By Tara Yaekel, Globe Correspondent, 1/6/2000

Bill Kyros, a Boston-based lawyer specializing in Internet law, has always been a diehard Red Sox fan.

Brian McKiernan, a Long Island resident, is an equally ardent lover of the New York Yankees.

In a strange twist of fate, the two men and would-be sports foes have formed a courtroom alliance, with Kyros representing McKiernan in a bitter fight against the Yankees.

At issue is the much-coveted Internet domain name www.newyorkyankees.com, which McKiernan purchased in 1997 in the hopes of setting up a Web site for fans of the team. The Yankees, who use www.yankees.com for their official Web site, want McKiernan's domain name, and filed a suit in federal court, in conjunction with Major League Baseball Enterprises, to get it.

The suit, filed on Christmas Eve, is the latest chapter in an ongoing struggle that has pitted the Yankees and Major League Baseball against McKiernan, 41, who runs a small nursing home supplies company.

''I really feel like they're trying to give me a black eye and make me look like a criminal,' McKiernan said yesterday.

The Yankees sent McKiernan a settlement package several months ago, offering him $450 and several tickets to games in exchange for the Web address - a somewhat paltry offering in the high-profit world of domain names.

But Major League Baseball officials, who say McKiernan is a cyberpirate trying to extort money from them, refuse to negotiate a price for the domain name.

''All we're trying to do is ensure that the Yankees are able to use that which is rightfully theirs, which is their name,'' said Ethan Orlinsky, general counsel for Major League Baseball.

And as for Kyros? The 28-year-old Boston resident has put aside his hatred of the Yankees as a sports team to take on the Yankees as a corporation.

''I overcame that initial reluctance when I saw how the Yankees were treating him, Red Sox fan that I am,'' he joked.

TARA YAEKEL

This story ran on page Front Page of the Boston Globe Metro | Region Section on 1/6/2000.

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