This Day in All-Too-Real History: September 11, 2001

I was at school in my hometown of Madison, a New York City suburb in northern New Jersey. The teachers kept what had happened on the down-low so as not to petrify the students for the rest of the day. The principal instructed us that we were to be picked up from school, no matter how close we lived. Since I only lived a couple blocks from the school, I thought this was odd. Upon returning to my house though, the news coverage said all that needed to be said.

I watched in shock as videos played of airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers. My class went on a field trip to Ellis Island only a year before, and I distinctly remembered the two majestic buildings. Many of the kids had parents that worked at the World Trade Center. My step-dad was teaching at the middle school, and remembers students getting pulled out of class to go to the principal's office shortly after the attacks; the students dashed off in tears, without a clue about whether or not their families and friends were safe. I later learned that my Little League baseball coach, Patrick McGuire, was killed in the disaster. Living so close to the City, it was virtually impossible to not know at least one person who perished.

Over a year later, it is still strange to me that a full decade has passed since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Last year, the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball looked back on baseball's role in the nation's recovery. The short version is that the Yankees immediately became involved in comforting families who lost friends from workers to firefighters in the tragedy. The most moving story I remember off the top of my head is All-Star center fielder Bernie Williams approaching a grieving woman and telling her, "I don't know what to say, but it looks like you could use a hug." That's all the Yankees could do; they could not bring the families' loved ones back, but they certainly could try to make them feel better.

Here are some of the videos that MLB posted last year in remembrance. The thoughts of everyone here at Pinstripe Alley are with those who lost family and friends in the attacks.

(Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)