Bronx, N.Y., April 1, 2008 — There was criticism aplenty going around the Bronx the last few days. First, devoted fans were understandably upset when the club and major league baseball rained out their opener against the Toronto Blue Jays Monday. Adults take off from work and pull their kids out of school for this day every year, but in 2008, the last year of the old Stadium? Seemed, I’m sure, to be an imperative in many a household. What a blow to have the day wasted, and then to sit until evening for the opener the next day.

Talking heads on sports stations around the radio dial and fans were aghast. How do you call it, when the team has played them in driving rain (1999) and snow (1996) before? And a night game? What a tradition breaker. The Yanks haven’t had a night game opener since … well, April 3, 2005. That’s right, just three years ago. So much for tradition. As for the weather, the fans and players had a three-hour party under gorgeous, warm skies that cleared literally minutes before the 7:09 first pitch Tuesday evening. In a brisk two hours and 39 minutes, a tight, tense, playoff-quality game was over, just a few moments before the skies opened and the rains returned. The ghosts that make this Baseball Cathedral the home office for sports may not be ready to move across the street in 12 months, but it seems clear they were at least OK with delaying this park’s last Opener 30 hours.

Say crisp, two-plus-hours ball game, and you know that quality pitching is a given. Righthanders Roy Halladay and Chien-Ming Wang faced one another, and these two staff aces did not disappoint. Yankee 2007 MVP Alex Rodriguez reached Halladay for a run-scoring double in the first. The Jays had threatened on a swinging bunt and a ground, seeing-eye single in the first; they equalled matters on two more hits and a fielder’s choice grounder in the second, with soft, well-placed bloops causing most of the damage. The Yanks replied with singles in the next three fames, two of them leadoff. But none of those runners reached second base, including Derek jeter, who was out trying to steal that bag to close the third.

Halladay is a master hurler with all the tools, and more. He pounded hard fastballs inside on the Yankee batters’ hands all night, then mixed things up with a high-eighties cutter here, a killer change of pace slower still against the next guy, and a knee-buckling curveball that kept the home team off stride. Wang’s considerably smaller bag of tricks contains a few less tools. He coaxes multiple grounders on a hard-sinking fastball, and throws a low-eighties slider to keep the offense honest. He intermittently showed considerable promise with a change of pace last year, a pitch he featured this spring, but he appeared not to use it this night.

Having escaped the initial inning when Robbie Cano nabbed Vernon Wells’s humpback liner and doubled Alex Rios off first, Wang got six ground-ball outs the first three frames, notching his first strike out in the third when shortstop David Eckstein swung at and missed a slow slider after three hard sinkers. The Yankee righty got ground out number seven leading off the top of the fourth, but his sinker suddenly deserted him, and Lyle Overbay and Aaron Hill drilled back-to-back outfield liners. Center fielder Melky Cabrera ran down Overbays’s missile toward the wall in right center, making a leaping catch before slamming into the wall. But the diving catch on Hill the other way that followed was even better. Melky outran it, then snagged it inches off the outfield grass. The Yankees struggled to come up with quality at bats all evening, but their defense was in midseason form.

With Cabrera’s help, Wang escaped trouble on loud outs, but he issued third baseman Marco Scutaro, in for an injured Scott Rolen, a five-pitch walk leading off the fifth, and Toronto made him pay. A single to right by catcher Greg Zaun moved Scutaro 90 feet, and both runners moved up on a roller to first. Left fielder Shannon Stewart’s soft hopper to third delivered the go-ahead run, and Wang escaped further harm by striking out Alex Rios swinging on yet another slider. The Blue Jays swung and missed four times among the 57 strikes Chien-Ming managed through seven; two of those swings accounted for his only two strike outs.

Now the Jays had a lead, and Halladay was looking capable of making it stand up. He posted pitch counts of four, then five tosses in the second and fourth, despite allowing leadoff singles both times. Double-play grounders provided the perfect — and almost instantaneous — escape, both times. Roy threw just 42 pitches through four, then managed a one-two-three fifth on 13 more. But the tide turned as he faced Cabrera leading off the home sixth. Melky had battled Halladay through seven pitches before bouncing back to the box in the third. Now he took two strikes, but fouled off four more around three off the plate. Finally facing a full count, he lifted a high fly to the right-field corner on the 10th pitch he saw. Rios tracked it into the corner, but it landed one row in just inside the foul pole. We had a 2-2 tie.

Halladay faced 27 Yankee hitters Tuesday, each guy three times. Hideki Matsui hit three grounders on five pitches, Cano singled in three at bats on six. A-Rod saw six pitches too, and doubled, singled, knocked in a run and scored one. Jorge Posada worked Roy a bit, striking out and walking (intentionally) to 13 pitches in three plate appearances. But Cabrera, who followed his poke into the short seats in right with a three-pitch strike out, cost Hallady 20 pitches all on his own. He would have earned a star on offense even without homering for the tying home run.

Wang had pounded a nine-pitch, three-grounder sixth before Melky tied it, but an Aaron Hill liner to left center leading off the seventh put him back in instant trouble. Cabrera’s dive this time came up short, but Johnny Damon backed up and ran the ball down at the wall to hold Hill at second. It was a decent play on a night when Yankee gloves were much in evidence. Aside from the back-to-back Cabrera gems in the fourth, Jeter had made a nice play stabbing an Eckstein grounder up the middle beginning the game, and another on Wells in the third. His throw on a Greg Zaun grounder in the second was in the dirt, but Giambi made a fine short-hop stab. Giambi had made an effective flip to second for a force the batter before, not a small achievement for a first baseman who has been plagued by bad throws. But this pales in comparison with the leap and stab Jason now made on a Scutaro liner toward right on Wang’s next pitch. Hill was frozen at second, and two more ground-ball outs got Wang past the last real Jays threat.

Starting this April somewhat like he did last one, Rodriguez led off the bottom of the seventh with an 0-1 single to right. The 22-pitch struggle in the sixth had elevated Halladay’s pitch count somehwat, and now Giambi worked a six-pitch walk; first and second with no one out. In similar circumstances, former Manager Joe Torre had not bunted the line-drive hitting Cano; Giradi chose the same tack. Robbie’s 0-1 bouncer up the middle eluded Halladay. Eckstein corraled it on the second base side, and surged toward an approaching Giambi with an attempted tag. But the erstwhile Yankee power hitter who had dazzled with his glove so far executed a base-running dance now, stopping in his tracks so Eckstein had to choose his out. He threw to first, and Jason dove safely into second; the Yanks were set up.

Both starting pitchers were superb, and the Yankees in particular made play after stellar play afield, but following A-Rod’s rbi double in the first, the team failed to come up with a quality at bat with runners on the whole game. Having already coaxed two dp grounders to this point, Halladay walked Posada intentionally, angling for yet another double play. And he got just what he needed on a hard Matsui two-hopper toward second. It was stroked, however, and Hill could only knock it down. The force was all Toronto could manage, and the Yanks had a 3-2 lead.

The Yanks debated much of the spring whether young Joba Chamberlain, who was lights-out setting up for Mariano Rivera last year, should start, or return to the pen in 2008. Those in favor of his setting up now had their dreamed-for scenario. Pounding fastballs as hard as 98 mph with sliders as slow as 83, Chamberlain pitched a scoreless eighth around a hard-fought walk to Rios. Continuing to struggle coming up with quality at bats, the Yanks failed in the bottom of the eighth to plate Damon, who lined one past a diving Wells in right center, coasting into third with a leadoff triple. Jeter and Abreu grounded out meekly, A-Rod was walked, and Giambi rolled out to second.

But it didn’t matter, because the one and only Mariano Rivera came on and closed out the Jays on 12 pitches, including a strike out, for his 444th save. So it took 34 hours, with Yankee fans hanging out eight or so hours over two days, but now the Yanks have won their 22nd home opener in the last 25, by a 3-1 score. Melky Cabrera was quoted in one paper after another saying how honored he felt to get the start in center field. He certainly earned the spot this day, as did Jason Giambi, who uncharacteristically helped win this one with his glove and his feet, but not his bat. Joba and Mo gave us all another two-inning show to settle matters.

But the game ball in this one, at least to my way of thinking, was earned by one Chien-Ming Wang, proud product of Taiwan who did not allow two bad starts in the 2007 playoffs to mar his great start with this team. He got his 21 outs through seven on just 93 pitches by my count (the Stadium board gave 92), retiring 13 on ground-ball outs. He struck out two and walked two, and allowed six hits, only two after the second inning, and just one for extra bases. He tossed 18 of 28 first-pitch strikes, just as Halladay did. He matched one of the best the league has to offer, and just wait until Wang starts mixing in his killer change of pace to keep the opposition guessing.

April 1, 2008 would have been the 125th birthday of silent film actor Lon Chaney, famously known as “the Man of 1,000 Faces” while he was alive.

Chien-Ming Wang was “the Man of 1,000 Hard, Sinking Fastballs” in beating the Blue Jays on this Opening Night.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!