You had to be there. You had to see the ambulances lined around Shea Stadium, that lovely dump, and the scores of medically trained folks waiting in its parking lots for the injured to make their way from downtown Manhattan to Queens, where a massive triage had been hastily built.

Except soon it was clear there were very few survivors, just thousands of people who had gone to work on that gorgeous September morning and simply vaporized when terrorists struck. It was thus decided Shea would serve as the city’s morgue — 6,000 body bags ordered – but there were no bodies, only fragments that would take years to sort and identify.

With MLB fans erupting in cheers, Mike Piazza watches his eighth-inning home run land in deep center field at Shea Stadium on Sept. 21, 2001, the first professional sports event in New York after the 9/11 attacks. (AP Photo)

You had to breathe the air, thick and pungent, and pretend you didn’t know what you were inhaling. Death has a singular taste and smell, oh yes it does. It clung to the waves of first responders and volunteers who lacked the energy to make it home during those awful days. Drenched head to toe in debris, toxins and body parts, they’d arrive at Shea in buses, maybe rummage through the donated boxes for a change of clothes or a toothbrush, perhaps catch a few winks on a cot, then head right back to the steaming pit in downtown Manhattan to search for their brothers and sisters.

You didn’t want to know what they witnessed or experienced down there.

So instead you tried to focus on the extraordinary, goose bump-inspiring scenes unfolding off Grand Central Parkway. Within hours of the first tower falling on Sept. 11, 2001, the scope of the human spirit left you speechless. Another airplane had hit the Pentagon, causing it to crumble, and valiant passengers had forced Flight 93 to crash in a Pennsylvania field rather than into the White House, its presumed intended target. While President George W. Bush grounded all flights, everyone waited for the next attack organized by a mad man and his evil disciples.

They could have stayed tucked inside their homes but instead, like the final scene in “Field of Dreams,” there came a caravan of cars packed with food and other supplies. Soon provisions of every sort stretched from first base around to third; Shea’s ramps were piled high with donated tractor-trailers, Red Cross tents and beds, chainsaws provided by nearby hardware stores, socks from local Little League teams.

Nobody knew when baseball games might resume. “We didn’t know when we wanted to play, if we wanted to play, how we’d ever play,” John Franco, the former Mets closer and a native New Yorker, was saying Tuesday night, as flashbacks came rushing forth.

Those of us who were there will never completely cleanse ourselves of the sights and smells and sounds of the city in the weeks after everything changed.

It’s against that backdrop that we could glance around the new Citi Field and marvel at life humming along, at families enjoying a balmy night of baseball even as they were reminded of the country’s darkest time.

The Mets distributed 4,000 tickets to military members and their families Tuesday night, making it look as if a miniature base had sprouted in the middle of a ballpark. Two nights after the White House announced it had tracked and killed Osama bin Laden, the ringleader of the terrorist group that had attacked the United States nine years and eight months ago, the energy radiating throughout Citi Field was palpable.

It wasn’t just the sporadic chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A,” for those were predictable, or the large American flags waving in the breeze, though they were ubiquitous. No, it was the way the soldiers and sailors accepted with smiles and shrugs the handshakes from ordinary citizens unsure how to offer thanks. It was a night of vivid joy and relief, the game seesawing back and forth until the San Francisco Giants beat the Mets, 7-6, in 10 innings.

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Of course one of the first spontaneous outbreaks of joy, relief and pride was at a MLB game in Philadelphia.

Of all the roles sports play in American life, for better or worse, serving as national village square in times of enormous national upheaval is right at the top of the list. So could anyone have been surprised that among the images sent across the country of reactions to the news that the U.S. military had killed Osama bin Laden Sunday night, the most prominent and indelible were from the Mets-Phillies game, where fans chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A’’ as play went on before them?

And from in front of the White House, where the crowd singing the Star-Spangled Banner was sprinkled with Capitals jerseys worn by fans who detoured on their way home from a playoff game?

Sure, this was a different kind of national upheaval than the one nearly 10 years earlier, after the September 11 attacks. “Unity’’ was the buzzword then, and packing in at a stadium, arena or ballpark remains as natural an act as any for people needing camaraderie, solace or a place to share their raging emotions and escape the agony of solitude.

Honestly, how many other venues allow for that — not just then, not just decades before in similar signature moments, but especially now, with people linking electronically so readily? Just like the front page of a newspaper still serves as a touchstone for history better than a link on a cell phone, simple human contact is still unsurpassed as a means of bonding in historic times.

A country this big and rambling doesn’t quite have a Tahrir Square to swarm to, in person, to serve as a flashpoint for widespread emotional expression.

So the big gatherings take place in the most logical locations. That’s how sports — often the breeding ground for the worst of our natures — makes for a great connector, whether on purpose or by happenstance. Usually, it’s a combination of both.

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