American League Baseball

Bartolo Colon has spoken to reporters after every start for two seasons, he has been accessible, cordial and candid to the media, but the Angel right-hander is so distraught about the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the American League championship series that he has declined interview requests since the series began. "He's definitely bummed," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "He realizes what our need was for him to do what he can do.

Is last year's rookie of the year in the American League this year's most valuable player? It would be hard to debate the selection of Nomar Garciaparra, the Boston Red Sox shortstop of whom General Manager Dan Duquette said Saturday: "He combines power, grace and an uncanny ability to hit when it counts. A lot of players have the tendency to hit homers when their team is ahead, 10-0 or 12-2, but Nomar hits them in the ninth inning of tie games." The Red Sox didn't require that Saturday.

With two swings of the bat, Albert Belle and Frank Thomas showed why the Chicago White Sox lineup is one of the most feared in baseball. Belle broke the major league record for home runs in July with his 16th and Thomas broke out of a slump with a grand slam and five runs batted in to lead the White Sox past the Texas Rangers, 10-2, Friday night at Arlington, Texas.

Juan Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers won the American League's most-valuable-player award Wednesday, the first half of a possible MVP sweep by Latin American players. Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs is expected to receive the National League award today, although Mark McGwire, the St. Louis Cardinal first baseman, might have generated a strong enough campaign pitch with his remarkable total of 70 home runs and victory over Sosa in the home run race that highlighted the 1998 season.

Lineup *--* 2B Chuck Knoblauch .265 SS Derek Jeter .324 RF Paul O'Neill .317 CF Bernie Williams .339 1B Tino Martinez .281 DH Tim Raines .290 LF Shane Spencer .373 C Jorge Posada .268 3B Scott Brosius .300 *--* * Analysis: Superb pitching carried the Yankees past the Rangers in the division series.

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was fined an undisclosed amount by the American League on Friday for making "inappropriate comments about postseason umpiring" after the Indians' 4-1 victory in Game 2 Wednesday. The fine was believed to be either $5,000 or $10,000. Steinbrenner said Ted Hendry's non-interference call on Travis Fryman's 12th-inning bunt was "one of the worst calls I've ever seen," adding, "This guy Hendry is not a good umpire."

One hundred fourteen wins? Try 114 pounds. In an irony that Clevelanders are finding as delicious as a pirogi, what the New York Yankees proudly paraded around all season has now been strapped to their backs. Try 114 pounds, constricting their swings, restraining their windups, knocking their knees. One week after winning more games than anyone in the annals of the American League, the Yankees are discovering history to be about as fun as trigonometry.

The New York Yankees, the Humongous Engine That Could and Then Some, filled the other half of New York's highly anticipated Subway Series on Tuesday night, clinching their 37th American League pennant in dramatic fashion to set up a World Series showdown against the cross-town rival Mets.

The situation did not merely call for Seattle Mariner reliever Arthur Rhodes on Tuesday night. It screamed for it, louder than an October full house in Yankee Stadium, louder than the Kingdome in its 1995 playoff heyday. The Yankees had two on and no outs in the bottom of the sixth, trailing by two. Left-handed Paul O'Neill, switch-hitter Bernie Williams and left-handed David Justice, the heart of the order, were due up.

Baseball's Great Interleague Experiment resumes with a mini Phase II tonight and the chairman of the owners' Strategic Planning Committee calling for more interleague games in 1998. Houston Astro owner Drayton McLane, who is also a member of the schedule format committee, said he would like to see the interleague portion increased from the 15 or 16 games (depending on the division) of this year to 20 to 22 next year. "The fan response was outstanding," McLane said.