A quick question about baseball rules - why/how did the Yankees win
the AL East Division Title yesterday?  They have one more game against
Boston today, and if they lose, they will have the identical record as
Boston.  Wouldn't that mean that the Yankees and the Red Sox TIED for
the AL East?  Why were the Yankees declared the AL East winners
yesterday, and the Red Sox are considered "in the hunt" for the
Wildcard?

Jessicag --

Since the advent of the wild card team in the playoffs (the team in
each league with the most wins), Major League Baseball has deemed the
division winner in a case of a tie to be the team with the best
head-to-head record.

As the New York Times notes this morning, "If the Red Sox beat the
Yankees on Sunday, the Yankees would still be awarded the division
title because they have already won the season series with Boston. The
Yankees and the Red Sox have met 18 times this season, with the
Yankees winning 10."

The New York Times
"Hard Slog Puts Yankees on Top, Boston and Cleveland on Edge,"
(Kepner, Oct. 2, 2005)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/sports/baseball/02yankees.html

Here's a bit of the history of the development of current rules:

All-baseball.com
"What's the Deal With This Wildcard, Anyway?" (Ruzich, undated)
http://www.all-baseball.com/ref/wildcard.html


Google search strategy:
"playoff rules" MLB baseball tie
"major league baseball" playoffs tie

Best regards (and go Tribe!),

Omnivorous-GA

I think this answer misses a step....The head to head record
tiebreaker only comes into account because the Wild Card winner was
guaranteed to come from the AL East.  In other words, the loser of the
AL East division battle wins the Wild Card.  The Indians loss to
Chicago on Saturday meant they couldn't catch Boston or New York.

Additionally, if Cleveland had won the Wild Card and Boston/NY had the
same record atop the division, then they would've had a one game
playoff to determine the division winner.