Yankees Outfox Mets in Bid to Sign SP Kei Igawa

The Yankees outfoxed their crosstown rivals by floating phony reports that Japanese free agent SP Kei Igawa was not worth much to the Bronx Bombers. The reports helped the Yankees hold down Igawa's bid price and enabled GM Brian Cashman to top the Mets bid by $10 million and scoop up the rights to sign him. New York Daily News sports writer Bill Madden was only too happy to run with the misinformation that Igawa was, to one degree or another, nothing to get very excited about. Thus at Cashman's hands, Madden turned himself into a complete monkey -- though that's not much of a stretch considering his idiotic campaign to run Alex Rodriguez out of town.