Tampa, Fla., February 26, 2011 — Baseball resumed in Yankee World Saturday, and on a sizzling sunny day in Tampa the 2008 and 2009 World Series champs clashed on a diamond of green. In a crisp game where one team had more than a one-run lead for all of two outs, the Phillies prevailed over the Yanks 5-4 in three hours and four minutes.

I’ve been waiting for this day for four months, and even the gremlin that hid my glasses as I prepared to depart wasn’t going to ruin it. The plane took off and landed on time, the sun shone, the mercury in Tampa registered 40 degrees higher than what I left behind up North, our bags beat us to the pickup carousel, and a taxi waited right outside to close the deal. I was in my seat ready for the introductions, despite the fact that I had indulged in a brief and silent stop at the new statue of the departed Boss that greets fans about to ascend the steps to enter.

The baseball was not midseason classic, but it was good. Despite all the head shaking when he was announced as the Yankee preseason starter, Bartolo Colon was effective, and should have escaped his two frames not having allowed a run. Ryan Howard almost took him out the other way to left in the first but Brett Gardner showed stellar first-day form in running the fly ball down and making a leaping grab. Joba Chamberlain was lights out, punctuating his one-two-three, 10-pitch third inning with a “where did that ball go?” third strike slider to Wilson Valdez. David Robertson struck out two in an inning. Hector Noesi was effective as well, though he was saved by a fine diving catch by Justin Maxwell in right field.

But the Phillies won this one because they posted two-run innings against young nonroster invitees in the fifth and eight innings. David Phelps didn’t show much in the former, but recent signee Eric Wordekemper battled valliantly in the eighth. Two defensive plays hurt him, one of them before he even took the mound. Phillie Dane Sardinha, a nonroster veteran, had driven Colin Curtis to the left field wall in the seventh, a ball Curtis was unable to come down with, though Maxwell’s catch kept Phillie from scoring. Back-to-back leadoff singles got Wordekemper in trouble one frame later, although the second was a hot shot Eduardo Nunez couldn’t come up with at short; had he, it would have been a 6-4-3. The Yankee righty retired the next two visitors easily, then allowed a walk on a close 3-2 pitch. It came down to Sardinha and Wordekemper. Eric got up 1-2 on the Phillies catcher, who then fouled off four two-strike pitches. Finally, on Wordekemper’s 28th pitch of the frame Sardinha lofted a dying quail to short left. It was clearly beyond Nunez’s range from short but, even though it hung up, the charging Curtis, perhaps a few steps deeper following the catcher’s double the inning before, could not make up the ground. The ball fell and game-tying and go-ahead runs scored.

Phillie hurlers did well, with Cole Hamels and righty prospect Vance Worley holding the Yanks to one run through four, though Hamels allowed an Alex Rodriguez 400-foot missile in the first. Alex, looking dangerous with a bat in his hands, followed with a double to right center in the third, Mark Teixeira tripled to the wall in left for a run in the fifth, and Francisco Cervelli had a first-pitch rbi double. But those hits left the Yanks down 3-2 until first baseman Jorge Vazquez took over. Having been awarded the MVP Award of the Caribbean Series earlier this month, Vazquez came to bat two outs after Curtis led off the home seventh with a walk. But swinging from his heels, Vazquez fouled off a few, then bombed a home run to dead center for a 4-3 Yankee lead, their first of the day. Then once Phillie scratched out the two tallies in the eighth, Vazquez singled the tying run to third with one out in the ninth. But third baseman Brandon Laird, who had followed the seventh-inning homer with a double, struck out this time, and Kevin Russo’s routine roller to short ended the game, an entertaining all-day back-and forth battle.

Opening Day in George M. Steinbrenner Field is always a special day that holds a lot of promise, though sometimes the game that follows doesn’t measure up, not the case this day. The list of Yankee dignitaries announced pregame began with Stump Merrill and ended with Yogi, then proceeded onto Joe Girardi and his coaches. David Wells and Lou Piniella were two guys we haven’t seen in this neighborhood in a while. Tino Martinez, Girardi, Ron Guidry, Goose Gossage, and Derek Jeter each took turns reading parts of the inscription on George’s statue outside. His widow and daughters Jennifer and Jessica each laid a red rose on the interlocking NY behind home plate, and granddaughter Haley Swindal gave her best rendition of the National Anthem yet, with a color guard and giant flag in the outfield and a booming two-jet flyover as the anthem subsided.

We’re used to seeing a high school marching band get the festivities started in these. But just as this was the first time I was greeted to a new Tampa pre-season by a statue of the Boss, the fact that this year’s band was from the newly named George M. Steibrenner High School was brand-new, and poignant, as well.

The Wenceslas made famous in the Christmas song many learned as children was Wenceslas I of Bohemia. His heir Wenceslas IV would have been celebrating his 650th birthday February 26. Seeing good baseball played in the facility he built in his hometown, celebrated in song by the high school built in his name, and enjoyed by the fans who made his franchise the envy of the sports world: All of this surely would have made “The Boss” proud. Looking up at his statue pregame as the GMS High School Band prepared for their big moment, I was thinking,

Good King George looks down,
as we began the pre-season.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!