Baseball, New York Yankees | featured news

How did the most extraordinary young player of his generation, a handsome young man who three times (three times!) was named one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People, a phenom who was the best shortstop in the game more or less the day he showed up — how did that guy become this A-Rod?

Major League Baseball, which has been investigating the link of performance-enhancing drugs to players with South Florida ties for much of the last year, may be faced with its most significant doping case since the BALCO scandal rocked the sport one decade ago. All-Stars Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, pitcher Gio Gonzalez of the Washington Nationals, Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers and Melky Cabrera of the Toronto Blue Jays, along with other MLB players and athletes in other sports, were strongly connected to performance-enhancing drug use in an investigative report by the Miami New Times.

Kevin Youkilis and the Yankees have finalized their $12 million, one-year contract, giving New York a third baseman for the first half of next season while Alex Rodriguez recovers from hip surgery....

The 2012 Yankees will be remembered for hitting a record number of regular season home runs before experiencing the kind of sudden outage rivaling any blackout in the history of New York.

The Detroit Tigers got a big boost from Anibal Sanchez's arm. They got a helping hand from an umpire, too. The reward: a commanding 2-0 lead in the AL championship series, and a trip home with their ace ready to start. Sanchez shut down a Yankees lineup minus injured Derek Jeter, Detroit scored twice after an admitted missed call by an ump and won without any extra-inning drama, beating New York 3-0 Sunday.

On a cool, dark autumn night, the stars shined bright and brilliant in the Bronx. But the biggest ones in pinstripes watched the dramatic conclusion from the afar — shortstop Derek Jeter injured and third baseman Alex Rodriguez benched — while Detroit’s finest, Miguel Cabrera, scored the winning run in extra innings.

With Alex Rodriguez benched, the Yankees advanced to the AL championship series against the Detroit Tigers, starting Saturday night in the Bronx. "It is still a long way to go," Sabathia said. "I still got hopefully three or four more starts. So the job is not done yet."

These Birds don't rattle easily. A day after a demoralizing defeat, the Baltimore Orioles won a test of wills and Game 4 of the AL division series, bouncing back to outlast the New York Yankees 2-1 in 13 innings Thursday night on J.J. Hardy's RBI double.

The agent for Mariano Rivera said that the evaluation of the 42-year-old Yankees reliever's injured knee did not go smo

For CC Sabathia, there's no better place to pitch than Yankee Stadium. The big left-hander decided to stay with New York rather than test the free-agent market, agreeing Monday to a new deal that adds $30 million and one season to his existing contract, giving him a package that pays $122 million over the next five years.