Yankees 100th Clinches AL East

YANKEES 4

RED SOX 2

The inevitable is now reality.

The New York Yankees are champions of the American League Eastern Division.

It has been an incredible season for the Bronx Bombers. After a slow start to the season, the Yankees took off in May and never came down, claiming baseball's best regular season record at 100-56, and cruising right past the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays.

Throughout the year, the Yankees have entertained their fans with one comeback victory after another, 14 home comeback victories this year for the Bombers coming into their weekend series with the Sox, which led all of baseball.

Unlike years past, where the Yankees dugout and clubhouse has been one of the more strict in the league, the players were loose all season long, from A.J. Burnett's traditional pies-in-the-face for the player who brought the Yankees back in any of their victories during the year, to Nick Swisher's electric personality, and Derek Jeter's breaking of Lou Gehrig's hits record which now stands at 2,740 for Jeter.

Today's game against the Red Sox was the coup de gras, the exclamation point on a great regular season. With the Red Sox up 2-0, the Yankees made their traditional comeback. Melkey Cabrera's solo homer in third cut the score in half, 2-1. Finally, in the sixth, the Yankees broke through as Hideki Mastui laced a single to right to drive home Mark Teixeria and Alex Rodriguez handing the Bombers a 3-2 lead.

Teixeria, who is definitely in the running for the AL MVP, added to his MVP credentials when he lifted a solo homer in the eighth to give the Yankees some breathing room at 4-2.

Mariano Rivera, as always, shut down the Red Sox in the ninth to earn his 43rd save of the year to end the game, and winning the Yankees their first AL East crown for the first time since 2006.

The Yankees will have home field throughout the playoffs and will likely host the Detroit Tigers, when the divisional playoffs begin in two weeks. Keep in mind the Bombers will be looking for revenge against the Tigers, since Detroit TKO'd the Yankees from the playoffs in '06.

For now, Yankee fans should soak it all in, as the Yankees continue to make them proud in 2009.