SANDY IS DANDY; ALOMAR'S HOMER GIVES INDIANS LIFE : CLEVELAND 3, NEW YORK 2.

Byline: Ken Berger Associated Press 

Let there be Game 5.

Omar Vizquel slapped a game-winning hit off pitcher Ramiro Mendoza's glove in the ninth inning and the Cleveland Indians avoided elimination at the hands of their old nemesis Sunday night with a dramatic 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees.

The teams will meet Monday night in the first playoff game in Cleveland baseball history in which both teams face elimination. Cleveland rookie Jaret Wright, who won Game 2 impressively in New York, faces Yankees lefty Andy Pettitte.

Sandy Alomar set up the ninth-inning drama with yet another heroic homer in the best year of his career. Alomar, who hit the game-winning homer in the All-Star game at Jacobs Field, tied it 2-2 in the eighth with a solo homer off Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

Jacobs Field started shaking and it continued while Mike Jackson retired the Yankees in order in the top of the ninth. It truly erupted into mayhem after Vizquel's single. Fans jumped up and down while the AL Central-champion Indians mobbed each other against the backstop behind home plate.

The Yankees were 16-5 at the ballpark before the loss.

``It was one of the loudest stadiums I've ever heard,'' said Cleveland starter Orel Hershiser, whose brilliant duel with Dwight Gooden became an afterthought in the excitement.

Alomar's homer was the first run New York's bullpen surrendered in the series, but not the first time the Indians have beaten Rivera. On July 14 at Yankee Stadium, Marquis Grissom beat Rivera with a 10th-inning homer.

``Forget about the All-Star game,'' said Alomar, referring to his homer in the midsummer classic. ``That was an exhibition game. This is the most important home run I've hit so far in my career. This gives us a chance to go further and hopefully to go all the way to World Series.''

Grissom led off the ninth with a bloop single to right, and Bip Roberts sacrificed. Vizquel then smacked a ball off Mendoza's glove that bounced past shortstop Derek Jeter, who got crossed up and was expecting to field it up the middle.

Cleveland avoided getting ousted in the first round for the second straight year and snapped a slump at 22 innings, during which they scored only two runs.

The Indians also stopped New York's postseason road winning streak at nine games.

Graeme Lloyd, Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton extended New York's bullpen's scoreless innings streak to 11-2/3 innings before Alomar, now 3 for 6 in his career against Rivera, homered.

Gooden and Hershiser dueled into the seventh in a rematch of a Game 1 showdown in the 1988 NL championship series.

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PHOTO Cleveland's Omar Vizquel jumps in the air after his ninth-inning single scored winning run and forced Game 5.

Associated Press