by Bud Selig
I checked on the safety of the White Sox, who were in New York to play the Yankees, and checked with our staff about all our people based in New York. I canceled our games that day, a Tuesday, which was obvious. But it was clear that it was going to be a while before we and the country got back to normal, so I canceled them through Friday, leaving open the possibility we might be back on the field Saturday. But I didn’t know, of course.
This was an unprecedented tragedy. Everyone in the country was grieving and all the focus was on the victims, their families, and the heroic efforts of the police, firefighters, EMS personnel, and other courageous people who came together to deal with this horrific attack.
At about four I called Sue and told her I was coming home. We spent the rest of the day and that night watching television. I wondered what had happened to our country, to our world. You had to wonder.
There was no real clarity the next day, just more questions. I went to the office to try to unravel what baseball could do to help, what would be appropriate. September is one of our biggest months, with playoff races getting hot, but I could barely tell you who was in first place and who was in last place as my thoughts raced.
Talking on the phone calmed me down a little bit, as it always has, for whatever reason. Clubs were in disarray, with the teams that were on the road still having trouble finding their way back home. Some had taken trains, many had rented buses and made long drives. The airways weren’t going to return to normal anytime soon.
There really wasn’t anything to be done on Wednesday. I was just trying to absorb the events and begin to think about a response.
I began making phone calls to other sports leaders on Thursday. I would have daily talks with NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue as we discussed the weekend ahead. I also talked to Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, and to University of Wisconsin athletic director Pat Richter. We were all facing similar questions and none of us had any answers. But I know it helped me to talk to other leaders who like me wanted to do what was best for the country.
There was one guy I could probably call that they couldn’t: George W. Bush. So I called him at a number he’d given me and, almost to my surprise, he came on the phone.
Same old George, even as he dealt with the greatest crisis America had faced since 1941. I told George that I respected what he was doing for America, and that was true. I got chills when I saw him at Ground Zero, with that bullhorn in his hand. He was so strong, at least on the surface, but I couldn’t imagine he wasn’t at least as shaken as we all were. He was just another guy in our group when we gathered in Kohler to fight about revenue sharing; now he was in charge of responding to an unspeakable act of terrorism.
I’ll admit that I thought about how there was a time he had wanted my job.
Watching him in a much bigger job, I was really glad that the times had unfolded the way they had. It was remarkable to see George out front.
I understood the pressure he was under, or at least tried to understand, and wanted to make sure any decisions I made about baseball were viewed as appropriate with our nation’s response and recovery.
I told him we’d do anything he wanted us to do. He told me he’d back whatever I did.
“I know that you’ll do what is thoughtful,” President Bush told me.
History guides you at times like these, maybe even more when you’ve studied it.
I knew about the memo that FDR, my favorite president, had sent Judge Landis in January 1942, the one that’s called the Green Light Letter. It’s on display at Cooperstown, and I always try to find it when I’m there.
Roosevelt told Landis that he wanted the major leagues on the field for spring training in ’42, even though the nation had gone to war since the Yankees beat the Dodgers in the World Series.
“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” Roosevelt wrote Landis in a letter on White House stationery. “There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off work even more than before.”
I had gone to watch the Packers on the weekend after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember how horrible I felt being there. People just stood there when the National Anthem played. We were numb. It was a horrible feeling. I wished I hadn’t gone to the game.
Upon reflection, I decided we couldn’t play that weekend, even if our teams could travel to their destinations. It was just too soon. I consulted with our MLB Executive Council as well as with every owner. I was on the phone around the clock, it seemed.
I decided we should resume on Monday, and called the White House to tell them before making an announcement. I was nervous and knew that I could always announce another postponement if anything happened over the weekend to make Monday seem unrealistic or insensitive.
I was on edge all weekend, and again on Monday. All the games were night games, so I spent the longest afternoon waiting to see what baseball would look like after the national nightmare that was becoming known as 9/11.
After dinner Monday, I went upstairs at home to watch games with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Marissa. I loved watching games with her.
The games started and I was switching the channel like crazy, trying to take it all in. Of course I settled in on the game in St. Louis, as the Cardinals were hosting the Brewers.
There was the Cardinals’ iconic announcer, Jack Buck, reading a poem on the air.
He had written the poem himself and was standing on the field at Busch Stadium, wearing a red jacket with an American flag lapel pin. I’ll never forget the presence he gave off, almost like George W. Bush with his bullhorn.
Buck started reading his poem to the crowd in the stands and those of us watching on TV and, oh my gosh, he nailed it. An absolute home run. A great moment for baseball and for America.
The poem goes:
Since this nation was founded under God,
more than 200 years ago,
We have been the bastion of freedom,
the light that keeps the free world aglow.
We do not covet the possessions of others;
We are blessed with the bounty we share.
We have rushed to help other nations;
anything . . . anytime . . . anywhere.
War is just not our nature,
We won’t start but we will end the fight.
If we are involved,
We shall be resolved,
To protect what we know is right.
We have been challenged by a cowardly foe,
Who strikes and then hides from our view.
With one voice we say,
“We have no choice today,
There is only one thing to do.”
Everyone is saying the same thing and praying,
That we end these senseless moments we are living.
As our fathers did before,
We shall win this unwanted war,
And our children will enjoy the future we’ll be giving.
Buck paused a few seconds after the end, then looked to the crowd.
“Should we be here tonight?” he asked.
The crowd roared, “Yes!” I don’t think I needed my television to hear that crowd. I think I could have just opened my windows and heard that crowd. They stood and cheered and they just kept standing, kept cheering.
I started to cry, not for the first time in that horrible period. Marissa didn’t understand.
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
How do you explain all those feelings—ones of horror and fear but also pride and hope—to an eight-year-old?
I had to wrestle with that, just as parents and grandparents around the country tried to explain the horrible, unnecessary loss of life in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon to children around America.
I probably should say around the world, really, because the world was on our side in tha
t time period.
That night I also watched the Mets play at Shea Stadium, which had been used as a staging area for getting supplies to Ground Zero. Bobby Valentine, the Mets’ manager, and his players had organized a hands-on relief effort that was exactly the right thing for Americans to be doing at that hour. I was so very proud of them. I still am.
So when Liza Minnelli sang “New York, New York” during the seventh-inning stretch, I cried again. I’ll tell you I wasn’t unhappy when the Mets’ hero, Mike Piazza, hit a home run to win that game, the first one played in New York after the attacks. Those were the loudest, greatest cheers any New York players ever heard, and that covers a treasure trove of baseball history.
For some reason I had the number of the great young announcer in the Buck family, Joe Buck, but not his father’s phone number. So on Tuesday morning I called Joe to tell him how moved I was by his father’s poem. He suggested I call and tell him myself and passed along Jack’s number.
He picked up immediately when I called.
“I want you to know you made my night,” I said. “I just called to say a sincere thank-you.”
He told me he had written the poem at three o’clock Monday afternoon, on a piece of cardboard. He asked if I’d like to have it. You bet I would. I still have it, and I treasure it.
Jack told me that baseball would help America heal. And I know that can sound corny and like we’re patting ourselves on the back, but when I look back I think he was right. Baseball played a role, even if it was a very minor role, and I’m proud we did.
I’m also proud that we were still able to complete the 162-game schedule. It took some juggling and some crossed fingers about the weather in late October and early November, but we pulled it off.
One of the major stories that season was Lou Piniella’s Mariners, who were on a record pace for wins despite having just lost Alex Rodriguez to free agency. They had signed Ichiro Suzuki, a six-time batting champ from Japan, and he wound up being the American League’s Rookie of the Year and MVP, collecting 242 hits and stealing fifty-six bases.
Those Mariners—the ones without A-Rod—were a throwback team to an earlier era.
They had also recently lost their ace, Randy Johnson, whom they traded before he could get to free agency because they knew they couldn’t afford to keep him, yet still had a deep rotation. It was built around Freddy Garcia, whom they got from Houston in the Johnson trade, and crafty veteran Jamie Moyer, who was then thirty-eight but would pitch until he was forty-nine, just missing making it to fifty. True professional, and a great competitor.
I loved how those post–Alex Rodriguez Mariners were built by future Hall of Famer Pat Gillick but, like everyone else, I couldn’t get my head around how they kept winning and winning. They seemed almost unbeatable down the stretch, with players like Mark McLemore, David Bell, and Mike Cameron making big contributions every night.
Of course, there was also a surprising home run hitter involved in that success. Bret Boone, a five-foot-ten-inch second baseman who had generally been good for about fifteen homers a season, hit thirty-seven that year and led the AL with 141 RBIs. Eyebrows were raised, as was always the case when power came from a surprising hitter, but with no testing there was no way to know one way or another.
Boone would deny suspicions about steroid use years later—in a book he wrote he said he didn’t try steroids “not because I was holier than thou, but because I was scared to get caught”—but by 2001 the scandal had begun to diminish great performances.
Boone wasn’t the story of the Mariners; it was about a great team effort. It was really intriguing, really exciting, and it didn’t hurt my appreciation that this was only the second full season the Mariners played in Safeco Field, their gorgeous stadium with a retractable roof, a short walk from Seattle’s Pike Place Market and the original Starbucks.
Now I’ll make a confession that Mariners fans won’t like: I was rooting for the Yankees that October more than I had since Mickey Mantle was their center fielder. You can’t really root for one team over another as commissioner. I’d have sworn to my objectivity even if the Brewers were involved. But of course I had teams that I hoped would win at times, either because of the people involved or the impact on the sport.
It just seemed right to have a New York team in the postseason in 2001, even though the city was still in the early stages of digging out at the World Trade Center. We had to be sensitive to the work going on, the grieving that was still on every corner in the city, but holding a big event like the World Series would be a way of announcing publicly that New York was back in business, that the evil men in the airplanes—and the network of terrorists that sponsored them—hadn’t beaten us.
Not only was the timing right but George Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, and my old friend Joe Torre had built a Yankees team that was easy to root for. Their best players—Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, and Paul O’Neill—weren’t just the kind of players who would be in Hall of Fame discussions one day; they were all easy to like that fall.
Torre, the kid I had watched over that one summer in Milwaukee, is just the best guy and a really good friend. He’d had chances as a manager with the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals, but he wasn’t with any of those teams at the right time. He was the perfect guy in the perfect spot when the Yankees gave him another chance—much to the chagrin of the New York media and fans, who weren’t sold on him as Buck Showalter’s replacement—and proved that by presiding over five World Series–winning teams in an eight-year run.
This would be one of the years they didn’t win, but I believe the 2001 World Series between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks—won by Arizona in the ninth inning of game 7 on Luis Gonzalez’s single off Rivera—was my favorite World Series in my years as commissioner.
Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson won the first two games in Arizona, to the delight of really loud crowds in Arizona. But there was a kindness shown to the Yankees that I’d never seen outside of New York. Fans had signs supporting New York, and the Yankees got an extra loud hand when they were introduced.
America was pulling for New York, and you could tell that even in downtown Phoenix. But of course Arizona fans wanted their team to win, and they should have. You never know when you’ll get another chance.
Much of my time at the start of the Series was spent coordinating and signing off on security and other logistics for the upcoming games at Yankee Stadium. We had heard from my old friend George W. Bush, who said he wanted to be there for game 3. I was so happy, but I’ll admit I was a little scared, too.
How can you guarantee safety in a big public place at a time like that?
Major League Baseball worked with the Secret Service, the New York police force, and other groups to set up a coverage plan that would prevent incidents. I felt very good about the assurances I was getting, and I admired and appreciated President Bush for wanting to be there.
On the morning of game 3, Sue and I went down to Ground Zero. I’m not sure what I expected, but it was a stunning experience. We had wonderful guides, a young policewoman and a firefighter. They obviously had lost friends in the effort to save lives after the planes hit. They had to have been tired from working long hours and doing a job we couldn’t even have imagined.
Yet they were resolved to get New York back to normal and were very patient letting Sue and me get our brains around all of this unnecessary heartbreak. Those two young people made us feel so proud of our country and its strength.
There was a grayness that hung over the site, the dust still in the air almost a month later. There was a smell to the site, too. Nothing really prepared you for what you were experiencing. How could it?
There were thousands of flowers and cards—photos of office workers who had ridden an elevator to work and never come down again, photos of first responders who had sacrificed their lives to try to save others. We stopped and read some of the cards and letters.
&n
bsp; Survivors were writing to their parents and brothers and sisters, who had been here one day and were gone the next. I don’t have the words to describe the love that was in those letters, the grief, too. It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
As we wrapped up the tour, I invited our two guides to join us at game 3 that night. I’m happy to say they accepted the offer and joined Sue and me as we saw the Yankees beat the Diamondbacks 2–1, with Scott Brosius putting the Yankees ahead and Clemens getting the win.
What a night.
I’ve never spent a night in a ballpark that felt as special as the night of game 3 in New York, not even watching Jackie Robinson for the first time at Wrigley Field or seeing Henry Aaron wrap up a pennant in Milwaukee. This surpassed those cherished memories.
You could feel something special was about to happen when you walked into Yankee Stadium, which was ringed by military vehicles in every direction. The police presence itself was different than anything we’d experienced, but that was the world we were living in that fall—one where it was no longer unusual to see officers with machine guns at airports and train stations, even sometimes on street corners.
The word was out that President Bush was going to participate and you could feel the tension and expectation in the ballpark. I went looking for George after I had Sue and our guests seated in our box. I found him in the batting cage, loosening up his right arm. I’m not sure if I needled him or not—hopefully I didn’t, given the strain on him at that time—but I was remembering how he’d bounced his ceremonial first pitch at Miller Park that April.
Derek Jeter stopped by to say hi.
“Don’t bounce it tonight, Mr. President,” Jeter said. “You’ll get booed.”
That broke the tension, at least a little bit. I wanted George to know how much it meant to baseball to have him there, but this was bigger than baseball. Way bigger.
We knew that when he walked out from the dugout to take the mound. Yankee Stadium went nuts, absolutely nuts. The crowd started chanting.
“USA! USA! USA!”
It was terrific.
Regardless of your politics, if you had voted for President Bush or not, that vision of the president of the United States right there, in front of the whole world, while the heinous villain on the other side hid in the mountains somewhere, if that didn’t make you proud to be an American, I don’t know what will.
