So much for the Designated Swisher Rule. Home, now, to the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience.

I guess I asked for it when I asked for the Designated Swisher Rule, but it looks like Nick Swisher is about to become the Yankees' everyday right fielder while Xavier Nady gets his elbow fixed. This could prove problematic if Teixiera's wrist keeps bothering him...everybody get your Stephen Colbert "WristStrong" bracelets on and try to keep Tex's wrist, well, strong.

Meanwhile, the Yankees ride a winning record into the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience, thanks to the combined efforts of the left side of their infield, Jeter driving in Ransom. Hopefully the ghosts choose to look the other way on the whole "crime against baseball and humanity" thing, and the whole so the team can continue to build on its reasonably strong start. The Curse of Clay Bellinger is enough to cope with...the last thing we need is an additional curse, no matter how understandable this one might be.

Well, remember, on April 18, 1923, the Yankees beat the Red Sox to christen Yankee Stadium, with Babe Ruth hitting the first home run. That's right, Babe Ruth hit the first, Melky Cabrera hit the last...as Hamlet would say, what a falling off was there. At any rate, 85 years from now, when they're tearing down the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience because it only has one Hard Rock Cafe and one high-priced steakhouse, whose name will be tossed about as the guy who hit the first home run, who notched that first strikeout, who killed the first rally by hitting into a DP (oh, A-Rod's not back yet, forget that one)?

Who will wax nostalgic about the good old days, when we had only one Great Hall to honor the same tradition we were simultaneously pissing all over, and we liked it? Who will tell the youngsters of 2094 what life was like when all it took to get a seat behind home plate was $2650 and a dream (i.e. between 100 and 200 times what it cost 15 years ago, mind you...is he team 200 times better?), plus the desire to watch the game through the screen, if you watched at all. 

True grandeur is understated. It cannot be ignored, but it cannot be ignored because of its imposing presence, not because of its bombastic pretentiousness. Can the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience do quiet dignity? Or any kind of dignity? I guess we'll see. Yankee Stadium was, as the Jacob Ruppert plaque said, an "imposing edifice," even as remodeled, its stony portals, muted but monumental, standing watch over all who dared enter. The tall upper deck that must have felt, to an outfielder, like it had placed its many thousands of screaming occupants directly over your head, cast long, forbidding shadows and lent a sense of drama and urgency to all that transpired below. The minuscule foul territory down the lines made the Big Ballpark in the Bronx feel like an alleyway, no escape for those mere mortals who dared ply the corners of both infield and outfield. There was no need to bash fans and players over the head with the Yankee tradition. You simply breathed it, smelled it, sensed it. You were in the presence of greatness, whether this year's team was providing it or not. No goofy oversized letters were needed inside to tell you this was Yankee Stadium. The goofy oversized letters outside were the most flamboyant the old Stadium knew how to be, which by today's standards looked like a gray flannel suit, white shirt, skinny black tie.

And speaking of that, I need to go to work. Like, now.

Pitching wins ball games

Pitching wins ball games. Pitching also loses ball games. Fortunately, there are 161 more games still to be played. On the plus side, with the exception of one particularly bad pitch from Phil Coke, who was otherwise pretty good, the bullpen was fairly solid. The offense was less than efficient, leaving enough men on base to make the 2007 or 2008 Yankees jealous, but the important thing on that front was the strong comeback drive over the middle portion of the game, as well as a good combination of power and manufactured runs. There are still 161 more games ahead, and it's safe (I certainly hope) to assume the starting pitching, particularly from Sabathia, will be better for many if not most of them. Our first baseman will also make himself a bit more useful on offense, I suspect, so these things will sort themselves out.

Remember the none-too-auspicious beginning for the 1998 Yankees, and don't sweat this one too much. There are 161 more games to go, and if this is to be the toughest loss we endure, then we're lucky fans indeed.

Live blog, you say? Sure, why not...

Well, here we are in the fourth inning. Sabathia coughed up three last inning, but it could have been worse. Certainly, the Yankees should be able to come up with two more.

The B&O warehouse, which Kay and Singleton are talking about right now, is, if you ask me, the best thing about Camden Yards. It was a nice idea, a Disneyfied nod to Old-Tyme Base-Ball, but I honestly don't care for the place. I haven't been there since 1996. Maybe I'd like it better if I went back. But I doubt it, now that it's not even distinctive, having been copied so many times since. Supreme irony, that: it was supposed to be a reaction to the cookie-cutter copies of Shea, and it has spawned a brood of imitators Shea could only have dreamed about. Including Shea's own  replacement.

Bottom 4: Derek Jeter has plenty of range, thank you very much, but it's mostly vertical. And Michael Jordan wouldn't have had that liner, so Derek gets a break. CC Sabathia is a large man. I knew this, but wow. He is a large man. And based on his command thus far in this game, he ranks second to David Weathers as best Yankee pitcher to wear #52, at least among those I can think of offhand. Jose Contreras, another 52, is starting to come to mind, and that's not a good thing. I'm sure he'll be fine later, but he looks ill at ease out there. Nice reach by Teixiera to dig out a low throw from Jeter for the DP. CC's clearly not at his best, but he doesn't have that deer-in-the-headlights look so many Yankee pitchers have had over the last few years, so I'm encouraged.

Top 5: CC and that heating pad are making me nervous. Brett Gardner is scary fast, but not quite fast enough. Speaking of speed, nice work by Johnny Damon legging out a triple here. I've been a boobird myself, but these guys are truly impressive...Teixiera has been up long enough to run the count full, and they're still at it. Aaaaand Matsui pops out to end the inning. I'm tired of writing this, and you're tired of reading it. I'll check in after the game.

Update: Sabathia went 4 1/3 and allowed 6 ER. I take back everything I said...this was a terrible start for Sabathia. However, that was a beautiful play by Gardner to end the inning.

John Sterling and other sources of noise pollution

I couldn't take it anymore. I listened to an inning and a half on the radio, before becoming seized with the urge to staple John Sterling's mouth shut. So I rushed home to catch the rest on TV. The Yankees scored a run, the first of the season, while I was in transit. Thanks, John.

It all begins in Baltimore

And so in a matter of hours, the Yankees kick off their season in a not-so-charming one-horse town that has alternately called itself, over the years, "Charm City," "The City That Reads," and perhaps my personal favorite self-appointed title for any purpose, under any circumstances, ever: "The Greatest City in America."

Very few things on the Major League Baseball master schedule have made any sense in recent years...two-game series on the west coast, road trips to one town at a time, stopping at home in the Bronx between Oakland and Anaheim, and it goes on. But this...the Yankees opening at Baltimore...this makes sense. To wit:

• The Yankees were the Highlanders, and the Highlanders were the original Baltimore Orioles when the American League was born in 1901.
• Babe Ruth? Baltimore native.
• Baltimore invented the trend of tearing down an actual old ballpark in favor of a fake old ballpark. Not that Memorial Stadium is comparable to Yankee Stadium per se, but...yeah.
• Rumor (i.e. complete fabrication on my part) has it that working title for Interactive Yankeetainment Experience had been Camden Yards XVII; Citi Field was to be called Camden Yards XVIII.
• Yankees poised to knock down House that Ruth Built; Orioles knocked down Bar that Ruth's Father Built to make way for Camden Yards.
• Baltimore is the setting for The Wire, HBO drama about illegal drug trade. Yankees' offseason was the setting for The Alex Rodriguez Circus, ESPN drama about illegal drug trade.
• Remember that 4-game sweep of the then-relevant Orioles at Camden Yards in the Summer of 1996? I was at those four games. Good times. Inebriated fellow Yankee fan in front of me dubbed Jesse Orosco "Jesse Fiasco," which was pretty awesome. Oriole brass kept 40,000 fans waiting through hurricane-induced rain delay during second game. Not so awesome.
• Season has to begin somewhere.

So there you have it. It all begins in Baltimore. And it all begins at 4:05, which means I have to go find a radio to bring to work in the very likely event I don't actually leave at 4 like I'm supposed to.

One down, 2429 to go

The first game of baseball year 2009 is in the books. No longer is everybody in first place, at least in the division once known as the NL Least. The Braves are in first, and the (chokes repeatedly trying to say it) World's Champion Phillies, in their goofy gold-trimmed uniforms (bush even by Philly sports standards, and that's quite a bit of bushitude) are in 5th. And so the Mets, Nats and Marlins begin their campaign with a half-game lead over the Phils but a half-game deficit to  make up on the Braves. If Willie Randolph were still managing the Mets, their fans would be calling for him to be fired tonight.

But in the other five divisions, most notably the AL East of course, the zeroes still have it, standing silent vigil up and down the table until tomorrow. The Royals are tied for first in the central, which is how you know it's Opening Day. The dawn of a new season awaits, another chance for the New York Baseball Yankees (yeah, get used to that...I really like to say "New York Football Giants," but football season's a long way off and I need a fix) to show some heart and hustle, two things not associated with the Bombers in recent years, unfortunately, unless you ask A-Rod where he was after the game last night and he tells you "Heart and Hustle, my favorite strip club."

The months ahead will have their ups and downs, their injuries, their screaming liners, their screaming fans, their screaming back pages. The weeks ahead will have their growing pains, their teething problems, their time-will-tells. The days ahead will have their comically meaningless batting averages, the .000s, the 1.000s, the .500s and everything in between. Consider these the signs of a season still wet behind the ears, but know this: September and October will be here before you know it, and this child-season will be either an old friend we'll miss when it's gone, or a crotchety old man who mocks us by his refusal to go away. The hours ahead will have their own frustrations: Is it game time yet? Is it game time yet? Are we there yet? Yes. Almost. 

Almost.

Welcome! Make note of the nearest exit, just in case...

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to my new blog. The way I see it, I spend enough time pontificating about baseball and general and the Yankees in particular, often with no basis whatsoever other than my own irrational opinions, to warrant further pollution of the blogosphere with yet another baseball blog.

My hope is to make you think (even if your thought is "this guy's an idiot!"), make you laugh (even if you're laughing at the fact this blog exists in the first place) and ultimately lend a new (if slightly bizarre at times) voice to the conversation/shouting match that is the Yankee-flavored area of the interweb. (If you're wondering, Yankee flavor is a mixture of stale champagne and overripe, past-prime pitching, with a dash of misguided hope courtesy of people like me). 

With the new season finally officially kicking off tonight (the Phillies are currently losing to the Braves in the first inning, which means the natural order of things...i.e. Philly and losing going hand-in-glove...might be returning to the land of baseball), I figured there was no time like the present. Further thoughts to come, whether you like it or not...