New York Mets

Dwight Gooden softened his stance about contract negotiations yesterday, but remains disappointed the New York Mets didn't act sooner to talk about his salary."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Baseball's winter meetings wound down yesterday without another significant trade and without snapping the free-agent market out of its monthlong slump. The New York Mets made what passes these days for a major free-agent announcement late yesterday afternoon, signing left-handed setup man Mike Stanton to a three-year contract worth $9 million, but the Mets have been one of the few teams that have been aggressively seeking to upgrade their roster. Stanton, who played an important role on three world championship teams with the cross-town rival New York Yankees, beefs up a solid Mets bullpen that is built around former Orioles closer Armando Benitez.

NEW YORK - Went to a riot and a baseball game broke out. John Rocker pitched at Shea Stadium and lived to tell about it last night, contributing a perfect eighth inning in the Atlanta Braves' 6-4 victory over the New York Mets. Really, that's all that happened. Four objects were hurled at Rocker as he sprinted in from the bullpen. The fans at Shea booed him and serenaded him with an expletive. But other than that, peace and a pennant race prevailed. The Braves play three more games at Shea this weekend, and a civic disturbance remains possible.

NEW YORK -- Kris Benson sat calmly and quietly in the visiting clubhouse before last night's game, keeping one eye on the United States-Italy World Cup match and another on an out-of-town baseball game. If Benson was nervous about his return to Shea Stadium to face a New York Mets team that he didn't want to leave, there was no way of knowing it. Over the course of the next several hours, Benson's expression barely changed - not when he became the first Orioles pitcher in 34 years to hit a home run, not even when he finished off one of the most memorable performances of his career with a strikeout.

The cash-strapped, overmatched Montreal Expos had vacated Camden Yards, a most accommodating guest that will be missed. In their place last night were the New York Mets, with their assortment of big-ticket items and playoff aspirations.Hardly a fair trade. And just what the Orioles didn't need as they attempted to hoist themselves from the bottom of the AL East standings.Putting their five-game winning streak and renewed hopes on the line, the Orioles became tangled in another troublesome first inning by starter Juan Guzman and never got loose.

VIERA, Fla. -- New York Mets first baseman David Segui looked around the visitors clubhouse yesterday and picked out a few familiar faces, but the newness of it all was almost overwhelming."

NEW YORK - If the heavily hyped Subway Series proved anything, it is that the New York Yankees are the third rail of postseason baseball. It's a bad idea to come in contact with them in October. They won their third consecutive world championship last night with a 4-2 victory over the New York Mets in Game 5 at sold-out Shea Stadium, enhancing their status as the most successful team of their generation and one of the greatest teams in the glorious history of the Yankees' franchise. Who's going to argue after they won their fourth championship in five years and continued to be one of the most dominant teams in World Series history?

The division race has become a runaway, with the first-place team so deep and talented that the other serious contenders have little choice but to concede the title and focus on the next-best thing -- the wild-card playoff berth.Sound familiar? It should, because it is a fairly accurate description of the American League East and the hard reality of Orioles baseball in 1998.It also applies to the National League East and the second-place New York Mets, who will open a two-game interleague series against the Orioles tonight at Camden Yards and play host to the Orioles at Shea Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday.

PASS THE salt, please. Go ahead and pour. That's where we are, open wounds and all. The New York Mets are back and they're starring in the next exciting episode of: The Carlos Delgado Soap Opera. It's just the Orioles' luck that the one big-time player that the New York Yankees don't want this winter is now the subject of intense wooing by the Mets, the other big-market team with a regional cable TV network about to start paying big dividends. The key to the Yankees' (and the Red Sox's)

How gracious of the New York Mets to give the Orioles faithful a present for the one-year anniversary of their team's regime change: crystal-clear proof of how lucky they are. Lucky to have Peter Angelos making those decisions. That's right, I said it. Lucky because your team, downtrodden as it has been for the past decade, could be owned and operated by the frauds in charge of the Mets. By the way, notice how the words "gracious" and "Mets" clash up there, as if they don't belong in the same sentence.