COMMENTARY : The Greats Make This Day Greater

In the dugout, in the last moments before baseball, there was Mel Allen’s voice. Allen always had the best voice, telling us all about the best team in the world. He always made Yankee Stadium sound like the only baseball place.

He is 82 now and attended his first Yankee opener in 1939. He came back for a big one Wednesday. Allen gave one interview after another, talking about the past in the Alabama voice everyone knows and, in the process, did something that felt important: For a little while, he made things the way they were.

Soon Joe DiMaggio would stand in the middle of the stadium and do the same.

“On a day like this,” Allen said, “your mind’s got to go back to the good days.”

In half an hour, Allen would watch with the rest of Yankee Stadium as the great DiMaggio would throw out the first pitch of the Yankee season. DiMaggio was starting his fourth year in the big leagues when Allen showed up at the Stadium in 1939. Now DiMaggio is 80. He was still up to his own big job. The baseball season was beginning late at the stadium, beginning after a very long wait. Joe DiMaggio was sent out to make sure it would begin right.

“When Joe was a player, they always sent him on the field first,” Allen said in the Yankee dugout. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s just got the same job he always had.”

Allen’s mind had gone back to the good days, to a different stadium, what must seem to him like a much better game.

“Phil Rizzuto said he’d turn around sometimes, just to see DiMaggio standing in center, because it made him feel good,” Allen said. “I think the same thing’s going to happen today. I think they’re going to put Joe D. out on that field, and ask people to feel good about baseball.”

In the runway a few minutes later, DiMaggio said, “When I get out there on that field, and hear those fans, this still feels like my town.”

Then the old man smiled.

“I think this will be a good day to give the fans a wave,” he said.

Out on the field, the last of the Yankees were being introduced. There was a tremendous cheer for Buck Showalter, a bigger cheer for Don Mattingly. Someone asked DiMaggio about the return of baseball, not just at the stadium, but everywhere.

“It’ll be nice to see the boys back on the field,” he said.

We got baseball back Wednesday. It does not change the last eight months. No one can get them back. Donald Fehr, the head of the players’ union, showed up for batting practice, though you wonder who invited him.

“You’re not wanted here,” a guy in a Yankee cap, sitting with two kids, yelled at Fehr.

Neither was George Steinbrenner. He couldn’t fly up from Florida because of a detached retina, but blundered his way into opening day anyway, as Fehr did. Steinbrenner decided that Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would throw out second and third ceremonial pitches after DiMaggio.

The only thing that should follow Joe DiMaggio is the season.

There were some empty seats at the stadium. The crowd was still announced at 50,245. This was a day built for baseball from the moment the first fans began to show up outside the ballpark in the morning until John Wetteland did exactly what he is supposed to do: get a strikeout for the last out of the game. Jimmy Key pitched well enough and Danny Tartabull hit a home run at 2:11 in the afternoon into Monument Park and Steve Howe got out of big trouble in the eighth inning, when the Yankees lead had been cut to 7-6 and the bases were loaded.

In the Yankee clubhouse, Reggie Jackson had been asked if opening day still makes him want to grab a bat and get one more swing. Before Jackson could answer, the Yankees’ center fielder, Bernie Williams, raced past him in the clubhouse with a brand-new bat that was not yet out of the wrapper. Later Williams would hit a home run over the left-field wall. Maybe it was that bat.

“If I was as young as him I would,” Jackson said.

He was asked if he could remember the first home run he hit at Yankee Stadium. Jackson was on the question the way he was on fastballs once.

“It was 1968,” he said. “Over the old 407 sign in right center. Mel Stottlemyre was the pitcher.” Jackson grinned. “The pitch was a hit-me slider.”

Then Jackson said, “See, the people who run this game can’t take my memories. They can’t take your memories. They can’t take the memories of the people who will be in this ballpark today.”

He went upstairs and in a little while watched Joe DiMaggio start another season at Yankee Stadium. So did Mel Allen, who has watched DiMaggio start more. No one solved all of baseball’s problems Wednesday. No one brought last season back. It was just a ballgame. A small memory to go with bigger and better ones. The healing of baseball has to begin somewhere. Yankees 8, Rangers 6.