He was subsequently dubbed, “Grumpy Griffey” by the New York Post. (They’re very clever over there.)

I prefer to call him “The Kid.”

It all began over twenty years ago when Griffey Sr. was a utility player for the Yanks.  A group of fourteen Bombers’ kids were playing in the corridor, and apparently Billy Martin, not a fan of Pop Griffey, decided to giver the Brothers Griffey a bit of the old Martin guff.

In a Times article from 1991, Griffey was quoted as saying, “Martin told one of his coaches to go up to my dad.  He wanted us out of there. Just me and my brother, nobody else. Not Lou Piniella’s kid. Not Graig Nettles’s kid. Not Don Baylor’s kid.”

Clearly, it was an event that had a strong impact on Griffey, and he famously vowed never to play for the Bombers.

Griffey goes on, “I hold it against them and I will always play harder against the Yankees.  It’ll never change. Every time we play these guys, I try a little extra.”

When you’re twenty-two, it’s easy to say this or that will never change.  Ultimately, only time will tell. Based on his statement from last year, his grudge remains intact.  “I never forget,” he comments.  “That’s just who I am.”

This says something about Griffey, though it’s hard to know exactly what.  His dogged refusal to let go of something that happened so many years ago might seem a bit stubborn, almost petty.   Yet, Griffey Jr. is one of the most universally liked players in baseball. He has integrity, class, and has made it consistently and abundantly clear that he values family above all other things. Moreover, he is one of the few power hitters in this era of performance enhancing drugs whose name will almost certainly never be tainted by an accusation of steroid use.

If it seems strange that more than twenty years after getting kicked out of the Yankees clubhouse by a manager who has long since been dead, Griffey Jr. still uses this event as a source of motivation, bear in mind that the man has over 600 career home runs. Far be it for us to judge.

True to his word, The Kid. tried “a little extra” last night in the Mariners outing against the Yankees.  He hit his 621^st career home run, putting the punctuation mark on a Hall of Fame career spent torturing the team he so resents. It was a two-out, sixth-inning, first-pitch fastball from Pettitte.  Griffey Jr. knocked it over the right field wall with a swing that’s just as graceful as it ever was.

One of my readers, The Thunderphobe, pointed out that long before any current member of the Yankees team, including coaches (leaving aside special advisor Mr. October) had set foot in the House That Ruth Built, The Kid was there, running around those hallowed halls with dear old dad.  That he was, in fact, being ejected from those hallowed halls by a surly Billy Martin before some of the younger Bombers, such as Joba and Hughes, were even born.

For better or for worse, the Yankees have loomed large in Griffey Jr.’s imagination for the greater part of his career, for the greater part of his life, it would appear.  If this does in fact turn out to be The Kid’s last season, it’s fitting, poetic almost, that his swan song should come in the form of a solo home run in The House That George Built.

But, yes, disappointing though it was, Thursday was the official home opener nonetheless.  And exclusive coverage I have promised, so exclusive coverage you shall get.  No matter how delinquent.

For starters, since there’s nothing about the game that I can tell you that you don’t already know, I can at least share with you my thoughts on the stadium.  And, well, as Brian Bruney said, it’s the Yankees, so “it has to be nicer.”  And it was.  I mean, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy walking through the concourse without feeling like I was going to be trampled to death.  I especially enjoyed the banners of the Yankee greats that lined the walls — old-timers on one side, newer guys on the reverse.

That said, the design aesthetic had something of an industrial feel to it, and frankly, it’s not so much my thing.  Not for a ballpark anyway.  I mean, maybe for a steel plant.  Or a loft in tribeca. Or the set of a post-apocalyptic modern dance performance.  So, yeah, don’t laugh, but I am totally in earnest when I say that I’d actually take the rotunda at Citi over the concourse in the Bronx pretty much any day hands down.

But once we had arrived at our seats, things felt a little more normal.  I mean, once you’re actually in there and you can see the field, you more or less feel like you’re in the same old ballpark — except that even I could probably hit a home run out of the new joint from what I gather.  So, ultimately, my assessment is that it’s not The House That Ruth Built, and it’s never going to be.  But it’s fine.  (I mean, leaving aside the fact that we’ve all been priced out of the stadium, it’s fine.)  If I can avoid direct contact with strangers as I make my way to my seat, and then feel like I’m home once I get there, that works well enough for me.  And, hell, it’s an added bonus that you can see the action from anywhere inside the stadium.  It makes the insufferably long concession lines ever-so-slightly less insufferable.

As for the game itself, what is there to say?   Our middle relief is catastrophic.  When you have a stadium full of people chanting for your manager to bring your first baseman to the mound during the sixth inning of your home opener, well, unless Satchel Paige somehow accidentally got transported here from the land of the dead (presumably through the rotunda portal — he could easily have just taken a car service from Queens) and then wound up as your first baseman, it’s usually not a promising sign.  (And that’s just our middle relief–I don’t even want to know what’s happening with Wang.)

I’d also like to take this opportunity to respond belatedly to last week’s grievances that Girardi didn’t use Mo to get that third out in the 8^th against the Royals.  If Girardi can’t count on someone other than Mo to get one out to bring us to the ninth, then we’ve got serious problems.  This is a team effort.  And Mo isn’t a four out pitcher — that’s not the problem.  The problem is that there aren’t more guys we can rely on to get us to the final three.

Despite the fact that the game was practically unwatchable, I managed to find way to amuse myself — I always do.  For starters, those of you who are familiar with The Principle of You Suck Coco Crisp might remember that this is a principle that actually has its origins in a game against the Indians.  Well, as it turns out, I was to stumble upon another similar principle during this particular game against the Indians and that would be the Principle of You Suck Carl Pavano — the principle that dictates that its always fun to yell this in any context.  Just because it is.  (For the record, this principle actually evolved from the Pavano Principle: At the very least, try.)

So, just an FYI, even if Pavano isn’t pitching, you should definitely feel free to let loose with this one.  If you’re like me, it’s been welling up in you for the past several years, and it’ll feel really cathartic.  (If you’re like me, you might also inadvertently teach a little kid the word “suck” in the process.  But, hey, kids gotta learn sometime.)

People will be glad to know that the traditional seventh inning destruction of both the principles of Separation of Church and Sports and the Separation of Sports and State is alive and well.  America, God bless it.  And if you’re feeling at all rebellious and/or masochistic one day, I dare you to not take your hat off before the stadium commences with the ritual singing.  Just wait and see how many god-fearing patriots threaten your life unless you take your hat off and show a little effin’ respect.

However, while god-fearing patriots are just as scary as ever, the good news is that Ronan Tynan is back, and he’s smarter than ever.  Some of you may have noticed that our favorite Irish tenor was absent from a number of last year’s games.  We got to listen Kate Smith’s prerecorded version, which is borderline deranged and involves way too much vibrato.  Well, if you thought it was budget cuts, you were wrong.  Apparently, Ronan was busy on the fast track to getting his PhD.  Or maybe his MD.  All I know is that when they introduced him this year, he was Dr. Ronan Tynan.  And he was wearing really big glasses.  When the girl behind me asked her boyfriend, “What the hell is he a doctor of?”  Her boyfriend responded astutely, “What are you, kidding?  He’s a doctor of music.”

He paused for a moment like he was really mulling it over before he added, “Like Dr. Dre.”

I think this might have been what they meant when they said, “Let freedom ring.”

According to “Bald Vinny” Milano, a man we should listen to because he is confident enough to incorporate “bald” into his nickname, the ban has encouraged a lot of people to stay in the nearby bars for the beginning of the game. He says, “There is something to be said for a cold frosty one on a hot July day, and the ban had been a turnoff for a lot of people.”

But, unlike “Bald Vinny,” not everyone went and let those pesky little rules stand in their way.  It’s no secret that, with or without the aid of vendors of the Stadium, Bleacher Creatures have not had a problem getting good and drunk while at the game.  I mean, please. You think people are naturally that obnoxious?  So it makes sense that the rulers of the Empire would finally get wise and decide that if the drinking was going to happen, they might as well be the ones to profit.  I’m just surprised that it took them so long.

I never gave too much thought to the methods employed by Bleacher Creatures when sneaking in the aforementioned contraband booze, but I was enlightened by an article in this morning’s New York Post.  And I have to admit; I’m duly impressed by the desperate measures that people will resort to in order to avoid being sober for even part of a baseball game.  Because that would be terrible.

In order to facilitate people’s habits, delis in the area hollowed out hoagies, sticking three to four cans of beer inside.  People sat in bathroom stalls selling airplane-sized bottles of liquor.  I know.  It’s hard to believe that this is the seedy underbelly of a baseball game and not the storyline to an episode of 21 Jumpstreet.

Interestingly, the decision to give the people their beer comes at the same time as Rick Reilly’s article about anonymous text-narcing.  I’m not sure that the service has been made available yet at Yankee Stadium, but with the Bleachers Creatures having unfettered access to alcohol, it might not be the worst idea in the world.  Not that I don’t love my Bleacher Creatures.  But those fools get crazy.

That said, I would recommend anonymous text-narcing for Fenway before the Stadium any day.   I would love to just walk around that joint with my cell phone and regulate: “Guy in section 112 row D seat 7-white button-up shirt, blackberry holster.  General blight on humanity.”

Any guesses as to how he’ll be getting there?