I spent the last three afternoons at Yankee Stadium, where the Bombers swept the inept Royals (9-7, 12-5, 9-3) to advance to 5-4 and keep alive the dream of a 81-0 home record.

Here are 15 photos from the opening series.

Some of the photo highlights:
• Jeter fan's ice cream dream. Among a sea of wankers, you can still find family-friendly images at sporting events. Hope his dad got my e-mail with the pic attached.
• River Ave. floods with people. This was shot right after Tuesday's opener. Good god, what an ugly crew.
• Getting into Gate 4. The best thing about the opener was that everyone was wearing Yanks gear. The next two days were a lot more casual, but this one was for the hardcore set.
• Ugliest Yankees cap ever. And that's saying a lot. I saw a brown-on-brown one, too. Sacrilege.

Yankees Ruminations:

• Team offensive stats for the three games: 24 innings at bat, 30 runs, .354 BA (35-99), 20 walks, 6 HRs. Figure an OBP of around .475.

• Guess which team's on pace to score 1,170 runs? Amazing what that Royals pitching staff will do for ya.

• From Jason Giambi to Gary Sheffield, seven Yankees hitters rank among the AL's top 40 in OPS. I don't know what's wrong with the other two regular hitters, either.

• Of all the sights and sounds and smells of the opening series, there was only one "Make it stop!" moment. And that, of course, was hearing the radio broadcast of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman when walking through the concourse.

• Only $25 for a yearbook!

• I wasn't scared at all Thursday when a cruising Randy Johnson left after the fifth inning and nobody in the stands knew why. Not concerned one little bit.

• Best Stadium section for fan experience: Tier Boxes. Not sure if they're worth double the Tier Reserved, but here's why I think the crowd's the best. The lowers are rife with corporate nitwits, and pleated khakis don't fly at ballparks. The Tier Reserved is a game of roulette; you have absolutely no idea from game to game whether you're gonna sit next to some cool dude, some camp kid who tries to start 100 chants, some "fan" who keeps mispronouncing Wang, some drunken douchebag, some anything and everything. The Tier Boxes, meanwhile, are filled with mini-planners who know their stuff, pay to get away from the riff-raff and booze enough but not too much. The bleachers, of course, is a hell pit of Gotti-boy hairstyles, so that's way out. Tier Boxes is your winner.

• The money line on the Yanks winning with Johnson on Thursday was -378, meaning you had to lay $378 to win $100, easily the highest line of the day (Cubs -178) and maybe the biggest favorite I've ever seen.

• This part of Bill Simmons' latest mailbag made me chuckle:

Q: Why don't you just change your name from "The Sports Guy" to the more accurate "narrow-minded, ignorant Yankee-hating d-------- from New England?" that would be more accurate. Get a life, loser.
--Keith Verrier, Kailua, Hawaii

SG: Mahalo.

C'mon, though. If you're a Yanks fan and are prone to get upset with the needling, you're just an idiot. Same with the Yankees-haters who come here. You know what you're gonna get, so skip it if it's gonna drive you nuts.

• Around 3 p.m. Thursday, on a glorious spring day in which the Yankees were winning, there was a vicious, shirt-tearing, spill-down-the-stairs fight around Section 14 in the Tier Reserved. I'm sure it was totally worth the jail time.

• SAVE THE DATE: Just a reminder that the Yanks hit Baltimore on the weekend of June 2-4, and we're planning a road trip. A lot of friends and readers have shown interest, so if you want in, just let me know. Real informal stuff: we pile into cars, check-in at the string of hotels by the airport, shuttle to the game, hit outdoor pre-game hangouts, walk to bars/restaurants afterward, cab it back at night. Piece of cake, and a lot of fun with thousands of other Yankees fans who make the trip.