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Much of the impact of Sept. 11 on the sports world is more novelty than
substance. The postponement of a week's worth of NFL games and six days of
baseball meant football in February and baseball in November, each a first, and
with the postponement or outright cancellation of all 58 scheduled Division I-A
games that weekend, Sept. 15 was the first regular-season Saturday ever without
major college football. With NASCAR and the PGA also canceling their events,
America did without Big Time Sports for nearly a week -- unheard of. A new sense
of patriotism was displayed as American flags were stitched onto baseball
uniforms and God Bless America usurped Take Me Out to the Ballgame
as the preferred anthem of the seventh-inning stretch. Other familiar rituals --
such as bringing a cooler or backpack of goodies to the park -- had to be
abandoned due to security concerns. Beneath the surface, though, Sept. 11
affected the sporting landscape as palpably as it did everything else. We
learned that Los Angeles Kings scouting director and former Boston Bruins
forward Garnet (Ace) Bailey and his assistant, Mark Bavis, were aboard United
Airlines Flight 175 when it slammed into the south tower of the World Trade
Center. Much of the drive behind the cancellations came from the players
themselves who, worried about the potential dangers of air travel and their own
inability to focus on anything as trivial as a sporting event, were made newly
contemplative. Some argued that the games must go on, citing the need to escape
our sorrows, but their voices were drowned out by a nation that, at least for
the moment, didn't want to forget. "At a certain point playing our games
can contribute to the healing process," said NFL commissioner Paul
Tagliabue. "Just not at this
time."
--Jamal
Greene
Sports Illustrated, September 24, 2001: A Break in the Action
Life of Reilly: Four of a Kind
Frank Deford: Let the games go on
Video Box: The sports world struggles to cope in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks 
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Photographs by Matt Mahurin, Bill Frakes, David Bergman
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