Abigail Tomblin used to be a Cubs fan. A pretty big one, too. But when the White Sox came calling, she had a change of heart.
On Thursday, the 12-year-old La Porte County native performed the National Anthem in front of 26,158 people at U.S. Cellular Field. Was she nervous? A little bit. She says she felt more excited than anything.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Tomblin said. “I just never really expected this to happen, but I was confident up there.”
Tomblin sang in her 7th-grade choir and periodically performs the Star-Spangled Banner. She has sang since she was eight, but never in front of a crowd like this. Her mother, Holly, was not originally the biggest fan of the idea.
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“She would do it at her sister’s high school basketball games, but we tried to talk her out of it,” she said. “It is just hard for anybody to sing in front of this kind of a crowd.”
The soft-spoken Tomblin admits that she had reservations about one section.
“Today, I was just afraid of the note at the end,” she said. “I usually hit it, but sometimes, I don’t. I did today.”
Like any good performer, she fed off the crowd’s energy. The South Side faithful awarded her a standing ovation.
“My favorite part of today was when everybody started cheering for me,” she said. “That is when I knew they liked me.”
Tomblin says that this lifetime memory will give her encouragement moving forward.
“If I can sing in front of all these people, I’m sure I can sing pretty much anywhere,” she said. “Especially in front of, like, 100 people.”
She has not fully pledged her allegiance to the Pale Hose. She says she is overall just a Chicago fan. On Thursday, residents all over the Windy City became fans of her.