Chicago ? The Chicago White Sox celebrated the past. Then newcomer Jim Thome showed them the promise of a new season.

Thome hit a two-run homer after a nearly three-hour rain delay, and the defending World Series champions beat the Cleveland Indians, 10-4, in the major-league opener that dragged into early this morning.

Thome played his first 12 seasons with the Indians before spending the last three in Philadelphia. Facing Cleveland for the first time, he drove out a long homer in a three-run fourth inning off reliever Fernando Cabrera and made his first curtain call at U.S. Cellular Field.

Cleveland, which chased Chicago for the AL Central title a year ago only to falter in the final week, sustained an early loss when starter C.C. Sabathia had to leave after 21â3 innings when he strained an abdominal muscle while delivering a pitch. He will be re-examined today.

After the lengthy delay, the game resumed in the bottom of the fourth, and after Cabrera walked the first two hitters, the rain began to come down again.

Tadahito Iguchi’s sacrifice fly gave the White Sox a 4-3 lead, and Thome delivered a long shot to right through the rain for a three-run cushion. A.J. Pierzynski hit an RBI single, and rookie Brian Anderson a two-run single in the fifth to make it 9-3 as the skies finally cleared.

World Series MVP Jermaine Dye, who got the first hit of the 2006 season with a little roller, singled in another run in the sixth.

The attendance was announced at 38,802 – a sellout – and about one-fourth of the crowd stayed around for the resumption of the game after a long wait.

But White Sox fans know how to wait – 88 years between World Series winners.

Chicago clinched all three of its playoff series on the road last season. And despite a wild parade through the streets of the city, Sunday night presented the first chance for the White Sox and their followers to celebrate in their own ballpark.

When the final out of last October’s Game 4 clincher in Houston was replayed on the large center-field scoreboard at the end of a video retrospective, four championship banners hanging beneath outfield light poles were uncovered, and fireworks went off.

One banner saluted the White Sox World Series championships in 1906 and 1917, another was for last year’s winner, a third hailed the team’s AL champions, and the fourth marked its division winners. After the fireworks, another video tribute followed, accompanied by Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”

“It was awesome. This is really exciting,” fan Pat Valiska of suburban Highland Park said. “We’ve waited a long time for this.”

The ceremony also featured the unfurling of an American flag as big as the outfield during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then a knee-knocking flyover by two jets.

And in the bottom of the third, the White Sox looked like the team that went 11-1 in the playoffs last year, scoring three off Sabathia.