Garciaparra

THIS WAS his moment, especially on a night when the Orioles did not want to be shut out by the Red Sox again. It was a chance for Sammy Sosa to dig himself a little deeper into the skin of the fans of his new team. Two outs, bottom of the eighth, the Orioles trailing 1-0 and his buddies, Melvin Mora and Miguel Tejada, on first and second, Sosa was at the plate. On a 2-0 count, he took a wicked swing that produced a loud "ohhh" from the crowd. Maybe ol' Sammy was due ... Or maybe not. On the next pitch, Sosa slapped a grounder back to the mound.

NATIONAL Bush asserts U.S. is winning war President Bush asserted yesterday night the United States is winning the war in Iraq but acknowledged setbacks and the doubts of some "that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day." He pleaded with Americans to ignore "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right." pg 1a House negotiates budget cuts Racing to adjourn for the year, the House was poised to pass a final package of budget cuts late last night and was expected to consider two other key pieces of legislation this morning.

Quote: "I don't follow stats, so I don't know who the other four are." -- Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra after becoming one of only five players in major-league history to hit at least 30 homers in each of his first two seasons. The other four are Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Ron Kittle and Rudy York.It's a fact: The AL West-leading Angels are 49-84 in September since 1991.Who's hot: Knuckleballer Steve Sparks has won nine of 11 decisions with the Angels after going 0-8 in the minor leagues earlier this season.

Life as an ace is a lot tougher than life as an unheralded rookie, and Rodrigo Lopez found that out the hard way yesterday. On a day the Orioles needed Lopez at his best, he turned in his worst start in two years. Lopez had dominated the Boston Red Sox last year during his improbable rookie season, but this time they pounded him for eight runs and cruised to a 12-2 victory before 30,046 at Camden Yards. One day after overcoming Boston ace Pedro Martinez, the Orioles missed their chance to salvage a .500 homestand.

An intense sales pitch and the most lucrative offer was not enough to lure Chicago White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko to the Orioles. Konerko, the most prominent bat on the free-agent market, signed a five-year, $60 million deal yesterday afternoon to stay with the world champion White Sox, eschewing a five-year, $65 million deal from the Orioles. The Los Angeles Angels also reportedly offered the slugging first baseman the identical offer that he signed with Chicago. "We felt it was a long shot from the beginning, but we wanted to give it our best shot," said Orioles executive vice president Mike Flanagan.

On July 21, 10 days before the Boston Red Sox traded franchise shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, they played the Orioles at Fenway Park with a defensive lineup that would have been the envy of beer-league softball teams across the nation. Garciaparra didn't play - just as he didn't in 63 of the team's first 101 games - because of an Achilles' tendon injury. So the lineup included the slow-footed Kevin Youkilis at third base, Mark Bellhorn at shortstop, Bill Mueller in a rare start at second base, and Kevin Millar at first.

So the Orioles thought they had it rough, being forced to commute from Baltimore for Thursday's final game of their interleague series against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium? They'll get no sympathy from the Boston Red Sox, who were forced to fly home in the middle of a12-game road trip to play a makeup game against the Cleveland Indians on Thursday. The makeup game, which replaced a poorly scheduled minor-league exhibition game, turned normally soft-spoken star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra into an angry critic of Major League Baseball's scheduling priorities.

BOSTON -- One by one, they will appear. Nomar Garciaparra today. Pedro Martinez tomorrow. And then the ghost of Babe Ruth for the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees.Why can't the end of an 81-year New England nightmare begin with such a fantasy? Truth was certainly stranger than fiction yesterday in the Boston Red Sox's 9-3 victory over Cleveland in Game 3 of the Division Series.The Red Sox won behind Ramon Martinez, a pitcher making only his fifth major-league appearance in the past 16 months, and Lou Merloni, a local-boy shortstop who had started only 31 games this season.

The Orioles haven't forgotten about free-agent shortstop Miguel Tejada, even if it seems the rest of the baseball world is ignoring him. Tejada was the American League's 2002 Most Valuable Player, but so far this offseason, his only reported offer has come from the Seattle Mariners - for three years at between $24 million and $25 million. Yesterday, a high-ranking Orioles official said they will definitely top that offer, though he declined to say what the number of years or dollar amount will be. The same club official also shot down the possibility of the Orioles trading for disgruntled Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra.

Nomar Garciaparra homered off Orioles reliever Terry Mathews last night with two outs in the 12th inning to send the Boston Red Sox to a 2-1 victory at Camden Yards.Orioles center field Brady Anderson was hurt in the fifth inning when he raced back on a fly ball from Boston rookie Garciaparra, leaped to make the catch and rammed his left shoulder into the padding.Anderson went down on the warning track, flipped the ball toward right fielder Eric Davis without looking and began rolling back and forth in pain.