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ON SEPT. 21, 2001, 10 days after two hijacked planes turned the twin towers of the World Trade Center into effigies of ash and killed 2,753 people, Mike Piazza hit a home run for the New York Mets.
It was the 312th of a career in which he hit 427. He had hit one two days earlier, in Pittsburgh, and he would hit another four nights later, in Montreal. But this was Piazza's first home game in the aftermath of what would become known simply as 9/11, in front of 41,235 people who had come to Shea Stadium still throbbing with grief and shock and uncertainty and fear.