Orioles Swipe Key Away From Yankees

Jimmy Key, who won the clinching World Series game for the New York Yankees six weeks ago, signed a two-year, $7.8-million free-agent contract with the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.

Key, 35, was 12-11 with a 4.68 earned-run average for the Yankees last season.

Last month, Key was committed to returning to the Yankees in 1997 after they offered him salary arbitration. But last week’s labor agreement between players and owners permitted Key and several others to become free agents, and he quickly settled on the Orioles.

“The Yankees really didn’t make it tough for me to leave New York,” Key said. “They wanted to offer me just a one-year contract, at a 20% cut from the average of my four-year [$17-million] contract in New York.”

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Free-agent right-hander Alex Fernandez, 27, will sign a five-year, $35-million contract with the Florida Marlins today, ESPN reported. Fernandez, a south Florida native, rejected a five-year, $30-million offer from his former team, the Chicago White Sox.

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The Texas Rangers offered arbitration to left-handed relief pitcher Mike Stanton and backup catcher Dave Valle, but declined to make offers to three others.

Shortstop Kevin Elster, right-handed starting pitcher Kevin Gross and left-handed reliever Dennis Cook were not offered salary arbitration and will not be eligible to sign with the Rangers until May 1.

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The Angels have not offered arbitration to pitcher Shawn Boskie, in effect ending his tenure with the team. Boskie has offers from the Orioles and Expos.

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Bret Saberhagen, the two-time Cy Young winner who missed the 1996 season for Colorado because of shoulder trouble, has reached agreement with the Boston Red Sox on a one-year contract.

Golf

Mike Hulbert and Donna Andrews parred the final three holes to shoot a three-under 68 and win the rain-shortened JCPenney Classic by one stroke over the teams of Tiger Woods-Kelli Kuehne and Joel Edwards-Missie McGeorge at Tarpon Springs, Fla.

Hulbert and Andrews finished at 16-under 197, earning them $375,000 in the event that pairs players from the PGA and LPGA tours.

Allen Doyle of LaGrange, Ga., and Jimmy Johnston of Louisville, Ky., were tied for the lead after Sunday’s fifth round of the $150,000 PGA qualifying tournament at Lompoc.

Doyle, 48, carded a 4-under-par 68, at the 7,105-yard La Purisima Golf Club, giving him a 90-hole total of 352.

The sixth and final round will be played today, with the winner earning $15,000 and the low 40 scorers and ties getting 1997 PGA Tour cards. The next 70 and ties receive Nike Tour cards.

Esteban Toledo of Costa Mesa shot a 75 and has a 90-hole total of 361, leaving him tied for 51st.

Tennis

Boris Becker served with devastating force in defeating Goran Ivanisevic, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, to win the $6-million Grand Slam Cup--the richest prize in tennis. Becker earned a first-place check of $1.875 million at Munich. Ivanisevic, the defending champion, received $812,500.

Auto Racing

Benetton team manager Flavio Briatore has threatened to boycott Formula One races in Italy if there are convictions for the 1994 death of driver Ayrton Senna at Imola, Italy. Last month, a magistrate decided to allow a prosecutor to bring team manager Frank Williams and five others to trial on manslaughter charges.

Winter Sports

Two-time world champion Elvis Stojko of Canada performed superb jumps and edged short-program leader Ilia Kulik of Russia to win his second consecutive NHK Trophy’s men’s title in Kadoma, Japan. Stojko jumped a rare quadruple although he touched his hand to the ice after landing. . . . Finland extended its winning streak in the men’s cross-country skiing relay, while Norway unexpectedly broke Russia’s stranglehold on the women’s competition at a World Cup event at Davos, Switzerland. . . . Liz McIntyre of the U.S. won a parallel moguls competition in the freestyle skiing World Cup at Tignes, France. . . . Dirk Wiese and the Germany 2 four-man bobsled team won a World Cup race by four-hundredths of a second over Switzerland 1 at Igls, Austria. . . . Slovenian teenager Primoz Peterka held off Lasse Ottesen of Norway and Takanobu Okabe of Japan to win a World Cup ski jumping event in Kuusamo, Finland.

Soccer

Two goals by Julio Rodas earned Guatemala a 2-1 victory in a World Cup ’98 qualifying game in front of 24,728 at the Coliseum. The victory keeps Guatemala in the running with the United States and Costa Rica for the remaining two places in the final round of qualifying.

Brazil defeated Spain, 6-4, at Barcelona to win its third consecutive indoor world championship.

Debbie Keller scored with 9:04 left in the second overtime to give North Carolina a 1-0 victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA Division I women’s final in front of 8,800 at Santa Clara. It was the Tar Heels’ 13th championship in the last 15 years under Coach Anson Dorrance, whose 18-year record is 390-16-10.

Miscellany

A man who allegedly boasted of how he killed the three-year-old son of NFL safety Bennie Thompson was condemned to death for that murder and those of two adults in New Orleans. Jurors unanimously agreed that 22-year-old Juan Smith should receive the death penalty.

Kim Blankinship had 20 kills as Loyola Marymount defeated UC Santa Barbara, 14-16, 15-7, 15-8, 15-9, in the second round of the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball playoffs at Loyola Marymount.