Yankee Stadium reunion of Brielle Saracini and Derek Jeter a highlight of 9/11 ceremony

Beforehand, the big ballpark in the Bronx was filled with neither Yankees fans nor Mets fans.

Just New Yorkers honoring and reflecting, each in their own way, the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Feels like an honor to go out there tonight,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Understand there will be a lot of different emotions in the building tonight, with a lot of people with a lot of different context in and around that time and that day. We don’t take lightly walking out on that field tonight.”

The pregame ceremony, which began 40 minutes before the scheduled 7:08 p.m. first pitch, started with the Yankees recognizing the New York City Police Department, Fire Department of the City of New York, Port Authority Police Department, Tunnel to Towers Foundation and Tuesday’s Promise (previously known as Tuesday’s Children).

A selection of alumni of the 2001 Yankees — Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Paul O’Neill, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius and manager Joe Torre — were introduced to the crowd and gathered behind the mound.

Earlier in the day, Boone and current players Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole placed a wreath beside the 9/11 monument in Monument Park, located behind the wall in centerfield.

Grammy-winning country music recording artist Lee Greenwood performed his iconic hit “God Bless the USA” and accomplished opera tenor James Valenti, with both teams standing at attention in full uniform in front of their dugouts, further stirred the crowd with his rendition of the national anthem.

None of which was the most emotional part of the pregame ceremony.

That came when Brielle Saracini and her husband, Sean McGuire, threw out the ceremonial first pitches (the former to Cody Bellinger and the latter to Paul Goldschmidt).

Saracini’s father, Victor, was the captain of United Flight 175, which terrorists flew into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. That was where, on the 84th floor, McGuire’s father, Patrick, was killed.

The pair, both 10 years old when their fathers died, met two years later at Camp Better Days, established to support children who lost a parent in the Sept. 11 attacks. They were married on Sept. 9, 2017.

Saracini also was reunited with Jeter. Three days after her father’s death, she wrote a letter to Jeter describing what her family had experienced, and part of the letter explained that it would be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for her to meet Jeter. The letter reached him, and he invited her family to a game at old Yankee Stadium that was played 15 days after he received the letter.

“I remember just feeling normal for a day, which was hard to do. The odds were stacked against me that day,” Saracini said during a news conference with Jeter afterward. “I remember just taking a minute and just having normal conversations and just feeling like a kid.”

She looked at Jeter on the dais.

“Having an opportunity to reflect, 25 years now looking back, I don’t know how you were able to do that,” Saracini said. “I don’t know how you managed to make somebody feel just so special, so normal and just like a kid like I was supposed to be.”

Jeter said that  at the time, he asked himself a question.

“As an athlete, it was the first time that I said to myself, ‘Why am I even playing?’ because, obviously, the games got canceled. My initial thought was, ‘We’re not going to come back and play. What does baseball mean?’ ” Jeter said. “And then you got a chance to meet a lot of family members who lost loved ones and Brielle’s right at the top of the list because I got a chance to get to know her, and then you realize from the stories that they share, she even said it in her letter, the memories they have at Yankee Stadium, her and her dad, going to games and being a Yankees fan. And then that’s when you realize that our job was to at least try to give people something to cheer for for a few hours a day.”

Jeter, who has kept in touch with Saracini in the ensuing years, continued: “And in Brielle’s situation, when we invited her to the Stadium, you really don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I said, ‘I’m sorry’ or anything like that. I just tried to make her day feel special. You just try to make her feel as comfortable as you possibly can. But to be quite honest with you, I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to do. So it was basically, I guess, I winged it.”

Saracini smiled.

“Nailed it.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.