I Have Not Forgotten...

I was supposed to be on a plane headed home to St. Louis.

We had just finished a second-place finish in the Northwest League (NWL). My team, the Boise Hawks, a Chicago Cubs short-season-A team based in Boise, Idaho, dominated the league thanks in-part to the season-long-success of future Major League pitchers Dontrelle Willis, Felix Sanchez and Sergio Mitre. They comprised three of our starting five.

I was the closer. It was the late summer of 2001.

After earning a spot in the league finals, it was the San Francisco Giants minor league affiliate, led by pitcher Jesse Foppert, (who made his Major League pitching debut in 2002), who showed us why he was the Giants’ #1 draft pick that year: he completely mowed us down.

With the season over, my teammates and I had one day to pack our bags, clear out the clubhouse and hop on a flight home for the off-season.

My flight was to leave at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11.

The night before I was supposed to leave Boise, I had called my sister to let her know when my flight was expected to arrive at the airport in St. Louis. The game plan was: I’d sleep in, grab a quick brunch and head to the airport a few hours early because I had extra bags that I wanted to make sure made it home with me. (It's amazing how much "stuff" you can collect over the course of a Minor League season.)

The next morning, my host mom, with whom my teammate and I lived, woke us up at 8 a.m. in a frantic panic. She had been watching the morning news and saw that an airplane had crashed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center in New York. (At that point, no one knew a second plane was headed toward the second tower.)

I got up, grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and tuned into the events on the news with everybody in the living room.

Within minutes of my sitting down on the edge of the couch, the news crews panned the sky to catch a second plane weave through the cityscape and barrel into the second tower.

Like the rest of America, I watched in horror as smoke billowed out of the two World Trade Center towers.

My mom and sister immediately called on the cell phone. Then my dad, who called to say that my grandparents in New York were OK.

Twenty minutes later, the first tower collapsed. Then the second. My roommate, host family and me just sat there on the couch… silent and motionless.

I didn't get home until Sunday morning, five days later.

That was four years ago. I was in Boise, Idaho. I have not forgotten.

Steven Ellis
The Complete Pitcher®
www.thecompletepitcher.com