As the Allies made their way toward Paris in the waning days of World War II, Hemingway and his entourage had a more prosaic objective: to liberate the Ritz Bar.

While no one would confuse the City of Lights with the Boulevard of Body Shops that is the surrounding area of Shea Stadium (nor me, it goes without saying, with Papa), when the opportunity arose to go to the first baseball game after the attack on the World Trade Center, it was irresistible. Since Sept. 11, life in this city, country, world has been changed -- changed utterly -- and reclaiming baseball for New York City seemed like something that me and 41,000 other fans could do on a balmy Friday evening.

But Mets baseball was never like this: Rudy Guiliani was in the house, there was "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes, a color guard in centerfield, a 21-gun salute, "God Bless America" led by Diana Ross, the Anthem by Marc Anthony and the Mets and Braves hugging each other on the field before the game. The crowd even cheered Todd Zeile's first at-bat.

Oh, but the fans did boo Chipper Jones, so some things are forever.

In all of the accounts of that devastating day, just 10 days ago, the word "surreal" kept being used to describe the horror. At the time, I thought the description was apt. Until now. Take it from me: Liza Minnelli singing "New York, New York" during the seventh-inning stretch was surreal. (Jay Payton was loosening up in the batter's box during her performance and was then hugged and kissed by Liza, while still holding his weighted bat. Talk about taking one for the team! That he was able to put the ball in play in his subsequent at-bat places him in my personal hall of fame.)

When Mike Piazza crushed a Steve Karsay fastball over the centerfield wall in the eighth, giving the Mets a 3-2 lead (the eventual final score), it just proved that Flushing is not that far from Broadway and that good theater is good theater. For the Mets, it's 4 1/2 games back with 14 left to play. As Billy Rose (the Ty Cobb of Broadway producers) would say, "Give the people what they want."

My elder son, Matt, was unable to join us at Shea -- someone forgot to tell his teachers that senior year in high school is supposed to be easy. I let my 12-year-old son, Robert, take a friend with us. He invited one of his best buds from way back, Haroon, who's family is from Pakistan, and is a Muslim. It was his first baseball game.

He waved his complimentary mini American flag. He agonized over every close call. He even called Piazza's shot. As I drove him home, I told him this wasn't anything like other games I had seen. He said he figured that. "But the home team won," he said. "And that's always good."

Mark Giles is news editor for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail mark.giles@espnmag.com.