Reggie Jackson, my guy, threw out the ceremonial first ball.
Chien-Ming Wang threw 6 strong innings. The Sinker of Doom showed no ill effects from a poor Playoff performance last October.
Melky Cabrera made "Holy Cow!" catches on back-to-back plays, and hit a Yankee Stadium "short porch" home run to right field.
Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter got RBI hits, and Hideki Matsui, well, it wasn't pretty, but it got the winning run home.
Joba Chamberlain pitched a scoreless 7th and 8th, in the latter ringing up Frank Thomas. The Big Hurt is a future Hall-of-Famer, but any more pitches like that one and he might want to hang 'em up now and just wait his 5 years. (UPDATE: He did retire after the season, and was elected in his 1st year of eligiblility.)
Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless 9th.
Yankees 3, Toronto Blue Jays 2. One and oh.
*
As for the Mets... Johan Santana looked good, not great, in their opener. They beat the Florida Marlins. As noted Flushing resident Archie Bunker would've said, "Well, whoop-de-doo!" But, considering their fiasco of last September, beating the Marlins is a big deal for the Mutts.
And then, tonight... Pedro the Punk got rocked, and then he got hurt.
Gee. I wonder who could possibly have predicted that one. How about... me.
I've been saying since 2003 or so that you never know when Pedro Martinez is going to throw his last pitch of the season, his last pitch for his current team, or the last pitch of his career. Now, the Mess will have to get by without him, and for how long? Those hamstrings can be, quite literally, a pain in the ass, and bother you long after they should.
Met manager Willie Randolph should know: As the Yankee 2nd baseman in the Eighties, he hurt his 'string a couple of times and tried to come back too soon, with unfortunate results.
As usual, there's been plenty of big talk from the Flushing Heathen.
As usual, they're telling those of us who actually understand baseball that the Mets are going all the way.
And, as usual, the Mets are going all the way down the drain.
Unless, of course, The Great and Powerful Santana is going to win all the games he would have won and all the games Pedro would have won.
Maybe he will: 15 games.
Met fans: They're as dumb as John Rocker said they were. Just because we all wanted to kill that messenger doesn't mean the message was wrong.
As for the Yankees... the Red Sox are a game behind in the AILC, the All-Important Loss Column.
It's good to be a fan of the Number 1 team.
Now, if we can just get LaTroy Hawkins to understand that, as great as Roberto Clemente was, around here nobody wears Number 21, because it belongs to Paul O'Neill...
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