Does Joe Girardi bank on the 37-year-old Pettitte, knowing that he could be pitching at less than 100 percent efficiency? Remember, the Game 2 pitcher in the opening round will come back as the potential Game 5 savior. The Yankees would have to playground equipment think long and hard before asking Pettitte to rescue them with a weakened arm.

They'd much rather use Pettitte once, in Game 3 — the most critical juncture in any short series, as Joe Torre used to say — and instead let Burnett work his blow-away magic on Detroit.

The question with A.J. Burnett isn't his stuff, but whether he can handle the heat of a postseason in New York. (Greg Fiume / Getty Images)

It makes perfect theoretical sense: no one on the Yankee staff throws harder than Burnett, and his late-breaking curveball is poison to left-handed hitters (they're batting just .212 against him). But Burnett is in the midst of a disturbing slump, just 1-3 with a 7.67 ERA, which is reason enough to ask what's wrong.

Both teammates and opposing hitters agree that facing Burnett can be a harrowing, if not intimidating, experience. Dustin Pedroia said one day this summer, "There are some guys that you have to tip your cap to inflatable bouncers and say, 'Sometimes, you've got no shot.' Burnett can be like that."

But on the nights when Burnett isn't hitting his spots with his curveball and has less than a plus-fastball, he's been unable to think his way out of trouble. Plan B has historically eluded him. One baseball executive put it this way: "You have (Greg) Maddux on one end of the spectrum, Burnett on the other."

And here's the real red flag: Burnett has never pitched in October. That means the Yankees have no idea what they'll be getting once he takes the mound against the Tigers. Will Burnett morph into David Wells or Orlando Hernandez, two of the franchise's playoff giants? Or will Burnett turn into Kenny Rogers when the weight of the entire city is bearing down on him?

Remember, the best Yankee season in a decade could come down to one game, one pitcher, one career-defining moment. That's how narrow the prism can be in New York. Ask any local fan about Kevin Brown and the word-association game comes back with this: Game 7, 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox, when Brown couldn't make it out of the second inning.

Now you understand why the ramifications of Pettitte's shoulder problems go beyond Monday's start in Anaheim. The Yankees have been baseball's best team since early May, but as Brian Cashman is quick to remind, "None of that means anything" starting next month.

For the first time in months, the GM's brow is naughty castles starting to moisten. The Yankees machine must have a human side, after all.

t was last Friday, Sept. 11, somewhere in the fourth inning against the Orioles when Andy Pettitte reached back for extra torque on his cut-fastball. It's a pitch he's thrown thousands of times in his career, as predictable as it is devastating to wholesale shell pearl right-handed hitters.

Only, this one was different. The twinge Pettitte felt was subtle — an ache, a background pain, he would later say — but it was enough to set off an alarm throughout the organization. Citing arm "fatigue," the Yankees skipped Pettitte's regularly-scheduled start on Wednesday and will instead wait 11 days until his next turn on Monday in Anaheim.

Needless to say, the Yankees' anxiety level has been inching upwards all week. You wouldn't notice it in the standings (they lead the Red Sox by seven games with 15 to go) or by the destruction of everything in their path (they've won almost three-quarters of their games since the All-Star break). But there's no doubt the Yankees will be holding their breath as Pettitte delivers his first pitch to Chone Figgins.

Until then, the Bombers' blueprint for shell pearl the postseason is suddenly less certain. They have the American League's best offense and no team can match their bullpen depth; opposing managers dread playing chess with Joe Girardi after the seventh inning. But what if Pettitte is really hurt?

The answer is too dark for the Yankees to contemplate. Pettitte is, after all, their most mature and experienced starter, and the logical candidate for the No. 2 spot in the Division Series behind CC Sabathia. Plus, Pettitte had surged past A.J. Burnett on the virtual depth chart in August, going 4-0 with a 2.50 ERA, limiting the AL to a .207 average and averaging a strikeout an inning.

Talent evaluators were stunned. Said one, "it was like I was looking at (Pettitte) from 10 years ago. Where'd he find that fastball?" Indeed, Pettitte was routinely hitting 91 mph on his four-seamer, up 3-4 mph from his early season readings. Pettitte said nothing had changed, nothing was new in his delivery, only that, "I'm finally feeling good." The left-hander was referring to his late-summer arm troubles in 2008, when he went 2-6 with a 5.73 ERA down the stretch.

Pettitte's collapse was one reason the Yankees fell shell pearl sets short of the playoffs for the first time since 1993. Then again, no one could've really been surprised. His résumé includes nearly 3,000 innings and two elbow operations, not to mention the additional 218 innings he's logged in the postseason, the equivalent of another high-stress year added to his career.

That's why the Yankees are justifiably concerned about the Division Series, which will likely match them against the Tigers. Talk about a doomsday scenario: say Justin Verlander outpitches Sabathia in Game 1. Who takes the ball in Game 2?

t was a novel case: a Texas man accused of knowingly infecting six former girlfriends with the HIV virus.
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Victims talk about how they all playground equipment fell for HIV boyfriend ... and contracted virus

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And prosecutors hit on a novel solution, charging Philippe Padieu, 54, with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The prosecution maintained that Padieu knew he had the HIV virus and did nothing to protect his partners.

In the May 2009 court case Padieu finally came face-to-face with his accusers.

The six victims were instrumental in inflatable bouncers helping to build the case against him.
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Padieu's attorney argued that his client was in denial after receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis in 2005 and was unaware of how much harm he could cause others. The defense also said Padieu's ex-girlfriends shared the blame.

For the full story watch "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET. For Part 1 click HERE.

"You need to be responsible for your own health," the attorney, George Giles, told the jury.

While the women disagree with the assertion that they were also responsible, such potential gray areas have made criminal cases involving HIV very difficult to prove.

Cases involving HIV have been both difficult to game machines prosecute and controversial. Thirty-two states have made it a crime to knowingly infect or risk infecting others. Texas has no such law. In Padieu's case, his own DNA may have been the star witness against him.

Dr. Michael Metzker, a professor of genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, was asked by the prosecution to conduct a study comparing blood samples from Padieu and the six women.

DNA sequencing can show how two HIV strains are related and which one is the source, Metzker said.

It started with a row of dentures just above the grill. Then another denture on the trunk, a used-up toothpaste tube, a toothbrush. ... Rex Rosenberg couldn't stop.
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Check out wacky designs featured at the pearl jewelry Central Art Car Exhibit in Omaha, Neb.

"I decided I wanted to glue something to some car," he said.

So Rosenberg, 63, created ChewBaru, The Mobile Masticator, formerly a totaled 1995 Subaru Legacy.

A few feet away, Richard Carter was surrounded by fish and lobsters, each of them belting out Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." His car, christened the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, is covered with about 250 plastic singing sea creatures: bass, trout, catfish, sharks and lobsters. It elicited giggles from the crowd, even from one muscular tattooed passerby.
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More than two dozen car artists from all over the pearl earrings United States drove their creations to Omaha, Neb., for the Central Art Car Exhibit, held Sept. 5-7. They included Rosenberg, of Great Bend, Kan., and Carter of Houston. Car artists spent hours, months and even years turning their cars into mobile canvases. And during the summer, they gather at art car shows around the country where spectators marvel at sights, such as a giant red telephone on wheels, a dinosaur car, a "yellow submarine," a gothic castle car, and a mini airplane.

Last weekend, the Hot Times Community Music and Arts Festival in Columbus, Ohio, featured art cars, and there's another art car show happening today in Washington, D.C., as part of the H Street Festival.

To those who think, "I could never do something like this," Carter says, "Well, that's absolutely wrong. All you have to do is to be nuts enough to black pearl think that you can do it and stick with it, and eventually it'll happen."

Peter Lochren, a 39-year-old artist from Omaha, Neb., launched the Central Art Car Exhibit a decade ago after attending a number of art car shows, including ones in San Francisco and the biggest one of all in Houston.

"My vision is to get it out there," Lochren said, "so they can see something that maybe they can say, 'I can do that myself.'"

Fearne Cotton: 'We have to work 20% harder than guys just to get our ideas heard.' Photograph: David Fisher/Rex Features

When Fearne Cotton received the news that she wholesale turquoise jewelry had been given one of the biggest breaks of her career, she did the natural thing and called her mother. It was July, and Cotton had just been told that she would be taking over the weekday mid-morning show on Radio 1, replacing the veteran DJ Jo Whiley in the station's biggest shake-up for five years.

"I remember calling my mum and saying: 'Mum, I've got some massive news for you! I'm taking over from Jo Whiley!' And she said: 'Oh that's nice. Well, me and Marian are just going to go to the garden centre.'" Cotton rolls her eyes. "My mum's more into Radio 4. My parents are really supportive, really proud, but in a nice way; they're not gushing."

Cotton appears unfazed by her success. She is sitting inconspicuously at a small table in a private members' club in west London, her small blond frame almost entirely swallowed by a large circular chair. Today, she is nursing a hangover and hankering after junk food. "I think this evening I'm going to drive out of London, get out somewhere by a river and eat fish and chips," she says.

It is not a particularly rock'n'roll image. In fact, the only remotely showbiz thing about Cotton is the thick black eyeliner slicked heavily across each lid and a collection of enormous rings on her fingers, including one silver skull and crossbones that clunks occasionally against the furniture. A bird tattoo is delicately inked across her right arm.

When the Radio 1 announcement was made, there was a minor furore over the BBC's purported ageism – at 28, Cotton is almost two decades younger than Whiley and the appointment came shortly after 66-year-old Arlene Phillips was ditched from Strictly Come Dancing in turquoise jewelry favour of Alesha Dixon, 30. One of Cotton's closest friends, the television presenter Holly Willoughby, found herself at the centre of a similar row in July when she was announced as the new co-host of ITV's This Morning at the age of 28.

"There's a trend at the moment with the press targeting ageism [but] I don't think Radio 1 fits into that category because we've always had a really big mix of ages across the station," says Cotton, who admits to being terrified at the prospect of her first solo show. "It just so happens that I am younger than Jo and I think Radio 1 has a responsibility to be aware of who's listening to their radio station at what times of day and who fits better into what slot."

Cotton's appointment came after commercial radio executives called for an overhaul of the station, arguing that it had breached its remit of targeting 15- to 29-year-olds by having an average listener age of 33. Does she think younger presenters automatically attract a younger audience? "Not necessarily. Maybe I can relate to the audience in different ways than Jo might have – what with approaching 30, buying a house [she is about to move permanently to Notting Hill in west London] and all that sort of thing… but I don't think I'm going to attract, all of a sudden, a whole horde of -18-year-olds."

Although within the age range of her target audience, Cotton is already something of a broadcasting stalwart. She got her first professional job at the age of 16 as a presenter for The Disney Club on ITV. Her parents, Lyn and Mick, a sign-writer and graphic designer, were supportive on the condition that she kept up with her schoolwork, so Cotton sat her GCSEs and A-levels at a west London comprehensive while simultaneously becoming one of the most recognisable faces on children's television.

She went on to front Top of the Pops and The Xtra Factor, as well as one-off live events such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Live8. In 2005, she joined Radio 1 and, two years later, became co-host of the Chart Show – the first woman to turquoise sets count down the top 40.

"I suppose music can be seen as quite a laddish, boys-y thing sometimes," she concedes. "It is still quite male-dominated at Radio 1. I'm not really sure why. I suppose girls who want to be in the media find TV slightly more glamorous."