September 11

Four years ago today I was in Rye, New York, just outside Manhattan, when news came that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. It's one of those moments we'll never forget--where you were when you heard that a plane had flown into the tower? Like everyone else, I didn't know what to make of the news amid all the confusion about what had happened and why. But as the morning unfolded, as the second tower was hit, and as it became clear that this was an attack on the United States, confusion turned into devastating sadness, paralyzing fear, and bitter anger. And when the towers came down I, like millions of other Americans, watched in disbelief as I realized that probably thousands of Americans had died in a symbol of our economic might that was cascading down into rubble.

There was pandemonium in the conference center in which I was working. No one knew what to do because no one had ever experienced anything like this. We all woke up that morning with one unstated and yet powerful assumption: the United States would not be attacked. Now, we will never again make that same assumption, and we will remember that date--September 11--for the rest of our lives, despite what some historians may say.

My biggest concern was getting back to my family in Washington. There were wild rumors circulating that the State Department, the Capitol, the White House, and even some schools had been attacked. I cannot describe the profound relief and utter joy I felt when I finally talked to my wife and learned that everyone in our family was safe. In retrospect, my fear for the safety of three people living in Rockville, Maryland on a day when the symbols of the United States were under attack seems preposterous, but "safety" had suddenly become much more of an uncertainty that it ever had been before.

I was able to get a car to go back to D.C., and I must say that that was the strangest drive of my life. It wasn't clear that I would be able to get out of New York because all of the bridges were rumored to be closed. Thankfully, the Tapanzee Bridge was still open, and it served as my escape route out of New York. As I crossed it, I saw one of the most horrific things I hope to ever see: all of lower Manhattan was engulfed in a dirty cloud of smoke, dust, and debris. Nothing was visible; it was as if someone had bombed the entire lower half of the island.

No one was on 95. Everyone was with their family or friends, which made the drive home depressingly lonely. My only company was news radio, which broadcast news of horrible destruction, of the heroic efforts of rescue workers, and of the extraordinary leadership of Rudy Guiliani, who seemed to be everywhere at once, imploring New Yorkers to find safety and reassuring everyone that the city and the country would survive this attack and emerge even stronger.

There was no baseball team in Washington four years ago. I'm not one of those who believes that sports solves our problems or tells us something about ourselves that we don't already know, but sports does enhance our sense of community. I will never forget watching the Yankees memorialize the victims of September 11 before playing a game in front of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, all there to remember and even celebrate their fellow citizens while watching a game they loved.

Watching the Nationals play today can't possibly match the emotion of the baseball games played in the wake of the attack, but it will be meaningful in every sense of the word to stand today with thousands of other people from the Washington, D.C. area and pay tribute to those people who lost and gave their lives on this day four years ago. Having a baseball team in Washington will enhance that sense of community, and for that we should all be thankful.