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HBO: Tell us where you were on the morning of September 11th...
Joe Torre: I was getting ready to do a fundraiser appearance in Manhattan, and my phone rang. I did not have the TV on. My phone rang from the car service that was supposed to pick me up and they said, well I guess it's cancelled. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said turn on the TV. And I turned on the TV and this was around nine o'clock I guess. And, you know, watching with my mouth open.
Right away my thoughts went to the rest of my household, because I knew if my wife had known about this she obviously would have come upstairs to tell me. At the time, my daughter was about five years old, and it was a traumatic thing for me, because I had to go downstairs and figure out how to tell everyone. So we tried to direct my daughter into another room and turn on cartoons--if we could find them because every station on television was all about the World Trade Center and what was happening around it.
I mean, baseball's been my whole life and baseball never even entered my mind when this took place. I just knew how traumatic it was.
HBO: Did you know at that time people would look to you and the team?
Joe Torre: First off, when, when the planes hit the World Trade Center I mean the last thing on your mind was baseball. As big a part as baseball has been in my life, that's how insignificant it was at that time.
After a few days, we gathered everybody up and we went through the door of the Armory. When we went in there we saw all the families sort of separated in different sections. Different counselors, clergy, psychologists -- everybody was into their own thing. And all of a sudden somebody looks up and their arms opened up for us.
I remember one very poignant moment when Bernie Williams went up to this woman. Bernie's a very shy person to begin with. He was sort of fumbling and he says I don't know what to say, but you look like you need a hug. And he put his arms around her. And that sort of broke the ice to see that, you know, these people needed this and I guess needed it from us because we're the Yankees-- we're the champions, but more important, we're here for you. And to me that was a very, very memorable afternoon. I think at that point in time I realized that there was a role for us. And going back to playing baseball was a way for us to do our job to try to distract the people from the misery they were going through at that time.
HBO: How hard was it to play baseball again after 9/11?
Joe Torre: I remember speaking to my players on Monday that we were going to play on Tuesday and saying it's not going to be easy. However, this NY on our hat represents the city and we have to do that for the city. It's our job. The players never had to be coaxed. They understood. And we were in Comiskey Park and out there was a sign, you know, Chicago loves New York and then I understand that up in Fenway Park they were singing New York, New York. And then you realized everybody was coming together in baseball to get behind New York because there was something more important than the game at this point in time.
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