Friday marked a quarter of a century since terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, and flew two planes from Boston’s Logan International Airport into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City, and a third from Washington’s Dulles International Airport into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. The fourth flight, from New Jersey’s Newark International Airport, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted.
As the United States came together to mark and mourn on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Major League Baseball prepared for a day on the regular-season schedule both like and unlike any other: a full slate of games, but also on- and off-field programming, community work, and tributes to the thousands of lives lost, and countless more impacted by one of the darkest days in the country’s history.
“I think everybody in the room, probably, could say, if they said, ‘Hey, what were you doing on that day?’ You’d remember exactly where you were, exactly what you were doing,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said before Friday night’s game. “I certainly do.”
Tracy was living in southern California. His father, Jim, was in his first season managing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Three hours behind New York, the Tracy family awoke to the horrible news just beginning to spread across the globe.
“We hadn’t even gone into school yet,” Tracy recalled, “I was in high school. I was old enough to know exactly what was going on, you know? And yeah, like everybody, we were sitting in the family room, watching TV in complete silence.”
“Pretty tragic day in our country’s history, and for all of us that were around for that, like when you see Sept. 11,” Tracy snapped his fingers, “it’s etched in your mind.”
Fenway commemorated 9/11 with special pregame ceremonies featuring local families who lost loved ones, Kenneth Zelman, Joseph Mathai, Madeline Sweeney, Mark Bavis, in the attacks. Isabella Koutny, whose grandmother Marie Pappalardo perished on Flight 175, performed the National Anthem. Relatives of Zelman, Mathai, Sweeney and Bavis delivered ceremonial first pitches.