By WILL WEISSERT and STEPHEN WHYNO
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump was attending the New York Yankees game on Thursday night to mark the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, after honoring the memories of the victims at the Pentagon earlier in the day.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Trump was even expected to stop by the locker room as his team hosts the Detroit Tigers.
“The fact that he’s gonna be here, it’s something that I’m excited to be a part of,” said Boone, who added that he hoped he and the president would have the chance to “interact for a few minutes.”
A presidential visit always prompts extra security at sporting events, but things were heightened after conservative activist and close Trump ally Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah on Wednesday. When Trump attended the Sept. 11 observance ceremony at the Pentagon earlier Thursday, authorities moved the ceremony inside as an added precaution.
Trump’s attendance at the Yankees game on Sept. 11 recalled President George W. Bush’s ceremonial first pitch 24 years earlier as the Yankees played the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series — a moment that came to symbolize national resilience after the attacks mere weeks earlier.
Since the attacks, the Yankees and their fans have marked Sept. 11 during the seventh-inning stretch by singing “God Bless America” in addition to the traditional “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and they were doing so again Thursday.
Even before Trump left the White House, security at the stadium was tight. Every entrance featured metal detectors and Secret Service agents, some with sniffer dogs, while New York Police Department helicopters thundered overhead.
Stadium authorities opened the gates three hours before the first pitch, and long lines began forming even before that, though most of the crowd appeared to be moving into the stadium smoothly. The Yankees said ticketholders were “strongly urged to arrive as early as possible.”
The Secret Service also posted a statement saying extra time would be necessary and asking fans to “consider leaving your bags at home to help speed up the security screening process.”
Trump’s attendance at the U.S. Open men’s final in Queens last weekend sparked security lines long enough that some fans didn’t make it to their seats until more than an hour into the match, despite organizers delaying its start by 30 minutes.
Yankee Stadium authorities installed security glass outside an upper level suite on the third base side, over the Tigers dugout. The service level was also closed at 5:30 p.m. for additional security sweeps.
The game is Trump’s eighth major sporting event since returning to the White House in January. He attended the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 500, UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia, the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and last weekend’s U.S. Open match.
His appearance marks the third time a sitting president has visited Yankee Stadium for a game, following Bush in 2001 and Warren G. Harding, who came in 1923, the same year the original Yankee Stadium opened.
The president planned to spend the night at Trump Tower after the game, a rarity for him in recent years since changing his primary residence to Florida in 2019. The Yankee Stadium scoreboard featured a large MLB logo over an American flag and a red, white and blue ribbon under the inscription “September 11, 2001, We Shall Not Forget.”
The large American flag behind the left field bleachers and the smaller flags for each of baseball’s 30 teams that ring the stadium’s upper level were lowered to half-staff after Trump issued an executive order honoring Kirk. Before Wednesday’s game, the Yankees held a moment of silence for Kirk and flashed his picture on their stadium’s big screen.
Trump was born in the New York borough of Queens, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he “remains a New Yorker at heart.” Still, Trump’s appearances at baseball games haven’t always been welcomed by fans.
During his first term in 2019, Trump tried to make a low-profile appearance as the Washington Nationals hosted the Houston Astros in the World Series, entering a lower-tier box to the left of home plate with first lady Melania Trump as the game got underway and without prior announcement.
At the end of the third inning, the ballpark video screens carried a salute to U.S. service members that drew cheers throughout the stadium. But when the shot cut to Trump, it sparked a torrent of boos and heckling and even chants of “Lock him up!”
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