Howie Rose says he drove to Shea Stadium on Sept. 21, 2001, unsure whether Major League Baseball should be back in New York at all. By the time Mike Piazza sent a home run over the wall that night, Rose says his doubts were gone.
He was reflecting on that call on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, when the memory still carried the weight of the moment. Rose said he joined the return to the Mets’ booth with his head not really in the game, and that he was worried on the drive in because it was the first time so many people would be gathered together after the attacks.
For Rose, the question was not abstract. He said he would have been fine if Major League Baseball had decided on the evening of September 11th or the morning of September 12th that New York should not play again that season. He said Mets executives told him to keep everything low key because the night was meant to be solemn, and he followed that cue as Piazza came to the plate.
Then the ball left the bat. Rose said he called the drive with a simple, cautious line: “This one has a chance.” Piazza, he said, still teases him about that call. But the swing itself changed the meaning of the night. Rose said he watched the reaction and understood that it was not only the right decision to return, but the only decision.
The game became more than a baseball restart. It was the first time many New Yorkers and Mets fans had gathered in that kind of crowd after 9/11, and Piazza’s homer gave them something rare in that moment: a reason to react together, loud and unguarded. Rose said they were still looking over their shoulders, but the home run cut through that fear.
That is why the call has stayed with him. Rose said it is one of the moments he will always be associated with, and Piazza’s place in New York only grew because of it. He never won a World Series with the Mets, but that night helped make him feel like a player who had.
Rose’s own run in the booth is now nearing its end, which gives the memory sharper edges. He is looking back on a career-defining call, but the lasting question is the one he raised in real time: how close New York came to not having that night at all.
