When the reckoning hour finally came in this alleyfight of a pennant race--after 162 games and 8 2/3 innings, after the rise and the fall and the blowout and the desperation eight-game win streak by the Red Sox--the only tangible difference between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox was the 90-foot long stretch of land down the third-base line that blocked Rick Burleson's way to homeplate.

That, of course, and New York relief pitcher Rich Gossage's out-dueling of Boston captain Carl Yastrzemski. For when Gossage popped up Yastrzemski with two out in the ninth at Fenway yesterday afternoon, the Yankees had taken the onegame playoff for the American League East crown in dramatic fashion, 5-4.

The clutch relief performance stranded the tying run--Burleson--on third, and it put a sudden, cold close to a pulse-stopping contest that everyone knew would be the last of the mad, emotional 1978 regular season.

After looking like Little Leaguers against sharp ex-Yankee righthander Mike Torrez for the first six innings, the Bronx Bombers stunned the partisan crowd by surging into a 5-2 lead in the seventh and eighth innings on home run blasts by Bucky Dent and Reggie Jackson, sandwiched around Thurman Munson's RBI double.

The Sox scrambled back for one last attempt at salvaging the roller-coaster summer, hitting for two runs in the eighth but stranding runners at first and second base in that frame, and first and third in the ninth.

"It's a shame anyone had to lose," smoke-thrower Gossage said in the clubhouse afterward. "Getting the final two outs was a feeling you just can't put into words. It was the greatest feeling in my whole life."

"I've gambled all my life and have been in a lot of photo finishes, but this is the biggest I've ever lost," Boston manager Don Zimmer--who pulled Torrez two batters two late, reliever Bob Stanley one batter too late (after Jackson's HR), and mysteriously pinch hit Bob Bailey for Jack Brohamer in the seventh inning--said afterward.

The way things developed from the outset, thought, it looked as though the photo finish would have the Red Sox on top. Although both teams entered the contest with 99-63 records, the Bosox had an eight-game winning streak and a rabid home crowd in their favor.

And New York ace Ron Guidry (25-3 after picking up the win), seemed off form in the first three innings, falling behind batters and not assuming his usual dominating control of the game.

Yastrzemski, the aging warrior who perhaps wanted a World Series ring more than any player in the game, cracked a Guidry fastball 20 rows deep in the rightfield grandstand, leading off the second inning; and the home squad had a one-zip lead.

While the left-handed Guidry settled down after that point, Torrez tossed a wicked slider and mixed his pitches well, matching his ex-teammate goose-egg-for-goose-egg on the scoreboard. It looked as if Yaz's shot might stand up.

Torrez struck out Tnurman Munson, the toughest clutch hitter in the game, three times in the first six frames, twice with Mickey Rivers in scoring position.

And in the sixth, the Sox gave their starter the requisite insurance run that any shutout ace must have. Shortstop Rick Burlesonstroked a 1-2 fastball past Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles for a leadoff double, and he came home--following a Jerry Remy sacrifice--on MVP shoo-in Jim Rice's single to center.

Boston's second tally turned out to be no insurance run, however. In the top of the seventh, Torrez lost his stuff visibly as Chris Chambliss and Roy White ripped singles off him, setting the stage for Dent's two-out heroics.

After injuring his ankle on a one-and-one-foul tip, Dent paced around for about a minute and accepted a new bat from Mickey Rivers (he had the wrong one) before stepping back in the batter's box. Torrez hung a watermelon-sized curveball over the plate on the next pitch, and Dent pop-gunned it into the screen, just over the Green Monster.