The 9-11 oasis

NEW YORK -- Baseball will be played here tonight. Yankees-Orioles. It said so right up there on the side of Yankee Stadium. In big block letters it promised: Baltimore, 7:05 p.m.

Baseball goes on, like life does, though not without a long, sad pause at 9:11 p.m. and an undeniable sense that despite our routines and return to normalcy, nothing is quite the same.

When the baseball schedule came out and the Orioles saw they were going to play the Yankees in New York on Sept. 11, it was not a date to be anticipated with any relish.

The anniversary poses a powerfully personal question for everyone: how to commemorate the tragedy. But to be in New York or at the Pentagon or among those mourning those brave, doomed airline passengers, this necessitates an extra dose of emotional resolve.

"I know some of the guys were scared," Orioles outfielder Melvin Mora said Tuesday.

"We took a train all the way here and some of the guys were talking about it. I told the guys: 'Listen, New Yorkers are strong people.' I talked to each of them, especially the Latin players, and said it's different playing here. People don't care. If they get hit, they say, 'Let's go.' Nobody stops in this city. Look at what happened to all these people, and they still are strong." Mora, whose big-league career started with the New York Mets and