WHAT YANKS,
Piazza’s 9/11 lesson 20 years later: embrace life
Mike Piazza embraces his connection to 9/11 – the iconic go-ahead home run at Shea Stadium against the Braves that provided a moment of exhale for grieving New Yorkers. It’s even featured on his Hall of Fame plaque, among his baseball accolades that include 427 career home runs, and a record 396 as a catcher.
The final words on Piazza’s plaque, hung up in Cooperstown, read: “Helped rally a nation ... with his dramatic home run in the first Mets game in New York following the 9/11 attack.”
On Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, Piazza said his emotions and memories of the tragic event haven’t changed.
“I don’t think it gets any easier as the years go on,” Piazza said in a press conference. “I think time has a healing effect, but for me especially when this day comes by every year, it is difficult to kind of look back. The images for me and I’m sure for a lot of people are very vivid in their minds.
“Unfortunately, you do have to experience tragedy to see triumph, courage and bravery.”
Piazza, 53, likes to focus on the positives: a lot of love and outpouring of affection came out in the days following the attack.
One moment in particular stands out to him, when he was on a plane several years ago. Piazza doesn’t recall where he was going, but he remembers putting on his headphones and keeping to himself throughout the flight. When the plane landed, passengers stood up and began collecting their belongings when the person seated next to Piazza came up to him.
“He said look, ‘I lost a close family member,’ – I think it was his brother – ‘in the World Trade Center and I can’t tell you how much that home run meant to myself and my family, because we just decided to go to the game,’” Piazza said, recalling the words of that stranger. “It was really, really touching. I was completely shocked and taken aback, and then he was gone, almost like a ghost. It’s just crazy. That really stuck with me.”
Thousands of Mets fans will be in attendance at Citi Field on Saturday as the Amazin’s host the Yankees in a special Subway Series that will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Amongst those fans, hundreds will be wearing a jersey with Piazza’s name on the back, and the connection to his everlasting home run on Sept. 21, 2001, will be immediate.
“As much as I was the one swinging the bat, there were a lot of people behind me, helping me out,” Piazza said. “I felt that.”
It can be hard to look for silver linings from one of the worst tragedies in our lifetimes. But for Piazza, the 9/11 attack and the shared strength shown by New Yorkers and the Mets community in the days and weeks after provided him a valuable lesson.
For the past 20 years, Piazza has tried to educate younger generations on the horrific event that altered a nation. He believes it’s important to recall the planes hitting the Twin Towers, the community that came together afterwards, and the power that came from showing courage instead of surrendering.
“The general lesson should be that life is precious,” Piazza said. “Life could be short, and you have to love the people around you every day because we know, and we’ve experienced, that it can end very quickly. The sadness of that was relevant and prevalent that week. So, I hope that that’s the message that we learn and that terrorism, there’s no future in that. Conversion has to come through the heart, not through the sword, at least in my opinion. I just hope we can grow and become a better world and just try to learn from that tragedy.”