PHILADELPHIA -- It was a baseball game. But that doesn't quite describe it.

It was a baseball game where choirs sang. And managers sang, too. The mayor came draped in a flag.

	Braves manager Bobby Cox, left, Philadelphia Mayor John Street and Phillies manager Larry Bowa observe a moment of silence during Monday's pregame.

The organ played the rarified strains of the "Marine Corps" song. The ROTC color guard got a standing ovation. A Lee Greenwood video made a stadium full of Americans cry.

Something went on Monday night -- in Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium, in ballparks across North America. But it was something more powerful than baseball, something more transcendant than the resumption of the pennant races.

"That wasn't a baseball game to me," said Phillies third baseman Scott Rolen, after a two-homer evening on the night America's ballparks opened again -- after six days that felt like six months. "It was something different. It wasn't Opening Day. It wasn't what I assume the playoffs are like. But it was an emotional game.

"That whole game," Rolen said, "there was a feeling on the field I haven't had before. I can't explain it. There was a big difference in the crowd. It seemed like they were rooting for the country. They were not Braves fans or Phillies fans. They were Americans."

There was an official final score to this game (Phillies 5, Braves 2). There was also a noteworthy pennant-race implication (the Phillies pulled to within 2½ games of the first-place Braves in the NL East).

And those things still matter, as much as anything about baseball matters in this complicated world. But this was a game, this was a night, that mattered more in other ways.

It mattered because it was a night that told us something about the state of the American psyche at a time when we most need to gauge it.

Just listen to the losing pitcher in this game -- a fellow named Greg Maddux -- describe what this evening felt like to him:

"You know what?" Maddux said, after allowing three runs -- all driven in by Rolen -- in seven innings. "It was cool. I actually felt patriotic out there. The environment was enjoyable. I actually felt glad to help. I felt pride in performing for people. I really did. The general attitude, the atmosphere was different. I felt privileged to be out there -- even more so than normally."

You might go another 100 years and not hear Greg Maddux use the word "privileged" after a loss in the third week of September. But it was that kind of night.

He noticed it when the "USA" chants came cascading out of the seats during the moving pregame ceremonies.

"Usually," Maddux chuckled, "you just get, 'You (stink).' "

He noticed it even before then, while running his pregame sprints.

"There wasn't one obscene thing said," he said. "It was like we were all in this together. Usually, you come in here, and you're the 'enemy.' Tonight I realized we're all on the same team."

For days, these men have wondered what would happen when the ballpark gates finally opened again. What would they feel like? What would the people who pay to watch them feel like?

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Was anyone really ready for this -- in their hearts, in their heads?

Now they know. Now we know. They weren't just ready for this. They needed this.

In Philadelphia, nearly 8,000 people bought walk-up tickets on the day of the game, even though new security regulations meant they had to park their cars outside the stadium gates and then walk a quarter-mile to the ticket windows.

Then they lined up to have their bags and coats examined by the security patrols -- in some cases being ordered to leave those bags behind.

One fan, David Smith of Philadelphia, was told his backpack was too large to be permitted. So he quietly emptied it, dropped it into a trash bin, headed through the gates and said: "I completely understand -- and agree -- with those restrictions. They're needed -- especially in Philadelphia."

Then 27,910 paying customers -- plus another 5,300 fans who, ironically, were given free tickets to this game for participating in a Red Cross blood drive last month -- streamed into a stadium that had been patrolled by bomb-sniffing dogs earlier in the day.

They came wearing flags on their shirts, flags on their hats, flags on their lapels. They were handed more flags as they went through the turnstiles. The first sound they heard was the stadium organ playing, "It's a Grand Old Flag."

And then it was game time. They stood and chanted "USA" as the ROTC color guard carried the flag to the middle of the infield. A remarkable video by Phillies videographer Dan Stephenson, to the tune of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American," had players visibly weeping.

"I got very choked up, very emotional, watching that video," said winning pitcher Robert Person. "I didn't know whether to cry or smile or what. I couldn't even talk. (Pitching coach Vern Ruhle) said a few things to me. I couldn't even comment. I was afraid my voice would crack."

Then the Valley Forge Chorus launched into "God Bless America." And it was hard not to notice the two managers -- Bobby Cox and Larry Bowa -- singing and wiping tears from their eyes.

"I never sing," Bowa said afterward. "I'm a bathroom singer, a shower singer. But it makes you cry to be an American, to see stuff like that."

That feel-good atmosphere then lasted all the way until the third batter of Reopening Day, Chipper Jones, made it into the box -- and got booed lustily. But it was even possible to look at that as a healthy sign.

"You realized the healing period had started," Bowa joked, "when they booed Chipper. I said, 'We're on our way.' "

Two pitches later, naturally, Jones homered, setting a taut, crisp, dramatic baseball game in motion. They were tied 2-2 in the sixth when Rolen launched a laser-beam home run over the Legg Mason sign in left. It made him the fifth player ever to hit two home runs in a game off Maddux, the first since Eric Karros did it more than three years ago (Aug. 23, 1998) -- and just the third in the last 10 seasons (Benito Santiago was the other, on May 3, 1996).

Flags waved. People stood and roared for just about ever. Finally, Rolen emerged for a thunderous curtain call. But afterward, he said there was more powering that curtain call than just that home run, or anything he'd done.

"It was a special night," he said. "I felt a connection with the night and the atmosphere. We're all human beings. Like I've said before, nobody in here wears a cape. There was something going on out there tonight. And it felt good to be a part of that."

Over the last week, few players in our land have been more outspoken about how unimportant baseball games were when measured against the really important things going on in the world. Yet the emotion that filled this ballpark on this night told him there was an importance to these games, and his part in them.

"I'm not so sure there's an importance to the game itself," he said. "There's an importance to the American feeling we have. Whether it was a baseball game tonight or a football game, I don't think that's what's relevant.

"The way the fans responded tonight ... being on that foul line for the national anthem ... and the reaction the fans gave us, it made us feel special. It made us feel we were where we belong. And we can go out there again. And that's OK."

Afterward, his manager -- who once played postseason games in this park, who once won a World Series in this park -- said: "I've been in a lot of games here. This was as emotional as any I've ever been through."

Later, a visitor popped into his office to ask him one question: "Ever?"

"I meant what I said," Bowa answered. "I was in a World Series here. But that was just for us.

"This," said Larry Bowa, "was for everybody."

Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com.