The circus was certainly in town.

This weekend's Marlins-Yanks series was everything it was billed -- and built up -- to be. While A-Rod might have disappointed, what with "fatigue" and all, the baseball didn't: Florida suppressed a late Yankees challenge Sunday night, clinched the series with a 6-5 win, and saw $161-million-dollar C.C. Sabathia played off by the keyboard cat in the sweltering South Florida sun.

(When injuries sound like pickup lines: we present the "tight bicep.")

The weekend had sideshows aplenty. There was Alex ("The Shaved Lady") Rodriguez' mysterious condition that kept him out of the lineup for the first two games of his return to Miami.  The 2-run single in the 3rd that ended his 0-for-16 skid, and then...nothing, as he disappeared again in front of 100 hometown friends for whom he'd reserved tickets. 

The return of former Marlins manager Joe Girardi, and the protest he filed after a Marlins lineup mix-up in the eighth.

Moms fighting in the stands.

An astounding number of cowbells.

Intense heat.

And delicious, revenge-flavored shots of very sad Yankees fans. Mmmmmmm!

New York, coming off a humiliating two-loss series with Washington, might have gotten a little over-confident after a 5-1 win Friday night.  Josh Johnson, who no doubt has the Yankees scummoneybags slobbering over his impending 2012 free agency, had something to say about that in Game 2 as the Fish evened the series with a 2-1 victory in front of a huge crowd of 46,427 (the 3rd-largest regular season home crowd in franchise history, in fact, though most hoped the Marlins would get fed to the lions.)

In Sunday night's series-clincher, Hanley Ramirez and Cody Ross both homered while Chris Volstad kept his poise enough after a 3-run third to earn the Marlins their 15th come-from-behind victory of the year -- but not without a scare. 

Leo Nunez, Renyel Pinto, and Matt Lindstrom were left a 6-3 lead to maintain. But the Yankees made Lindstrom work for his 15th save of the season with a nail-biting 9th-inning surge. Jorge Posada and Melky Cabrera singled before rookie Brett Gardner sent them home with a triple and brought the Yanks within 1. With 35,827 fans on their feet, Lindstrom walked Johnny Damon and then faced Derek Jeter with two outs. Jeter hit to Ramirez, who flipped to Dan Uggla at second to end the game. 

25,000 cowbells cried out at once. 

Who could blame them?  The 117,281 fans passing through Land Shark Stadium this weekend were disproportionately New York fans, which they no doubt rubbed in the faces of the Fish faithful.  Victory was just made sweeter: enduring entitled chatter is never fun, but silencing tens of thousands of mouthy pinstriped tourist at once is priceless.

The only thing Fish fans might have added to the circus? An act involving A-Rod, a cannon, and a match.