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They remember the roar: Inside George W. Bush’s iconic World Series pitch after 9/11

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They remember the roar: Inside George W. Bush’s iconic World Series pitch after 9/11

Todd Greene looked out at the Yankee Stadium bullpen and realized nobody was coming in. Jorge Posada, who was supposed to catch the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, was stuck out there. But Roger Clemens was starting that night, and Clemens always took forever to get loose.

So when Greene glanced up from the Yankees dugout on Oct. 30, 2001 and the president of the United States was heading to dugout steps, he knew he had to act. Greene grabbed his glove and ran out into one of the most emotional, iconic moments in modern baseball.

Nearly 25 years later, the clip still runs every September. George W. Bush in an FDNY pullover, seven weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that had rocked the nation. The president walked all the way to the real mound, 60 feet, 6 inches, and – wearing a Kevlar vest under his clothing – threw a strike to the Yankees backup catcher.

What nobody has ever been able to put on film is what it felt like standing in the middle of it all. Ask those on the field about that night with the president and not one of them starts with the pitch. They start with the noise. Seven of them talked about that night for this story, and among them, they had the best seats in the building: the catcher who wasn’t supposed to be there, two umpires, the Secret Service agent who dressed as an umpire, the Arizona Diamondbacks infielder and the broadcaster who witnessed the second plane strike the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

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President Bush’s unforgettable mound moment after 9/11 attacks

President George W. Bush throws out the first pitch in the third game of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium on October. 30, 2001. The clip runs every September. George W. Bush in an FDNY pullover, seven weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that had rocked the nation. The president walked all the way to the real mound, 60-feet, 6-inches, and, wearing a Kevlar vest under his clothing, threw a strike to the Yankees backup catcher.

(TODD PLITT, USA TODAY)

After 9/11, baseball paused and then returned with new meaning

Seven weeks before, at 8:46 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized four commercial airliners. Two were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. A third struck the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back. Both towers collapsed. The attacks killed 2,977 people, including 343 New York City firefighters.

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig called off the games that day and baseball did not resume until Sept. 17. The regular season was pushed back a week.

When baseball returned, it was changed. Teams wore the American flag on their sleeves. The Mets took the field in NYPD and FDNY caps instead of their own. And in the seventh inning, in every park in the country “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was replaced. At Selig’s request, every club in the league played “God Bless America,” instead.

Four days later, New York hosted its first game. Diana Ross sang “God Bless America” at Shea Stadium. Mike Piazza choked up through the pregame ceremony, then hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning to beat the Atlanta Braves in front of 41,235 people.

Then the World Series came to the Bronx.

A city that was already emotionally exhausted

Suzyn Waldman was on the Triborough Bridge when the second plane hit the World Trade Center. She spent the next seven weeks watching the Yankees be the center of a ceremony in every city they went to. At the first game back at Yankee Stadium after the attacks, she remembered the fans leaving things on seats of people who were killed.

Beers on one seat, flowers on another. Cookies on a seat right beneath her broadcast booth.

By the time the World Series got back to New York, she said, everybody was emptied out.

Then they were told the president was coming.

WFAN’s Yankees reporter at the time got to the stadium early that day and saw men bolting shut the office doors that looked out on to the field. Waldman was in the dugout when Bush arrived and had to have a Secret Service agent escort her back to her booth. The attorney general had warned the nation just the day before that more attacks were likely within the week.

“I was terrified for him going out there,” Waldman said.

The Diamondbacks arrived in a city they couldn’t believe. Pitcher Brian Anderson spent the day before Game 3 at Ground Zero and described it like “the mouth of a volcano. There were still different colors of smoke coming up from the ground, orange, green, yellow.”

Then they pulled up to a building they didn’t recognize. This was before metal detectors at ballparks were a fact of American life.

“It was an amazing night, an intimidating night a little bit,” said Craig Counsell, who led off for Arizona in Game 3. “The military presence, police presence, snipers, it felt like is this what has to be here to play a baseball game?”

The most protected umpires in the world

Umpires Dale Scott and Jim Joyce showed up at 5:15 for an 8:20 p.m. game because they assumed getting in would be difficult. The hallway they usually had walked alone for years had armed officers every 20 feet. When they walked into their locker room, a man sat there with an earpiece, a gun, handcuffs and zip ties. He introduced himself as Ray Sturm.

He ran the counter-surveillance unit on the presidential detail, meaning his crew worked in plain clothes and tried to blend in. On a baseball field before more than 55,000 fans that wasn’t as easy as the normal assignment. There were agents dressed as the grounds crew and team personnel, but they needed someone on the other side of the field close to the president. One had to dress up as an umpire and be right there.

“That’s one of the advantages of being the leader,” Sturm said. “I gave myself that assignment.”

Sturm grew up in North Jersey, a Yankees fan. His father took him to see Mickey Mantle play. He cried when “The Mick” retired.

“I was literally walking on the field, across center field, and stopping right at center field and looking around and going wow, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle,” he said. “This is where they worked.”

Sturm had done the advance on the trip, learning the stadium, including parts of it nobody sees. That was another advantage. A week later he would be working that same field, in an umpire uniform, standing between the president and 55,820 people.

The uniform Major League Baseball had sent over for Sturm fit in the waist but had never been hemmed. So in a cramped umpires room under Yankee Stadium, Sturm rolled up the cuffs and stapled them. He had shown up in gray running shoes. An umpire told him he’d look out of place with them, so he dug out his field shoes for Sturm to wear.

As they were getting ready and making sure he looked the part, Sturm was telling the umpires what was going on outside their locker room: the president has left the White House, Air Force One is in the air. The president has landed.

1 / 31

How Americans have honored 9/11 victims

The terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001 shocked the United States, marking a national tragedy remembered for years to come. From candle vigils to permanent memorials, take a look at how Americans have remembered the victims in the years following.

(Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)

Getting ready

Bush went to the Yankees battling cage first. He warmed up down there, and everyone has heard the famous advice Derek Jeter gave him.

Don’t bounce, they will boo you.

When he was done, they needed a bathroom and a place for him to wait. Sturm had secured the umpires room, so at 7:58 p.m., Bush walked in.

Scott came out of the bathroom wearing his usual Oregon Ducks hat.

“Mr. President. Dale Scott,” he said.

“Yeah, Dale, I remember you. You’re the one always sweating,” Bush said.

Before politics, Bush had been part owner of the Texas Rangers. He would sit behind the screen at the end of the dugout, and on hot nights in Texas, Scott would be sweating heavily when he walked over near Bush to get new baseballs.

“A lot of us American League umpires had known him before he was even governor of Texas,” Scott said.

For 20 minutes, Bush sat around and talked with the umpires while he signed baseballs. Joyce had brought a camcorder and asked if he could record it. He explained his son was missing the game because he had a high school football game.

Bush looked up and then right into the lens and spoke to his son.

“Jimmy, take some advice from the president,” he said. “Always listen to your mother.”

The room cracked up. The footage from Joyce’s camera had never been seen until MLB Network acquired that for their 25th anniversary documentary, “When America Took the Field.”

Then it was time.

They all walked out with Strum down the tunnel. At the mouth of the dugout, the crew chief stopped. Anybody who knows baseball knows there are six umpires, not seven on a playoff crew. He looked at Mark Hirschbeck and told him to sit this moment out. Sturm took Hirschbeck’s place on the line, just to the side of the catcher.

There were one or two more agents out there, Sturm said, dressed as groundskeepers, but he was the closest to the president.

When the crowd became one

President George W. Bush throws out the first pitch before Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium October 30, 2001.

President George W. Bush throws out the first pitch before Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium October 30, 2001.

Bush walked out briskly and gave a thumbs-up. He walked past the ceremonial rubber in front of the mound, went to the top of the hill and threw a strike (both Joyce and Scott confirmed). Bush gave another thumbs-up, walked toward the plate and shook Greene’s hand, as the catcher handed him the special commemorative ball. Bush stopped to pose with Yankees manager Joe Torre and Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly before leaving the field.

By then the stadium was ringing, 55,820 people started chanting: U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!

“In my lifetime, you won’t ever hear that again,” Joyce said. “We were at the bottom of it and it was just on top of you.”

Sturm spent years in the Marine Corps before becoming a Secret Service agent and has stood through hundreds of rallies. Agents, like baseball players, can tune out a crowd.

Nobody could tune it out that night.

“It was probably the most patriotic event that I have ever witnessed, and I’ve seen quite a few,” he said. “I never have seen people rally around an event – around a person, too, because he was the one standing out there. It was a phenomenon that I’ll never forget.”

Greene was on the field for about a minute and he remembers the same feeling.

“There wasn’t much division in our country, political or otherwise at that time,” he said. “It was pretty emotional and for all the right reasons.”

Twenty years later Bush sent Greene a handwritten note on the president’s stationary, saying he still thinks about that moment. Greene has it framed at home.

Then everybody went back to work

Scott put on the mask and called a 2-1 game that Clemens won with three hits allowed and nine strikeouts. Anderson started for the Diamondbacks and took the loss. Ironically, he missed the first pitch while he was warming up in the bullpen.

Sturm changed out of the uniform and finished his shift. Joyce spent the rest of the night at second base, remembering that the crowd never went quiet. It dropped to a loud murmur and stayed there the entire game.

Waldman worked the game and remembered thinking the first pitch was a moment she would remember forever.

“It was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen,” Waldman said. “It was a release of a month and a half of horror. It was as together as I’ve ever heard that stadium, and it had nothing to do with baseball.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: They remember the roar: Inside George W. Bush’s iconic World Series pitch after 9/11

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