Griffey youngest to hit 400 homers

Ken Griffey Jr. has a way of giving inexpensive, but meaningful birthday presents to his father.

Eleven years ago on his father's birthday, Griffey hit his first major league home run. On Monday, he helped celebrate his father's 50th birthday with another homer, a historic 400th.

The Cincinnati Reds star became the youngest player in history to hit 400, doing it at 30 years and 141 days, beating Jimmie Foxx, who was 30 years, 248 days old when he did it.

In the fourth inning at Coors Field in Denver Griffey sent a 2-0 pitch from Colorado's Rolando Arrojo into the left-field seats. It was his second homer of the season and second in as many days.

Mark McGwire has a chance to set a different kind of home-run record this year.

The single-season record holder with 70 two years ago, McGwire is still 230 short of Hank Aaron's career record. But he can set a record for major league ballparks homered in.

After homering Monday night in the St. Louis Cardinals' 8-7 win over the Houston Astros at Enron Field, McGwire had connected in 35 big league ballparks.

That's one short of the record held by Tampa Bay's Fred McGriff, and McGwire has visits to the two ballparks that were to open today -- Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco and Comerica Park in Detroit.

McGriff goes to Detroit this weekend, but the Devil Rays don't play at San Francisco.

McGwire didn't want to talk about his homer, saying ''too many other guys on this team had great games tonight.''

That's because Edgar Renteria and Ray Lankford hit consecutive homers off Jose Lima (1-1), and J.D. Drew also homered. In Enron Field's fourth game, the teams combined for eight home runs, two more than the previous record for a major league game in Houston.

''In my opinion, this is a beautiful field, but it's worse than Coors Field for pitchers,'' Lima said. ''You can see the smiles on the hitters faces when they come up to the plate. A lot of those home runs, in other major league stadiums would be routine fly balls.''

In other games, Colorado beat Cincinnati 7-5, Milwaukee edged Florida 4-3, Chicago defeated Atlanta 4-3, Arizona beat San Diego 8-4 and Philadelphia defeated New York 9-7.

Daryle Ward had his first career multihomer game for Houston, and Craig Biggio and Richard Hidalgo also homered.

Before 36,234, about 6,000 short of capacity, Jim Edmonds went 4-for-4 for the Cardinals, matching his career high for hits.

''It's a hitter's park. What can you say?'' Edmonds said. ''I got some pitches to hit today and they fell in. This is a great team. With this lineup, you'll see some pitches. It's a good win, but we've got 150-something left.''

Pat Hentgen (2-0) allowed three runs and four hits in six innings, and Dave Veres got three outs for his second save.

Rockies 7, Reds 5

At Coors Field, Ken Griffey Jr. became the youngest player to hit 400 career homers. At 30 years, 141 days, Griffey beat the previous mark, set by Foxx, who was 30 years, 248 days old.

Brewers 4, Marlins 3

Geoff Jenkins homered and Milwaukee's bullpen had another strong outing in County Stadium's second final opener.

Cubs 4, Braves 3

Shane Andrews hit a game-tying three-run homer off Kerry Ligtenberg (0-1) in the ninth inning of the Wrigley Field opener and pinch-hitter Jeff Reed singled in Damon Buford.

Diamondbacks 8, Padres 4

Erubiel Durazo hit two home runs, including a three-run shot, and Jay Bell, Steve Finley and Kelly Stinnett also connected to match the club record of five.

In the Padres' home opener, Todd Stottlemyre (2-0) was bruised on the right knee by Ryan Klesko's liner in the first but stayed in the game, holding San Diego to three runs and seven hits in six innings. Mike Morgan finished for his second save.

Phillies 9, Mets 7

Mike Lieberthal broke a 7-all tie with a two-run homer off Rich Rodriguez (0-1) in the fifth as Philadelphia overcame a 4-0 deficit in its home opener. New York wasted a four-run lead for the second straight game.

Amaury Telemaco (1-0) pitched 1 2-3 hitless innings for the victory. Kirk Bullinger also retired all five batters he faced, and Wayne Gomes got his third save.