Memories of 9/11 still resonate with MLB
Update of 9/11 memories from Martinez, Schneider written on last year's anniversary
The year has changed, but for many of a certain age, emotional memories of Sept. 11, 2001 remain the same. I wrote this column a year ago and present it with updates, as 23 became 24. Prior to the anthems, the Blue Jays asked for a moment of silence at Thursday’s matinee vs. the Astros and, even though the terrorist attack that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City was 24-years ago, it’s remembered as a “where were you?” moment, similar to the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of JFK, the Dec. 8, 1980 killing of John Lennon and the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, dates that live in infamy and continue to be remembered annually. We never forget.
To put it in a baseball perspective, with the unrelenting passing of time, the aging of this tragedy, consider that the youngest three players on the current Blue Jays 40-man roster, Jonatan Clase, Orelvis Martinez and Angel Bastardo (IL), were not yet born, while 37 members of the current 40+IL roster were younger than 10-years-old when the planes hit and changed the world.
For those readers too young to remember, here are some details of the horrific terrorist attack. The morning began with two hijacked airliners flying out of Boston’s Logan Airport that crashed into and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center, In addition was a further attack of a plane that damaged the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and a fourth brought down in rural Pennsylvania, believed headed for the White House.
In the wake of the tragedy, major-league baseball shut down for a week, resuming games, as scheduled, on Sept. 19. The games that had been postponed were added to the end of the year, Oct. 1-7, in the same order, meaning that this World Series between the Yankees and Diamondbacks became extended, for the first time ever, into the month of November.
A cathartic moment for major-league baseball, New York City and all of America came when President George W. Bush dramatically threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, striding to the mound with a Kevlar vest under his Yankee windbreaker, delivering a perfect strike.
Almost everybody has a story about where they were and what the anniversary means to them. Here are several from among those at Rogers Centre.
Buck Martinez was in his first year as Blue Jays manager and his Jays had just played a series in Detroit, ending on Sept. 9. Buck had flown from Motown and spent the off-day with family in New Jersey. He was then driving that morning with his wife, Arlene, down the east coast to Baltimore to rejoin his team for the series, vs. the Orioles. He heard the news of the terrorist attacks on his car radio early in the drive and by the time he arrived at the team hotel, the O’s series had already been cancelled and his coaches were gathered in his suite.
“It’s funny, (’01 pitching coach) Mark Connor always sends me and Garth (Iorg) a text every September 11 and he always says, ‘miss you guys’ and ‘a lot of memories together’,” Buck recalled. “I look forward to (receiving) it every year.” On Thursday morning during BP, Martinez confirmed that the tradition of exchanging text messages with his close friends had continued.
“We all kind of gathered and watched it on television in my room. Nobody said a word. We just sat there and watched. Couldn’t believe it. It hit all of us, but it hit Mark really hard, because he was from New York and had roots there with the Yankees. So, he was really affected.
“Then there were thoughts that the World Trade Center in Baltimore, close to (the newly opened Marriott) where we were at the Inner Harbor, might be another target. That had everybody anxious. Our security guy, Ron Sandelli, was there with us and we knew we were just stuck there. Obviously, there were no planes flying. I think we took four busses back (to Toronto).”
John Schneider was already back on campus at the University of Delaware for his senior year as a Blue Hens catcher, following a summer spent playing in the Cape Cod League. He was drafted in June 2001 by the Tigers, rejecting their offer as a 24th round pick. Instead, the 21-year-old youngster from Princeton, NJ, headed back to class, in the hopes of improving his stock in the ‘02 draft.
“That was an awful day,” Schneider, the Blue Jays’ fourth-year manager began. “My brother was two blocks away from the towers. I remember I was going to class on Tuesday, couldn’t find a parking spot so just decided to shit-can class that day. Came home and my roommate was glued to the TV.
“I had uncles (in New York) … my brother was right there. Cell phones were not working. You’re keeping in touch through instant messenger. Shitty day. I remember going to (Blue Hens) practice that afternoon. All flights were suspended and I heard fighter jets going over our field. It was not great, just because of where I grew up and had a lot of people affected.”
My own personal story: I was at home in Oakville, scheduled to fly to Baltimore later that day for the start of the Jays’ series. I just dropped our two youngest children, Shannon and Patrick, at St. Bernadette’s Catholic Elementary and drove home to prepare for a trip to what still is my favourite ballpark. I poured a coffee and glanced at the TV. The CNN Breaking News report on screen was simply of an airline accident at the World Trade Center.
Speculation from that CNN reporter was a small private plane may have steered off course and flown into one of the towers. As the reporter spoke, in the background, over his right shoulder, in real time, a plane crashed into the other tower and, at that moment, the world, as we knew it, ceased to exist.
Our bosses at The Toronto Star sent out a special request to all employees who had not been scheduled to work that day. There was a special section being produced to be distributed that afternoon. They were asking all-hands-on-deck to help with writing, production and distribution. It was then I self-discovered that I would never become one of those grizzled veteran reporters with the fedora that says “Press” whose goal in life is to get the story first, no matter what. Instead, I sat in a daze on the sofa without speaking and watched 15 straight hours of coverage.
During that eyes-wide-open nightmare, I thought of related memories. There was one that still haunts me. In the early ‘90s, when I was with the Expos, we had flown to New York to face the Mets. The charter landed at LaGuardia late at night, but the team busses were parked at Kennedy. Simple. The plane took off for the 10-minute flight between NYC airports. The unfamiliar route took us across the island of Manhattan and I remember that as we banked around the Twin Towers at about the actual height of the buildings, I looked into the lighted offices of one of the upper floors, able to see what was on desks and other details, wondering who might be working there and marvelling at how close we flew. In hindsight, it has become a chilling memory.
How much has the world changed in the aftermath of 9/11? Consider this. My then-colleague at the Star, the award-winning Geoff Baker, now a vice-president with the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, was already in Baltimore ahead of the series. And, yes, The Star used to travel both a reporter and columnist back in the day, as did the Toronto Sun. Yes, the Trade Center had already been hit, but when further news came out of a simultaneous attack at the Pentagon, Baker, whose background was as a news journalist at The Montreal Gazette, negotiated hard to rent the last available car from Avis and drove the two hours to the nation’s capital to cover the story at the country’s national defence headquarters.
Baker parked as close to the Pentagon as he could, given the number of police, fire and emergency vehicles there. Geoff somehow worked his way to where the biggest crowd of first responders and news people was and flashed his Baseball Writers card to the police … who waved him in for a closer view.
BBWAA card access to terrorism? Now we can’t even get from Rogers Cebntre clubhouse to the field with that card. That’s how much things have changed in the way the world works and has never and will never ever be the same. Let’s never forget the lessons of 9/11 and think of the victims and their families, in honouring their memory.