Don't care if I ever get back

That, as Alex Rodriguez will tell you, is not necessarily a bad thing. But it's certainly noticeable.

It dwarfs the old stadium, which sits across 161st Street, looking like a forlorn, punk little brother. It cost $1.3 billion, about what the Yankees pay A-Roid to play with them instead of Madonna.

The Yankees, who visit Fenway Park tomorrow, have a payroll bigger than the GDP of some countries, so they have to fill the new stadium. And as the umpires say to the managers at home plate before each game: Good luck.

Don't get me wrong. The new Yankee Stadium is magnificent. It has all the modern conveniences - wide concourses, more bathrooms, a wider selection of food - while retaining classic touches of The House That Ruth Built. The upper deck is still ringed with those signature white friezes, which should be called Frazees, given that there wouldn't have been a house to build for Ruth had Sox owner Harry Frazee not sold the Bambino in 1920 for $125,000. Which is approximately what it costs to take a family of four to sit in the new Legends Suite.

Not that anybody is sitting in the new Legends Suite, where seats go for a cool $2,600.

There are 86 different places in the stadium to buy vintage Don Mattingly shirts and Derek Jeter bobblehead dolls. Programs cost $10, a steal compared with the $25 yearbooks. At the 100-plus concession stands, the calorie-count for each item is thoughtfully listed. This, no doubt, will chasten the average guy from Canarsie as he weighs having that ninth Budweiser at 193 calories or the Bud Light, which comes in at a slinky 147.

The Yankees need to sell a lot of beer, not to mention those 52,325 seats, which go for between $12 for bleachers to $375 behind home plate. The premium seats are so obscenely priced that they are marketed like Manhattan penthouses: price upon application.

But then it was sunny and 75 degrees when Chien-Ming Wang threw the first pitch on Saturday. You could even see the No. 4 train rumble past on the elevated tracks on River Avenue in the crack they've kept between the bleachers and the right-field stands.

The good vibe lasted one inning. In the second, the Indians lit Wang up. Wang has been the best Yankees pitcher for years, but this ain't Southie. In the South Bronx, they'll make you and break you and quickly forsake you. Wang was booed mercilessly. The 14 runs that the Indians scored in the second were the most the Yankees have given up in any inning of any game. Ever.

By the fourth, portions of the upper deck resembled the Legends Suites: empty and blue.

It's a good thing Stan Martucci is dead, because this would kill him. His joint, Stan's Sports Bar, was long the quintessential Yankee Stadium watering hole. It's lewd, crude, loud, and proud. And it's on River Avenue, directly across from the bleachers at the old Stadium.

Stan's is the kind of place where ordering a beer with a Boston accent borders on suicide. Once, the denizens of Stan's surrounded some hayseed who walked in wearing a Sox jersey. They pulled it off him and set it on fire.

The House that Steinbrenner Built is a half-mile up River Avenue, but in the South Bronx, that might as well be a million miles. Everybody figured Stan's would fall victim to the gentrification. But on Saturday, Stan's was jumping. Carl DeStefano, the manager, had to step onto the sidewalk to be heard above the din.

"It's early days," he said, "but I think we'll be OK. Real Yankees fans are loyal. They're not the ones in the $900 seats."

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.