The television was on, of course, just like everywhere else, and just like everyone else, the New York Yankees paused, bleary-eyed, and listened.
Comiskey Park’s visiting clubhouse was simply a new venue for another TV, a reminder that just as we are all having trouble moving on, the Yankees can’t.
They arrived in Chicago on Sunday night via charter flight, an event that in and of itself, said their manager Joe Torre, was not terribly difficult. “The hard thing,” Torre said, “was getting to the airport and looking up and not seeing the World Trade Center.”
Their p.r. man, Rick Cerrone, would not say which airport they flew out of, nor did he want it known which hotel they are staying in. Several Yankees beat writers drove 11 hours to get here, rather than risk not getting a flight from New York-area airports that were operating at 15 percent efficiency.
Their families did not want them to go, just as spouses and children across America are never going to feel the same about their loved ones taking a business trip. But it’s different in New York, and in a way that, God willing, the rest of us will never have to know. “I’m not sure,” said Torre, “that things will ever be the same.”
Each time pitcher Mike Stanton walked out of his door this past week, he said one of his three kids, if not all, asked achingly, “Dad, where are you going?”
“A lot of us,” said Stanton of the trip here, “really didn’t want to leave.”
Roger Clemens drove his wife and two of her girlfriends 23 hours to their homes in Texas after last Tuesday’s terrorist attack. He had brought the women to New York as a surprise for his wife, but now their children and husbands, as well as the Clemens’ children, were frantic and “we had to get them home,” he said.
About halfway there, a good friend from Boston called Clemens in his car to ask if he could borrow his plane. The friend’s mother-in-law was on the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.
If there is a member of the Yankees’ organization untouched by the tragedy, he or she would be hard to find. If they do not personally know someone killed or missing, then they know someone personally, who knows someone personally.
Frank Swaine, the Yankees’ longtime vice president of ticket operations, lost his son John, who worked in the World Trade Center. Yankees ticket seller Hank Garzioso lost both of his sons. Team President Randy Levine’s secretary lost her brother-in-law. Torre’s son lost business associates. The girlfriend of second baseman Chuck Knoblauch has several friends still missing.
Several Yankees players wanted to help at the rescue site, but were turned away because it was too dangerous. And so, unsure of what to do, they visited the staging area for the rescue workers, the closest trauma center to ground zero and the armory where families wait for information about missing loved ones.
Paul O’Neill, who did not make the trip here because of a stress fracture in his left leg, for which he wears a large brace, told of signing a Beanie Baby for a young child who lost a parent, and the child responding, “I hope you feel better soon.”
They come to Chicago heartbroken, just as we all are, but their wounds are raw and their minds are racing in strange directions. They are 13 games ahead of the pack in the AL East, but maybe if they can win more, win it all, they think, they can bring just a little comfort to their city.
“We want to give the city something to cheer for,” Derek Jeter said.
Torre hopes Tuesday’s game with the White Sox will “resemble baseball.” He hopes his team can rediscover its passion. “A couple of years ago, coming back from my cancer problem, I thought the game was going to be different for me, and all of a sudden you find the bases loaded and you’re willing to sell your soul for a base hit,” he said.
They personify New York like no others, from the NY insignia on their caps to their road grays, to that infuriating way they have had with success, and so, we’ve hated them. Not hate hate, of course, but as consistent a sports hate as there is, Sox fans have hated the Yankees.
On Monday when they walked into the Comiskey Park clubhouse, Yankees players found caps from the New York Fire Department on their chairs. Some put them on immediately. Some just held them.
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It will be tough to ever look at that NY in the same way again.