Whimper and Bang Mark Opening Day : Baseball: Lankford leads off season with a home run, but few see Cardinals defeat Reds, 6-4.

Ray Lankford opened baseball’s new era with a home run, not that many people were there to see it.

Marge Schott, the Cincinnati Reds’ owner, treated the first Sunday night season opener like an exhibition. The stadium reflected it and her team played that way, too.

Bob Tewksbury pitched six innings and doubled home the go-ahead runs as the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Reds, 6-4, in a stadium little more than half-filled.

The game launched a season of realigned divisions and a new playoff format. It also replayed an old theme--controversy caused by Schott.

Unhappy that the city could not put together a pregame parade, Schott snubbed the opener and designated the Monday game as opening day. There was none of the usual opening day window dressing--no bunting, no fanfare. Her attitude rubbed off on the fans: only 32,803 turned out, the smallest opening crowd in Riverfront Stadium’s 24-year history.

“It didn’t seem like opening night at all,” Tewksbury said. “Part of that I think is because it was a night game, and part of that was the way that Marge treated it like she didn’t want it to be the opening game.”

Schott’s attitude rubbed off on her team, too. The Reds committed three errors, let in a run with a passed ball and wasted an early 3-1 lead in a game between new NL Central rivals.

Lankford got baseball’s 125th season started with a leadoff homer--the first season-opening homer in the major leagues in eight years--and singled home another run off starter Jose Rijo.

The last player to open the season with a homer was Boston’s Dwight Evans, who homered off Detroit’s Jack Morris in 1986.

But it was Tewksbury, a career .147 hitter, who provided the key hit. He lined the first pitch from Rijo for a two-out, two-run double in the fourth, putting the Cardinals ahead to stay, 5-3.

Vicente Palacios struck out Reggie Sanders to end a bases-loaded threat in the seventh, and Mike Perez pitched the ninth for a save.

In today’s openers, defending NL champion Philadelphia will travel to Colorado; New York will visit Chicago; Montreal travels to Houston; Pittsburgh is at San Francisco and Atlanta is at San Diego.

In the AL, World Series champion Toronto plays host to Chicago; Seattle is at Cleveland; Texas is at New York; Detroit travels to Boston and Kansas City is at Baltimore. The Dodgers and Angels open their season on Tuesday.