How 9/11 shaped Kansas City Royals manager Mike Matheny’s view of baseball’s role

Last summer after the global pandemic and the coronavirus stopped nearly every aspect of daily society in its tracks, several prominent figures in Major League Baseball like Kansas City Royals manager Mike Matheny spoke about the important role the sport could play in the nation’s ability to cope.

The foundation for Matheny’s belief in the impactful place baseball holds in American society largely formed 20 years ago when he was still a major-league player as the nation experienced one of the most tragic events in its history, the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“One hundred percent,” Matheny said. “Jack Buck did such a great job. I’ll always remember the poem that he put there. It did seem like on 9-11-01 the world or our country at least was at standstill and people didn’t know, really, what to do to take the next step forward.

“Obviously, there were things militarily and with our government. They were taking steps forward, but the rest of us were kind of like ‘Okay, now what?’ As we’re literally in a holding pattern with the season and we’re intersquading and ‘What’s going to happen? Are we going to play?’ Some people saying let’s put things in perspective, baseball is not all that important. But it was.”

Matheny referenced Buck, the legendary former St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster, who delivered his poem at Busch Stadium from a lectern behind home plate in front of the crowd as he welcomed fans back to baseball after the sport went on pause for a week.

Buck’s poem offered reassurance and solace to the crowd, many waving American flags of various sizes in the stands, at a time of great uncertainty as the local color guards from American Legion as well as local and regional police officers and firefighters were on the field. The poem was followed by a 21-gun salute and fireworks.

Matheny and his Cardinals teammates looked on as Buck spoke.

“It was much needed, and I was proud to be a part of the game,” Matheny said. “Especially when you’re coming off of that strike of ‘94 and you’re just trying to get the view of the purpose of baseball back. In ‘98 with (Mark) McGwire and (Sammy) Sosa you take some huge steps forward, and then not long after that, all of a sudden we’ve got something that hasn’t happened in a long time since Pearl Harbor — that kind of ‘what just happened in our country?’ kind of thing. Baseball was a part of it, and that’s pretty surprising and impressive all at the same time.”

This week has featured a lot of remembrances around MLB, many centered around games in New York and the emotions surrounding the return to baseball in that city after the immense amount of death and destruction.

Matheny recalls having seen many of the same types of emotional reactions and memorable interactions in the Midwest.

That solidified in his mind that baseball wasn’t just a distraction, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It served a unifying purpose.

“I was wondering if anybody was going to show up,” Matheny said. “Right? You start hearing about potential follow-up attacks. Do you want to be anywhere where people are congregated in large numbers? I was wondering if — that was before cutout days — but I envisioned this could be just us in the stadium.”

At the time, so many opinions swirled around the media and among pundits on the subject of returning to sports with the nation still shaken. There were differences of opinion even within teams before they actually started playing again.

“Even in those days, we had conspiracy theorists in our clubhouse who were like, ‘I don’t think we should be playing baseball,’” Matheny said. “The next thing you know, we’re playing and people came. It’s like the Field of Dreams thing. You put that product out there and people will come. And they did. They were into it.

“You almost felt, I don’t know. There was an emotional tie that drew us to community when at times like that I think it’s very natural to go into hiding and be like I’m going to go get me and mine and we’re going to be okay here.”

From Matheny’s point of view, the sport prompted people to be “courageous.” In that instance courage may have meant “getting out of your bunker and going to a ballgame.” By doing that, people kept the attacks from holding the country in captivity with fear, Matheny explained.

“When you start getting people together, you realize families are bigger than just blood,” Matheny said. “Then our nation finding something to bring us together was, I think, just huge. What else was going to do that if baseball didn’t do it? That’s the way I looked at it. There were other sports, and they were going to end up taking the lead too, but it seemed like baseball was kind of running point there.”