With Major League Baseball’s Opening Day here, Nationals players and fans aren’t the only ones eagerly waiting for baseball’s return. The team’s cadre of national anthem singers has also been preparing all winter long.

That includes D.C. Washington, who on weekends can be found practicing his pipes in the church choir. “I sing in the back row,” he says. “I’m just another choir member.”

But on Thursday at Nationals Park, Washington will be front and center performing the national anthem at the team’s Opening Day. Though he can be modest, Washington is one of the District’s most prolific anthem singers.

And, yes, that’s his real name.

It’s short for Dwight Clyde Washington, and it provides perfect symmetry for someone who sings at some of D.C.’s biggest sporting events. The Army veteran has sung at football games, soccer matches, basketball games — even Game 3 of the 2019 World Series.

Washington estimates he has performed the anthem at Nats Park about 60 times. Despite all those “rockets’ red glares,” he still gets nervous about messing up or forgetting the words.

“When I did my first [anthem] at FedEx Field, for three weeks, I would go over and over and over the words,” Washington says. “And every time I messed up, I would think, ‘that’s my ESPN moment’ because the only time the anthem singer gets on ESPN is when he screwed up.”

Washington is one of about ten performers in the Nationals Park rotation, but the team is always looking for more. It is currently taking submissions from national anthem hopefuls and will continue to do so throughout the season. The team has gotten about 150 submissions so far, a spokesperson said. The hope is to find 15 to 20 new performers that can be part of the Nats’ rotation for years to come. 

Washington has advice for all those rookies: first, always bring a pitch pipe. Second: internalize the song’s complicated rhyming scheme.

For example: “‘Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.’ There’s no rhyme there,” Washington says. “‘Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.’ All that rhymes with the very first part. That’s where the rhyming takes place… That may not bother anybody else, but it can throw me off.”

Bob McDonald is another one of the city’s most famed national anthem performers. He agrees that the rhyme scheme can be tricky, but what throws him more is the song’s range.

“It’s a big, large range … it’s two octaves,” McDonald says. “For me, it’s just a matter of preparing and making sure my voice is warmed up and [I am able to go] low and high. It’s rangy, it’s a tough song.”

McDonald is also an Army veteran and has sung at the World Series, the Stanley Cup finals, and even the Super Bowl. McDonald estimates he’s performed the anthem hundreds of times across the D.C. area, including for the last three decades for the Washington Capitals. He’ll again be singing at Nats Park later this season.

But, like Washington, all that experience doesn’t mean he’s not constantly practicing and running through the song. He typically gets to a game two hours early, so there’s time to do a few run-throughs.

“I think getting there early is a big part of my routine just to be calm and warming up a little bit … just singing through it,” McDonald said. “There’s a couple of bathrooms in the bowels of Nats Park and Capital One Arena that have the best acoustics in the city.”

McDonald’s advice for others who want to sing the anthem on the biggest of stages — sing wherever you can. That could be in church choirs, rock bands, or in his case, by performing in his other love: musical theater. He’s performed in cabaret shows around the region, and this spring, will appear in Arlington’s Signature Theater’s production of Sweeney Todd. (He’s part of the ensemble and the understudy for the title role.)

Pete Subsara, the Nats’ head of game presentation, emphatically agrees with McDonald’s practice, practice, practice insight. Subsara picks the stadium’s national anthem singers, and he’s the one going through all those auditions from would-be performers.

Subsara loves a singer that’s experienced, powerful, and unique. It’s also a home run when a saxophone, trumpet, or even an electric guitar gets involved.

“I’ve listened to hundreds and hundreds of anthems. And I always love hearing instruments play the anthem,” he says. “I think it’s a unique sound that reverberates throughout the ballpark.”

While Subsara is preparing to pick some new voices to join the ranks of anthem singers, Washington and McDonald are co-aces of that rotation and for a good reason. They both see themselves as stewards of the song instead of being the center of attention.

“I’m fast. There’s not a whole lot of frills, and I’m gone,” Washington says. “It’s not about me. I count it as a privilege.”

McDonald had something similar to say. “I learned early on that the secret was to just get it over with,” McDonald says. “There’s a way to do it without making it about yourself and to make it about the country. As former Army, [I’m] thinking about some of the people I served with.”

They both say they perform the anthem in about a minute and twenty seconds, far shorter than many Super Bowl anthems that clock in at nearly two minutes.

Though the anthem’s lyrics obviously carry a lot of weight for both men, McDonald says it’s often the two words that come after the national anthem’s last verse that usually gets the biggest ovation of all from fans.

“Hopefully, you sing along, and you have your hand over your heart,” he says, “and you yell, ‘play ball’ at the end.”