NEW YORK — Twenty-five years ago, Brielle Saracini was 10 years old and trying to cope with losing her father, Victor Saracini, the pilot on United flight 175, which was taken over by the 9/11 hijackers and crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Spurred on by a friend, she wrote a letter to Derek Jeter, met the Yankees captain at Yankee Stadium and formed a lifelong friendship.
On Friday, as New York commemorated the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Saracini threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium with Jeter watching from the mound before the Yankees beat the crosstown Mets 6-4.
“I remember just talking about anything and everything and anything that kind of came through my mind that day and you just made it so comfortable and I remember just feeling normal for a day, which was hard to do,” Saracini said while sitting next to Jeter at a news conference. “The odds were stacked against me that day but I remember just taking a minute and just having normal conversations and just feeling like a kid.”
Jeter remembers trying his best in a tough situation.
“When we invited her to the stadium, you really don’t know what to say,” Jeter said. “So I don’t even know if I said ‘I’m sorry’ or anything like that. I just tried to make her day feel special and I remember introducing her to all the players and bring her down and you just try to make her feel as comfortable as you possibly can.”
Toward the end of a nearly 30-minute ceremony, Saracini and husband, Sean McGuire — he wore a Mets jersey — threw to Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger. McGuire also lost his father on 9/11; the couple met at a camp for kids whose parents died in the attacks, and they married in 2017.
“That was cool,” said Bellinger, whose father, Clay, played for the 2001 Yankees and later became a firefighter. “I was told the story before the game. A pretty wild story. So I was we were all able to kind of give some cheer back.”
As Saracini and McGuire made their tosses, Jeter stood behind them along with former teammates Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius, and their manager, Joe Torre.
During the ceremony, highlights of the Yankees’ 2001 postseason run were shown, including Jeter’s walk-off homer in Game 4 of the World Series that earned him the nickname “Mr. November.” The Yankees fell short in their bid for a fourth straight title when Luis Gonzalez singled off Rivera to give the Diamondbacks their only championship.
Acclaimed tenor James Valenti sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" while a massive American flag was unfurled in center field.
In the weeks before the ceremony, various members of the Yankees visited three fire stations in Manhattan. Earlier this week, several Yankees — including manager Aaron Boone — visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center site.
Friday marked the second time the Mets and Yankees played on Sept. 11. The Yankees beat the Mets 8-7 at Citi Field on the 20th anniversary in 2021.
“I think Major League Baseball got this one right,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said, “putting these two teams together on this day.”
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