United We Stand

When the new broke of bin Laden's
death the score read 9/11.

After giving it a few days to soak in Sunday night marked a truly historic and proud day in our nation's history with the successful assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Nearly a decade later New Yorkers and Americans are still feeling the effects of that tragic September day.

Although, for most, those wounds will never be healed, it gives some a sense of closure and hope to restore order in our beloved country.

Now, we can reflect and see how the world of sports gave us so much to look forward too when all hope appeared to be lost.

The 2001 World Series is one of the greatest ever to be played and meant so much more to a city than a world championship.

The New York Yankees were trying to win their fourth World Series title in as many years under manager Joe Torre and fifth in a six-year span. Standing in their way were the veteran, strung together, castoff Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Diamondbacks took the first two games of the series at home, putting the Yankees in an unfamiliar role, underdogs. It only seemed fitting just months after September 11, for the first time in our nation's history, we looked like underdogs. The series was headed back to New York for the next three games, where the Yankees and the city of New York would receive a much need lift from one another.

The Yankees would make World Series history in games four and five.

New York became the first team in World Series history, in consecutive nights, to hit a two-run game-tying home run in the ninth inning, courtesy of Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius. It was the loudest people had heard Yankee Stadium in it's, at the time, 78-year existence.

The Yankees had taken on the face and personality of their city by showing many their resiliency and how to demonstrate resolve.

It seemed as if the hated New York Yankees, for the moment, had become a team of destiny and America's team . New York would go on to lose the series in seven games, but for those three games at the Stadium that Fall, New Yorkers were given three hours of relief and an escape from reality.

For sports fans the news first broke on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball with the Philadelphia Phillies hosting the New York Mets.  In the ninth inning, with the score locked at in 1-1 tie, oddly enough the games line read 9/11. It gives almost an eerie feeling with the death of bin Laden earlier that night September 11th's date would surface.

One of the more interesting things to think about is that night there was a New York team playing.

It was not just any New York team, but the team that played the first game back after play was suspended. On September 21, 2001, just ten days after the terrorist attacks, play resumed with a game against the Atlanta Braves and Mets at Shea Stadium.

With the Mets trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, up stepped their team leader and catcher, Mike Piazza. With a man on, Piazza launched an eventual game-winning two-run home run deep into the New York night, once again, at least for a moment, put New Yorkers worries aside.

It's strange to think that night the Mets manager was Bobby Valentine and with New York playing Sunday night nearly ten years to the day, one of the men calling the game from the booth was none another than the former Mets manager.

You have to believe that after the news broke, these things are not just a consequence, but a sign of how everything comes full circle.

As word began to travel throughout Citizens Bank Park, the Philly Fanatics began to chant, "USA, USA, USA!!". ESPN play-by-play commentator Dan Shulman did his best to embrace the moment and relish a triumphant victory for not only our military, but the entire country.

Sometimes sports gets you lost in the moment, but then comes times like these were you realize some things are bigger than life itself.

This is so much more than a sports story, United We Stand.