Tragedy and Triumph: A History of Sports as America's Band-Aid

In the early fall of 2001, New York was rocked by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  In one hour and forty three minutes, the tallest buildings in Manhattan had gone from glistening beacons of American achievement to a mass grave for three thousand innocent people. 

When the buildings fell, everything stopped.  The famous New York City Subway, which carries countless millions of people everyday ground to a halt, Times Square was evacuated and Central Park was closed for the first time in history.  Perhaps the least important thing that happened that day was Major League Baseball’s decision to indefinitely cancel all of their games. 

  At the time, no one realized just how much of an impact Major League Baseball was going to have in giving New York City a sense of normalcy again. 

New York City is known around the world for its museums, world class restaurants, breathtaking skyline and baseball.  Around the world, the word most commonly associated with New York is “Yankees.”  New Yorkers wait every year for opening day to renew the rivalries that have hibernated all winter while they watched the Knicks lose game after game. 

The summer of 2001 was no different. 

The Yankees coming off their third consecutive World Series victory were leading the American League East and the Mets were on a tear through the second half of the season coming from thirteen games back to just four games back on September 10th. 

Then, all of a sudden, the rivalries didn’t matter anymore. 

The NYPD and NYFD had taken unbelievable causalities and New Yorkers were worried about missing family members, not if the Mets would catch the Braves for that coveted first National League East title since the Braves began their run in 1991.  However, eleven nights later, the Mets, New York’s second team, brought the city what it most needed: baseball.

September 22, 2001 is a date that everyone has already forgotten, but no one has forgotten the picture of Mike Piazza effectively lifting the spirits of an entire city with a towering homerun in the eighth inning to give the Mets the lead in the first game since 9/11.  That was the same night, where Mr. Yankee, Rudy Giuliani ventured out to Shea Stadium and gave every New Yorker the sign that it was OK to be a fan again. 

In the previous eleven days, the restaurants had reopened, the subways began to rumble again, albeit not below Canal St, even planes had begun to fly, but what brought New York back in the biggest way was that first pitch. 

Sports are the only type of event that happens on a regular basis which can bring millions of people together.  If there is a concert at Radio City Music Hall, 7,000 people can see it and talk about it, but when the Mets played that game, 41,000 New Yorkers watched live and millions more watched on TV. 

  New Yorker’s rallied around the “second team” and for one day only, Yankees fans cheered along with Mets fans.  The greatest gift of that Mets game was the permanence that came with it.  Unlike a benefit concert that rocks Madison Square Garden for one night and then fades, the Mets were playing again the next night and the night after that. 

  That consistency is what gives sports the ability to be a band-aid in trying times. 

In the fall of 2001, every New Yorker woke up to the front page of the Daily News and the inevitable picture of a flag draped coffin.  However, the escape from that reality was plastered on the back page of the same paper.  The ubiquitous clever headline with a picture of a Met or Yankee underneath gave a grieving city a place to turn. 

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