Hour 1: Howie Rose

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:33)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:40)
And a good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Friday, September 11th, 2026, me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It is the fastest moving two hours in Sports Talk Radio. Thanks to you, my esteemed co-hosts, and the membership number is 1-800-919-3776.
Now, a show on September 11th for me is always a somewhat tricky, difficult show. And the reason is you want to pay the proper respect to the events of 9-11-2001. It will be forever a date that will live in infamy in this country's history. And that being said, you also want to do what people tune in to this show to do, which is to get away from the realities of the ugliness of life sometimes. So when we talk about sports today, please rest assured that we are not disrespecting the memory of the 2,977 people that were killed on this day 25 years ago. We are not. And we will address it. We will talk about the day, the days surrounding that day, the days following that day. We'll have Howie Rose on coming on at 1.3 and Al Leiter will come on at 2.30. Al and I have a very weird personal connection that goes back to September 11, 2001 Now, we've been friends for a long time since he was a Yankee and then he was traded in 89 We were main friends, but we were, through circumstances beyond our control and any planning, we were actually together on September 11, 2001 So we'll talk about that and Al will also talk about, as will Howie, when the Mets were the first sports team to resume here in New York City that night at Shea Stadium at the famous Mike Piazza home run. So we'll talk about that. So again, we will talk about sports. We will obviously talk football with the two games already completed. Many more to come on Sunday and then on Monday as well. Football Fridays, by the way, on ESPN New York, brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.
We can't forget the Yankees and the Mets will play tonight at Yankee Stadium. You know, the one thing that I felt very uncomfortable with, and I don't know if anybody else feels this way. People keep calling this the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 I have always felt that the word anniversary connotes a celebration, a positive memory.
I've tried not to say the 25th anniversary. It's a remembrance of 25 years ago when the world changed. I'm not going to say 25th anniversary. I think it's disrespectful. I really do. This is not an anniversary. It's not a celebration. It's a remembrance. And just remember of the 2,977 people that were killed on that day at the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, at the World Trade Center, they all had family, they all had friends. And all these years later, 25 years later, those people probably have not gone one day where they have not thought about the incredible losses that they felt and incurred on that day. Now, one day has gone by.
I can't even imagine if somebody obviously lost someone close to them. How do you not think about it every single day? There was a wonderful column in The Athletic yesterday by Ian O'Connor. He talked about a dad who lost his son. His son was on one of the planes. And he just thought about it every single day. Every time he went to a wedding, he couldn't think about the celebration because he thought about, you know, why wasn't his son there? So, I mean, there are probably thousands of stories like that. Thousands. It's just, it's a very sad day in our history. It really is. And I think the world changed forever on that day. And the one thing I'll talk about, at least at the start, is that the days after 9-11, I don't know if we've ever been more together as a country.
There was no right, there was no left, there was no liberal, there was no conservative, there was no democrat, there was no republican. You were an American.