singer would no longer be performing with them.
