Fifteen years later Brad Thomas still cannot find the words.
Words of thanks. Words of reflection. Words of a home-run life well lived.
“It’s a miracle. Somebody was watching out for me,’’ Thomas, 38, a left-handed reliever who spent five seasons in the majors with the Twins and Tigers, told The Post this week from his home in Sydney, Australia.
In the late summer of 2001, fate arrived for Thomas in the form of the powerful right-handed bat of his minor-league teammate, then-22-year-old Michael Cuddyer.
That season Cuddyer had blasted 30 home runs for the New Britain Rock Cats, leading the Minnesota Twins’ Double-A team to the playoffs. In the best-of-five semifinals, they faced their cross-state rivals, the Norwich Navigators, the Yankees’ Double-A squad.
But days before the series’ outcome, each player had to make travel arrangements home in case they didn’t advance in the playoffs. That’s how it’s done in the minor leagues.
“You don’t want to hang around,’’ Cuddyer, now 37, told The Post from his home in Virginia. “Everybody has their flights or their drive home scheduled. Brad was going home to Australia so he definitely had to lock in his flight.’’
‘We had our bags packed and we’re ready to roll out the door. Mikey saved my life. Incredible. Just incredible.’
- Brad Thomas
Thomas and his girlfriend, Kylie, who later became his wife, had tickets to fly out of Boston to LA and then on to Sydney. And with the Rock Cats trailing by a run in Game 1, it looked like the early flight would be needed.
But on a 3-2 pitch in the bottom of the ninth, Cuddyer drilled a game-winning, walk-off home run off right-hander Domingo Jean.
A few days later, in the clinching Game 4, Cuddyer smacked the go-ahead home run in the seventh inning. The victory propelled the team into the Eastern League championship against Reading.
“Michael put us through, it was jubilation,’’ Thomas recalled.
“But then the next day happens.’’
Shocked players gathered at New Britain Stadium, where unspeakable sadness — and the miracle of Thomas’ escape — began to sink in.
He had booked two seats on American Airlines Flight 11, flying out of Logan Airport on Sept. 11 — arrangements rendered unnecessary by Cuddyer’s heroics.
Without those clutch homers, Thomas would have been on the Boeing 767 hijacked by five terrorists and flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. — the first of that terrible day’s four terror attacks. Ninety-two people on the plane perished.
“If we had lost, we were out of there first thing,’’ Thomas recalled. “We had our bags packed and we’re ready to roll out the door. Mikey saved my life. Incredible. Just incredible.’’
Cuddyer hit 197 home runs over his major league career, the last 21 coming with the Mets in 2015. But none mattered more than that minor-league walkoff 15 years ago.
“In retrospect,’’ said Cuddyer, who is not one given to hyperbole, “it’s unbelievable. You don’t want to say the minor leagues was the biggest home run of my life but obviously that was the biggest home run I ever hit.
“Had we had lost, that Boston flight was going to be the flight that Brad was going to be on. From my home runs in Little League, minor leagues, big leagues — that was by far the most impactful home run I ever hit.
“It was my first walk-off home run in the minor leagues, [which] was pretty special, then with everything that follows you just realize how special it really was,’’ Cuddyer said.
He remembers vividly the tragic morning at the stadium where “Brad was sitting there with his ticket.
“Everybody could see what everybody was thinking, no words needed to be said,’’ Cuddyer explained.
“You definitely realize how precious life is, and how delicate it is and how quickly it could end.’’
The championship series was never played. New Britain and Reading were named co-champions. Three days later, Cuddyer was called up to the majors.
When Thomas arrived in the big leagues with the Tigers, the two players — long-time roommates in the minors — would hug whenever they saw each other.
“There would be that quiet understanding, not many words,’’ Cuddyer said. “There is no question that either of us will ever forget about the other one.”
Thomas, the father of two young children, said, “There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it and think how lucky I am.”