Thanks to Jessica Quiroli, proprietor of Heels on the Field, for sharing this inspiring story:

For many, baseball is an escape.
Tradition, generations coming together over time to share in America’s pastime, has brought fans back all their lives.
After the terrorist attacks on America eleven years ago, baseball was, again, an escape.
For New York City firefighters, it’s one they turn to both because of love for the game, but because it is directly connected to what they fought for, and many of their friends and colleagues died for, on this day in 2001.
In the early part of summer, at MCU Park, home of the Mets affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones, the FDNY and NYPD played to raise money and awareness of charities benefiting the families of those that died that day trying to save others.
Those games have also become tradition, a fun way for brave men to come together and remember, as much to take their minds off the stress of what they do everyday.
“I’ve played baseball my whole life,” said the team’s versatile outfielder Joe Walsh. “I played in high school and Little League. I loved going out there and just hitting the ball or fall down for a fly ball.” . . .
Walsh’s teammate, third baseman Joe Ginobbi, a five year veteran, got close enough to touch the dream.
“I played four years in college and played one year of pro,” he said of his time in the Frontier League in 2004. He’d been signed as an non-drafted free agent.
But he had bigger dreams and that calling was too important to ignore.
“In January 2005 I got called on to be a cop and I wanted to be a cop my whole life,” he said.
Upon joining the fire department, he was immediately interested in joining the baseball team. He did some digging, researching the team on the internet and liked what he saw. They’d been a championship team two years in a row. It gave him an opportunity to do something he loved, while also fulfilling his destiny as a firefighter.
“I just wanted to play a little longer,” he said.
There was also the draw of being part of the community and outreach that the FDNY and NYPD make a priority. The FDNY travels across the country, to places such as Florida and California, Arizona, and Ohio.
“Wherever we go, we’re honored for being from New York City,” Ginobbi said.
Joe Walsh, on the team for three years, and in the fire department for five, acknowledges the spirit of it. And that it’s about New York, and the two departments, coming together as family.
“We do this every year for the widows and families of those lost on 9/11. Both cops and firemen. It always feels good for us to pay back. Everybody’s so close and such a tight knit group of guys.” . . .
The fun of it, the meaning of it, is an escape, but the personal attachment is as much a part of it. They’re baseball fans, that had professional baseball aspirations, boys that became men and now risk their lives for others everyday.
Every summer they get to be those boys again.

More here.

Never forget.