Baseball and healing in a national crisis

By mid-May in 2001, the Mariners had built a 12-game lead in the American League West and done it by storming through every opponent they played.

It was a magnificent start to a season that kept getting better. The Mariners were the best team in the majors and eight of them became All-Stars f

or a game that was played at Safeco Field. It seemed the baseball stars had aligned perfectly for Seattle.

Then, as the Mariners approached the stretch of the best year in their baseball lives, Sept. 11 happened.

The country had been attacked, thousands died and baseball was the furthe

st thing from importance. Everything the Mariners had accomplished and all their visions for a championship finish seemed so trivial.

The Mariners didn’t win the World Series in 2001, or even get there. But they became a part of the healing, and in the process we learned that there’s a lot more to being a great team than what’s accomplished on the field.

The 2001 Mariners not only were the best team I’ve covered, they were the most grounded. They were veteran players whose priorities were in proper order, and that was never more apparent than how they handled themselves in the week after the terrorist attacks.

The Mariners never fretted over the momentum that was lost in their run toward the playoffs. They were more concerned with lives lost, a nation stunned and the sense that life wouldn’t feel the same.

“Baseball is our lives and our jobs, but there’s a world out there that’s bigger and more important than what we do,” said Paul Abbott, a starting pitcher on that team and now a minor league pitching coach in the Boston Red Sox organization. “It was a slap in the face of reality that showed how vulnerable we are as a country, and that what we do is really not that important.”

Until the morning of Sept. 11, the Mariners were riding a fantastic baseball fantasy.

They had just won their fifth straight game, 5-1 the previous night against the Angels in Anaheim to build a 17-game lead in the division. It was a “family trip” for the Mariners, with many wives and kids along to enjoy time in Southern California and especially at nearby Disneyland.

It really did feel like the Happiest Place on Earth. But when news broke that hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, it felt like the earth stood still.

All baseball was called off Sept. 11 and nobody knew when they would play again. U.S. airspace had been closed to commercial traffic and life as everyone knew it seemed to stop. Even Disneyland was closed.

On Sept. 13, Major League Baseball announced that the season wouldn’t resume until the following Tuesday. The Mariners were scheduled to host the Angels that night at Safeco Field.

But when would they get back to Seattle? And how?

The Mariners were prepared to take four buses back to Seattle, a 20-plus-hour trip that would leave the team hotel at 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 14. About 30 minutes before the buses were supposed to depart, Mariners travel director Ron Spellecy learned that Alaska Airlines made a jet available if the team wanted it. The Mariners were among the first commercial air passengers after 9-11.

Four days later, on Sept. 18 as the Mariners and Angels prepared to play baseball for the first time in more than a week, the emotions at Safeco Field were both comforting and confusing. The players were back to a routine they knew, and they believed that playing again would help fans get their minds off the harrowing images, reports and, yes, fears since Sept. 11.

But it wasn’t easy.

“There was still so much uncertainty, and you could feel it,” Abbott said. “We would look up and see the planes flying over the ballpark, and that vision (of the Sept. 11 attacks) was stuck in your head. It was scary.”

Veteran infielder/outfielder Mark McLemore said he was an emotional wreck before the first game back. But the players soon realized that they, in some small way, could help people return to a more normal life.

“That time showed how meaningless our game can be,” Abbott said. “But it also showed what the true value of our sport is. It’s a way people can release from their everyday grind and the stress of their lives, a way to take their minds off something for two or three hours. At the time, baseball was that. People could kind of breathe a little bit and not be glued to the images on TV that were so negative.”

The Mariners beat the Angels 4-0 the first game back, and they clinched the AL West championship the next night in a 5-0 victory.

They didn’t celebrate with a raucous pileup on the field or spraying of champagne.

The players had talked for a several days about how they should celebrate their title, knowing their actions would be seen and judged. They wanted to have a tasteful observance of their accomplishment but also use it as a tribute to the country.

There were handshakes and hugs after the final out, but no wild celebration.

Instead, McLemore took an American flag and walked to the top of the pitcher’s mound. The Mariners gathered around, and they all dropped to a knee and bowed their heads for a prayer. Utility player Stan Javier cried hard.

The Mariners rose and walked around the infield, waving to fans but also wiping away tears. Pitcher Arthur Rhodes broke away and jogged down the left-field line, then embraced a police officer.

The emotions were thick on the field and in the stands.

“You know what folks? There is crying in baseball,” Mariners play-by-play announcer Rick Rizzs said on the air.

The Mariners went on to tie baseball’s all-time record with 116 victories, but the season didn’t end the way they had hoped.

They beat the Indians in the first round of the playoffs but lost to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. During their trip to New York, the team visited one of the stations that had lost several firefighters, and many players visited the still-smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center.

A lot of people believe the Mariners lost their edge in New York, although they beat the Yankees 14-3 in Game 3 at Yankee Stadium and led 1-0 in Game 4 before the Yankees came from behind and won.

The Mariners were the best team in baseball throughout the season, but the better team won that series.

Ten years later, it still stings the Mariners that they didn’t reach the 2001 World Series.

But they’re proud of the season they had and, especially, with how they carried themselves with respect and honor amid a national crisis.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Abbott said. “It shows how meaningless baseball can be, but also how necessary it can be at the same time. I don’t think anybody in the history of baseball will ever be able to have that sort of feeling.”

Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog and follow his Twitter updates at @kirbyarnold.