“He’s the real deal,” first baseman Lyle Overbay said. “He’s impressive.”

As much of the past came to life at the Stadium on a sun-soaked afternoon — the first time the Los Angeles Dodgers faced the Yankees in the Bronx in 32 years; the return of Don Mattingly as Dodgers manager — it was the sight of Puig, the 22-year-old phenom from Cuba, that seemed to offer the most tantalizing and often breathtaking vision of baseball’s future.

There was a little of both in the ninth inning of Game 1, when Puig faced Mariano Rivera, with two outs and his team trailing by two. He paused at the edge of the batter’s circle and drew an X into the dirt with his bat, as if marking his territory.

Rivera fell behind, 2-0, and then Puig took mighty swings on the next two pitches.

“I like to see young boys like that,” Rivera said, referring to Puig’s aggressiveness.

But Rivera froze him on the fifth pitch with his patented cutter. Puig remained in the batter’s box for a few moments, another paralyzed victim of Rivera’s mastery.