The day the games stopped and everything changed

As summers go, 2001 wasnt going well. There's small consolation in the fact that Tiger fans had become numb to this recurring campaign of: Were building something here; were going to get good. They werent and they didnt for quite a while. That season, names dotting the roster included Tony Clark and Wendell Magee and Bobby Higginson and Roger Cedeno and Steve Sparks and Jeff Weaver and the late Jose Lima. It was a collection saved from last place in the Central Division by the presence of the Royals -- all of one game poorer that season. On Sept. 10 of that summer, the Twins had scored a run in the top of the ninth inning and beat the Tigers at Comerica Park, 3-2. And the world yawned. Trust me, there were lots of those nights that summer. That was just the latest of them. The next morning, crummy endings and lousy luck took on a whole new meaning. The Tigers and Twins were to play the second of their four-game series at Comerica Park, and that Tuesday morning, amidst our television production group, discussions had already been held about the storylines of the day. By then, the world was already changing. Forever. You couldnt sit down. We all stood in kitchens and offices all over the United States, watching in complete stomach-clenching horror as the story evolved over an agonizing couple of hours. Could normal life actually go on? We awaited the word that we knew was coming. There wouldnt be any baseball that day or in the days to follow. Suddenly, anything other than hugging your kids seemed so trivial. But there had to be more season played. There had to be some sense of normal. If not, the bastards who took over the planes and killed thousands of innocent people would win. Again. The Tigers season would resume against the Twins, but this time in Minneapolis. Getting to those games would require commercial airplane travel -- presence within a throng of people in a small area -- and thus a fair amount of courage. Amidst the group of us traveling together, through a gauntlet of upgraded security procedures, the reminder to each other was constant: We have never been this safe. We said it out loud so wed believe it ourselves. On Sept. 18, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, "The Star Spangled Banner" was accompanied by goosebumps. It never sounded so important and so clear. Who won that night? Who cares? The game played was a portal back for a society, which had been ravaged and locked up by fear. Life had to go on. The season and the road trip continued. The next stop after 911 is the one that I will always remember. As fate would have it, the Tigers played the Red Sox in Boston. Two of the 911 flights overtaken by terrorists had originated from Boston's Logan Airport. Walking through that completely deserted airport, a week after that day of horrific consequence, was incredibly emotional. That sense of eeriness will stay with me forever. Evil had been there. What we wanted that week was to get through it and be safe and punish those responsible and be 10 years into the future. Weve arrived. How much has changed? Safer? Yes. Back to normal? Not nearly. Not likely ever again. The Tigers, now as then, are a pleasant diversion from the ugliness of the real world. What 911 should remind us all is that lifes too short. And thus maybe its about time to win a divisional title here. Since 911, everything is about time.