On 11 September 2026, Major League Baseball is marking 25 years since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. For Patriot Day the league has prepared a programme both on the field and away from it: moments of silence, ceremonies, video tributes and a community action honouring the victims, their families and first responders.

One of the main off-field initiatives is taking place on Friday at Citi Field in New York. MLB and the New York Mets are jointly hosting, with the nonprofit 9/11 Day, a meal-packing event to prepare thousands of meals for families in the metropolitan area facing food insecurity. The event is part of the “UNITE For Good” initiative and is meant to tie remembrance to a practical act of help.

MLB and Mets staff, volunteers, college baseball and softball players from the New York area and several former players are taking part. Those announced include Mike Piazza, David Wright, John Franco, Al Leiter, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Adam Ottavino and Dellin Betances. MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds is also participating. The meals are intended for families in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The commemorations extend across every Major League ballpark. In games played on 11 September, players, managers, coaches and umpires are wearing New Era caps with a “We Shall Not Forget” side patch. The Toronto Blue Jays, the league’s only club based outside the United States, are using a variant showing the Canadian and United States flags. The New York Yankees and New York Mets, who meet in the evening in the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium, will wear first-responder caps together with their club logos.

Ballparks are also carrying other marks of the day: a league-wide moment of silence, special scoreboard programming, “God Bless America” in the seventh-inning stretch, and commemorative designs on bases and official lineup cards. The Yankees–Mets game at Yankee Stadium is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Eastern Time. The meeting has particular weight: both clubs are bound to New York, and baseball was one of the ways public life gradually returned to the stands after 2001.

MLB Network has also produced the documentary “When America Took the Field”, about how baseball became, for many, a sign of solidarity and of a return to ordinary life after the attacks. Made with former Mets player Todd Zeile, the film includes interviews with players, Hall of Famers, broadcasters and families affected by the attacks. One of the moments it revisits is Mike Piazza’s home run for the Mets on 21 September 2001 at Shea Stadium, in the first major professional sporting event held in New York after 11 September. The Mets were playing the Atlanta Braves; the eighth-inning hit remains one of the best-known sporting memories of that period.

The attacks of 11 September 2001 were carried out by members of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, who hijacked four commercial aircraft. Two struck the World Trade Center towers in New York, a third hit the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew tried to regain control. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. Professional sport was temporarily suspended; the later return of competition, including baseball, formed part of the gradual resumption of public life, with New York players and clubs involved in supporting affected communities and first responders.

A quarter of a century later, the league is again linking the memory of the day to an act of service. The message chosen for the special equipment worn on 11 September 2026 remains the one on the patch: “We Shall Not Forget.”

Photo: Jeffme / Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, photographed from the south on 17 October 2025. The image shows the stadium, not the 11 September 2026 service event or ceremonies. The photo was cropped to 16:9.

Sources consulted: MLB Clubs Wear “We Shall Not Forget” Patch for 25th Anniversary of September 11 | SportsLogos.net; MLB Network to premiere new original documentary on 9/11 | MLB.com; 25 Years Later, 9/11 Day Aims to Transform the Anniversary of 9/11 into America's Day of Doing Good | PR Newswire.