Baseball: Players eye resumption of play as others stay on sideline

NEW YORK - The most resounding shutdown of sports in United States history silenced stadiums and arenas nationwide at the weekend, but last night some players were taking the first steps toward a return to normality.

World Series baseball champions the New York Yankees returned to the Bronx for workouts at Yankee Stadium, which has been used as a staging area for the huge rescue effort following the devastating terror attacks in Manhattan.

But there was no play yet for paying customers. All games involving Major League Baseball, the NFL, major college football, professional golf and NBA and NHL exhibitions were called off, making for a strangely quiet weekend in a sports-crazed country still in shock after the attacks.

The Yanks and cross-town neighbours the New York Mets, whose Shea Stadium has also been used in rescue and relief operations, were preparing for today's resumption of the regular season.

The 91 games lost will be made up in an extra week of play starting on October 1, which could mean the World Series winners will be crowned in November for the first time.

The Yankees will actually restart their season tomorrow because today's scheduled game in Florida against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will be played on the Thursday of the extra week.

The postponements in baseball marked the biggest interruption of the sport for reasons other than players' union conflict since the last month of the 1918 season was dropped because of the First World War.

The last comparable stoppage came in 1989 when the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics was halted for 10 days after an earthquake devastated the Bay area.

When baseball and the other sports resume they will do so under tightened security. Baseball officials have said that more security officers will be on hand.

Fans will be prohibited from carrying coolers, backpacks or large bags into the stadiums.

League commissioner Bud Selig said that before he decided to call off the games, he agonised over a letter sent from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the then-commissioner five weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on Sunday, December 7, 1941.

The letter contained an oft-quoted line: "I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going."

National Football League commissioner Paul Tagliabue cancelled the second week of the season, the first NFL games ever lost because of non-union issues.

The NFL played through the attack on Pearl Harbour and staged games on the next two weeks as well.

Veteran New York Giants owner Wellington Mara said he remembered that day nearly 60 years ago.

"I didn't even know where Pearl Harbour was," said the 85-year-old Mara, who was told about the air-raid by the Giants team chaplain during halftime of a game.

"It wasn't like this time, when the whole thing happened on Main Street."

Even after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the league held its regular games two days later, a decision then-commissioner Pete Rozelle considered his biggest regret in 29 years in the job.

The major college football conferences called off more than 100 games at the weekend and five professional golf tournaments were scrubbed.

- REUTERS

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