Derek Jeter was back at Yankee Stadium on Friday night for the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but the most personal part of the evening had nothing to do with ceremony alone.
The Yankees honored first responders and welcomed members of their 2001 team, including Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Joe Torre, as both clubs wore caps to mark the day. Brielle Saracini also took the mound for a ceremonial first pitch to Cody Bellinger, and her presence gave the night a more intimate edge.
Saracini’s story has been tied to the Yankees for a quarter-century. Her father, Victor Saracini, was the captain of United Airlines Flight 175, the plane flown into the South Tower.
She was 10 years old when he died. What connected her to Jeter began with a letter she wrote three days after the attacks, telling him about her family’s loss and saying her father would have wanted her to meet the Yankees shortstop.
Jeter wrote back and invited Saracini and her family to Yankee Stadium for batting practice. That meeting turned into something far bigger than a one-time moment. Saracini said the visit made her feel, however briefly, like a child again.
The relationship never stopped there. Saracini said Jeter continued to check in over the years, and that quiet connection took on even deeper meaning when she later faced cancer.
During that fight, Jeter sent her a personal voicemail urging her to stay positive. She listened to it again and again while she was hospitalized.
“The kindness does not stop,” Saracini said.
Her life also carried another link to Sept. 11 through her husband, Sean McGuire. He lost his father, Patrick McGuire, who was working on the 84th floor of the South Tower. Brielle and Sean were both 10 when they lost their fathers, met two years later at Camp Better Days, a program for children who lost parents in the attacks, and married in September 2017.
For Jeter, the connection with families like the Saracinis helped answer a question that had haunted him after the attacks, when baseball suddenly felt insignificant. He recalled wondering, “What does baseball mean?”
The answer, for him and for the Yankees, became clear through the people they met. The team could not change what happened, but it could offer comfort, routine and a place for grieving families to feel seen. That relationship has remained part of the franchise’s identity ever since, from visits to Ground Zero to meetings with victims’ families and first responders.
Friday’s ceremony fit into that larger tradition, with the Yankees also visiting firehouses, hosting service events and recognizing organizations connected to the attacks in the weeks around the anniversary. But Saracini’s return, standing on the mound beside Jeter, brought the day back to one child’s letter, one long-running bond and a private message that helped carry her through a hospital stay.
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