Karsay reflects on role in post-9/11 moment

MILWAUKEE -- Brewers bullpen coach Steve Karsay grew up on the doorstep of Shea Stadium. And while that’s meant in a metaphorical sense, it’s not far off. When Karsay was 14 years old and the Mets played the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, he and some friends listened to the radio broadcast from the roof of a factory near his family’s College Point apartment.

“We were sitting there looking at the stadium lights and could literally hear the roar of the crowd when the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs,” Karsay said.

Fifteen years later, Karsay was on the mound for the Atlanta Braves at that same stadium for a moment just as much a part of baseball history, for an entirely different reason. You may see it replayed on MLB Network this weekend as the nation marks 20 years since the tragic attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

On Sept. 21, 2001, in the first professional sporting event in New York since the attack on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, Karsay surrendered a two-run home run to Mets star Mike Piazza in the bottom of the eighth inning that turned a 2-1 Braves lead into a 3-2 Mets win.

For the City of New York, it was seen as a moment of healing.

"It was just this incredible release of emotion," Piazza told MLB Network on the 15th anniversary of those events. "And I think, you know, it became evidently clear that people just wanted to cheer about something."

For Karsay, it was tough.

“I’ve grown up from 20 years ago,” he said this week. “In that moment, you’re playing for a pennant, you’re playing for the division and those are important games at the time amongst everything else going on. The competitor in me never wanted to lose that game. At the time, of course I was angry as hell that I put my team in that situation.

“Twenty years later, everybody was in that situation for a reason. That’s what you live for when you play this game: Moments like that. Unfortunately, I was not on the right side of that moment. But it will be something in the history of baseball that people will look back on and have an understanding of that particular time.”

Baseball paused along with the rest of the country in the wake of Sept. 11. Karsay and the resumed their march to the National League East title on Sept. 17-20 with a four-game series at Philadelphia before heading to New York. The morning of the series opener, officials arranged for Braves and Mets players to visit Ground Zero before the game.

Karsay declined.

“It was too early for me to do that and see the devastation and what had transpired down there,” he said. “I had seen enough of it on TV for me. And then obviously we had to prepare for a baseball game, which was going to be very emotional because Shea Stadium at the time, the parking lot, was being used for rescue vehicles and tents. It was a quiet drive in on the first day.”

For Karsay, it was personal. He grew up in a high-rise apartment five minutes from Shea Stadium. From his bedroom window, he says, he could see both the stadium and the Twin Towers across the bay.

“Being a New Yorker, to get to play in that game, there was a lot of raw emotion,” Karsay said. “It’s something that will be etched in my brain for the remainder of my life, however that game turned out or whatever part you played in that game.”

Karsay remembers a somber atmosphere for most of the night as police, fire officials and other first responders were honored for their service. Finally, at the seventh-inning stretch, the crowd began to stir when Liza Minelli performed “New York, New York.”

In the eighth, Brian Jordan gave the Braves a 2-1 lead with a two-out RBI double. Karsay was called upon to protect it. He retired Matt Lawton on a groundout but walked Edgardo Alfonso to set the stage for Piazza.

Karsay got ahead in the count with a fastball. When a second fastball leaked over the plate, Piazza connected.

“That moment, I think, gave the fans in the stadium and the City of New York a small amount of time to take their mind away from the outside world,” Karsay said.

It took time for him to come to that point of view, he said.

“It was just something that happened,” Karsay said. “It came full circle, growing up in New York, being traded to Atlanta and coming back and being put in that situation.”

Can he believe 20 years have gone by?

“It’s been fast,” Karsay said. “I can remember it like it was yesterday.”