More than 48,000 fans attended the first game at the new Yankee Stadium on Thursday. (Seth Wannig/Associated Press)

The New York Yankees opened baseball's fanciest and priciest ballpark Thursday with a performance that would have embarrassed Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other stars from their famous pinstriped past.

After an 85-year run in a stadium that produced 26 World Series titles, New York saw its hitters fizzle and its bullpen come apart in a 10-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians on a sunny afternoon.

Jhonny Peralta broke a seventh-inning tie with a two-run double off Jose Veras, and Grady Sizemore hit a grand slam into the right-field seats off Damaso Marte. By the time Victor Martinez's solo homer capped the nine-run burst, just as the shadow of the famous frieze was about to creep past home plate, angry fans who paid as much as $2,625 US list per ticket taunted the Yankees with chants of, "We want Swisher!"

That was a reference to Yankees right-fielder Nick Swisher, who pitched during a blowout loss at Tampa Bay earlier in the week.

On April 18, 1923, Ruth homered as New York opened the original Yankee Stadium with a 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox, and the ballpark quickly was dubbed The House that Ruth Built.

The opening of the new $1.5-billion house for baseball's most storied team wound up much less memorable. Yankees batters stranded 10 runners in the first five innings, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. The primary cheers were for Jorge Posada, who hit the first home run in the ballpark's history, a fifth-inning drive off Cliff Lee that landed in Monument Park behind centre field.

CC Sabathia, pitching in pinstripes for the first time since signing a $161-million, seven-year contract, allowed an RBI double to Kelly Shoppach in the fourth. He left after 122 pitches and 5 2/3 innings in his first start against his former team.

While Edwar Ramirez and Phil Coke finished the inning, Veras (0-1) failed to retire anyone in the seventh, walking Mark DeRosa and allowing a double to Martinez before Peralta's double into the right-field corner.

Marte hit Shin-soo Shoo with a pitch, loaded the bases when he fielded Ben Francisco's sacrifice and threw too late to third, then gave up an RBI single to Shoppach and walked Trevor Crowe one out later with the bases loaded, making it 5-1.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who watched the first five innings from an outdoor seat in his luxury suite, quickly went inside.

Coming off two poor outings, Lee (1-2) allowed one run and seven hits in six innings in a matchup of the last two AL Cy Young award winners. Rafael Perez allowed an RBI single to Robinson Cano in the bottom half of the seventh, by which time the sellout crowd of 48,271 had started to leave.

It was the second ballpark opening in New York in a four-day span, following the Mets' 6-5 loss to San Diego on Monday night in the first game at $800-million Citi Field.

A group of about 45 former Yankees, all wearing special jackets commemorating the new stadium, came out and lined the back of the infield dirt, among them Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Rich Gossage, Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield, plus fan favourites Ron Guidry, Don Larsen, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, Mel Stottlemyre and Williams.

Steinbrenner, who attends few games since becoming increasingly frail, watched from his box to the left of home plate, with baseball commissioner Bud Selig and developer Donald Trump among his guests. Current and former New York City mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani watched from the first row to the plate side of the Yankees dugout in two of the most expensive seats. Former Yankee David Wells sat in the bleachers. New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan also was on hand.

Seats in 1st 9 rows start at $500

With more than 12 restaurants and lounges, many of them exclusively for those in pricey seats, the ballpark is 63 per cent larger than its predecessor. Dozens of blue-vested waiters and waitresses filled the aisles to attend to the first nine rows wrapping the infield, where the seats start at $500 and a season ticket costs as much as $202,500.

Berra joked that the clubhouse complex, which includes a two-lane batting cage, video room, weight room and two swimming pools, is too big.

"To me, if you want to talk to a guy, you got to walk for a half-mile," he said.

The balls used for Sabathia's first pitch and the first hit, by Johnny Damon, were removed from the game. Before Jeter led off the bottom of the first, the bat Ruth used to hit a three-run homer in the 1923 opener was laid across home plate.

Jeter picked it up and playfully tried to give his own wood to the bat boy instead of Ruth's before surrendering the historic model, which was loaned by a collector for the day.

Jeter, who made the last Yankees out in the old ballpark, flied out as New York's first batter in the new stadium.