Singing tenors helped healing process, one 7th-inning stretch at a time

The singing of "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch of New York Yankees home games provides a communal reminder of the lives lost Sept. 11, 2001 -- of the heroism of first responders and the resolve of a nation to never forget. Stirring performances of the song thrust two tenors in particular to prominence and made them seemingly inseparable from homage to 9/11 and Yankee pinstripes.

Daniel Rodriguez, the "Singing Policeman," wore his NYPD uniform and created a flesh, blood and vocal cord connection to the men and women who worked tirelessly in the tragedy's aftermath. He sang "God Bless America" and "The Star Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium on many occasions, beginning with the nationally televised interfaith ceremony Sept. 23, 2001, called "A Prayer for America."

Ronan Tynan, a double leg amputee, physician and founder of the Irish Tenors, included a previously obscure first verse to his robust rendition of "God Bless America" and had sellout crowds joining in and shedding tears. He sang at the interfaith ceremony, at the Yankees' first home game after the tragedy two days later and at countless more games season after season.

Ten years later, however, Rodriguez and Tynan are no longer asked to sing at Yankee Stadium. Neither man were a part of the 10-year commemoration on Wednesday. Both of their names are omitted from a page in the team's media guide devoted to the Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, 2001, memorials. Both men are bewildered.

The team cut ties with Rodriguez in 2007, and he believes it's because he committed the faux pas of singing "God Bless America" one time at Fenway Park, home of the Yankees' despised rivals, the Boston Red Sox. That the Yankees happened to be the visiting team that day didn't help. That the occasion was to honor first responders in Boston didn't matter.

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"I've been blackballed because of one game in Boston," Rodriguez said in an interview with Yahoo! "One thing I felt most connected to was the Yankees. I've volunteered to sing again but I don't get a response."

Tynan's gaffe was more egregious and it alienated him from more than just the Yankees. Two years ago he was accused of making an anti-Semitic comment by a Jewish woman who was considering moving into his apartment complex. The incident was reported in the tabloids, the Yankees immediately distanced themselves from Tynan and he was, he says, subjected to so much abuse on the streets of Manhattan that he moved to Boston.

"I felt desperately isolated," Tynan said in an interview with Yahoo! "I got death threats. I got powder sent through the mail. I was abandoned. It was very frightening."

The Yankees declined to comment about either singer, although a team source downplayed Rodriguez's contention that he's been "blackballed" because he sang at Fenway Park. On September 11 the Yankees will be in Anaheim playing the Los Angeles Angels, so they commemorated the anniversary Wednesday during the last game of their homestand. Medal of Honor winner Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry was honored along with other members of the armed forces.

Major League Baseball will join in observing September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, fitting because the national pastime played a significant role in our collective healing 10 years ago. Commissioner Bud Selig canceled all games for five days after the attacks. He agonized over whether to cancel the remainder of the season or resume play.  

He consulted with President George W. Bush and reflected on a January 1942 letter in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to "keep baseball going" through World War II.

"I think it's important to play," Selig said at the time, "for the same reason the president said it was important to try to get things back to normal."

The impact was profound. Games resumed but time was taken to remember those who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Emotional moments were plentiful, including the pregame ceremony at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium when President Bush threw a strike with the ceremonial first pitch.

Selig's decision to have every team replace "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch for the remainder of the 2001 season was widely praised. The Yankees are the only team that has continued the practice for 10 years. The song has been performed at every Los Angeles Dodgers home game the past three seasons and the Seattle Mariners have performed it at most home games. Every other team reserves it for Sundays, holidays and special occasions.

The Yankees' Sept. 11, 2002, tribute before their game against the Orioles was among the most moving anywhere. As police, fire and military officers unfurled an American flag recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, legendary public address announcer Bob Sheppard said, "This flag represents the strength of the American resolve." Tynan sang "God Bless America," and fans began chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A."

"You could feel the emotion in the crowd," Tynan recalled. "So many times I wanted to stop and let the crowd sing. But I felt I owed them and wanted to leave it out there with every bone in my body. If I didn't make that song special, I felt I would have betrayed them. I was with them 100 percent."

His camaraderie with the people of New York vanished in October 2009 on a day Dr. Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, a New York University Medical Center physician, was shown the apartment next to Tynan's. A few weeks earlier, according to Tynan, two Jewish ladies had been shown the apartment and Tynan spoke to them, telling them he was a tenor and liked to sing in his apartment.

"Their response was hilarious," he said. "They said, 'Huh!' and just left. They weren't enamored by my profession."

So when Gold-von Simson looked at the apartment, Tynan again asked the realtor about the prospective tenant. The realtor told him not to worry, that she wasn't a Red Sox fan, and Tynan said he replied, "As long as it's not those Jewish ladies. That would be scary."

Gold-von Simson overheard the exchange and was so insulted she contacted the Yankees, who severed ties with Tynan the next day. He contacted Gold-von Simson, apologized and made a donation to the charity of her choice. But it was too late. The tabloids ran with the story and Tynan was branded an anti-Semite.

He continued to try to blunt the damage, singing at a national meeting of the Anti-Defamation League a few weeks later. The organization's director, Abraham Foxman, said, "It is our belief that when an individual who has a record of good works, as does Dr. Tynan -- who performed at many charitable events, particularly after 9/11, and for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan -- slips up on one occasion, a sincere apology should help everyone move on."

The Yankees haven't done so, and Tynan -- the last to sing "God Bless America" at the old stadium and the first to sing it at the new stadium -- remains persona non grata. So does Rodriguez, whose offense seems inconsequential, especially in light of Tynan's ordeal.

An NYPD officer who'd walked a beat in Brooklyn and worked undercover, Rodriguez was two blocks from Ground Zero when the Twin Towers came down. "A few times that day I made my peace with God," he said. "Then I just flipped to cop mode and got to work, helping any way I could."

Rodriguez spent 9/11 and the days and weeks afterward working to find survivors. One day Tynan was at Ground Zero as well, serving food to emergency responders. A man asked if he'd sing "God Bless America."

"You realize it's so important for these wonderful men and women giving unconditionally," Tynan said. "While they were all working, I sang. Then two cops came up and asked me to sing 'Danny Boy.'" 

Tynan and Rodriguez became friends, bonded by their mellifluous voices, their role in comforting New Yorkers and, especially, their shared communion singing to the sellout crowds at Yankee Stadium. Neither man was ever paid for doing so.

No doubt, the exposure boosted the careers of both tenors. Rodriguez has released two successful CDs. Tynan gets as much work as his voice can take. They will sing at multiple functions associated with the 10th anniversary remembrance of 9/11.

But others will do the singing at Yankee Stadium, night after night.

"I sing for the [New York] Rangers, the Islanders, the Mets, but not the Yankees," Rodriguez said. "It's the same for Ronan. As we all do, he spoke one time without thinking. I sang one time at a Red Sox game. We represent something positive that came out of a tragedy. It's sad, really, when you think about it."

Read more from Yahoo! Sports writer Steve Henson

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