To the list of famous singers butchering tunes at baseball games -- a list which proudly includes Ozzy Osbourne and Roseanne Barr -- we can now add the name of William Hung.
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William, the rejected American Idol 3 contestant who turned his tone-deaf version of 'She Bangs' into a top-40 CD that has now sold almost 100,000 copies for the independent label Koch Records, "sang" the baseball classic 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' during the seventh-inning stretch at the Toronto Skydome, in front of 22,225 fans witnessing a Toronto Blue Jays-Texas Rangers game on Sunday. According to the Canadian Press, William was met with a few boos at the start, but another group of fans cheered him on, and a few even sang along.
As proof that William still has a little time left on his "15 minutes of fame," Blue Jays officials said that they issued more media credentials for Sunday's game than they did for Opening Day. Even a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine showed up to "bang" along with William.
For his performance, his third at a sporting event (the other two were NBA playoff games), William received $5,000 (US, not CDN), according to the Globe & Mail. We hope that he invests the money to help with his "day job" -- studying civil engineering at the University of California -- because novelty acts, including William, generally have a short lifespan.