Video: 'Yankee Stadium Opens - Decades TV Network'

(Wednesday, April 18, 1923, 3:30 p.m. EST) — The first game was played at the original Yankee Stadium in New York today as the Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-1.

A crowd of 74,200 fans packed the stadium, setting a new single-game attendance record for a major league baseball game.

According to the New York Evening Telegram, “everything smelled of … fresh paint, fresh plaster and fresh grass.”

At 3:00 p.m., the composer-conductor John Philip Sousa led the Seventh (“Silk-Stocking”) Regiment Band in playing The Star-Spangled Banner.

Video: 'Opening Day 1923 New York Yankees Program'

After a parade of the players and dignitaries, Babe Ruth was presented with a case containing a symbolically big bat.

New York Governor Al Smith threw out the first pitch directly into the glove of catcher Wally Schang rather than the customary couple of feet wide.

The Yankees went on to defeat Ruth’s former team, the Boston Red Sox, by a score of 4–1, with Ruth hitting a three-run home run into the right-field stands. It was the first home run hit in the ballpark’s history.

Upon opening, Fred Lieb of the New York Evening Telegram dubbed it “The House That Ruth Built.”