SAN FRANCISCO — The Mets were given a stark reminder Sunday evening how precious life is and baseball can be pretty insignificant.
Flying into San Francisco International Airport for a three-game series against the Giants at AT&T Park, the Mets team plane landed on the runway parallel to the burned-out and broken carcass of Asiana flight 214, which crash-landed on Saturday, killing two passengers and seriously injuring dozens mores.
Many of the Mets players, especially those sitting on the left side of the plane with an unencumbered view of the wreckage, got a clean look at the sobering sight.
“I took pictures of it. It was pretty devastating,” Mets pitcher LaTroy Hawkins said. “A lot more people could have lost their lives. Just seeing that seawall that the landing gear clipped, man.”
“I am a scared flyer. I don’t fly easily. It is one of my worst fears, flying. It is the first plane crash I’ve seen. I think with my case it is more of not being in control.”
Dillon Gee tweeted about what he saw on the runway after landing on Sunday and reflected on it before last night’s game.
“I was on the side where the plane was. You could see all the debris starting where it hit the seawall,” Gee said. “It was crazy to see half the plane there all charred up. We take for granted that we fly so much in our travels, really the risks never pop into your mind. We just fly so much it is just part of our job. When you see that, it is kind of scary.”
David Wright said he had a clear view of the wreckage.
“It was eye-opening,” Wright said. “You see the debris and the plane on TV, but it doesn’t really hit home until you fly right next to it and see it when we were landing. You feel for everyone involved with it. It was obviously devastating when you see it first-hand the type of damage that the plane took. … It was surreal.”
Not all the Mets saw the wreckage, which was just off the runway to the left of the Mets’ plane. Catcher Anthony Recker said he wasn’t thinking about it while landing.
“Honestly, I didn’t even see it. I didn’t even realize we would be able to see it from the plane,” Recker said. “I heard some of the guys saw the accident from the plane. I didn’t even look. Obviously it is tragic.”
“I didn’t actually see it,” reliever David Aardsma said. “I didn’t really look out too much when we were landing. You know for me, I was focused on other stuff. It was definitely eerie coming into the airport so soon after [the crash]. You think about it and go, ‘What if?’ ”
Perhaps Hawkins put things in perspective best.
“It makes you think that you never know. It could be your day,” Hawkins said. “You see stuff like that and baseball is so small, baseball is minute. There are a lot of other things in this world that are more important than baseball; I can assure you of that.”