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We've officially gone from a situation of strange coincidence to a legitimate trend when it comes to Brad Paisley singing the national anthem at the World Series. The country music star sang the national anthem ahead of Game 3 between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night. The contest didn't end until the early morning hours of Tuesday, as it took 18 innings and over six and a half hours before Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off home run to give Los Angeles a 6-5 win. Paisley is no stranger to singing the anthem before World Series games that turn into extra-inning affairs. Game 3 on Monday night marked Paisley's second time singing the national anthem before a World Series game that went 18 innings. The avid Dodgers fan also performed the anthem prior to Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, a game that ended on a Dodgers' walk-off home run courtesy of Max Muncy to beat the Boston Red Sox. Not only has Paisley now sung the national anthem prior to the two longest games in World Series history — the 18-inning games in Los Angeles — but he's seen other extra-inning World Series games too. Paisley performed the anthem ahead of Game 2 in 2017, a 7-6 win for the Houston Astros over the Dodgers in 11 innings. He also sang the anthem ahead of Game 1 in 2024, which ended with Freeman launching the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history when the Dodgers beat the Yankees. All in all, Paisley is a good luck charm for the Dodgers, given that they've gone 3-1 in the games he's performed at, but those contests have taken their sweet, sweet time to wrap up. Paisley's national anthem trend has to be one of the wildest and strangest not just in baseball history, but in the history of sports altogether. If you see this man and his guitar on a baseball field, the heavy odds are that you're going to be there for a long, long time.
