Even though Cody Bellinger lived in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, he can’t recall much about a day that shaped the world he grew up in.
“Personally, I don’t remember anything,” the Yankees’ left fielder said. “I was 6. I just remember getting taken out of school.”
In retrospect, Cody credits his parents, Clay and Jennifer, for “making it seem like everything was fine” that day, even though terrorists had just attacked the World Trade Center nearby. Clay, once a light-hitting utilityman, actually played for the Yankees at the time, and he accompanied other members of the team to Ground Zero in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy.
“It was a pretty surreal moment for him,” Cody said Friday before the Yankees hosted the crosstown-rival Mets on the 25th commemoration of 9/11.
Clay, who wore pinstripes from 1999-2001 and won two World Series rings with the Yankees, spent the next few seasons bouncing between the Angels, Giants and Orioles organizations. His last professional season came in 2004.
A few years later, he took on a second career as a firefighter in Arizona, which is where Cody was born, spent most of his childhood, and now resides in the offseason.
Cody couldn’t say for sure if 9/11 influenced his dad’s decision to become a firefighter — he’s never asked him — but he made sure to honor his pops by wearing an FDNY cap on Friday night. Players and coaches had a choice to rep either the FDNY or NYPD.
“I’m rocking the firefighter hat today, so I just have so much respect for him,” Cody said.
“It’s [other] people first over themselves,” he added of firefighters in general, “which is a pretty crazy thing to live by. But it’s what they do, and it’s what they practice.”
While Bellinger never got the bottom of why his father became a firefighter, the two have talked about Clay’s trip to Ground Zero, and what it was like to play in New York City after the attacks.
As Cody grew older and came to understand the role first responders played on the day of 9/11, he developed tremendous admiration for their heroics.
“The thing that I never get over of that day is the firefighters and whoever else were running into those buildings,” Cody said. “Like that’s crazy. To go into those buildings, that’s something that I’ll never forget.”