DETROIT — As a reborn baseball town erupted in splashes of orange and blue around them, the Detroit Tigers danced in the infield, kicking up dirt like kids on a sandlot.

They grabbed Jim Leyland, hoisted him on their shoulders and carried him off the field as 43,000 delirious fans screamed as one. The manager's ride was a short one, but the party was just getting started.

The Tigers are still on the prowl. The mighty New York Yankees struck out.

Three years after losing 119 games, they moved back among baseball's biggest cats with an 8-3 victory yesterday in Game 4 over the Yankees, whose $200 million payroll couldn't help them against Detroit's pitching.

"This is the best of the best, to beat the best team in baseball," said Craig Monroe, who hit a two-run homer. "This is baseball for us, right here in Detroit."

Once a punchline, the Tigers punched out the big, bad Yankees.

"You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit," New York third baseman Alex Rodriguez said after another terrible October. "At some point you've got to look in the mirror and say, 'I sucked.' "

Jeremy Bonderman was perfect for five innings and sublime until the ninth as the Tigers moved into the AL Championship Series against Oakland by eliminating A-Rod, Derek Jeter and the other high-priced, high-profile Yankees.

It all happened faster than Leyland, the Tigers' no-nonsense skipper, or anyone could have ever imagined. The feisty 61-year-old ended a six-year retirement and took over a team that had averaged 100 losses since 2001.

"I didn't think we'd be here this year," he said. "All we wanted to do was look at our pieces and parts we had and see if we needed to change any. I thought it would be a year or so before we got into a situation like this. This came a little bit quicker than I expected."

And, he used a pinstriped plan to make it happen.

During spring training in Florida, Leyland made his players study the Yankees. He wanted them to emulate their Bronx-born bravado, right down to the way they run onto the field.

"I said, 'That's the level we want to get to, and we've got to get that quiet swagger and confidence that the Yankees got,' " he said. "It's kind of ironic that we got to play them, and fortunately beat them."

The Tigers' chances seemed slim just a few days ago when they were swept at home on the final weekend of the regular season by the last-place Royals. Detroit had to settle for a wild-card berth and a first-round matchup with the Yankees.

It seemed lopsided. It was. The Yankees didn't have a chance.

Detroit outplayed New York in every phase to advance to its first AL Championship Series since 1987.

"Nobody gave us a shot in this series; that motivated us," said Bonderman, who allowed just five singles and walked off to a thunderous ovation with an 8-1 lead.

The Yankees never found any spark, and for the second straight year the star-studded squad is going home after a first-round exit.

"I'm stunned," New York general manager Brian Cashman said. "This team fooled me to some degree. Detroit was on top of their game and we weren't, and that combination was lethal for us. I'm disappointed where we're at now."

Magglio Ordonez and Monroe each homered off Jaret Wright as the Tigers built an 8-0 after six innings and coasted through the final three.

Blanked in Game 3 by Kenny Rogers, the Yankees and their reputed Murderer's Row didn't score off Bonderman until the seventh, snapping a scoreless streak of a season-high 20· innings. This from a team which scored 930 runs during the regular season but managed just 14 in the series, getting drubbed 14-3 in the final two games.

"You've got to play," Jeter said. "You don't win games on paper. You've got to come out here and perform. And they pretty much overmatched us in this series."