NEW YORK — Paul O’Neill can remember the roar.

As the then-Yankees star warmed up in the outfield before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series in the Bronx, a palpable energy overtook the stadium as President George W. Bush walked to the mound for the ceremonial first pitch.

“I was standing next to Scott Brosius, and we were so relieved when it was over and he was basically off the field,” O’Neill recalled to the New York Daily News.

“Because at that point, all of these unbelievable things that could happen wrong are going through your mind. One of the coolest things I ever remember was him throwing a strike.”

Twenty-five years later, that moment remains a symbol of America’s fortitude following the horrific 9/11 terror attacks that killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and in Somerset County, Penn.

The Yankees played an important role in helping New York heal, including with a World Series push that energized the city during its darkest hour.

At that point, the Yankees were as much a staple of the World Series as chilly air and the Commissioner’s Trophy, having appeared in four of the previous five Fall Classics and winning the championship with each trip.

But the players acknowledge nothing felt normal about those games against the Arizona Diamondbacks — and not because it was the first World Series the dynastic Yankees lost in that era.

“As a player, you think the whole world shuts down while you’re playing a World Series. You don’t realize that life is going on,” said O’Neill, who is now a YES Network analyst.

“But during that World Series, you realized what was going on in the world other than baseball, and that’s the big difference. There were so many other things that were far more important, but still, you needed to do this.”

Following the attacks, MLB postponed games for six days. Some questioned whether that was long enough with the country still mourning and with safety concerns hanging over every aspect of American life.

When play resumed, the Yankees opened on the road, then returned to the Bronx on Sept. 25, exactly two weeks after the tragedy.

“I can remember going out on the field, and we’re like, ‘We feel protected, but are we really protected?’ … It was an eerie feeling until you got going into a few of the games,” former starter Andy Pettitte told The News.

“As you started playing the games and we were here, then you started interacting with the people. It was like, man, what a break it gives [people] to think about [something else] and to come and celebrate and have a smile on your face.”

The resumption of America’s pastime restored some normalcy. But in New York, the aftermath of the attacks was impossible to ignore.

“The country went through this, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re in New York, you lived it,” O’Neill said. “Driving to the ballpark, even days and weeks after, still seeing smoke coming from Ground Zero, it was a reminder every day.”

O’Neill had visited Ground Zero at the request of Mayor Giuliani, speaking with families and children affected by 9/11.

He can still remember some of their faces.

“I mean, these are kids that didn’t know if their parents were still alive, and they still had that moment where they were smiling and asking about a game,” O’Neill said. “It was an eye-opening thing for me, to think that being part of the Yankees was that big.”

The Yankees’ significance to New Yorkers became even clearer during that postseason as a reeling community rallied around their playoff run.

After they overcame an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five ALDS to beat the Oakland A’s, the Yankees surged past the Seattle Mariners in the ALCS to set up an instant-classic World Series against the Diamondbacks.

“I don’t think we had meetings about it, saying, ‘Hey, let’s win this,’ ” Pettitte said. “But I think everyone was like, ‘Dude, this one’s a little bit more special. If we can get this one, it’s really cool.’ ”

The Yankees dropped the first two games in Arizona before returning to the Bronx for Game 3, where Bush wore a bulletproof vest and an FDNY jacket as he took the field.

Famously, Derek Jeter advised Bush to throw from the rubber — not from the front of the mound — and warned him the Bronx crowd would boo if he bounced his pitch.

Bush heeded Jeter’s advice, tossing a perfect strike to backup catcher Todd Greene before waving to a thunderous crowd.

“It represented that we, as a country, were not going to let [9/11] take away from our life, our lifestyle,” O’Neill said. “Will it be remembered every single day of your life? Sure, especially if you were somebody that lost a loved one. But you continue to go on, and how you do it is up to you.”

What followed were three consecutive iconic Yankee wins in the Bronx, starting with a combined gem from Roger Clemens and Mariano Rivera for a 2-1 victory in Game 3.

Game 4 was even more dramatic, as Tino Martinez slugged a game-tying two-run home run against Byung-hyun Kim with two outs in the ninth.

Because the September postponements pushed back the end of the regular season and, thus, the start of the playoffs, the 2001 World Series didn’t begin until Oct. 27.

Game 4 started on Oct. 31, and as the game went into extra innings, the clock struck midnight before Jeter drilled a walk-off home run against Kim in the 10th. That 4-3 win marked the first-ever instance of November baseball, earning Jeter the nickname Mr. November.

And Game 5 played out eerily similarly, with Brosius clubbing a two-out, two-run home run against Kim in the ninth to force extra innings. A walk-off RBI single by Alfonso Soriano in the 12th capped the Yankees’ 3-2 victory.

“To see New York become this little community — when the whole world was actually kind of rooting for the Yankees at that point — was extremely different,” O’Neill said.

“I noticed the crowds, how loud [they were], and they had become nice to each other. You don’t see that in New York. It’s something you needed at that time. It was an amazing three nights in New York.”

Ultimately, a storybook finish eluded the Yankees. The D-backs won Games 6 and 7 in Arizona, the latter of which coming in comeback fashion on a rare blown save by the Hall of Famer Rivera.

But the Yankees gave a grieving city reasons to cheer, and that was perhaps even more significant than any game outcome ever could be.

“There wasn’t a World Series that I wanted more, I don’t think, than that one, so not to be able to win that one and pull it out, it still hurts,” Pettitte said.

“But you also know that those games [in New York] were extremely special, and we gave the Yankee fans a thrill.”

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