It will be cloudy at the big stadium in the Bronx, but that’s only for now. Fifteen years from now, 25 years from now, your memory will lie, because that’s always what the first day of a home baseball schedule does. Sometimes it really rains for the home opener. Once, in 1996, it snowed so much it looked like Lambeau Field.
It does not matter. Opening the house is always about rebirth, renewal, getting rid of winter even if the mercury barely reaches north of freezing. The Yankees have won 27 championships, but today will be their 126th home opener, which means 99 times the greatest gift of the day is erasing the disappointment ended the year before.
Except this one is different.
This time, the Yankees come home with seven games under their belt and they have won six of them. The Yankees have been in business in New York since 1903 and they have never opened the home portion of the schedule with such a head start. Of course, about half of those years the record is 0-0 when they take the field at Yankee Stadium.
This time it’s 6-1. They have never been 6-1 for a home opener. They went 5-1 in 2003, passing through Toronto and Tampa Bay before crushing the Twins at home, en route to 101 wins and Game 6 of the World Series. In 1928, they also started 5-1, launching their third game. world championship season with a triumphant tour to Philadelphia and Boston.
(They also went 4-1 in front of empty houses in Washington and Baltimore during the COVID year of 2020, but like everything else about that year, it’s best forgotten.)
“In the grand scheme of things, a week doesn’t do much when it comes to 162 games,” said Alex Verdugo, the left fielder who had such a career-defining journey for the Yankees on both sides of the ball. “But starting this week like this and maintaining this momentum is huge. Everyone here knows we are talented and knows what we can do.
This will be Verdugo’s first home opener at Yankee Stadium, and his reasonable, reasoned take on the strong start is a testament to a team that isn’t as surprised by the start of the season as some of its fans seem to be. ‘be. He will see. He will learn. Players play Opening Days every year, maybe as many as two or three of them depending on how the schedule goes.
It’s different in the Bronx.
It’s different at Yankee Stadium.
Some years, this day is practically a day of secular obligation as the Yankees raise a new pennant at the highest level of the stadium. These are always the best versions of that day. But even though it’s been 14 years since it was the featured attraction — the April 13, 2010, 7-5 victory over the Angels that followed the raising of the 2009 World Series flag — it’s still a day unlike any other. others.
There are still a multitude of stars, old friends, eternal names. For years, the star attraction was Eleanor Gehrig or Claire Ruth throwing out the first pitch from a seat near the Yankees dugout. For years, it was Joe DiMaggio, dressed in a sharp suit, waving both arms before throwing the ball from the front of the pitcher’s mound. After that, it was a rotating cast of legends with one name – Yogi or Whitey or Scooter – who handled the duties.
Lately, it’s been one or another member of the ’90s boys dynasty. And as many games as these guys have won, as many championships as they’ve collected, they’ve never started a season 6 -1 on the road. As good as they were, they sometimes had to wait until the second week of the season – sometimes its second month – before stepping on the gas.
Verdugo is right, of course: a week does not make a season. The Pirates are off to a 5-0 start, as are the Yankees, and it’s unlikely that anyone in Pittsburgh or New York has already booked hotel rooms for October so the Yankees can finally get revenge on Bill Mazeroski. The 1998 Yankees started their season 1-4; Things got a little better soon after.
There will be time for that. The Yankees’ home opener is always an opportunity to pay true homage to the most glorious collection of yesterday in sports history. This time, today is shaping up to be just as good as yesterday.
New York Post
