The Women's Pro Baseball League played its first game ever on August 1 at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, and somehow the pregame anthem ended up the bigger story than the New York Heights and Los Angeles Queens combining for a 10-8 Queens win. Martha Reeves, flanked by two other singers in fringed western outfits, stepped up to the mic before first pitch, and what came out of the speakers was pure chaos.
Two singers in fringed western outfits work the mic near the flagpole while players line both baselines for the anthem.
Different keys, timing that fell apart in real time, notes that wandered off and never came back — it was rough enough that players on both baselines were reportedly caught stifling laughs trying to keep straight faces. The clip ripped through social media, racking up nearly 2 million views on X by the next morning, and Barstool's own account teed it up with zero context beyond "you've never heard an Anthem quite like this one."
That's where Frank Fleming came in with the reality check nobody asked for but everybody needed. He identified the singer as Martha Reeves — yes, that Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, the group behind Motown staples like "Dancing in the Street" and "Heat Wave." His first take was blunt: she's 85 now and, in his words, has "no business singing" anymore.
This anthem Martha Reeves. She was once a big time MoTown singer. She is now 85 and has no business singing. https://t.co/GvawIlWyB3
But Fleming didn't stop at the dunk. A few hours later he flipped the script entirely, posting that the "viral anthem singer" is "actually a legend" — acknowledging the Motown pedigree that got buried under the pile-on. Barstool's main account picked up that same reframe later in the day, running the identical headline and giving the story a second life as a career-appreciation piece instead of just a blooper reel.
Viral Anthem Singer Martha Reeves is actually a legend https://t.co/ooikJRPf46
It's the split you'd expect any time a viral clip involves someone old enough to have actually earned the legend tag. The internet's first instinct is always to clip the rough notes and move on, but Reeves spent decades as one of the defining voices of Motown's golden era — inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a career that predates almost everyone roasting her by 60 years. An off night at the mic in her mid-80s doesn't erase that, even if it does make for a brutal two minutes of audio.
For the WPBL, the anthem chaos is a weird but not entirely bad problem to have. A brand-new women's league trying to build an audience got its opening game trending for reasons that had nothing to do with the box score, and love it or hate it, more eyeballs found Robin Roberts Stadium because of Reeves than probably would have otherwise. Whether that's the kind of viral moment a fledgling league wants attached to its launch is a different question — but nobody's forgetting the WPBL's first pitch anytime soon.