A little over a week ago, all eyes in the baseball world were on pennant races and the pursuit of records. Heroes were men who hit home runs and threw strikeouts. It seems like an eternity ago. It seems woefully insignificant. And the perception of who is a hero has changed.
Last Tuesday morning, in less time than it takes to play nine innings, wicked fanatics who believed they were acting in the name of God murdered more than 5,000 innocent human beings in New York, Washington and southwestern Pennsylvania.
Surely the images of these events will permanently scar the minds of anyone who witnessed them. Comprehending them requires a suspension of disbelief. They more resemble outlandish fiction than the horrific reality that they are.
The nation ground to a halt in grief and fear. Air traffic evaporated. Financial markets closed. Businesses ceased to operate. Children were sent home from their schools, and adults were sent home from their jobs.
Organized baseball shut down as well. The minor leagues declared an end to their seasons. Major League Baseball postponed games for six days.
It was fitting and necessary that baseball go into recess out of respect for the victims and in sympathy with their relatives, friends, neighbors and coworkers. The mourning will last for weeks, months or even years. A few days of postponed games is a miniscule sacrifice.
It was equally imperative that baseball resume its normal schedule after an appropriate delay. Major League Baseball has been played continuously since 1876. Although it shortened its season, it played through the First World War.
During the Second World War, President Roosevelt urged baseball to continue operating both to provide the population with a much-needed diversion and to maintain a semblance of normalcy on the Home Front.
These are powerful reasons to play ball this week, particularly to deny the terrorists the ability to disrupt the country’s way of life any longer than necessary. The National Pastime is indisputably part of that way of life, and its resumption will embody the capacity to persevere.
Baseball will not really divert the nation’s attention from these shocking events, though. No matter who wins the World Series or whether any records fall somehow means a lot less now than it did before last Tuesday morning’s awfulness unfolded.
A sadness and anxiety have descended on the nation that will no doubt linger for a long time. A forbidding and bloody conflict remains to be fought to reduce the chances that this kind of catastrophe will occur again. The future will not be easy, but it will be endured, and victory will be won.
Much like the Home Front during the Second World War, recent events and the prospect of the coming battle for justice and security have pulled this vast country together in ways seldom if ever witnessed by its 285 million inhabitants.
Terror and destruction have evoked remarkable acts of bravery, charity and kindness, from rescuers risking life and limb for others, to donors of blood, money and necessities, to the hijacking victims who overwhelmed their captors at the cost of their own lives. Heroes, indeed.
People everywhere in this great nation have put aside differences to share bereavement, outrage and patriotism. It remains to be seen how long this truce on internal squabbles lasts. For the time being, however, we are all members of the same team. It is America.