Rumors ran wild in the last 24 hours that the Steinbrenner family was considering selling the Yankees in the wake of the Dodgers $2.175 billion sale this year. "There has been chatter all around the banking and financial industries in the city for a couple of weeks now," one anonymous baseball source told the Daily News, who broke the rumor. Managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner adamantly denied it in a statement: "I just learned of the Daily News story," Steinbrenner said. "It is pure fiction. The Yankees are not for sale. I expect that the Yankees will be in my family for many years to come."

Yankee president Randy Levine weighed in: "I can say to you there is absolutely, positively nothing to this. The Steinbrenners are not selling the team." Yankees general manager Brian Cashman echoed that: "It's highly unlikely the family would consider selling," he told ESPN. "Every impression I have gotten from Hal leads me to believe they plan to be involved in this for generations to come and pass it on to their children." And the commissioner's office also denied it in a statement: "Major League Baseball has received no indications from any representatives of the New York Yankees or anyone else that the club is for sale."

The rumors were thin enough in the initial report: the Daily News quoted anonymous "baseball and finance sources," most of whom seemed to know nothing other than "chatter." But they were happy to offer their two-cents about the inner workings of self-proclaimed "finance geek" Steinbrenner: "Hal's a smart businessman," the source told them. "And I'm just not sure that he considers baseball to be a smart business. I think he looks at some of these other owners, throwing $200 million at players and thinks they're idiots—idiots that unfortunately can affect the way he does business."

In response to that, NYTimes writer Rich Sandomir provides a financial reason why a sale wouldn't happen: "Multi-generational trusts set up by GSteinbrenner for heirs virtually preclude sale of Yanks; even if sold, heirs would incur huge tax bite."

But hey, with a story this huge, it's worth it to roll the dice, isn't it? If you get it wrong, it'll be gone in a day or two; but if you get it right, you take the lead on the biggest sports story of the summer. To that end, the News also threw in a Mike Lupica column about the rumor ("Steinbrenner would be crazy to not listen to offers for the Yankees"), and a list of potential buyers seemingly drawn from a hat of billionaires.

Just for some context: George Steinbrenner paid $8.8 million for the team back in 1973. The 2012 Yankees have a $198 million payroll.