NEW YORK - From the moment the usually stoic Buck Showalter burst on the field during introductions Tuesday night, waved his cap twice to the sellout crowd of 57,178 and pumped his fist two more times for additional emphasis, the fans at Yankee Stadium were alive and excited. So, it soon became abundantly clear, were the New York Yankees.

Overcoming two homers by Ken Griffey Jr. and David Cone's failure to protect two leads, the Yankees rebounded with four runs in the seventh inning, including two on Ruben Sierra's mammoth homer, to stifle the Seattle Mariners, 9-6. The largest crowd ever at the new Yankee Stadium saw the Yankees take a 1-0 lead in the three-of-five-game division series.

When Griffey smashed a two-run homer in the top of the seventh inning to tie the score, 4-4, the game became more tense. On a night when Wade Boggs lined an important two-run homer, Don Mattingly ripped a run-scoring single, and Cone escaped from almost every dangerous situation he faced - except those involving Griffey - the Yankees returned to the dugout for the bottom of the seventh and knew the game had suddenly changed in Seattle's favor.

How did they respond? The Yankees changed the complexion of the game again. Immediately. After Jeff Nelson hit Randy Velarde with a pitch to start the seventh, Bobby Ayala was summoned, and he permitted Boggs' single to put runners on first and third. Bernie Williams then followed by blasting a ball over Griffey's head in center field for a run-scoring double to make it 5-4. Paul O'Neill's sacrifice fly elevated the edge to 6-4.

Sierra climaxed the fateful inning by rocking Ayala's pitch long and deep over the right-field fence to score two runs and boost the bulge to 8-4. In his typically stylish fashion, Sierra stutter-stepped toward the Yankee dugout before beginning his trot around the bases.

If Randy Johnson could have pitched in relief, maybe the Mariners would have been saved.

``We've done what we've had to do,'' Showalter said before the game. ``The bottom line is doing what it takes. I feel very confident that our guys will do what it takes.''

On an unusually warm evening in the Bronx, the Yankees made sure their first postseason game since 1981 would be memorable by grabbing a one-game advantage over Seattle. The Yankees are pursuing their 23rd World Series championship while the Mariners, in their 19th season as a franchise, are still searching for their first playoff victory.

Aside from Griffey, Cone was exceptional in taming the Mariners as he allowed four runs and six hits in eight innings, with five strikeouts and six walks. He had a 4-2 lead after Mattingly and Mike Stanley ripped run-scoring singles in the sixth to knock Chris Bosio (five and two-thirds innings, six hits, four runs) out of the game, but he could not protect it. He inexplicably walked Joey Cora on a 3-1 pitch with one out in the seventh, and Griffey showed him how devastating the mistake was by blasting his first pitch over the right-field fence. His second homer of the game tied the score.

``If you can't get up to play New York,'' Griffey said, ``who can you get up to play?''

Despite Griffey's homers, Cone's toughest inning might have been the sixth, when the Mariners filled the bases on two singles and a walk with one out. The fans rose and cheered every pitch as Cone battled Mike Blowers to a 3-2 count and received a break when Blowers flailed at a pitch that was a foot out of the strike zole for the second out. Cone thought Dan Wilson whiffed when he waved at a 1-2 pitch, but the first base umpire Dale Scott called it a check swing, and it became controversial call when Cone fired two more balls and Edgar Martinez trotted home with the second run to make it 2-2.

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner banged his first and shouted an expletive after Scott's call and emerged from his private box to complain to reporters about the call. Steinbrenner invited reporters to watch the replay and was livid.

``That's what's wrong with baseball,'' Steinbrenner said. ``Budig should know better than to have a rookie like Dale Scott umpire in this game,'' he said of Gene Budig, the American League president.

One inning later, Steinbrenner had stopped complaining because the Yankees erupted for four runs, regained the lead and took full advantage of Johnson - the hero on Monday when the Mariners ousted the California Angels in a one-game playoff for the American League West title - sitting in the dugout instead of being on the mound last night.

Cone had discussed opposing Johnson when the matchups were still in doubt, calling it a ``once-in-a-lifetime matchup I could tell my grandkids about.'' But Cone was not upset to miss Johnson. Like every Yankee, Cone realized how advantageous Johnson's absence could in Tuesday night's opener could be to New York's prospects.

That became obvious when Boggs homered off Bosio in the third. Interestingly, Showalter had joked Monday that he might give Boggs an extra day of rest, because the five-time batting champion had only nine hits in 46 career at-bats against Bosio, a .196 average. Boggs improved those numbers at an opportune time to give Cone a 2-0 cushion.

The Mariners rebounded in the fourth when Griffey whacked a 401-foot homer off an advertising sign on the facade of the right-field upper deck to slice the deficit in half. Griffey drilled another homer off Cone in the sixth, but the Yankees changed the game for good in the seventh. By JACK CURRY

Copyright 1995 N.Y. Times News Service