Healing After September 11

By Jay Horwitz

People sometimes ask me what was my best highlight or memory in my more than 40 years of being with the Mets.

Winning the 1986 World Series was great, as were the two other pennants.

But for me, the thing that I am most proud of with my time with the Mets is how we responded to help the city heal after the attacks of September 11th.

I can’t believe that tomorrow will be 19 years since I was sitting in my hotel room in Pittsburgh when I saw a plane hit the towers. I, like so many others, thought it was a random accident, until the second plane hit and the towers went down.

What we did in the next 10 days was truly remarkable. Under the direction of our owners, Fred and Jeff Wilpon, as well as manager, Bobby Valentine, we were involved in everything.

Sue Lucchi handled the direct coordination in the Shea parking lot, which was turned into a recovery area to ship supplies down to Ground Zero. The players, as well as Bobby Valentine and Jeff Wilpon, made numerous trips downtown to visit the fire fighters and police. Al Leiter, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, John Franco, Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, Joe McEwing and Vance Wilson never said no to any charity requests.

We were the first team to wear hats supporting the first responder agencies from 9–11. I will never forget a call we received from the wife of a New York court officer saying how much she appreciated our guys remembering her husband.

We began a partnership with Tuesday’s Children, an organization that was formed to take care of the more than 3,000 kids who lost a parent on 9–11.

And then there was the 9/21/11 game against the Braves when Mike Piazza hit his iconic home run in the eighth inning to give us the win. More than the game, I remember our players going to the dugout after the game, to sign autographs for the families of the fallen police officers and firefighters.

On tomorrow’s anniversary, I will think of my trusted associate, the late Shannon Forde, who was so involved in all the work we did those September days.

Tomorrow will be an emotional day for all. But it will be a day of pride for me when I think back what the Mets did those September days 19 years ago.