On September 11, 2026 — exactly 25 years after the attacks that reshaped New York City — the Yankees and Mets showed up to Yankee Stadium dressed as first responders. FDNY caps on one side, NYPD caps on the other. A wreath laid at Monument Park by Aaron Boone, Aaron Judge, and Gerrit Cole before the first pitch. And a Subway Series the Yankees won 6-4, capped by one of the most striking images of the night: Ben Rice hitting a solo home run in the fifth inning with a bat stamped with the New York City fire department logo.
How the tradition started
It goes back to September 21, 2001 — the first baseball game played in New York after the attacks. At Shea Stadium, Mets and Braves players walked onto the field wearing NYPD, FDNY, and Port Authority caps. Nobody told them to. They just did it. That image became a habit, and the habit became a tradition.
For years it stayed informal, a quiet agreement between the teams and the city. Then in 2021, on the 20th anniversary, the Mets and Yankees played a Subway Series on September 11 itself — at Citi Field — and the ceremony took on an institutional weight it had never carried before.
This year the stage was Yankee Stadium, and the production was considerably larger: an honor guard from the NYPD, FDNY, and Port Authority Police; an American flag stretching across the entire outfield during the national anthem; and a ‘We Shall Never Forget’ patch worn by every player, manager, coach, and umpire across all of MLB.
What the teams did before the game even started
The Yankees didn’t wait until game day. Starting August 27, players visited firehouses across the city. The organization also donated $25,000 to five 9/11-connected institutions: Tuesday’s Promise, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the NYC Police Foundation, the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey, and the FDNY Foundation.
Inside the stadium, the NY logo behind home plate was repainted in red, white, and blue — an exact replica of the design used at the old Yankee Stadium on September 25, 2001, the first time the team came home after the attacks.
The Mets kept their own ritual alive. Al Leiter, John Franco, Todd Zeile, Robin Ventura, and David Wright — five of the players who were there in 2001 — visited Ladder 25 on the Upper West Side together. Twenty-five years, same firehouse, some of the same faces.
Aaron Judge hosted guests from the New York Blood Center, the PAPD, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the FDNY, the NYPD, the Silver Shield Foundation, Tuesday’s Promise, and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation in his Judge’s Chambers section at Yankee Stadium.
The game was broadcast nationally on MLB Network and ESPN Unlimited, plus locally on YES and SNY — the biggest platform New York baseball could offer for a night like this.
On the field: Yankees 6, Mets 4
Carlos Rodón was the right man for the moment. He went 6.1 innings and allowed just one earned run — a composed, controlled outing when the game called for exactly that.
Ben Rice delivered the night’s signature moment: a solo shot in the fifth with that FDNY-logo bat. It was the most-shared image from the game across social media, and it earned every share.
The Yankees closed it out 6-4 and took the Subway Series.
The day before, MLB Network premiered When America Took the Field, a documentary produced with Todd Zeile about the role baseball played in New York’s recovery after 9/11. On Friday night, the baseball story and the history story were the same story.
