MLB Network announces 25th anniversary 9/11 documentary ‘When America Took the Field’

MLB Network is revisiting one of the sport’s most difficult chapters in recent history for the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11.

The network announced Wednesday that When America Took the Field, a two-hour documentary examining baseball’s role in the country’s recovery after the 2001 terrorist attacks, will premiere Sept. 10 at 10 p.m. ET, re-airing over the following three nights and landing on MLB.TV on demand the week after.

The list of interviews includes Hall of Famers Joe Torre, Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio, and Mike Piazza, the last of whom appears in a joint sit-down with former Mets teammates John Franco, Al Leiter, and Todd Zeile; former players Roger Clemens, Bernie Williams, Luis Gonzalez, Curt Schilling, and Paul Konerko; former manager Bobby Valentine and former executive Ken Williams; and broadcasters Joe Buck, Bob Costas, Tom Verducci, and the Hall of Fame radio pairing of Mike Francesa and Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo.

MLB Network’s 20th anniversary special in 2021, Remembering the Game for New York, focused narrowly on the Sept. 21 Mets-Braves game at Shea Stadium, built around a single conversation among six New York-area natives who played that night: Mark DeRosa, Al Leiter, John Franco, Jason Marquis, Steve Karsay, and Dave Martinez. Filmed on a rooftop across the Hudson with the rebuilt World Trade Center in the background, the special stayed with the players who experienced that night firsthand.

When America Took the Field keeps that Shea Stadium game as one of its anchors, alongside George W. Bush’s ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series and Jack Buck’s address to the crowd in St. Louis. But the new film was built to get past the moments that dominated the New York news cycle and into clubhouses and communities across the country that had their own relationship to that fall.

Zeile, currently an SNY pre- and postgame analyst, serves as an executive producer on the film alongside MLB Network’s in-house production staff, though it won’t carry the network’s “MLB Network Presents” branding, the line of original documentaries that’s become one of the more reliably strong parts of MLB Network’s programming over the network’s 18 years on air.

“September 21st, 2001 will always be the most significant day of my baseball career,” Zeile said in a statement. “While wearing the caps of our first responders, it wasn’t just another baseball game. It helped unite America through the healing power of baseball and the strength of the human spirit. My hope is that this film preserves these stories for future generations and, above all, reminds us of the promise we all share: Never Forget.”

Production began last fall, sources told Awful Announcing, and the interview anchoring the whole film, Zeile sitting down together with Franco, Leiter, and Piazza, was recorded this past spring at Citi Field. The rollout includes a screening at Citi Field on the night of the broadcast premiere for Mets season-ticket holders, with Piazza, Zeile, Franco, Robin Ventura, Leiter, and David Wright expected to attend.

Re-air times for Sept. 11, 12, and 13 haven’t been set yet.

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