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Valley native to sing anthem at 2nd Indians playoff game
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
A Poland native will sing the national anthem at the start of Friday’s Cleveland Indians playoff game at Progressive Field.
Brittany Best, 22, was notified by the baseball club last week that she had been chosen to sing at the game, which will be Game 2 of the Division Series. The start time is 5:08 p.m.
The Indians will be playing the winner of tonight’s wild-card playoff game between the New York Yankees and the Minnesota Twins.
Best has been singing the anthem at Indians games since she was 15 years old, performing once a year, on average. Her most recent performance was in August.
She sends a CD of her singing to the Indians every year as an audition.
Friday will mark the first time Best will sing at a playoff game, and she was excited when she learned she was chosen.
“I was really shocked,” she said. “I’m used to contacting them about singing, and when they contacted me I was very surprised, especially because it’s a playoff game. You usually think of celebrities singing at playoff games.”
Best is a 2014 graduate of Boardman High School (she attended the school on a tuition basis in order to participate in its performing arts program). She is currently a junior at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she is majoring in voice performance and songwriting.
After graduating, she plans to pursue a career as a touring performer in pop, or pop-country music.
The daugher of Cindy Best of Poland and David Best of Youngstown, she was a frequent performer at the Youngstown Playhouse when she was in high school. At Boardman High, she was part of the drama club and the chorale.
She also has sung the anthem at Youngstown Phantoms hockey games, veterans memorial services and high school football games.
When asked if the Indians usually win when she sings the anthem, Best wasn’t sure of her record. “They did win the past couple ones I sang at,” she said.