Some of baseball's most moving moments last season came on Sept. 17, when fans returned to stadiums throughout the country, stood and proudly sang God Bless America with lumps in their throats and tears in their eyes.

The game was returning to the field after a week's delay following the Sept. 11 tragedies, people needed an outlet for their emotions and, as commissioner Bud Selig so eloquently put it at the time, baseball, as a social institution, shoulders certain responsibilities.

U.S. Air Force General Tommy Franks was called upon to throw out the opening pitch at the Devil Rays' opener. (AP)

Just before opening day this season, as the wave of patriotism continued to surge through a nation still at war and whose wounds remained raw, Major League Baseball announced that the singing of God Bless America would continue in parks until further notice, with the added caveat that games would pause for a minute's worth of reflection as the clock hit 9:11 p.m. during each team's first home night game of the season.

Ever so quietly, though, after listening to fan feedback and with much thought, a handful of clubs are abandoning the playing of God Bless America on a nightly basis during the seventh-inning. Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego -- among others -- now are playing it sporadically, but not habitually.

And it is the right thing to do.

This certainly isn't meant as a knock on either the song or the sentiment that goes with it.

This is just to say that, while we certainly will never forget and while we revere those soldiers currently at war abroad, the time comes -- as President George W. Bush has said more than once -- to move on.

As baseball moves forward in its role as a social institution, it should spend its time negotiating a labor agreement and avoiding another work stoppage, not serving as an indefinite cheerleading coach for the rest of us.

Because I don't think there's any question that baseball can do more for the morale of this country by playing the next several seasons uninterrupted than it can by insisting that everybody stand and sing patriotic songs for the next few months ... and then pull the rug out from underneath us yet again.

That wouldn't be patriotic.

That would be hypocritical.

Look, if there was anything good that came out of Sept. 11, anything good at all, it was that this country pulled together like it rarely has in the past.

But there comes a time when we need to do more than simply wrap ourselves in the flag and thump our chests.

It was heartening -- and reassuring -- last fall when flag sales soared 15 times higher than normal, and when United States citizenship applications jumped 52 percent between September and December (both numbers according to the market research firm America's Research Group).

But it also is disappointing -- and worrisome -- when few of those people show up at the polls. The average voter turnout in the 1990s, in numbers obtained from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, was 90.2 percent in Italy, 85.5 percent in South Africa, 82.7 percent in Australia ... and 44.9 percent in the United States.

And granted, there is no presidential election this year, but in the March 4 gubernatorial primaries, California, according to the Field Institute, saw its lowest participation rate by eligible voters since women were first allowed to vote in the 1920s. And it wasn't alone.

Plenty of excuses were offered -- the end-of-the-year holidays, the Olympics, the war on terrorism. But the fact remains, if everybody who had a flag attached to his or her home or automobile had voted, the lines at the polls would have stretched past the nearest McDonald's.

In these politically correct and uncertain times, of course, people tend to view those who voice criticism or concern warily at best, and with hostility at worst.

Yet these are exactly the times when one of our most cherished rights, the freedom of speech, is most precious. The real danger lies in one way of thinking being forced upon all of us, because sometimes we don't understand each issue as fully as we need to, and sometimes we can be just plain wrong.

Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA often has been heard reverberating throughout ballparks since its 1984 release, and it has served as a rallying point on many occasions. But it's not a patriotic song. Not enough people realize that it actually is a searing indictment of the way this country treated many soldiers upon their return from Vietnam.

Each of us has a voice, and each of us bears some degree of responsibility.

For you and me, that means casting a vote, or donating to a Sept. 11 fund, or volunteering at a Veterans' center, or, yes, perhaps flying a flag with pride.

For baseball, that means Selig and players' union boss Don Fehr figuring out their problems and moving along.

That some folks again would prefer to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame instead of God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch at the local ballpark is not a problem.

That baseball continues to drift along with ominous skies ahead, poised to again fumble its responsibility as a social institution, that's a problem.