The Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

If you can't be downtown at noon today but you're able to tune in KTRK, they will be pre-empting the soaps and televising the dedication of Houston's new temple:

Roman Catholic leaders from across the country and the Vatican, including six cardinals, will gather today for a pageant of color, music and ritual to dedicate the new Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in downtown Houston.

The ceremony will begin with a 30-minute procession of more than 200 deacons and 300 priests and bishops.

It's precisely the kind of event the $49 million co-cathedral was constructed to accommodate.

"In sign and symbol, the whole church is here," said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. "We can boast in Houston ... people of every nation here. I think we will see a multiplicity of ethnic groups and nations in the people who come."

Though the official opening is today, the pews of the co-cathedral were nearly filled Tuesday for an evening prayer service led by retired Auxiliary Bishop Vincent M. Rizzotto.

For some in the crowd, the vespers service was a first look at the inside of the co-cathedral after more than a decade of planning, fundraising, designing and building.

"There really are no words to describe it," said Elizabeth Gonzalez of Houston, who came with her husband, René. "It is peaceful. It is just beautiful. The pictures online don't do it justice."

That's saying a lot, because the pictures online (scroll down, on the left) nearly popped my eyeballs out of my skull. Make sure you go all the way to the end for the history of the Catholic church in Houston dating back to 1876.

Update (4/3): Here's the schedule for services and tours.

The final season for Yankee Stadium

Tradition is in transition, and maybe it’s maudlin to suggest tears. From Babe Ruth, thick and salty. From Joe DiMaggio, discreet and pure. From Mickey Mantle, carrying the heady stench of the night before.

Rain splattered onto Yankee Stadium for a second day, and again the 39th and last season opener here since 1923 was in jeopardy. OK, it’s sappy to suggest the guys in pinstriped paradise might have been responsible.

Yet even as the sellout crowd of 55,112 cheered the clouds away and the Yankees defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 Tuesday night, memories were inescapable. Even as construction crews finished up a day’s work next door on the nearly completed $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium, melancholy was the pervasive theme.

“It’s what, 100 yards away? It’s not too far for the ghosts to go,” shortstop Derek Jeter said. “It will be up to us as players to start a new tradition at the next place.”

My wife wants to get me up there for a game this season for my 5oth birthday, but I made sure to emphasize that I would be fine just taking a tour of the old ballpark. I'm not as big a fan of the Bombers as Kuffner, but I've been to their spring training home in Tampa, which is a carbon copy of Yankee Stadium field-wise (right down to the sprinkler heads in the outfield). Billy Crystal's "61*" gave me a real sense of that '60's-era team, and when the comedian got an at-bat this spring I'm sure it completed the circle for him.

The Mets are getting a new playpen next season also, leaving Shea behind. Haven't heard if my fried Lyn, a fanatic of the Metropolitans, is going to go once more or not.