Save the Guitars!

The christening of a restaurant at the new Yankee Stadium resulted in the deaths of 27 guitars last week.

The Yankees' new home includes a Hard Rock Cafe and apparently the traditional way to open a new Hard Rock Cafe is with what's called a guitar smash. Twenty-seven guitars -- one for each of the Yankees' 26 World Series championships and another for the one they intend to win this year -- were sacrificed last week in the name of overpriced cheeseburgers. The aftermath, as seen on the Hard Rock website, is seen on the right.

Leading the way was former Yankees centerfielder Bernie Williams, an accomplished guitarist who has recorded a couple of CDs, along with Ace Frehley of Kiss, a couple of guys from Anthrax, Anton Fig, the drummer in David Letterman's band, and various Yankees executives. The guitars that were smashed appeared to be all Stratocasters -- some with black baseball bats instead of necks. All participants wore safety glasses.

Williams also donated his custom pin-striped telecaster, bearing his jersey No. 51, to the restaurant.

Not to be overly politically correct about this but rather than smashing those guitars, I bet the Hard Rock people could easily have found some underprivileged kids within a few blocks of the stadium who would have loved to have had a guitar.

But the Yankee Stadium carnage was nothing compared to what occurred when the Hard Rock opened a restaurant in Times Square when 100 Gibsons were beaten to death.

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Update: Further research (meaning more Googling) shows that also present at the guitar smash were children from Renaissance EMS, a Bronx-based organization that sponsors music and sports programs for at-risk kids. The group also was present for the Hard Rock's groundbreaking ceremony last spring, when they were given guitars. After the Times Square slaughter, the Hard Rock donated 100 guitars to another charity.

But still ...