Burnett

If the stodgy old Yankee Stadium was the House that Ruth Built, then the glistening new ballpark next door is the House the Three Stooges Inhabit. Because in addition to changing addresses this season, the team has changed attitudes thanks to the winter additions of free spirits A.J. Burnett, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira. And that, more than anything else, may be the best explanation why the newly relaxed Yankees find themselves a win away from their first World Series in six years.

The Yankees agreed Friday to trade maligned pitcher A.J. Burnett to Pittsburgh for two minor leaguers, a deal that clears the way New York to add Raul Ibanez . Pittsburgh will pay $13 million of the $33-million salary due Burnett for 2012 and 2013, a person familiar with the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. New York will get 25-year-old right-hander Diego Moreno and 20-year-old outfielder Exicardo Cayones , both low-level prospects.

With right-hander A.J. Burnett on the mound for the Yankees tonight, Manager Joe Girardi benched regular catcher Jorge Posada in favor of former Angel Jose Molina . "It's something that we talked about," Girardi said. "One of the things we talked about from Day One when we came into spring training was to get to where we want, sometimes you have to make some sacrifices. And our players have done that all year long." Posada had caught Burnett for most of the season but the two appeared to have a falling out during a late-season game in Boston in which Burnett pitched poorly and seemed to blame Posada for his problems.

The members of the folk group the Highwaymen were freshmen in the same fraternity at Wesleyan University in Connecticut when they came together to perform at a campus party in 1958. By their senior year, the quintet had a No. 1 single with their haunting version of the African American spiritual "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore," which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1961. Although the group had a significant impact on the folk scene in the early 1960s — turning "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "All My Trials" into folk standards — the Highwaymen disbanded in 1964 when Bob Burnett and two other members decided to attend graduate school.

Somewhere, New York Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett is cracking the first smile he's shown in a while. No one player's performance seems more linked to the presence of Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland , who Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said will return from his leave of absence on Tuesday. Eiland's hiatus for an undisclosed personal matter began on June 4 and coincides with Burnett's recent slide. The right-hander is 0-5 with an 11.35 earned-run average in June, the latest defeat coming when he was pulled in the fourth inning of a 9-4 loss to the Dodgers on Saturday.

A.J. Burnett combined with two relievers on a one-hitter, Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada hit home runs, and the New York Yankees beat the New York Mets, 5-0, Saturday. Alex Cora got the Mets' only hit, lining a single to center field leading off the sixth inning. He had been 0 for 21 with eight strikeouts against Burnett. The Mets, playing with center fielder Carlos Beltran, shortstop Jose Reyes and first baseman Carlos Delgado on the disabled list, didn't reach base after Cora.

The Yankees agreed Friday to trade maligned pitcher A.J. Burnett to Pittsburgh for two minor leaguers, a deal that clears the way New York to add Raul Ibanez . Pittsburgh will pay $13 million of the $33-million salary due Burnett for 2012 and 2013, a person familiar with the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. New York will get 25-year-old right-hander Diego Moreno and 20-year-old outfielder Exicardo Cayones , both low-level prospects.

Partway through W.R. Burnett's 1956 noir "It's Always Four O'Clock," one of the central characters, a pianist named Royal Mauch, gives a disquisition about jazz. "It's the only live art in the world today," he tells the novel's narrator, Stan Pawley. "[J]azz was invented in America. It's the true expression of American civilization." The same could be said of noir, which, with its tough guy existentialism, its bleak examination of the underside of the American mythos, is the literary equivalent of the blues.

The story behind the hard-core country music at the center of "Crazy Heart," the buzzed-about new film for which Jeff Bridges is winning accolades for his portrayal of singer Bad Blake, would make a movie every bit as poignant as writer-director Scott Cooper's tale of a down-but-not-entirely-out musician in desperate need of redemption. The real-life tale would be a buddy movie about the friendship between two musicians whose lives charted divergent paths, one leading to multimillion-selling albums and multiple Grammy Awards, the other hewing closer to the hardscrabble life on the outskirts of fame as portrayed in "Crazy Heart."

Given the depth and star power of the Yankees' lineup, you could probably argue for days over who was most responsible for getting New York to the postseason. But there's no debating who kept them there, with pitcher A.J. Burnett going 52/3 strong innings and center fielder Curtis Granderson saving at least four runs with a pair of great catches as the Yankees staved off elimination Tuesday with a 10-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers in Game 4 of the American League division series at Comerica Park in Detroit.

British television producer Mark Burnett turned program financing on its head a decade ago when he brought brands like Doritos and Mountain Dew as sponsors into the expensive, prime-time reality series "Survivor," helping to defray costs. "Survivor" is considered a watershed in paid product placements, opening the floodgates to a projected $2.75 billion in spending this year on such shows as "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," WWE's "Monday Night Raw," "American Idol" and "Celebrity Apprentice.

Musician T Bone Burnett has sold his Brentwood home for $2.75 million, the Multiple Listing Service shows. The Cape Cod-inspired house, built in 1945, features four bedrooms, four bathrooms and 3,090 square feet of living space. French doors off the family room, which has a bar, open to a garden. There is a swimming pool and a spa. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said T Bone Burnett has worked with John Elton. The musician has worked with Elton John.

Given the depth and star power of the Yankees' lineup, you could probably argue for days over who was most responsible for getting New York to the postseason. But there's no debating who kept them there, with pitcher A.J. Burnett going 52/3 strong innings and center fielder Curtis Granderson saving at least four runs with a pair of great catches as the Yankees staved off elimination Tuesday with a 10-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers in Game 4 of the American League division series at Comerica Park in Detroit.

Award-show fatigue is a common ailment these days, but in the case of Sunday's Emmys on Fox, there are enough unknowns to make a tune-in worthwhile. Despite the perennial blizzard of pre-Emmy media coverage, this year's Jane Lynch-hosted, Mark Burnett-produced ceremony still promises plenty of moments of intrigue, interest and surprise. Here are eight items to consider on awards night: Guaranteed snub: You want high-wire suspense as an envelope is torn open? Check out the lead dramatic actor category.

Why do so many of us smirk when a Hollywood movie star picks up a guitar and walks toward a live microphone? Maybe it's because, as songwriter Harlan Howard once said, music is about "three chords and the truth" and, really, an actor's day job is about the closest you can come to lying for a living. The question brought a sage smile to the 61-year-old face of Jeff Bridges, the Oscar winner who this week will release his first major-label album, a 10-song collection from Blue Note/EMI called "Jeff Bridges.

Bob Banner, an Emmy Award-winning television producer and director whose credits included "The Garry Moore Show," "Candid Camera" and "Solid Gold" and who gave a career boost to a young Carol Burnett years before becoming executive producer of her popular comedy variety show, has died. He was 89. Banner died Wednesday of end-stage Parkinson's disease at his home at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills, said family spokeswoman Lauren Cottrell.

If the New York Yankees bid for John Lackey this winter, we'll know why. The Yankees ought not to run out of starting pitchers, or anything else, not with their practically infinite resources. But they could not identify four men to whom they would entrust a playoff start, so they demanded extraordinary labor from CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. They got away with it Sunday, with Sabathia. They did not get brilliance. They got just enough. They did not get away with it Monday, with Burnett.

Reality kingpin Mark Burnett has been tapped to produce the Primetime Emmy Awards on Fox on Sept. 18, as the TV academy has clinched a new deal that will keep the awards show on broadcast networks until at least 2018. Best-known as the producer of CBS' "Survivor," Burnett has a new hit in NBC's "The Voice. " He has overseen the MTV Movie Awards and the People's Choice Awards. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which administers the Emmys, announced a new eight-year deal with Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC. The four networks will continue to carry the ceremony in an alternating "wheel" pattern.

Not so long ago it would have been a dream come true for sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers of Muscle Shoals, Ala., to find themselves sitting in the balcony of Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium and looking down upon their country music heroes onstage at the longtime home of the Grand Ole Opry. After all, less than two years ago Laura had never even ridden in a plane, much less visited country music's premiere live performance venue. But when the siblings settled in on a recent spring day onto one of the Ryman's wooden benches, which have been polished for decades by the backsides of countless country music enthusiasts, it was simply an interlude, one that pales in comparison to the surreal highlights they've experienced since the October release of their self-titled debut album, "The Secret Sisters.