Belle Takes Toll On Key, Yanks

American League

Albert Belle and the Cleveland Indians had shown they could beat up most anybody. They still had to show themselves, however, that they could beat the New York Yankees.

Belle again picked on the Yankees in general and Jimmy Key in particular, homering and tying a career high by scoring four times Tuesday in a 10-5 victory over New York.

Cleveland ended an 11-game losing streak to New York that began in 1993. The Yankees were 9-0 against the Indians last year, the only time they ever swept another team for a whole season.

“I think it was good for us to beat them, just to prove to ourselves that we could,” Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove said. “They know we have a great team; we didn’t have to prove it to them. But until we beat them, we had to show ourselves.”

Belle went 3 for 4 with a double, and Manny Ramirez and Paul Sorrento also homered in the Indians’ first game against New York this year. Cleveland had 15 hits, including five doubles.

“We definitely wanted to get a victory against them,” Belle said.

Cleveland won for the 11th time in 14 games overall. Mike Stanley, Bernie Williams and Pat Kelly homered in New York’s third straight loss.

Charles Nagy (2-0) pitched five innings and allowed two hits, including Stanley’s solo homer.

Belle hit a two-run homer in the third. That made him 10 for 26 with four homers against Key. Belle was 16 for 34 (.471) against the Yankees last year with six homers and 11 RBIs.

Red Sox 5, Brewers 0

Milwaukee

Mo Vaughn homered twice, giving him a major league-leading total of 10, and Erik Hanson (3-0) pitched a four-hitter to lead Boston past Milwaukee.

Angels 9, Twins 6

Minneapolis

Tony Phillips and Damion Easley hit consecutive homers in the sixth as California rallied from a sixrun deficit to beat Minnesota.

Athletics 7, White Sox 1

Chicago

Mark McGwire extended his hitting streak to a careerhigh 13 games, going 2 for 2 with a go-ahead homer as Oakland beat Chicago in a game shortened to five innings because of rain.

Tigers 9, Orioles 8

Baltimore

Travis Fryman hit a tworun double off Doug Jones in the ninth as Detroit overcame a pair of two-run homers by Rafael Palmeiro and beat Baltimore.

Rangers 6, Blue Jays 1

Arlington, Texas

Kenny Rogers (3-2) won his third straight start but left with a strained hamstring in the sixth, and Mark McLemore went 3 for 3 as Texas topped Toronto.

Carter may bow out

Unless baseball’s labor dispute is settled, Toronto’s Joe Carter said this year may be his last.

Carter, who plans to retire after the 1996 season, said spending time with his family during the eightmonth strike made him realize how much he was missing at home.

“If we don’t get an agreement done, I don’t want to go through what we went through last year with the strike and everything,” Carter told The Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City. “I enjoyed the time off being a husband and a father.”

Pink-slip George strikes

George Steinbrenner, known for firing his managers, gave an accountant the boot after an oversight put the New York Yankees owner on a delinquent property tax list.

Less than 2 hours after being informed of the bill, Steinbrenner sent a $35,061 check to Hillsborough County for back taxes on his $1.2 million south Tampa, Fla., home.

He then turned his blame to his in-house accountant for a “blatant mistake.” While the 1994 taxes were due April 1, Steinbrenner said the accountant told other employees the deadline was May 31.

Clearing the bases

Kirby Puckett of Minnesota scored the 999th run of his career… . Milwaukee had its third gate of less than 10,000.