The following column by Joel Sherman appeared in The Post on the morning of Sept. 22, 2001, one day after Mike Piazza’s two-run homer in the eighth inning lifted the Mets to a 3-2 victory over the Braves at Shea Stadium in the first baseball game played in New York after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This night, and that homer, have lived on as the seminal sports memories of that incredible time.
***
It was a night for symbolism beyond even the obvious such as Diana Ross’s goosebump-raising rendition of “God Bless America” and the 35-foot- by-50-foot vinyl billboard of the stars and stripes that now dominates the right-field scoreboard.
Commercial planes soared over Shea in the pre-game and not only were they not the usual nuisance, but as Mets GM Steve Phillips said, “I heard a couple and was glad we were getting back to normal.”
Met co-owners Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday, who usually make sure never to be in the same place at the same time because of their mutual loathing, were on the field together, separated by no more than the red, white and blue ribbons painted near both dugouts.
Rudy Giuliani, the city’s most overt Yankee fan and ordinarily persona non grata at Shea, received not one, but two rousing standing ovations replete with chants of “Rudy, Rudy.”
The Mets and Braves, those best of enemies, followed stirring pre-game pageantry with a congratulatory line similar to those that punctuate a Stanley Cup playoff series and included a hug between Atlanta manager Bobby Cox and Bobby Valentine, a pair who actually make Wilpon and Doubleday seem like cast members of “Friends.”
And then perhaps the most unlikely symbol of all took the field. For much of this season, the Mets were viewed as an underachieving, disappointing group. Now New York looks to them to be a Met-aphor of rising from rubble. Of not surrendering. Of performing a miracle, at least of the sports variety.
“Everyone is crossing their fingers and hoping for a miracle, but they are hoping that miracle occurs downtown,” Phillips said. “But if it is not going to happen there, it sure would be nice for everyone if it happened here.”
The feeling of the extraordinary encircled the Mets yet again last night. Mike Piazza, who cried during moving opening ceremonies, blew kisses to enthralled fans who saluted him in a Shea-shaking frenzy after he crushed a two-run homer onto the TV platform beyond the center-field fence with one out in the eighth. That blast rallied the surging Mets to a 3-2 victory that moved Mission Impossible even more into the Mission Improbable category.
On Aug. 17, they were 13 1/2 games out. Now they are just 4 1/2 out and still have five games against the first-place Braves, including two more this weekend. Do you believe in miracles?
“I was glad to come through and give these people something to cheer for at last,” Piazza said. “That’s why they came out, to be diverted from the sorrow and the loss.”
The first baseball game in New York since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks came with all the right flourishes. Both heroic rescue workers and the innocent dead were honored with a combination of rousing applause and respectful silence. Fans demonstrated patriotism with flag-waving, U-S-A-chanting fervor. And the mere presence of 41,235 showed a balance of defiance and community.
Met players again wore the hats of the NYPD and Fire Department, vowing to do so the rest of the year even if the Commissioner’s Office does not give authorization. Stitched on their right sleeves was the date 9-11-01 with a flag. On Thursday, seven members of the team went to Ground Zero and Valentine said,
“We talked to about 1,000 people and 90 percent knew of the game (last night) or how many games out we were . . . I don’t know win or lose if we are symbols, that is a heavy load to carry on the field. But I think we’ve been an inspiration.”
In spring, we had envisioned this late-season series against Atlanta would be filled with meaning, then for much of the summer we thought it would be trivial. But on the first night of autumn, a Brave-Met series was laced with the kind of significance none of us could have conceived, a significance so heavy that Todd Zeile said this game was more important than any of the five Subway Series games last October.
It was a game the Mets literally played for free, having donated their game salary to the families of those lost in the Twin Tower destruction.
Once the game began, the Shea fans booed Chipper Jones just like always and tried to motivate the home team to figure out a way to outdo the Braves. In what has been a terrible period, this was terrific symbolism, as well.
That of normalcy.