Baseball Notes : Polonia Convicted on Sex Charge, Will Be Sentenced After Season

New York Yankee outfielder Luis Polonia was convicted in Milwaukee Monday of having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl, but the judge postponed sentencing until after the baseball season.

Polonia, 24, pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge that he had sex with the girl at a downtown hotel last Wednesday. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Thomas Doherty then found him guilty.

Doherty said in an interview after the hearing that he delayed sentencing until Oct. 2 to provide ample time for a presentence report to be completed. “The baseball season was not a factor,” he said.

The regular baseball season ends Oct. 1. Polonia’s bail was continued at $5,000 and prosecutors said he will not have to return to Milwaukee until the next hearing.

Under Wisconsin law, an adult may not have intercourse with a child under age 16 even if the child consents. The charge carries a maximum penalty of nine months in jail and $10,000 in fines.

Polonia is a citizen of the Dominican Republic, but Ronald Swan, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent in Milwaukee, said the player could not be deported because of the conviction.

The criminal complaint said the girl told authorities she and Polonia had intercourse twice, once before the girl’s mother called the hotel and talked to the player and once after the phone call.

The complaint said the girl told authorities that, after Polonia answered the phone call, he asked her “if she was a minor and she indicated she was and she believes she may have told him that she was 16 years old.”

The complaint said Polonia told authorities he was told earlier that the girl was 19.

Tests on right-hander Dwight Gooden’s shoulder muscle tear show improvement, but the injury is not completely healed, New York Mets’ General Manager Frank Cashen said.

Cashen said the pitcher will continue to throw on the sidelines and in the bullpen. Gooden will undergo additional testing in two to three weeks to determine if there has been any improvement.

Gooden (9-4) has been on the disabled list since July 3 after sustaining a torn subcapularis muscle in his right shoulder directly above his arm pit.

A deal to sell the Seattle Mariners to a pair of Indianapolis businessmen “will work out sometime this week or it won’t work out at all,” owner George Argyros says.

Argyros and the other two principals in the proposed sale--Jeff Smulyan and Michael Browning--all stayed in the same downtown Seattle hotel Sunday night, but didn’t meet or see each other.

“There are a lot of changes that need to be made, points to be straightened out, and we spent our own time doing that tonight,” Argyros said Sunday. “I won’t say I’m happy with the deal or unhappy with it. It is complex.”

Argyros also confirmed he could receive “close” to $76.1 million, the reappraisal price of the Mariners figured in June. He paid $13.1 million for the franchise in 1981.

Don’t look for Nolan Ryan to go into any wild celebration if he gets his 5,000th strikeout victim tonight against the Oakland Athletics at Arlington, Tex.

“I’ll do nothing,” Ryan said. “My idea is we have a game to win and I don’t want it to be a distraction. I’ll just take the ball home and put it with the rest of ‘em.”

Ryan has kept all the baseballs from his five no-hitters and strikeouts in increments of 500.

“I just give them to Ruth (his wife) and she marks on them what happened,” Ryan said.

For fans, the memories will come at a higher price. Ticket agencies are getting up to $200 for a $10 ticket to the game.

“It’s been crazy. They just want anything--nosebleeds, field box,” said Danielle Koot of First Row Tickets in Dallas. “At first, we estimated it would be big. But it’s more than that. It’s huge. Not many people are caring how much the price is.”

Ryan, 42, needs six strikeouts against the A’s to reach 5,000.