It’s one thing to be stabbed in the back. It’s another to be stabbed in the back by someone you consider your own.
The Mets had long planned to wear baseball hats representing New York’s police department, fire department, port authority, canine police and state courts during yesterday’s 9/11 remembrance game at Citi Field.
It would have been not only fitting, but simply the right thing to do, considering how much the Mets helped the healing process after the attacks on the Twin Towers a decade ago by wearing the hats of the respective law enforcement and rescue agencies for the remainder of that 2001 season.
Yet, the geniuses at Major League Baseball, including former Yankees manager Joe Torre, decided to trump those plans, issuing a league-wide policy not to wear such hats during games. Instead, the Mets were limited to wearing their NYPD, FDNY and PAPD hats only during batting practice two hours before the game and the ceremony right before they played the Cubs last night. They then changed into their regular game hats with a tiny commemorative flag on the side.
Torre should know better. He was the Yankees manager during 9/11 and knows how badly this city was shaken and how much the Mets did to bring some normalcy back to its people. The hats were part of that. Yet, instead of sticking up for the Mets, he buried himself in rhetoric.
“We just felt all the major leagues are honoring the same way with the American flag on the uniform and the cap,” he told the Associated Press. “This is a unanimity thing.”
He insisted “it wasn’t a lack of respect,” but it sure comes off that way. Whatever they did in Anaheim was fine. But the Twin Towers fell one borough from here. The Mets delivered supplies to Ground Zero.
Torre said he had discussions with the Mets. But someone should have reminded him how much meaning the Mets wearing those hats had in 2001, when nearly 3,000 people lost their lives and the city was in mourning. He should have talked to New York police officer Harry Torres.
Torres was in his dress blues behind the Mets dugout during batting practice yesterday, having just come from attending ceremonies at the World Trade Center site. He was holding the backrest of an orange seat from Shea Stadium, bearing the signatures of a number of former Mets, including John Franco, Keith Hernandez, Ron Swoboda and Tom Seaver.
Born and raised in Washington Heights, Torres had been a Mets fan for most of his life, but his passion for the team took root when they wore those hats after 9/11.
“You grow up seeing baseball players and they’re basically your heroes,” Torres said. “Then you have them wearing something that you do. They were honoring us. It felt uplifting.”
Torres was called into duty that awful day 10 years ago and spent the next several weeks working security at the tunnels. Seeing the Mets wear those hats meant everything.
“It was a public statement that we’re with you, we support you, and it was a thank you,” he said. “It was much appreciated.”
The Mets didn’t get to make that statement yesterday, at least not the way they fully intended. It reminded Franco of 2001 when MLB tried to limit the Mets wearing those hats to just one game. The players weren’t about to take them off.
“I don’t think you could have taken the hats off any of the 25 guys,” said Franco, the former Mets closer who threw out the ceremonial first pitch last night to Mike Piazza. “We were going to wear them no matter what.”
Most of the current Mets were in high school or younger when the Twin Towers crumbled. They can’t be expected to have the kind of passion Franco and his teammates had to wear the hats. But it’s not about the players. It’s about honoring the people who were at Ground Zero.
Torre, of all people, should know that.