Yankees Are Back in Familiar Territory

The celebration occurred three weeks later than last year, yet the champagne tasted just as good and the music in the clubhouse was just as loud.

The New York Yankees are once again AL East champions, and none of them seemed to care that they didn’t run away from the pack this time.

“A division title is a division title. It doesn’t matter how you do it,” said Scott Brosius, who hit two homers Thursday night as the Yankees clinched first place by defeating the Baltimore Orioles, 12-5, for a split of their day-night doubleheader at Baltimore.

The victory eliminated the Boston Red Sox, who enter the playoffs as the wild-card team.

In the first game, Mike Mussina pitched seven innings of five-hit ball to lead the Orioles to a 5-0 victory.

The Yankees, who open the postseason Tuesday against Texas or Cleveland, have spent much of the year trying to come up with a sufficient encore to their amazing 1998 season, when they went 114-48 and swept the San Diego Padres in the World Series. That team clinched the AL East title on Sept. 9 and finished 22 games ahead of second-place Boston.

This year, the Red Sox made the Yankees work a lot harder.

But for the third time in four years, New York is the AL East winner.

“It wasn’t a matter of us having a bad year as much as the team chasing us was having a pretty good year. There’s a bunch of teams that want to be standing where we are right now,” Brosius said.

Bernie Williams got two hits to reach 200 for the first time in his career. He and Derek Jeter are the first Yankee teammates to have 200 hits in a season since Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio did it in 1937. Williams scored the go-ahead run in the fifth inning of the nightcap after he hit No. 199 and drove in a run in the sixth with No. 200.

“Now that we’ve clinched, I think we can go to Tampa and play a little more relaxed,” reliever Jeff Nelson said. “We still have something big to play for.”

Albert Belle became the first Oriole to have 100 walks and 100 RBIs in the same season. He also recorded his career-high 17th assist.

Cleveland 9, Toronto 2--Manny Ramirez hit a three-run homer to increase his RBI total to a Cleveland-record 164, and the Indians routed the Blue Jays at Cleveland.

At 97-62, the Indians maintained the best record in the American League going into the final weekend of the season.

Ramirez’s 43rd homer, a 441-foot drive to left off John Bale in the sixth inning, broke the previous Indian record of 162 RBIs, set by Hal Trosky in 1936.

Texas 7, Seattle 0--John Burkett combined with three relievers on a four-hitter at Arlington, Texas, and the Rangers set a team record with their 95th victory.

Texas (95-64) topped the previous record, set in 1977 when the Rangers were 94-68.

Burkett (9-8) improved to 5-1 in his last seven starts, giving up three hits in six innings.

Tim Crabtree, Jeff Zimmerman and Mike Venafro combined on one-hit relief, completing the Rangers’ ninth shutout of the season.

Chicago 5, Boston 2--Rookie Carlos Lee hit a tiebreaking home run and Jeff Liefer had a pair of RBI doubles at Chicago.

Preparing for the playoffs, Boston Manager Jimy Williams said 23-game winner Pedro Martinez will start Game 1 and Bret Saberhagen will pitch Game 2.

Detroit 6, Minnesota 5--Gabe Kapler, Dean Palmer and Luis Polonia homered at Minneapolis to help the Tigers win their sixth in a row.

Around the League

The owners of Minnesota’s NBA and NHL teams are were working on a deal to buy the Minnesota Twins, contingent on the construction of a new stadium in St. Paul. The plan would have the Twins, the NBA’s Timberwolves and the NHL’s Wild start their own regional sports cable television network that would broadcast games of all three teams. The Star Tribune of Minneapolis said a group led by Wild owner Robert Naegele Jr. and Wild President Jac Sperling submitted a $100-million bid for the Twins earlier this week.