Bronx, N.Y., April 11, 2006 — Fans and non-fans in the New York area and the country over will be regaled with Derek’s Jeter’s many fine qualities, both on field and off, following his game-winning, seventh-inning, 3-run homer that carried the Yanks to a 9-7 victory over the Royals Tuesday afternoon. And well they should. Jeter came to the plate with victory in his grasp, but defeat potentially a mere four outs away as well. The Yankee captain started his second decade as starting shortstop in the Bronx pretty much the same way he played in the first. The Yankees set an American League record when they came from behind and won their ninth straight home opener in the game, and it is no coincidence that the confident but not cocky Jeter has been around for the whole ride.

But although Mr. Jeter deserves all the accolades he is getting, another offensive performer on the team showed that he is back, and actually may have played a bigger part than Derek. Jason Giambi began a new assault on the on-base-percentage lead in the American League that he copped last year when he singled and walked three times Sunday. Tuesday he turned it up a notch.

Many expected the story of this game to be the arrival of Johnny Damon to New York with Pinstripes on his back, and it certainly started out that way. After starter Chien-Ming Wang subdued the first three KC hitters on ground balls, Damon battled Royals starter Joe Mays to a 2-2 count, and then poked an opposite-field double into the left field corner. But Jeter and Gary Sheffield promptly grounded to the left side, and after a walk to Alex Rodriguez, Mays got ahead of Giambi 0-2. Jason may be a great golfer, because he really loves the ball down. And Mays’s next pitch was high enough to give the Yankee power hitter trouble. But it wasn’t hard enough, and with a late adjustment in his swing, Giambi flicked the ball almost 400 feet away into the right field bleachers.

But although Wang appeared sharp, and coaxed grounders from 10 of the first 12 Royals batters, the visitors began a determined comeback right away. Doug Mientkiewicz singled up the middle, and moved to second when a pitch got away from Wang. From there he scored to close it to 3-1 when Royals third baseman Mark Teahen lofted a fly down left that struck the wall near the foul pole. Four walks from Mays gave the Yanks a run in the third, but Wang lost it in the fourth, and the Royals tied it on four hits and a walk, including a Reggie Sanders home run.

The Yanks threatened right away on Robinson Cano and Bernie Williams singles and a fine sac bunt by Damon; a walk to Jeter loaded the bases. An expected subplot on the day was the play of former star center fielder Williams, who relinquishes the role for that of part-time outfielder and Designated Hitter. His mounting offensive numbers rank him very high on the super-charged Yankee career list in hits, walks, home runs, and rbi’s to name a few, and the decibels reached a new level for the day when he was announced to the appreciative crowd before the game. But with one down and the sacks filled, Bernie inexplicably was caught off second after a disappointing pop to short by Sheffield. The threat had fizzled.

The leadoff walk Wang allowed in the sixth proved his undoing, although he pitched better following it than a casual look at the box score would indicate. Emil Brown beat out his sac bunt for a base hit (I thought he was out), and once Teahen’s swinging bunt down third got past Wang he was safe without a throw. With the pen going in earnest Jeter grabbed Angel Berroa’s high hopper that barely eluded Wang for a 6-3 dp while the go-ahead run scored. The scoring against Wang — and his day — ended when catcher John Buck lined to Alex Rodriguez at third.

With Yankee bats held hitless over the next three, things looked pretty bleak when Tanyon Sturtze gave up three hits and two runs to the first four batters he faced in the seventh. The anguished crowd experienced a welcome light moment when the Stadium sound system played the Michael Meyers music from the movie Halloween as Mike Myers warmed on the mound. The southpaw specialist proved more heroic than beastly as he quickly quieted things by picking Sanders off first and striking out Mientkiewicz looking. But at 7-4, K.C. had a three-run lead with just two frames remaining.

Giambi followed his three-run bomb in the first with back-to-back walks, but when young lefty Andrew Sisco jumped up 0-2 on him leading off the home eighth, the crowd tensed. But Jason knows the strike zone better than most, and after fouling off one pitch, he managed to match his 1-for-1 with three walks line from Sunday and trotted down to first. Lefty-hitting left fielder Hideki Matsui had a superb year against portsiders last year, and he smacked Sisco’s next pitch to right for a single. A walk to Jorge Posada loaded them up, and the Yanks plated one when Teahen made a fine play and got a force at second on Robinson Cano’s bid for a single to left.

With a chance to atone for his earlier base-running blunder, Bernie came through. He quickly fell to 0-2 as well, but after one off the plate, he smacked a single to left and the Bombers had closed to 7-6. Young fireballing closer Ambiorix Burgos, who turns 22 in a week, came on and whiffed Damon on three pitches, and appeared dominant doing so. But after blowing Damon away, he tried to give Jeter a different look with a slider, and the hometown hero blasted the first throw deep to left. Mariano Rivera came on for the ninth, and after a one-out hit and hit-by-pitch, “closed” the Royals himself by snagging Mientkiewicz’s liner back to the box.

With the Yanks’ recent domination in the home opener (20-3 since 1984), many fans look to the date as a fun rite of spring. They don’t expect good weather, but they do expect a win. Things ended happily on both ends, as the game was played under sunny skies and 66-degree temps. Twenty-four years ago, a much smaller crowd was doubly disappointed. The Yanks played a five-day-delayed opening doubleheader on Easter Sunday and lost both games. The next year they were embarrassed 13-2 in the cold and wet by the Tigers, the same team they would beat in driving rain in 1999. Most recall or have heard that Andy Pettitte beat the Twins in ’96 in a snowstorm.

With this team initially off to a 1-4 mark, it has been pointed out that the same start in 1998 concluded with a 114-win season and a Championship. Mr. Pettite put that team over .500 for the first time with a 3-1 win over the Twins on April 11 of that year, and they never looked back. But if we look back, we’ll see that they won that contest on the strength of two hits, two runs, and two stolen bases by Jeter. On the other hand, it was one year earlier that the club last played the home opener on this date; it was their last loss, 3-1 to Oakland and reliever Aaron Small. And a decade before that current hitting coach Don Mattingly had a huge inning in a 15-2 demolition of this Royals franchise, driving in five runs in the eighth on two doubles. Today the whole team managed five runs in the eighth, capped by Jeter’s blast, but it was enough.

One more Aprill 11 baseball link. The late actor Paul Douglas, who starred in three of the zaniest and funniest old-time screwball baseball comedies, would have celebrated his 99th birthday today. In 1949, he stole It Happens Every Spring from star Ray Milland as the perplexed catcher Monk Lanigan trying to catch pitched balls treated with a substance that repels wood. Then after a bit part in Rhubarb, in which a millionaire bequeaths a ballclub to his cat, the flicks culminated in 1951’s Angels in the Outfield (a much better movie than the 1994 remake with Danny Glover), with Douglas as a foul-mouthed, unpleasant manager of a bad team that gets some “angelic” help, as long as he improves his behavior. One little girl even sees angels helping his players.

With the professional way the Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter has carried himself since he arrived in the Bronx, Yankee fans have been seeing an Angel in the Infield for 10 years now.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!