Saving New York City

This may come off as a bit callous, but despite being a native New Yorker, I was never really affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11th all that directly. I was only a naïve 14-year old in my second full day of high school when the planes struck, and in my immaturity, I couldn’t really comprehend the enormity of the devastation.

I was more concerned with negotiating a future of unlimited possibilities, a past of misery and depression, and a present of actual freedom for the first time in my life.

Freedom—such a powerful word. How ironic it is that the same time I was beginning to experience freedom from my parents, freedom as a whole was under attack from Middle-Eastern insurgents.

After being strictly over protected as a child, realizing that my father was a failure of a human being—a person lacking character, integrity, and emotion (unless of course he was angry with people who weren’t catering to his aggravating and whimsical wishes) and spending three years of my life in a tiny parochial junior high school where I had no chance to succeed socially, I was relishing the fresh start high school was going to provide.

Even my sanctuary as a youth—the New York Mets—was a cause of heartache.

They stunk for the longest time in the 90’s until Bobby Valentine took over as manager for the tail end of the decade. Even though they were improving, a miserable collapse in ‘98—pinnacled by a three game season-ending brooming in Atlanta—left the Mets stunned and out of the postseason. ‘99 and ‘00 were better, but the Mets were still losers in the end with the Yankees capturing the World Series Trophy each of those years.

I didn’t have cable as a kid, but I loved listening to Bob Murphy and Gary Cohen calling the game on the radio. So every summer night, even as a 3rd or 4th grader, I would listen to WFAN to hear my Mets. I was rarely out—especially at nights—and an imagination can only take a person so far.

Thus baseball became a religion.

And in my diverse public elementary school, there were plenty of fun people to talk baseball with—whether it be about the Mets, the Yankees, or even the San Diego Padres on occasion.

But when graduation came, we all went our separate ways—with me getting dumped in a Catholic junior high school named Our Lady of Angels, that I had no interest in going to.

The change was shocking. Everybody had to wear uniforms: light blue shirts, navy pants, black shoes, and a navy blue tie.

Almost all of the kids had been in the school for five years, since it ran grades K-8. Instead of the impersonality of being in a large public school, I was at a place where teachers had taught the students’ parents way back when, and the kids had been family friends forever. I was the outsider.

I was also—out of a class of around 30 people—one of only two Mets fans. The other was some kid who had been caught on multiple occasions picking his nose.

When the rest of the class found out I was a Mets fan, they made it clear very early—and very emphatically—how much the team sucked, and how much I sucked for being a Mets fan.

By their simple mindset on life, I was unacceptable. I was branded. What a far cry from my elementary school, where we might tease each other for the teams we rooted for, but always in a good-natured and sarcastic sort of way.

The same cannot be said of junior high mates, who were quite hostile.

Of course, it didn’t matter that they talked about how the Yankees had won infinitely more championships than anyone.  The fact of the matter was that they couldn’t name any specific players from any specific teams, and they had no idea who any of the managers of the teams were—like Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, and other Yankee legends.

But in their eyes, they were the authority on baseball—and subsequently, the authority on anything and everything.

To be sure, there were plenty of other reasons for my branding. Obviously, I was the new kid in school. But I was also the kid who loved Pokemon, didn’t have cable, had a carelessly upbeat attitude, and had messed up hair because I only wanted to play and didn’t care about looking nice.

I was still a kid—and because of my very traditional Filipino immigrant mother and my abomination of a father, I had no knowledge of anything mature in the world. I was socially inept and became exploited by the nature of social politics.

But at least the Mets were going through the best run in my lifetime while I was in junior high. In ‘99, with the Mets needing to win every game to make the postseason, there was my favorite player, Rick Reed, in game number 161 of the season, tossing a three hit shutout, striking out 12 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That moment is easily the proudest I’ve ever felt as a sports fan. There was also Todd Pratt walking off against the Diamondbacks with a home run to dead center field, and Robin Ventura’s epic grand slam single in the 15th inning. The next year, the Mets romped their way to a World Series appearance, with a near complete game turned in by Bobby Jones against San Francisco.

And even though the Mets were struggling after I graduated in 01, I didn’t really care.

I didn’t care that the Mets were inept that year, or that Rick Reed had been traded. I was done with junior high, and was excited for the opportunity to start over in Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School.

In one week, my life exploded. The simple freedom of being more than three blocks away from my parents, the fresh new faces from diverse backgrounds and with diverse ideas, the trust bestowed by teachers debating with students during the first day of class, and of course, the girls—they didn’t exactly have hourglass figures back at Our Lady of Angels.

Plus, the Mets had turned things completely around, roaring back from double digits to get within shouting distance of the Braves in the East.

In one September week, I felt renewed as a person.

And then the planes struck.

I made more friends on September 11th than in any other day in my entire life—either by simply trying to regain a sense of normalcy during the ensuing chaos, or commiserating with people I had just met and trying to comfort them as they desperately tried to get news of loved ones who worked in lower Manhattan. A person feels proud when he keeps a friend’s head up through tough times, and then they get that phone call that says their loved ones are all right.

I myself didn’t know anybody who worked in lower Manhattan, so I had no immediate sense of despair over the events. That’s why I almost look back at the day as a positive one, a turning point in my outlook as a person.

To this day, I haven’t felt bonds as strong as the ones I forged on the 11th.

But taking the train home, I felt the weight of the misery. The first time I stepped out of the school on my way home, the sulfuric smell in the air nearly choked me to tears. After I arrived at my house I turned on the T.V.—and there they were, the two World Trade Center buildings standing tall, on fire and collapsing into rubble.

6,000 people instantly dead. Suddenly, all the good vibes of my first week of school vanished.

It wasn’t so much the shock of the event itself. I was pretty numb to the horror of the planes being struck and collapsing. Rather, it was the sustained hopelessness that encompassed the city right after.

Every day the death toll would rise. Every day there would be a story of a ruined family; every day would bring wave after wave of shattered human lives.

And there was no escaping the misery. Not in the “real” world at least.

Day after day would pass, as more images, more videos, and more heart-wrenching stories would be shared. The city needed a diversion—a distraction from the events that transpired.

New York needed something to cheer for again. I needed something to cheer for again.

One week after the attacks, Major League Baseball decided to resume playing baseball.

In front of a reverent and respectful Pittsburgh crowd, the Mets swept a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a nice start towards a return to normalcy, but Pittsburgh might have been light years away for all I cared.

New York still lacked a signature event that everyone could get behind.

But at least with the sweep, the Mets pulled to within 5 ½ games of the first place Braves. Even the Yankee fan friends I had made in high school were pulling for the Mets to succeed.  After all, the Mets were an underdog fighting and clawing towards a nearly impossible goal of a division crown—the same way the city of New York was fighting and clawing towards a nearly impossible goal of normalcy.

On September 21, 2001, the first place Braves rolled into New York. The city finally had the chance to fully immerse themselves into something that didn’t remind them of death and despair.

The city had a chance to cheer on a baseball game.

I don’t remember much of the game. I remember sitting on my couch, listening to it on the radio. Usually, I would have the game on in the background while I played Nintendo or something—but not this game.

Listening to this particular game was the only thing worth doing. All I really remember was feeling like I was punched in the gut when Atlanta took a 2-1 lead in the 8th. After all I had witnessed in the previous days—and after all the city had been through—it apeared that once again, some things just couldn’t be overcome.

6,000 people were dead, and the Mets would never win a big game against the Braves.

And then the bottom of the inning came around. A runner reached base, and up stepped Mike Piazza.

All I did was hope and pray. I expected the worst, actually. A strikeout, a double play.

I was used to the worst. The city had just experienced the worst. The Mets always played their worst against the Braves…

Steve Karsay’s pitch hit Piazza’s bat—and through the crackle of the radio, the ball traveled forever.

People were allowed to celebrate again. Innocence could return to the city. And in a way, everything that had happened to me in the past was absolved with that home run.

Piazza had stepped up to the plate for everybody’s present and everybody’s future, and he reminded us that there is more in life than pillars of smoke and rubble, death and destruction.

Piazza stepped up to bat for joy and optimism, and delivered the most glorious of results.

It’s no surprise that my love of baseball dwindled from that moment onward. The Mets eventually fell short to Atlanta in 2001, beginning a bleak period that would last until 2006.

But that probably isn’t the main reason. I think it very possible that when I transformed myself in high school, I had to sacrifice my past, and sacrifice my love of baseball.

Or maybe, I had given my baseball soul to Mike Piazza—at a time when I needed something to believe in, something uplifting, something where I could put all my trust, and leave my naivety and innocence behind.

That love of the Mets is still traveling far through a September 21st night.