Sports events provide gathering places to celebrate patriotism

Column

By now, you've seen footage or at least heard how baseball fans in Philadelphia broke into a spontaneous chant of "USA! USA!" on Sunday night, when word began to break that the mission against Osama bin Ladin had been fulfilled.

That's one night when it would actually have been cool to be in Philadelphia. After all, they say you never know for sure what will happen at the ballpark and no doubt fans who were there expecting to watch the Phillies and Mets will never forget the twist that night.

Across the country, patriotic outpourings were a part of the scene Monday night. By a fluke of scheduling, the Washington Nationals already planned Military Appreciation Night for Monday's game. According to reports, when the crowd was urged to cheer for active or retired service people in the stands for that game, another one of "those" moments broke out.

Even the visiting San Francisco Giants stood and applauded -- along with everyone else in the house.

Similar scenes played out across the country. Several teams gave away thousands of free tickets to military personnel and you can bet more is planned.

Tonight at the Forum, the Tampa Bay Lightning have some special stuff in mind for their playoff game against the Washington Capitals.

Team spokesman Bill Wickett, in response to a text message, said, "Our biggest ovation every game is a military salute. Yes, we will ramp up what we do and I expect a ramped-up national anthem."

And the Tampa Bay Rays, according to team spokesmen Rick Vaughn, will play "God Bless the USA" during the seventh-inning stretch of tonight's game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Tropicana Field.

I'm not a big one for overstating the role sports can play in events like this, but there is no question that it plays at least a part. Whenever you get that many people gathered in one spot, it's only natural that people are going to have some reaction that will be worth noting.

Every one remembers the World Series in New York in 2001, about six weeks after 9/11. The enduring image of President George W. Bush striding to the mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium was widely celebrated as a galvanizing point for a wounded nation.

I was covering that Series but actually decided that night to take a different path. Instead of staying inside the stadium to watch an event I knew would be massively reported, I went to ground zero.

It was an eerie sight, I'll tell you. Smoke and steam still rose from the ruins. I remember a couple of New York cops were standing nearby where I was. Someone had set up a small black and white TV on a card table with the game on, but they weren't watching. Flood lights created a surreal effect as the evening went on.

None of this is to belittle what the president did that night. It was a powerful statement that life goes on. People inside Yankee Stadium and millions more watching on TV needed something like that, just like people need release now -- keeping it all in perspective, of course.

"I don't know if this puts closure," Yankees captain Derek Jeter told reporters in New York. "I'm sure there's no closure to someone losing a relative or a loved one, but in some sense I guess it is, from what I've seen in a lot of the interviews with people that lost family members. It brings some closure to it. Not total closure, but some.

"(Sunday) night and (Monday) morning, watching the news, you remember a lot of the stories and the people that you had the opportunity to meet. Like I said, it was 10 years ago but it almost feels like it wasn't."

Sports also has a way of reminding us of the world we live in, though. There was heightened security at the NBA playoff games Monday night in Chicago and Los Angeles -- metal detector wands. Those checks will continue though out the remainder of the playoffs.

Of course, fans at NFL games have had to accept a pat-down to get inside the stadium for a while now. That's just the world we live in.

Then there is the world in which Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall lives.

On his Twitter account, Mendenhall noted: "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side..."

Then he noted, "We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

Oh dear.

Mendenhall later suggested he was just trying to make people think.

Well ... judging by the reaction Mendenhall has gotten, people simply think he's crazy.

But this day isn't about crazy people or the things they say. It's about a national cleansing and the things that bring us together as a nation.

It's worth shouting about.