Mike Piazza's post-9 11 home run remains incredibly memorable

Table of Content

• Members of 2001 Mets share their stories during '9/11: The Mets Remember'
• new york mets
• Mike Piazza on first Mets game in NYC after 9/11: ‘A lot of fear. A lot of prayer’
• Hall of Famer hit dramatic home run in NYC's first pro sports event after 2001 attacks
• Mike Piazza ‘honored’ HR in first game in NYC after 9/11 will live on forever

"That night was one of the great honors of my life." I don’t know of anybody who wasn’t changed by 9/11. Life is fragile and precious and can be snatched at any moment.

"People wanted to cheer about something and to be in the right place at the right time is an honor." Noteworthy, too, was Diana Ross’ pregame performance of “God Bless America” and Liza Minnelli’s singing of “New York, New York” during the seventh-inning stretch. It was on Sep. 21, 2001, when New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza swatted a dramatic go-ahead two-run home run that not only helped his team win a game against its biggest rival but gave the Empire State a reason to smile again. When she returns, she's carrying Ronnie's helmet. It's smashed and scratched in spots, pulled from underneath millions of pounds of cement and steel and pain. Tommy keeps the helmet at his house most of the time, but everybody has items to remember Ronnie that they carry around with them.

Members of 2001 Mets share their stories during '9/11: The Mets Remember'

People ask if the country can ever get back to the unity we had post-9/11. For that one period of time, we saw more of what we have in common instead of our differences. I don’t think anyone really cared about politics. Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, 53, tells The Post’s Dean Balsamini about his emotions on the evening of Sept. 21, 2001, at Shea Stadium. The Mets were losing to the rival Atlanta Braves 2-1 when Piazza’s dramatic, two-run, eighth-inning homer propelled the team to victory — and lifted the spirits of heartbroken New Yorkers. “That moment, I think, gave the fans in the stadium and the City of New York a small amount of time to take their mind away from the outside world,” Karsay said.

Atlanta players were solemn as the crowd erupted for 30 seconds, enough to lure Piazza out for a curtain call. But deep down, even the Braves were cheering. "It seems only fitting that Mike hit a game-winning home run," Maddux says.

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The stream of photos of her and the boys would become iconic symbols of the night. "We just didn't know if we should be there," he says. "To be a professional athlete, you do have to muster up a certain sense of emotion to play with intensity. And at that point, all of our emotion was drained." Throw in that the Mets had closed to within 4½ games of the Braves and there were real pennant stakes to the game, and Piazza was afraid he wouldn't even be able to function that night. Part of our recovery is to suppress certain feelings and emotions.

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.

Mike Piazza on first Mets game in NYC after 9/11: ‘A lot of fear. A lot of prayer’

In the bottom of the inning, with one out and a man on base, Piazza stepped to the plate. He had seemed more affected by 9/11 than most of the players. Maybe it was because he lived in an apartment not far from Ground Zero. In the fifth inning, I climbed the stairs to buy more beer. But when I got to the concession, I was told they had run out.

It was the first professional sporting event in New York after the attacks, and the Mets were hosting the division-rival Braves in the midst of a pennant race. With the his club trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th, Piazza stepped into the box for his fourth and final at-bat of the night and took Atlanta's Steve Karsay deep to left-center for the go-ahead two-run homer. New York’s Major League teams will meet at Citi Field in a three-game set Saturday, Sunday and Monday, which will include the first-ever September 11 game between the Mets and the Yankees. When the teams played four games at Yankee Stadium July 3-5, the Mets took three of them, which included a doubleheader split on July 4. She talks about that night as a paragraph break in her life, a new start.

I’ve always shied away from people calling me a hero. We provide inspiration, entertainment and a way for people to join together as family and friends — but obviously it’s not life or death. It’s an honor that it brought people a little bit of joy. I didn’t think I would be able to get through the night emotionally. I just wanted to survive — metaphorically, of course. That emotional distress, like being at a funeral or seeing someone suffering.

The moment on Sept. 21, 2001, when that ball cleared the center-field fence will live forever. It is part of Piazza’s legacy, one magical home run of 427. Piazza debuted in 1992 with the Dodgers, who selected him in the 62nd round of the '88 Draft, and took home National League Rookie of the Year honors in his first full season in '93.

Then, a Jordan line drive off Armando Benitez in the top of the eighth scored Cory Aldridge to make it 2-1 Braves. McDonough went directly to his car and changed into uniform right there in the parking lot. He put his bagpipes in the backseat and drove to a landfill on Long Island.

The same way that the Piazza jersey may have gone away for a little while before it came back to where it belonged, the items circulate but always gravitate back toward Gies before she passes them along again. She sat with her sons and asked if they wanted to go to the funeral home and say goodbye to their dad. The vote was unanimous, and they all drove over. Ronnie's body had been crushed but was found intact, which Gies considers a miracle. Everybody took turns telling Ronnie they loved him, and at the end, Gies asked for a moment alone. She pulled the American flag off the body bag, and let her hand drift down along the outside, to where she thought Ronnie's arm must be.