Its been 21 years since 9/11.

Since then or maybe prior to then, baseball may have been surpassed as the most popular sport. You can say football or basketball or even soccer is more popular. 

But baseball is America’s pastime.

 Baseball is entrenched in the roots of all of us. Whether we even realize it or not, it’s in our blood. 

Dating back to the Civil War when soldiers would play ball to take their minds off of the horrors of war, the game has been an integral part of the American patriot. 

Maybe nothing magnifies baseball’s importance to our culture than Franklin Roosevelt’s “Green Light” letter to commissioner, Kennesaw Mountain Landis stating that baseball should go on despite the start of World War II. 

“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.

“And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.”

 Almost 60 after Pearl Harbor the United States was rocked again on September 11th, 2001.

 We all know what happened that fateful day. 

We all remember exactly where we were. 

And we will never forget.

But once again, baseball was apart of our healing and our fight. 

Bud Selig halted games for a week. But then it resumed.

And it resumed in New York with the Mets playing their rival, the Braves. On Septmber 21st.

The whole country was on edge. Security was at an all time high. 

But Shea Stadium was packed. 

Mike Piazza stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth. Down a run. 

The weight of the city on him. And belted a homerun to dead center.

New York firemen and police officers were in attendance. 10 days after losing friends and family. Shea Stadium erupted. You can see the emotions of the players and the crowd. 

Was it the biggest home run in baseball history? No. 

But a home run on a Friday night baseball game, took away, if only for a split second, the pain and anguish of 9/11.

Then there was Game 3 of the World Series. First World Series game in New York. 

President George W. Bush walked out of the Yankee dugout to throw the first pitch. 

Wearing a FDNY jacket. 

The fans are waving the stars and stripes. 

In unison chanting USA USA. 

Not cheering for the Yankees. Or booing the Diamondbacks. 

Political differences aside. Everybody came together to cheer on our country.

And President Bush stood on the mound, gave a thumbs up to the country, and fired a strike from the rubber. 

That resembled our resilience as a country. Our unison. 

Baseball did that. 

The fact that our President throwing a baseball, right down the middle of the plate, in one of the most emotional times in American history, can bring our whole country together shows how much baseball really means to this country. 

Everybody felt that. 

Baseball fans and non baseball fans.

Democrat or republican. 

Did not matter.

In that moment everybody was purely American. 

And no other sport can ever parallel that feeling of unison, in that way. 

That is why baseball is America’s pastime.