Table of Content
- Probe into Saturday Schenectady blaze ongoing; Seven people displaced, structure demolished (with video)
- For Siena women, it’s back to square one
- Piazza's post-9/11 homer: 15 years ago
- Memories of tears, cheers and Mike Piazza’s Amazin’ home run after 9/11
- “It’s okay to cheer”
- Mike Piazza's post-9/11 home run remains incredibly memorable
You recall, but as life moves on, you build up scar tissue. Now that the 20-year mark is coming around, those old feelings come to the forefront. “I think in this day and age, because it’s so digital and everyone’s attention span is a little shorter, you need to put the time in on things. The Mets are proud he is wearing their cap into the Hall.
"I loved the way we honored our fallen and I wanted to be a part of that," he says. From their first date in 1979, up through the morning of Sept. 11, it didn't matter if they were happy, mad or sad, at the beach or the mall or in their Long Island house -- their hands just kind of called to each other. She often says, "We were that couple," and rolls her eyes in mock nausea, which is how she remembers people reacting to the magnetism she and Ronnie shared.
Probe into Saturday Schenectady blaze ongoing; Seven people displaced, structure demolished (with video)
The people who lost their lives — not only the victims but the first responders that ran in to save people — is what we are about as a people, as a country. We are about an idea, brotherhood, and love and family. It’s wonderful to see the legacy of these first responders is not forgotten. Once I crossed home plate I knew — like, this is pretty cool.
MILWAUKEE -- Brewers bullpen coach Steve Karsay grew up on the doorstep of Shea Stadium. And while that’s meant in a metaphorical sense, it’s not far off. When Karsay was 14 years old and the Mets played the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, he and some friends listened to the radio broadcast from the roof of a factory near his family’s College Point apartment.
For Siena women, it’s back to square one
The first professional sports game played in the city following the attacks came at Shea Stadium on Sept. 21, a lovely Friday night and the last evening of summer. The third-place Mets were hosting the division-leading Atlanta Braves, their arch rivals, with first place within reach. To this day I still find it fascinating — and very cool — how the game of baseball, and more specifically one swing of the bat from a future Hall of Famer, meant so much to so many.
When he finally started taking his catcher's gear off, a police officer approached with a mom and her three smiling boys. The Gies family introduced themselves and Piazza told the boys, "I'm not a hero. Your father was a hero." "It was nice to pay your respects and start moving on again," Greg Maddux remembers about the sentiments on Sept. 21, 2001. "Something good finally happened -- there was a baseball game people could go to, and things were gonna start to get better."ohn Iacono/SI/Icon SMISometimes they held hands without actually holding hands. Ronnie was a member of New York City's special operations firefighting unit, and he would leave for his job in the morning and kiss her goodbye and hold her hand for a second in the kitchen. Then he'd walk out the back door and they'd have one more exchange.
Piazza's post-9/11 homer: 15 years ago
His job that night was to sift through debris that dump trucks drove out from the World Trade Center site. Detectives like him would spread everything out on the ground and go through, by hand, looking for clothing, wallets, anything that might provide DNA. "The goal was to identify loved ones and try to provide closure," McDonough says. “It’s something that changed all of our lives,’’ Piazza said. “Not at a baseball level, but at a personal level for me. It really put my life in perspective and focused what the important things in life are, and that’s family and friends and relationships.
An atmosphere that had been at times solemn and on edge turned to cheers and tears of joy as New York went on to win the game. The iconic moment was cemented in Mets lore. In the top of the eighth inning, the Braves scored to take a 2-1 lead. The hope of a fairy-tale ending to an extraordinary night seemed to be draining away.
Memories of tears, cheers and Mike Piazza’s Amazin’ home run after 9/11
Piazza barely moved the bat off his shoulder, and as he stepped out of the batter's box for a moment, he thought, "S--t, I think I missed my best pitch." When they were done, the bagpipers pivoted and followed the cops and firefighters out beyond the stadium walls. The Braves headed for their dugout and the Mets took the field.
You can be sure this summer Piazza will have his No. 31 retired by the ballclub. “I said, ‘No I am not a hero.’ The people that went to work that day were heroes. The people who tried to save them were heroes and the families that had to move on without a mother or a father or a sister or brother or an uncle are heroes.
He enjoyed so much success at Shea that he named one of his sons after the ballpark. Such weighty thoughts had never entered my mind before something as trivial as a ballgame before. I’d been to some big games, even historic World Series classics. But nothing prepared me for what I was about to experience, and no game etched itself deeper into my memory before or since.
I count myself among them as both a proud New Yorker and lifelong fan of the Mets. Gies was offered tickets to go to the Yankees-Mets game on Sept. 11 this year, but she thinks she's going to stay in Merrick, where she still lives in the same house that Ronnie built for the family. All three of her boys are Merrick firefighters at the same firehouse that Ronnie started out in. The only big thing that's changed is the neighborhood street sign, which now reads Ronnie Gies Avenue.
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