THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610140135
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: 66 lines
In the New York Yankees' home away from home, a pep rally broke out behind the third base dugout several minutes after Sunday's concluding game of the American League Championship Series.
``MVP! MVP! MVP!'' Yankee fans, about 200 strong, chanted as Bernie Williams came out to be interviewed by television.
``Bernie Baseball, Bernie Baseball,'' the throng continued to a sing-song tune, their voices echoing through an otherwise empty stadium.
While the celebration was going on, underneath the stands a solitary voice also spoke Williams' name.
``Bernie Williams? I still don't have a good idea how to get him out,'' Davey Johnson was saying. ``He's a special player. He's taken it to another level as far as I'm concerned.''
Johnson's Orioles took it to another level of futility Sunday, as they failed to beat the Yankees once again in Camden Yards.
``I can't figure it out,'' Johnson said. ``Just tip your hat to them.''
The Yankees own Camden Yards and its dazed tenants, and now they own the American League flag.
In their three victories at Oriole Park, the Yankees outpitched the Birds as expected, but they also outhomered baseball's homeringest team.
``When we made a mistake in this series, they hit it,'' Johnson said.
The Yankees' clinching victory came by the score of 6-4, but the game deserves the hackneyed postscript: ``Not as close as the score indicates.''
In fact, the mistake-prone Orioles made this very easy on the visitors. Jumping ahead 6-0, the Yankees enjoyed a blowout on the strength of a single earned run.
From the Orioles' point of view, this game was Alomarred by the third-inning New York onslaught.
``That ball kind of tricked me,'' Robbie Alomar said of the tailor-made double-play grounder that went between his legs. ``I thought it was going to take a hop and it stayed down.''
The best you can say for Alomar is that muffing that ground ball wasn't the worst mistake he has made in the past three weeks. In the greater scheme of things, it wasn't the costliest, either.
Don't try telling that to Scott Erickson, though.
Later in the third inning, Cecil Fielder's two-out fly ball off the Orioles' starter didn't come down until it reached the leftfield seats for a three-run homer. When Darryl Strawberry followed with a 440-foot shot over the centerfield fence, the Yankees looked World Series-bound.
``They get the clutch hitting when they need it,'' Alomar said.
If nothing else, the Yankees are a clutch outfit. All season, they've been showing the Orioles how far they still must go to become a complete team.
Conventional wisdom says the Orioles are a one-dimensional club - an aging one at that; a team that lives by the long ball.
``Home Run or Go Home'' could have been the Birds' motto.
``That's kind of a bum rap,'' Johnson said. ``Earl Weaver seemed to like the long ball, and he won a lot of games with three-run homers.''
So did Johnson's Orioles, when they weren't being undone themselves by three-run homers from the other dugout.
``People wrote us off,'' Johnson said, ``and yet we had a legitimate shot of going to the World Series.''
True, the Orioles upset the Cleveland Indians. And without a fan's larcenous interference in Yankee Stadium, maybe Baltimore is still playing. But Jeffrey Maier wasn't in Oriole Park when the Birds were outclassed by New York. Yet again.
``Maybe this is the Year of the Yankee,'' Johnson said. ``Who knows?''
He should. by CNB