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FOR THE RECORD

Posted 9/12/19

The New York Mets’ season has been one of extremes, with exhilarating wins alternating with crushing late-inning losses, but their game at Citifield on Sept. 11 featured five home runs—plus another one that didn’t show up in the box score from their biggest hitter.

Pete Alonso, the first-baseman who is closing in on the Major League record for homers by a rookie set two years ago by Aaron Judge, wanted to mark the occasion with custom-made team caps commemorating 9/11, but encountered what was described as red tape that could not have been cut through in time. So the player known as Polar Bear, who was a first-grader in Tampa at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, set about getting the shoe sizes of his teammates and paid to have them all outfitted with cleats with a variety of designs that had 9/11 themes.

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