Mets partner with 9/11 Day, host meal-packing event at Citi Field

NEW YORK -- Some eight hours before the Mets and Yankees gathered for a somber pregame ceremony at Yankee Stadium, a large black bus parked across town and opened its doors, dropping dozens of Major League Baseball employees outside Citi Field. They made their way up to the fifth floor, to a club level, where Mets alumni including Mike Piazza and David Wright were waiting.

From there, anyone gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows had a clear view of the Freedom Tower, which dominated the southern part of the New York City skyline some nine miles away.

When Major League Baseball officials set about partnering with the Mets and 9/11 Day to host a meal-packing initiative for local families facing food insecurity, they chose this room in part because of that view.

“Twenty-five years ago, our city and our country experienced an unspeakable attack,” said April Brown, MLB’s senior vice president of social responsibility. “That day and the days that follow are etched in our minds forever. In baseball, we’ve marked it as a day that we say, ‘We shall not forget.’”

Shortly after Brown spoke those words, the room broke into a hive of activity. At various tables, volunteers portioned out rice and other dried goods, packed them into containers and boxed up everything. Mrs. Met dashed around the floor gathering completed boxes and stacking them on top of each other, her gloved hands proving just the right tool for the job.

At one table, Al Leiter operated a machine to seal bags of non-perishables. At another, former Mets and Yankees reliever Dellin Betances stepped into the assembly line. Armed with a roll of packing tape, Adam Ottavino bounced from table to table. Even Jimmy Rollins, a former Mets nemesis who now holds an ambassadorship with MLB, took part in the effort, glad-handing Wright and others.

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Leiter, a member of the 2001 Mets whose work both on and off the field proved instrumental in helping New York City heal following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, made it to the event despite undergoing back surgery last month.

“There are timestamps in life, right?” Leiter said. “This is a quarter-century, 25th anniversary. You want to do that timestamp. We’re appropriately doing a lot for something that was a heinous, terrorist, awful, murderous act. What can we do? It’s so obvious.”

For Leiter, Piazza, Todd Zeile, John Franco and other 2001 Mets who experienced the attack on their city firsthand, the idea of never forgetting is an easy one to internalize. That’s why several of them were struck by the fact that close to a third of all Americans were not yet born on Sept. 11, 2001.

Passing on the sense of responsibility, in those ex-players’ eyes, is one of the most important things they can do.

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“It’s important for us to continue to keep the positive legacy alive of the heroism, the bravery, the sacrifice,” Piazza said. “As a country, we can be very divided. That’s just the way our country is, the freedom we have. People have opinions. Sometimes, it gets heated. Unfortunately, it does take a tragedy to kind of show the good side of what we’re all about.”

Mets interim manager Andy Green, who was a Minor Leaguer playing in Class-A ball when the tragedy happened, said he hopes his players understand that message. Six of the Mets who toed the line at Yankee Stadium on Friday night were not alive when the terrorist attacks happened. Most of the rest were too young to remember them, or at least to understand them in a meaningful way. Still, many were on the top step of the visiting dugout during pregame ceremonies.

Non-profit organizations like 9/11 Day also help bridge the gap. That particular non-profit began with the idea of reclaiming Sept. 11, transforming one of America’s darkest days into its most significant day of philanthropy.

“It was really inspired by not just what happened today but what came next,” Andrea Sorkin, 9/11 Day’s vice president of national programs, said earlier in the morning back at Citi Field.

To her left, One World Trade Center was clearly visible.

“People just came together,” Sorkin continued. “It wasn’t about our differences. It wasn’t about the things that divided us. It was really just coming together because it was the right thing to do.”