Escape for New York

They played this one for young Jack Hord.

His father, Monty, was among the 700 employees of the Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage firm who perished in the north tower of the World Trade Center in last week’s terrorist attacks. Since then, it has been a 10-day walking nightmare for the city that never sleeps, a dirge of recovery efforts, news conferences, funerals and political speeches.

But on Friday, the fidgety 7-year-old was among 41,235 tragedy-fatigued New Yorkers who took a collective break at Shea Stadium for what amounted to a giant howl of civic relief. Sitting in the first row behind home plate, where he cheered on the hometown Mets against their archrival Atlanta Braves, Jack was quick to describe how he felt being at the city’s first professional baseball game since the tragedy took away his dad.

“Good,” he said shyly.

Indeed, there were many reasons for the crowd to feel upbeat about the city’s largest public gathering since the tragedy. Not the least of which was the obvious: The Mets beat the Braves 3-2, in a late-inning thriller. The winning hit came in the eighth, when catcher Mike Piazza parked an 0-and-1 pitch 420 feet over the left-center-field wall.

“We definitely felt like we wanted to win tonight,” a reflective Piazza said after the game. “Irrelevant to the rest of the season, we just wanted to give the people something to cheer about.”

The victory pulled the surging Mets to within 41/2 games of the slumping Braves, and had some fans talking about “miracles.” Yet most were grateful for the small blessing of an All-American diversion.

For 3 hours 7 minutes, life seemed almost normal again.

“It was a great night, an absolutely great night,” said Long Island attorney Peter Malloy, 47, as he filed out of Shea. “I think once the game started being played, it was just another game.” Winning the game dramatically, he added, “was just icing on the cake.”

Still, there was no escaping reality altogether at Shea, which had been used as a staging area for relief workers and supplies while the Mets were out of town.

The team announced before game time that it would donate one day’s wages--about $450,000--to a fund for New York police and fire widows and children. The gesture came after players took a seven-hour bus ride back from Pittsburgh and, while crossing the George Washington Bridge early Thursday morning, got their first look at the smoke rising from the World Trade Center crater.

“There was silence on the bus and a feeling of just sickness in our guts,” said first baseman Todd Zeile.

“I have embraced New York City and enjoyed every aspect of what the city has to offer,” said the former Dodger and resident of the Santa Clarita area. “I live downtown. I live on 15th Street. To not see the towers standing and just see the smoke billowing still was ... sick to your stomach, I think is the best way I can describe it.”

Thursday night, Met Manager Bobby Valentine and several Mets, including pitcher and native New Yorker John Franco, paid a visit to rescuers at Ground Zero to boost morale. Valentine said the sight of the massive recovery effort was so overwhelming he couldn’t fall asleep when he got back home.

“It amazed me. It inspired me,” he said. “It made me understand that we are supposed to be playing, without a doubt.”

But before getting down to business, Met management paid tribute to the World Trade tower victims with a patriotic display that brought the crowd to its feet chanting “USA! USA!” The 20-minute ceremony had everything but fireworks: Diana Ross singing “God Bless America,” two choirs, the New York Police Department’s bagpipe brigade, a 21-gun salute, the unfurling of a huge American flag in center field and the introduction of ubiquitous New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

New York fans even sang the national anthem with pop artist Marc Anthony.

“I’ve come to about 75 games a year for the last 25 years, and you rarely hear anyone singing the national anthem. Usually, it’s the person singing alone on the field,” said Donald N. Summers, 68, a cardiologist and season-ticket holder.

“Today, they sang.”

During the seventh-inning stretch, there was another treat. Instead of singing “God Bless America,” as was decreed by baseball’s front office, the Mets called on Liza Minnelli o blast out “New York, New York.”

The pregame ceremony was a comfort for young Hord as well, said J. Christopher Daly, a family friend who brought Jack to the game to get him out of the house. During the second inning, a police officer delivered to him a baseball on behalf of the hometown team.

Daly said when the youngster walked into the stadium, he looked at the neon miniature of the city skyline atop the scoreboard and asked: “Where’s the building my dad was at?” Daly said he pointed out a spot where the twin towers were dark, covered by a red, white and blue ribbon.

During the moment of silence, Daly told Jack “they were praying for his dad.” And during a procession of New York firefighters, police and other rescue personnel, he told the boy “there were the people who tried to find his dad.”

It wasn’t immediately apparent if Jack fully grasped the magnitude of it all, being only a boy after all. But Daly said Jack cried a little during the moment of silence. “To hear all the people cheer and the prayer, I hope it means something to him as he gets older,” said Daly.

Maybe it already does. “Well, it made me feel a little better,” said Jack.