Daughter of 9/11 victim throws out first pitch as Yankees mark 25th anniversary of attacks

NEW YORK (AP) — Twenty-five years ago, Brielle Saracini was 10 years old and trying to cope with losing her father, Victor Saracini, the pilot on United flight 175, which was taken over by the 9/11 hijackers and crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Spurred on by a friend, she wrote a letter to Derek Jeter, met the Yankees captain at Yankee Stadium and formed a lifelong friendship.

On Friday, as New York commemorated the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Saracini threw out the ceremonial first pitch with Jeter watching from the mound before the Yankees hosted the crosstown Mets.

“I remember just talking about anything and everything and anything that kind of came through my mind that day and you just made it so comfortable and I remember just feeling normal for a day, which was hard to do,” Saracini said while sitting next to Jeter at a news conference. “The odds were stacked against me that day but I remember just taking a minute and just having normal conversations and just feeling like a kid.”

Jeter remembers trying his best in a tough situation.

“When we invited her to the stadium, you really don’t know what to say,” Jeter said. “So I don’t even know if I said ‘I’m sorry’ or anything like that. I just tried to make her day feel special and I remember introducing her to all the players and bring her down and you just try to make her feel as comfortable as you possibly can.”

Toward the end of a nearly 30-minute ceremony, Saracini and husband, Sean McGuire — he wore a Mets jersey — threw to Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger. McGuire also lost his father on 9/11; the couple met at a camp for kids whose parents died in the attacks, and they married in 2017.

As Saracini and McGuire made their tosses, Jeter along with former teammates Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius, and their manager, Joe Torre, stood behind them.

During the ceremony, highlights of the Yankees’ 2001 postseason run were shown, including Jeter’s walk-off homer in Game 4 of the World Series that earned him the nickname “Mr. November.” The Yankees fell short in their bid for a fourth straight title when Luis Gonzalez singled off Rivera to give the Diamondbacks their only championship.

Acclaimed tenor James Valenti sung “The Star-Spangled Banner” while a massive American flag was unfurled in center field.

In the weeks before the ceremony, various members of the Yankees visited three fire stations in Manhattan. Earlier this week, several Yankees — including manager Aaron Boone — visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center site.

Friday marked the second time the Mets and Yankees played on Sept. 11. The Yankees beat the Mets 8-7 at Citi Field on the 20th anniversary in 2021.

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

New York Yankees fans share a message during a 9/11 ceremony before baseball game against the New York Mets, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

Former New York Yankee Derek Jeter shakes hands with Aaron Judge before baseball game against the New York Mets, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

American flags stand at half staff during a 9/11 ceremony before baseball game between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

Former New York Yankee Derek Jeter acknowledges fans during a 9/11 ceremony before a baseball game against the New York Mets, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

Derek Jeter hugs Brielle Saracini before she throws out the ceremonial first pitch with husband Sean McGuire before a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge who ruled 13 years ago that Hispanics were racially profiled in then-Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns has rejected a bid to end the court’s supervision of the sheriff’s office.

Maricopa County failed to show that the objectives of the court’s orders — such as correcting the practices that led to the profiling — had been achieved, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow said in a ruling Thursday. He also found “a durable remedy” hadn’t been established to ensure the violations wouldn’t occur again if court supervision ended.

County officials, frustrated with the steep costs of court supervision, had argued Arpaio’s immigration policies are no longer in place, that racial bias no longer infects its operations and its past two studies of traffic stops show the sheriff’s office has changed. The U.S. Department of Justice, which in the past had frequently sided with plaintiffs, supported ending court supervision.

The case centered on 20 large-scale traffic patrols launched by Arpaio that targeted immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. The patrols involved large numbers of sheriff’s deputies flooding an area of metro Phoenix — including some Latino neighborhoods — over several days to stop traffic violators and arrest other offenders. The plaintiffs were Latinos who had been stopped, detained, questioned or searched by Arpaio’s officers while in a vehicle in Maricopa County.

The judge's ruling from 13 years ago required expensive court-ordered overhauls of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.

In his latest ruling, Snow called into question the studies cited by the county.

In analyzing the duration of stops, the sheriff’s office excluded the longest stops, such as those involving suspected drunk drivers, language barriers and other factors. The excluded encounters accounted for at least half of the agency’s stops in 2024 and 2025, the judge said.

Snow then cited analysis from a plaintiffs’ expert who evaluated all traffic stop data in 2023 and 2024.

The expert found a 4.7-minute difference in stop duration between Hispanic and white drivers. Snow wrote “these figures differ drastically from the relatively minute, statistically insignificant differences” found in the agency’s reports that excluded the longer stops.

Snow said the county offered limited evidence to explain the disparities.

While the county was seeking to end all supervision of the sheriff’s office, the judge directed lawyers on all sides to determine whether there might be certain requirements they would agree could be done away with from the court orders.

In a statement, two leaders on Maricopa County’s governing board expressed disappointment in the ruling and signaled the county would appeal.

“Continued federal oversight of MCSO would serve only to further deplete public funds and divert taxpayer dollars from the sheriff’s primary responsibility: fighting crime and protecting public safety,” said board chair Kate Brophy McGee and vice chair Debbie Lesko.

In a statement, Sheriff Jerry Sheridan's office said it believed it “has implemented durable remedies for violations that occurred 19 years and three administrations ago.” The agency said it looks forward to working with the opposing side to see if portions of the order can be eliminated.

Arpaio, who was voted out of office in 2016, was found in both civil and criminal contempt for disobeying a 2011 order to stop his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. He was spared a possible jail sentence when his misdemeanor conviction was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2017.

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, the Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, has criticized the official who was hired by the court to monitor the sheriff’s office and has proposed legislation that would impose term limits and compensation caps on such monitors.

FILE - Maricopa County sheriff's candidate Jerry Sheridan, is shown in Fountain Hills, Ariz., Wednesday, July 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)