That 2001 World Series is remembered, a quarter-century later, as a classic: seven drama-filled games that featured some of the era’s best players, including Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. It’s also remembered for a presidential first pitch that would become a high-water mark for George W. Bush as the nation rallied behind him.
This account, based on interviews with players, team staff and executives, performers, rescue workers, fans, the former president and White House staff, traces how tragedy, baseball, patriotism and the presidency wound themselves together.
(Titles and positions are presented as they were in fall 2001, and interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.)
Andrew Giuliani, son of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: My dad never forced me to do anything except be a New York Yankees fan. My mom and dad took me home from the hospital in a Yankees hat and jersey at 3 days old.
Condoleezza Rice, U.S. national security adviser, White House: We were huge Yankee fans. When I was a little girl, the Yankees were in the World Series all the time and we would watch. I used to tease President Bush because, of course, he’s a baseball man. I would say, “Well, unless the Yankees are playing, I don’t really think it’s worth watching,” and he would bristle.
Kevin Baker, author: The Yankees, after many ups and downs, had put together this incredible team. They won the World Series in ’96, ’98 and ’99, and in 2000 won a Subway Series against the Mets. This was a golden age of baseball for the city, particularly for us Yankees fans. A lot of the city just fell in love with them.
I had been to the game on Sept. 9, 2001, where the Yanks beat the Red Sox. I was there with some friends — a beautiful, warm, sunny day. We were looking forward to the playoffs.
Ron Blum, baseball writer, The Associated Press: It was a powerhouse team, with Roger Clemens having one of his greatest seasons. They were being measured not against the competition, but against Casey Stengel’s Yankees that won five championships in a row between 1949 and 1953.
Caren Villarreal, daughter of Jerry Barbara, assistant chief of department, Fire Department of the City of New York: Baseball was one of the things that my whole family enjoyed together. In September 2001, I was living in the city, but I had gone home to Staten Island on Sunday night, the 9th, to see my parents for dinner. The next day, Sept. 10, I was all set to take the ferry and go into Lower Manhattan, where I worked at Two World Financial Center. My dad was insistent that he drive me instead. He said, “I’m driving to work anyway.” We got to World Financial, and he pulled over. He said: “Here are these Yankees tickets — somebody gave them to me for tonight. I don’t want them. Why don’t you go? I have a big meeting tomorrow morning.” I took the tickets — back then they were paper — and put them in my wallet. I took a friend up to the game that night.
We got all the way up there, and it rained. I still have the tickets because I saved them for the rain date. That was my last interaction with my dad.
Shane Spencer, outfielder, New York Yankees: I was living in Edgewater, N.J., across the river. We didn’t get home until midnight on Sept. 10, and I get a phone call in the morning from Randy Choate, a pitcher living in the same building. He goes, “Turn on the TV.” I said, “What channel?” He goes, “It doesn’t matter.”
Immediately after the attacks, all Major League Baseball games were canceled. Walmart sold nearly 450,000 U.S. flags in the three days after the attacks, a roughly 1,600 percent increase from the previous year.
On Sept. 14, Bush made his first visit to what would become known as ground zero in New York. Speaking through a bullhorn, he told the rescue workers gathered there: “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
That day, in Washington, both houses of Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force joint resolution with just a single dissenting vote, from Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California.
Barbara Lee, U.S. representative: People were angry and afraid — I know that. My background is psychiatric social worker, and the first lesson you learn in psychology is that you don’t make important decisions when you’re angry, when you’re sad, when you’re in mourning.
Bush’s approval rating, which had been just over 50 percent before the attacks, soon hit 90 percent — the highest ever recorded for a sitting president.
Condoleezza Rice: There was an emphasis on trying to make America feel normal again. That came up the day after 9/11. We were in the Roosevelt Room, and the president says, I want us to think about how the American people can feel normal again, because the terrorists will have won if the American people can’t go about their lives.
The president had been very focused on when baseball would begin again. He would talk about it all the time: “When is M.L.B. going to play?”
George W. Bush, president of the United States: After the attacks, there was a lot of heartbreak, and I had two things going on: Who did it and how do we respond? There was incoming all the time — intelligence, potential attacks — and we were preparing a strategy of “if you harbor a terrorist, you’re equally as guilty as a terrorist.”
And the other was there were people all around suffering, and it’s the duty of the president to try to relieve suffering as best you can. There were a lot of activities around bolstering people’s spirits. I had this deep faith in the compassion of the American people. I met with families afterward at the Javits Center and first responders from all around the country that had come to New York without government edict, but out of compassion and concern. I tell people in jest that when I was going down West Avenue there, from ground zero to the Javits Center, it’s the only time I went to New York where people waved with all five fingers.
I remember telling them in the White House, “Get ready, the poll numbers ain’t gonna stay up there.” And sure enough, they didn’t.
Baseball returned on Sept. 17, with six games that evening. The next day, the Yankees’ first game back was on the road against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park.
On Sept. 23, Yankee Stadium hosted a nationally televised “Prayer for America” memorial service honoring the 9/11 victims. Some 20,000 mourners attended the event, hosted by Oprah Winfrey and James Earl Jones.
Then, on Sept. 25, the team returned to play its first home game since the attacks, against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. An extensive pregame ceremony honoring rescue workers featured performances by New York Police Department officers, the saxophonist Branford Marsalis and the Boys Choir of Harlem, among others.
Tampa Bay Devil Rays at New York Yankees
Yankee Stadium, Sept. 25
Tino Martinez, first baseman, New York Yankees: It was eerie — there are no cars on the road and no horns blowing. Everything was closed. You could still smell the soot from the buildings wherever you went. It wasn’t an upbeat time for any of us — until we got to the ballpark and we were able to try our best to get our mind off things and play good baseball.
Tanyon Sturtze, pitcher, Tampa Bay Devil Rays: Arriving at the stadium on Sept. 25 was complete chaos. There were people everywhere. Going to the clubhouses or going out to the bullpens, it was lined with all firefighters, police officers, first responders.
Jennifer Bellinger, then the wife of Yankees player Clay Bellinger: I remember having mixed emotions about it. Wanting to go and show that we’re not afraid. But there was some fear involved — being a mother and trying to protect my family — when you are put into a stadium filled with thousands of people two weeks after a major event like that.
Jacob Weisberg, political columnist, Slate: There was just such an intensity at that time — both about the trauma people went through, but also about reclaiming the city and about what life in the city was going to be. I felt this strong patriotic sense as a New Yorker: This is our city. We have got to take it back.
Ann Marie Moloney, officer with the N.Y.P.D. ceremonial unit, who sang “America the Beautiful” with another officer during the pregame ceremony: We go underground in the old stadium, and the players just kept coming up to me and thanking me. It was weird because I would see players — these are my sports heroes — and they were looking at us in awe.
Clay Bellinger, utility player, New York Yankees: It was still a weird feeling getting back out there, especially being in New York. But the fans were pretty boisterous because we were getting back into the season.
Tanyon Sturtze: I remember standing in the bullpen with two police officers crying for the national anthem. Then trying to get loose for the game was not the easiest thing in the world.
I was pitching against Roger Clemens, my idol growing up. But to be honest, I didn’t feel like it was two teams playing against each other that night. We were just being the entertainment for the night — just to get everyone’s minds off everything. In the sixth inning, I got hit in the head with a line drive from Bernie Williams. I got into the dugout, and our head trainer said, “Come on, let’s go upstairs.” I told him, “No — absolutely no way you would take me out of this game.”
Although the Yankees lost that game, 4-0, news came around the seventh inning that the rival Boston Red Sox had lost to the Orioles — which meant the Yankees had won the division title and would be heading to the playoffs.
Tanyon Sturtze: I remember them putting it up on the board, everybody reading it, everyone going crazy.
Clay Bellinger: You always want to win the division and get a chance to get to the World Series — especially being with the Yankees — but the feeling was heightened that we wanted to win for the city.
As the Yankees finished off the season and the playoffs began, the war on terror ramped up. “President Bush is rallying the nation for a war against terrorism’s attack on our way of life,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed on Sept. 27. On Oct. 7, B-2 stealth bombers with the call signs FREEDOM 01 and FREEDOM 02 conducted the first bombing raids on Al Qaeda and Taliban positions in Afghanistan. At a news conference on Oct. 11, Bush said: “People often ask me: How long will this last? This particular battlefront will last as long as it takes to bring Al Qaeda to justice. It may happen tomorrow, it may happen a month from now, it may take a year or two. But we will prevail.”
In New York, rescue workers continued to search through the rubble at ground zero, and every day seemed to bring another memorial service for firefighters and other rescue workers. But the nation also faced a new threat: anthrax. In September, a series of letters containing anthrax began arriving in the mailrooms and mailboxes of news organizations and government officials. In early October, a photo editor for the tabloid The Sun died from inhalation anthrax. As the month went on, anthrax was detected at the New York offices of NBC News and The New York Post, as well as in a Senate office building. On Oct. 17, all six of the House and Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill were evacuated and shut down for anthrax screening. Less than a week later, two postal workers who handled some of the tainted letters at a mail sorting facility in Washington, D.C., died.
Condoleezza Rice, U.S. national security adviser, White House: Every day after Sept. 11 was like Sept. 12. What’s going to happen now? Everybody thinks there’s going to be a second wave, and that’s what we thought the anthrax attacks were.
Jacob Weisberg: The anthrax attacks created this climate of fear — people were afraid to open their mail. Having that right on the heels of the attack on the towers and the Pentagon created this hysteria. What’s next?
In the playoffs, the Yankees pulled out a dramatic comeback victory against the Oakland Athletics, winning three games in a row, and beat the Seattle Mariners to win the American League pennant. The Arizona Diamondbacks, one of baseball’s newest teams, made it to the World Series to face them.
The World Series began on Oct. 27 in Phoenix. The Yankees lost Game 1, 9-1, and they lost again the next night, 4-0. Down 2-0 in the series, they headed back to New York.
On Oct. 29, news broke that the F.B.I. was planning to release a new warning about potential terrorist attacks over the next week. Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who had been installed as director of the newly created White House Office of Homeland Security, said that intelligence indicated Al Qaeda was readying another round of attacks.
The next day, Tuesday, Oct. 30, exactly seven weeks after the attacks, Game 3 began at 8:30 p.m. in front of 55,820 fans gathered at Yankee Stadium. On the mound, the Diamondbacks’ Brian Anderson faced Roger Clemens.
World Series: Game 3
Arizona Diamondbacks at New York Yankees
Yankee Stadium, Oct. 30
Bob Brenly, manager, Arizona Diamondbacks: When we bump up against the Yankees in the World Series — you never really hope to play against the best teams in the world, but if you want to be one of the best teams in the world, that’s who you have to beat.
Billy Crystal, actor and director of the film “61*”: The first games were terrible in Phoenix because they destroyed us both games. And then back to New York with a crucial Game 3. It was so terrible. It was still smoldering downtown, and the Yankees were down two games to none.
Shane Spencer, outfielder, New York Yankees: The first couple of games, I think mentally we were just beat.
Joe Garagiola Jr., general manager, Arizona Diamondbacks: None of us had any expectation what it would feel like in New York. I lived just north of the city for many years. It clearly felt different. There was a much more overt police presence everywhere. There was literally still the haze in the air.
It was at this point that the real bifurcation had to take place on our part. On the one hand, obviously, everybody felt this range of emotion, sympathy, however you want to characterize it. I’ve said for years, if we hadn’t been in the World Series, I’m sure we would have all been rooting for the Yankees. Those feelings were OK, right up until the umpire said, “Play ball!”
Luis Gonzalez, left fielder, Arizona Diamondbacks: We were on an emotional high coming in because we were up two games to nothing. Some of us had even talked about, OK, if we win this thing in New York, we’re not going to celebrate on the field. We didn’t want to disrespect any of their fans. But the Yankees had a different game plan than we did.
Shane Spencer: For four years in a row in the playoffs, we had never changed the thing in our game-day routine. [Yankees Manager Joe] Torre would come in, we’d have a little quick meeting for a game, and he’d go, “OK, George” — he called Jorge [Posada] “George” — “what do we got?” How many games do we need to win the World Series? And Jorge would go, “Three more” or “Two more.” We stuck to that routine the whole time.
Ron Blum, baseball writer, The Associated Press: There was a very tense atmosphere, just because coming off two losses, the fans were somewhat subdued. And then attention really turned to that pregame ceremony, and people knowing that President Bush was there.
That night was the first time a president had thrown out the first pitch at a World Series game in 45 years, since Dwight Eisenhower at Game 1 of the 1956 Series.
Randy Levine, team president, New York Yankees: I had known President Bush for a long time because he owned the Texas Rangers. I got the call: “Would it be possible for the president to throw out the first pitch?”
Condoleezza Rice, U.S. national security adviser, White House: We would have these discussions — Karl Rove, Andy Card and Karen Hughes — about the roles the president had to balance, as consoler in chief and also commander in chief getting ready for a war with Afghanistan. As the World Series was approaching, the first idea was that he would go to Arizona, and he nixed that right away. As much as the first game of the World Series was significant, it was the World Series in New York that was most significant.
George W. Bush: [M.L.B. Commissioner] Bud Selig called Andy Card and said, “We want the president to help throw out the first pitch at the World Series.” His thinking was it’s a way to help the nation recover. I said, “No, I’m not going to throw it out in Arizona — if I’m throwing it out, it’s going to be in New York City.” I damn sure wasn’t going to go and throw it out in Arizona and have our enemy gloat, “He didn’t dare go to New York — the place we attacked.”
Karl Rove, senior adviser to the president, White House: First of all, he’s a baseball nut. And second, he understood the image of it.
George W. Bush: Baseball was ingrained in my soul.
Karl Rove: This was not a pleasing decision for the Secret Service.
George W. Bush: We chopper toward Yankee Stadium, and on the roof there are all kinds of counterassault people, heavily armed, and the moment dawned on me that this is more than just a baseball game. We were heading into danger.
Nick Trotta, assistant special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, U.S. Secret Service: You’re going into a stadium in a ballgame in the middle of a war, just miles away from the site of one of the worst attacks since Pearl Harbor.
Ron Blum: Bush flew to J.F.K. Airport, and he got to Yankee Stadium in a helicopter that landed in a public field near the stadium.
Karl Rove: Marine One made a circle around the stadium, and looking down at the stadium, it looked like 10,000 strobe lights as people turned their cameras skyward and took pictures.
Pete Silverio, umpire-room attendant, Yankee Stadium: I took care of the umpires. So a Secret Service guy came into the locker room and said, “Hi, you’re Pete.” I said, “Yes.” He goes, “You have to suit me up as an umpire.”
Raymond Sturm, special agent, U.S. Secret Service: They wanted somebody to dress as an umpire to be on the field during the first pitch. I was assigned to a countersurveillance unit. We don’t dress in suits. We tend to dress down, blend into whatever general population might be out there.
Nick Trotta: [The president’s team] went into the batting cages. We were down there pretty early because now we’re not on White House time, we’re in the hands of Major League Baseball. It’s all based on TV.
Karl Rove: [Bush] was a baseball owner. He saw lots of people coming to throw opening pitches. There was a little bit of nervousness about it, particularly since the Secret Service kept insisting that he had to wear the bulletproof vest, which back then was like 20, 25, 30 pounds. He was like, “No,” and they kept saying, “Yes.” And [the White House chief of staff] Andy Card was the one who said, “Mr. President, you have to do this.”
Brian Montgomery, director of presidential advance, White House: There’s a batting cage there, a pitching machine. The president comes in, takes off his jacket and starts putting on a bulletproof vest. Then he put on an F.D.N.Y. fleece with “George W. Bush” on it, and he goes over to the pitcher’s mound.
Nick Trotta: A few of the players came in. Jeter came in, took a couple of swings.
George W. Bush: The great Yankee captain came in, Derek Jeter — he’s all fired up: “Hey, Prez!”
Brian Montgomery: Jeter says, “Where are you going to throw from?” He said, “Well, I’ll throw from the front of the mound.” And Jeter said: “You got to throw from the pitcher’s mound. You can’t throw from the front of it.” A few minutes later, he says, “By the way — don’t bounce it.” Bush looked at him. Jeter goes, “If you bounce it, they’ll boo you.” I’m thinking, I wish he hadn’t said that!
George W. Bush: “Don’t bounce it — they’ll boo you.” That was one of the most pre-eminent thoughts on my mind from that moment until I went out.
Pete Silverio: The president came in, said hello to all the guys. He looks at the Secret Service guy, says, “What’s the clubhouse guy’s name?” He says, “Hey, Pete, can you put some mud on this baseball? Don’t make it too slick, I don’t want to embarrass myself out there.”
Raymond Sturm: I had the umpire uniform on, all my equipment was around my waist — my firearm, my radio, cuffs, all that stuff was around my waist — but my jacket is off. Joe Torre walks in, looks right at me and says, “Well, it’s about time they armed you guys.”
We’re getting ready to go out for the national anthem, and my jacket did not have the World Series logo on it. The other umpires had the logo on their jackets. One of them said, “I have a spare.” If anybody really pays attention, you’ll see two No. 19s out there.
Logan Walters, personal aide to the president: We go down this tunnel, you start to look ahead, and you can actually see the field, and you see the lights and the fans, you can hear the noise getting louder.
Nick Trotta: I’m in front of the president in the dugout, and Brian [Montgomery] says, “Nicky, the president is talking to you.” I turn around. President Bush says, “Are we going to be OK?”
Logan Walters: That was not a question I think I ever heard President Bush ask before or after that moment.
Nick Trotta: I said to him, “You’re asking me now?” And he says, “Are we going to be OK?” I said, “Sir, if anyone wants to try something in this stadium, these people are going to eat them alive.”
Logan Walters: The place just absolutely explodes. He walks off, and the entire crowd starts chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
George W. Bush: I think my last remembrance of the presidency will be the crowd reaction, chanting, “U-S-A.” I’m not poetic enough to describe the emotions that I felt.
Barbara Lee, U.S. representative: I remember seeing President Bush’s pitch on the news later, and I said, “Good for him.” It was a nice gesture.
Karl Rove: I remember him coming back at the end into the box, and the first words out of his mouth are “I gave them the heat,” and it was just like: Yes, you did, sir. You gave them the heat.
The Yankees won that evening — and they won the next two games in New York, each in extra innings after tying the game in the bottom of the ninth. Hours before the start of Game 4, Kathy Nguyen, an employee of Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, became the fourth person to die in the anthrax attacks (a fifth would die the month after). Polls released the week the World Series started showed that nearly 90 percent of the country approved of the military action in Afghanistan.
The teams returned to Phoenix for the final games of the series, with the Yankees up three games to two. Hopes that the Yankees’ luck would hold in the return to Phoenix were dashed in Game 6, when Arizona trounced New York, 15-2, to force a decisive Game 7 between Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling
World Series: Game 7
New York Yankees at Arizona Diamondbacks
Phoenix, Nov. 4
Luis Gonzalez, left fielder, Arizona Diamondbacks: The whole day, everywhere you went, people were talking about Game 7. It seemed like everybody wanted the Yankees to win.
Caren Villarreal, daughter of Jerry Barbara, assistant chief of department, New York Fire Department: I got invited, with my mom and some other families, to go to Arizona with Mayor Giuliani. I had brought my dad’s hat — he had the F.D.N.Y. Yankees hat before anybody else had it. He had it made special for him. Nobody really thought it was that big of a deal that they lost so badly in Game 6. I remember saying, “We’ll get them tomorrow.” It just seemed like, Of course we would, right? It would be an impossibility to lose the seventh game, being what New York was going through.
Clay Bellinger, utility player, New York Yankees: We had thought, going back to Arizona, that we were going to be all good. Then we just got absolutely shellacked in Game 6. We’re like, Oh, my god, what just happened?
But we were just like, This is still ours. We were the Yankees, and over the last five years, we had won four World Series.
Andrew Giuliani, son of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: I don’t know why it got in my head, but I said, “Let’s track down Freddy.”
Caren Villarreal: Freddy Schuman was like a good-luck charm from Yankee Stadium. He was this old guy, a legend. He would go to all the home games, and he’d walk around the stadium with a frying pan and a sign that would say “Freddy Sez” and whatever his caption of the day was. And people would bang the pan with the spoon. It was a thing back then.
Andrew Giuliani: I had Dad’s ear: “What the Yankees need to do to win Game 7: Track down Freddy!” Somehow he tracked him down, and he brought Freddy out to Game 7 in Arizona.
Shane Spencer, outfielder, New York Yankees: Before the game, we do our same thing. Torre comes in, says to Jorge, “Hey, what do we got, George?” He’s like, “One game!” That’s how it goes. Then usually we would get up and walk out to the field.
Well, Mariano gets up and says, “I got something to say, fellas.” And he made a little speech, about God having us — “He’s got our back,” “He’s going to make sure we’re going to win.” He’s the best pitcher ever, I love the guy to death, but that’s the first time he ever spoke, and that always sticks in my head. I believe it was just something that was out of whack for us.
Game 7 was preceded with a flyover during the national anthem by a B-2 Spirit bomber, flown by two Air Force pilots who had done support work for the first U.S. missions in Afghanistan.
Capt. Dave “Skipper” Thompson, B-2 bomber mission commander, 325th Bomb Squadron: Before Game 6, our ops officer brings everybody in, and he’s like, “Listen, if the Diamondbacks win Game 6, Major League Baseball has asked us to do a B-2 flyby.” He said, “And because Skipper and Spanky are from Arizona and New York” — there was other criteria, too — “they’re the ones that I want doing the flyby.”
Capt. Joe “Spanky” Hall, B-2 bomber pilot, 325th Bomb Squadron: I’m a die-hard Yankees fan. I was heartbroken at the 15-2 loss in Game 6.
Capt. Dave “Skipper” Thompson: We’re trying to time the flyby right. The guy on the ground has a cellphone, and he’s holding the cellphone up when the national anthem starts. We can hear the announcers talking — the scouts that were out there first, then the color guard, and then [Arizona musician] Jesse McGuire starts in on the trumpet.
Capt. Joe “Spanky” Hall: You can always tell when the crowd sees the jet because you can hear the roar of the crowd overtake the crescendo of the music.
Andrew Giuliani: I remember Game 7 as a nail-biting game. Game 3, Game 4, Game 5 didn’t feel like a normal World Series. Everything was so hyped. Whereas Game 7 was, in some ways, the most normal of the games that you would watch because everybody was so drawn in to what happened on the diamond.
Billy Crystal, actor and director of the film “61*”: Strange things happened in Game 7. It started to rain in the seventh inning. It’s Phoenix — it doesn’t rain. The ball got slippery.
Luis Gonzalez: It was a tie game, and then [Yankees second baseman Alfonso] Soriano hit the home run late in the game. I was playing left field, and as soon as that ball was hit, I knew it was going to be out. You just hear the quietness in our stadium — except for the Yankee fans.
Joe Garagiola Jr., general manager, Arizona Diamondbacks: I thought, This is not good. Because we knew who we were going to see coming out of that Yankee bullpen.
Steve Rippley, M.L.B. umpire and World Series crew chief: New York was up 2-1, and they brought in Mariano Rivera.
Kevin Baker, author: Mariano Rivera was the great relief pitcher and closer of the Yankees, with this one amazing pitch called a cutter that he used to close out game after game.
Steve Rippley: Everybody in the world is thinking this guy is unhittable.
Randy Levine, team president, New York Yankees: I was down in the Yankee clubhouse in the bottom of the eighth inning, and all the cameras were in the clubhouse. Everybody thought we were going to win.
John Camilleri, director of operations, Yankees Clubhouse Stores: I already had a bag packed, ready to go back into the city and pick up championship T-shirts. I had a 3 a.m. pickup for T-shirts for all the stores, a van parked in my driveway ready to go.
Joe Garagiola Jr.: So here we were: You wanted the experience of playing the Yankees — how about playing the Yankees, and now have to beat Rivera in the ninth inning of the seventh game? Is that enough work for you guys?
Steve Rippley: Then events unfolded.
Andrew Giuliani: Bizarre how it happened.
The Diamondbacks’ first batter of the inning, Mark Grace, reached first on a single. Then pinch-hitter Damian Miller bunted to Rivera.
Jim Joyce, M.L.B. umpire: The ball was hit back to Mariano. If he makes a clean throw to second base, the game might be over. And he doesn’t make a clean throw.
Joe Garagiola Jr.: If he hits that throw, it’s a double play — two outs, nobody on, and we’re done. I am convinced that one of the, if not the principal reason we won that game — and thus the world championship — is because the greatest closing pitcher of all time couldn’t execute a play he had probably practiced a million times in spring training.
Clay Bellinger: I don’t think Rivera’s ever thrown the ball away before in his life.
Bob Brenly, manager, Arizona Diamondbacks: Then Jay Bell, who was one of the best bunters of his era — he puts down a bad bunt.
Joe Garagiola Jr.: So what happens? The ball gets thrown to Scott Brosius at third base. He steps on third — one out. If Brosius throws the ball to first, Jay Bell would be out by a mile. But he doesn’t. Why not? Nobody knows. I can only think that they were still so shook up by how the inning had started that Brosius thought, “I’m going to get one out, hand it back to Mo, and he’ll get us two more outs, and we all go home.” That’s the second double play they don’t turn in the inning.
Bob Brenly: Then it was Tony Womack. He bogeywhipped it down the right field line to score [pinch-runner] Midre Cummings. Then Craig Counsell came up and got hit by a pitch. Then it all comes down to Gonzo.
Joe Garagiola Jr.: We look up, and it’s this little parachute going out toward the left-center field.
Luis Gonzalez: As soon as it left my bat, I knew it was going to fall in.
Jim Joyce: And it was over that quick.
Jennifer Bellinger, then the wife of Yankees player Clay Bellinger: A punch in the gut. That’s how it felt. You stopped breathing for a minute.
Pete Silverio, umpire-room attendant, Yankee Stadium: I was at my house in Yonkers at the time. I didn’t see that coming. I couldn’t believe that they lost.
Andrew Giuliani: I remember you could hear Freddy’s pan wherever he was in the ballpark for Game 7. It worked for eight and a half innings. You could probably blame us for losing because Freddy was going around the stadium doing his job, and then by the ninth inning, he was in our group [in a field box], part of the party. Had Freddy continued going around the stadium banging the pots and pans, maybe the Yankees would have been 2001 World Series champions.
Kevin Baker: It felt to me like a great knight brought down off his horse and hacked to death by peasants. It just seemed so much the wrong ending.
Scott Brosius, third baseman, New York Yankees: In the clubhouse afterward, it was a lot to process. If there’s ever a year that the Yankees should have won the World Series, this was the year! Outside of Arizona, people were actually pulling for us. This was how it was supposed to end, and it didn’t end that way.
That 2001 World Series marked the end of the Yankees’ dynasty. After winning four championships in the five preceding years, the team didn’t win another until 2009 (still their last one). That same year, George W. Bush left office, politically diminished by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the time he left office, his approval rating was 34 percent.
The last anthrax-laced letters were mailed in October 2001. After a yearslong investigation to find the perpetrators, law enforcement agencies in 2008 zeroed in on an anthrax vaccine researcher named Bruce Ivins, who died by suicide before charges were filed. In 2010, the F.B.I. released a report concluding that Ivins had acted alone (a finding that remains in dispute).
The final American troops withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, leaving the country in Taliban control. Nearly 2,500 Americans and at least 240,000 Afghans died in the 20-year war.
Photographs at the top of the story: Clemens: Amy Sancetta/Associated Press; Flag: Ezra Shaw/Allsport, via Getty Images; Posada: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times; Bush: Eric Draper/White House, via Getty Images; Ground zero: Eric Feferberg/Agence France-Press—Getty Images; First-responder pitch: Matt Campbell/Agence France-Press—Getty Images; Martinez: Al Bello/Allsport, via Getty Images; Memorial: Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Stroller: Peter Turnley/Getty Images; Celebration: Laura Cavanaugh/UPI, via Shutterstock
Photographs of the opening ceremony: Laura Cavanaugh/UPI, via Shutterstock; Ezra Shaw/Allsport, via Getty Images; Barton Silverman/The New York Times
Photographs of President Bush’s pitch: Doug Pensinger/Allsport, via Getty Images; Win McNamee/Reuters; Luke Frazza/Agence France-Press—Getty Images
Photographs of Gonzales: Harry How/Allsport, via Getty Images; John Biever /Sports Illustrated, via Getty Images; Jeff Haynes/Agence France-Press—Getty Images