WASHINGTON — Before the top of the fourth inning on Military Appreciation Night at Nationals Park, the public address announcer encouraged everyone at the baseball stadium to cheer for the active or retired members of the service who were in the stands Monday, recipients of free tickets.
As Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” blared through the ballpark, and the message “Thank You for Your Service and Sacrifice” dominated the HD scoreboard, a group of military personnel seated a few rows behind home plate waved their red Nationals baseball caps.
Thousands of fans rose to applaud. Members of the Nationals, spread around the diamond, preparing to play defense — and wearing what the team called “patriotic” uniforms, with stars-and-stripes curly “W’s” on the chests of their blue jerseys — provided their own standing ovation. The World Series champion San Francisco Giants stood in the visiting dugout and bullpen, clapping too.
Talk about a coincidence: Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, the Nationals honored the military — an event the team said it began planning in the offseason and announced to the public a week ago.
“Really a great opportunity for our fans . . . to honor our military vets and wounded warriors,” Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said before the game. “Those who are here tonight are going to be beaming with pride about what took place last night.”
For the Giants, they got to be in Washington at a historic time and now open a three-game series at the New York Mets tonight.
“We’re in our nation’s capital here, and we get that kind of news, and now we’re off to New York — Ground Zero,” San Francisco pitcher Brian Wilson said. “It’s going to be quite an emotional week for a lot of people — baseball being one of them, playing America’s sport here.”
In the wake of bin Laden’s death, security was a prime concern.
The NBA told all playoff teams to check fans with metal detector wands as they entered. The policy was in effect as crowds came to the United Center in Chicago on Monday night for the Eastern Conference semifinal opener between the Bulls and Atlanta.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league had been “in contact with each of our remaining venues, and they will be taking steps as they deem appropriate given the information we have.”
Major League Baseball said it would continue “to monitor what’s occurring on a day-to-day basis.”
Bin Laden’s death drew reaction from a trio of Yankees who were with the team when the terrorist attacks occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.
“All I said was, ‘Justice,’ ” closer Mariano Rivera said. “Justice prevailed.”
Said longtime star Jorge Posada: “I’m happy for the city of New York. I think the firemen and the policemen, and everything that we went through, I think this is one of those steps that we needed to cross, and it’s good to see.”
Captain Derek Jeter said he was in “disbelief” when he heard the news.
” 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,” Jeter said.
“Last night and this 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,” he said.
