Party poopers: Indians Spoiled The Home Opener at The New Yankee Stadium

Welcome back to the next chapter of 2009 Yankees: The Last Championship - a week-by-week remembrance of the year in which they gave us their most recent World Series title. Today, they officially christened new Yankee Stadium in the long-awaited home opener, but the Cleveland Indians spoiled the festivities. Lets get to it.

NEW YORK (April 16, 2009) - Who the hell invited the Cleveland Indians to the party?

On what was supposed to be a glorious new beginning for the Yankees, the day they officially opened the new Yankee Stadium, the Indians - a team that would eventually finish the 2009 season with a gruesome 67-95 record - showed no interest in being the patsy opponent.

“It’s not how you want to start out a new stadium,” Joe Girardi said after Cleveland crushed New York 10-2. “But one game is not going to make the history of this Yankee Stadium and this year.”

Well yeah, thanks Captain Obvious. But this day was not just any day. This was the first time the Yankees had played in a brand new stadium since 1923, the year the original ballpark at 161st Street and River Avenue opened. Appropriately on that day, Babe Ruth christened America’s first three-deck stadium, one that would forever be known as The House That Ruth Built, with a towering home run as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-1.

The original place was remodeled in 1974 and 1975 and re-opened in 1976, so while it was technically “new,” many of its characteristics remained unchanged. Such was not the case circa 2009 as the $1.5 billion ballpark (the old one cost $2.4 million in 1923) was built across the street and its history did not get off to the same rousing start.

“We have to look at the positive,” said the ever-optimistic Nick Swisher. “The fan turnout (48,271) was tremendous and the ceremony before the game was lights out.”

He was right about that, but with a franchise so steeped in history and tradition, that was a given. More than 40 former players were on hand on a crazy beautiful, warm (for mid-April) sunny day and one of those, Bernie Williams, performed musically. So did Kelly Clarkson who sang the anthem, and John Fogerty who sang his popular ode to baseball, “Centerfield.” Yogi Berra threw out the first pitch, and Whitey Ford and Don Larsen went out to the pitchers’ mound and scooped some of its dirt into little baggies for safe keeping.

All of it was great, right down to Derek Jeter stepping into the batters’ box to lead off the bottom of the first and finding the bat that Ruth used to swat that home run in 1923, on loan from its collector owner, ceremoniously laying across home plate. Jeter picked it up, took a look, then playfully handed his own bat to the bat boy before giving the Ruth memento back to be returned to its owner.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Jeter said. “I wanted to swing it but it was just too big.”

When Yogi was asked what he thought of the new digs, he said, “I think they’ve got too much room in the clubhouse. It’s an awfully big locker room. To me, if you want to talk to a guy, you’ve got to walk half a mile.” Yogi, just the best.

Everything was in order, and then the game began.

CC Sabathia, who had bombed in his first Yankee start in the season-opening loss at Baltimore, was better this time as he allowed one run though he had to negotiate around five hits and five walks. When he left with two outs in the sixth inning the game was tied at 1-1.

He gave up the stadium’s first run in the fourth when Kelly Shoppach became the answer to the trivia question, who had the first RBI at new Yankee Stadium? Cleveland’s catcher lined a double into the left-center alley which chased home another nondescript Indian, Ben Francisco, from first base for the ballpark’s inaugural run.

Jorge Posada chiseled his name into the lore when he delivered the first run, RBI and home run for the home team with a solo bomb to straightaway center off Indians starter Cliff Lee, the reigning AL Cy Young award winner.

“It felt good,” he said. “A little bittersweet, though. You want to win the game, that’s the bottom line. I’m disappointed with the way we played.”

While Posada struggled to accept his place in history, Girardi put it into better perspective. “We don’t talk a lot about individual stuff here, but for Jorge to hit the first home run here, I’m very happy for him. He’s been here a long time and he’s meant a lot to this franchise with the World Series he’s played in and the playoff games. I’m extremely happy for him.”

The game stayed 1-1 after Sabathia and Edwar Ramirez worked into a bases-loaded jam in the sixth before lefty Phil Coke extricated the Yankees from danger by retiring Grady Sizemore on a fly to deep left. But then everything crumbled for the Yankees in a disastrous seventh inning.

“It was a pretty good pitchers’ duel until that inning,” said Girardi, which was akin to saying “the play was very good, Mrs. Lincoln, until John Wilkes Booth murdered your husband.”

Jose Veras faced three men and they all reached base with two scoring on a double by Jhonny Peralta. Damaso Marte relieved and, well, he provided no relief at all. In fact, all Marte did was fire up a blow torch in a pool of gasoline. By the time the Indians were done pummeling him, they had scored nine runs, four of those on a grand slam by Sizemore. Marte had been in the majors 10 years and he’d never had a worst inning.

So a special day was spoiled at the place that, at least early on, was called the House That George Built. And the Boss was in his private box with his children, though clearly in failing health. A healthy Steinbrenner would have happily met with reporters on this occasion, but the only time he was close to the media was when his golf cart drove past them outside the Yankees clubhouse.

Someone asked him what he thought of the new place and he turned and replied, “It’s beautiful.” But that was it, and his cart never stopped.

Here’s how the rest of the Indians series went for the Yankees:

• April 17: The Yankees hit five solo home runs, the last one by Derek Jeter in the eighth inning, to beat the Indians 6-5 for their first victory at new Yankee Stadium. “I love it,” said Mark Teixeira, who followed a homer by Johnny Damon with one of his own in the third. “If anyone’s going to hit a game-winning home run for the first win at the new stadium, it’s going to be Derek.”

• April 18: For the third time in the week, the Yankees gave up double-digit runs and this one was the worst of all, an embarrassing 22-4 loss to the Indians. Chien-Ming Wang’s third straight nightmare start featured eight runs allowed in 1.1 innings, raising his ERA to 34.50. In all five Yankee pitchers gave up 25 hits and six walks. It was the most runs for the Indians since they beat the Yankees 22-0 on Aug. 31, 2004 at the old Yankee Stadium. The 22 runs also tied the Yankees' record for most allowed in a home game. And Cleveland’s 14 runs in the second inning were a record against the Yankees. “He’s making it real tough on our bullpen,” Johnny Damon said of Wang. “We’ve got six losses and he has three of them and in all three of those games we’ve been blown out.”

• April 19: The Yankees managed to split the four-game series with a 7-3 victory as Jorge Posada hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh, and then Cody Ransom his a game-breaking three-run double in the eighth.

NEXT SATURDAY: The early season pitching woes continued at Fenway Park as ex-Yankee Mike Lowell erupted for six RBI and the Red Sox capped their biggest comeback victory over the Yankees since 1968 with a wild 16-11 victory.