It’s Sosa 1, McGwire 0 for This Day

The great home run race of 1999 is on--for the exhibition season.

Chicago’s Sammy Sosa, who hit 66 homers last season, had one Saturday, while Mark McGwire, who had 70 last season, went 0 for 2 in his first game of the spring.

Sosa hit a two-run home run off Chandler Martin in the third inning of the Cubs’ 11-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies in Mesa, Ariz.

In a 4-3 loss to the Montreal Expos in Jupiter, Fla., McGwire flied out to center on a 2-2 count in the first inning and was hit by Mike Johnson on an 0-1 pitch in the third. That drew a round of jeers from the sellout crowd of 6,938.

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Roger Clemens wound up with plenty of work and a loss in his Yankee debut as the Kansas City Royals beat a New York split squad, 9-1, in Haines City, Fla.

The five-time Cy Young Award winner gave up three runs and seven hits in three innings. He struck out four, walked none and threw a wild pitch.

Clemens threw 58 pitches in his first game since being traded last month from Toronto to the World Series champions.

“It was good,” Clemens said. “I wasn’t going to try to knock the bat out of anyone’s hands.”

Clemens’ first game wearing an “NY” on his uniform helped draw a crowd of 6,525, nearly the first sellout at Baseball City Stadium since 1990.

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Commissioner Bud Selig won’t grant an extension to the Montreal Expos, who missed a deadline Saturday to complete a new ownership group and obtain stadium financing.

“I’m done making predictions on things,” Selig said during an exhibition game between the Atlanta Braves and Tampa Bay Devils Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla. “Baseball, especially in my 30 years in the game, has tried to keep teams where they are. . . . But responsibility runs both ways, and we need that team to be economically viable.”

The commissioner said there would not be an extension of the 150-day period the team was given to attract new investors and show it has the funds to build a downtown ballpark.

Selig said baseball will begin examining alternatives in a “reasonably short period of time,” but didn’t elaborate.

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First baseman Kevin Young signed the richest contract in Pittsburgh Pirates’ history, a $24-million, four-year deal made possible by the team’s soon-to-be-built stadium. . . . Country singer Garth Brooks abruptly left the San Diego Padres’ training camp, apparently because of a family illness, and the club isn’t sure when he might return.