CLEVELAND -- Turns out there was another deadline on July 31, while everyone was focused on the last chance for Major League clubs to make waiver-free trades. That was also the deadline for the Yankees to make a decision about the 2006 option on Bernie Williams' contract.

The club chose to decline the option, a decision that was announced on Tuesday.

Both parties involved shrugged off the paperwork involving the Yankees' longtime center fielder as a formality necessitated by the deadline negotiated by agent Scott Boras before the contract was signed in 1998.

"It doesn't mean I will or will not be a Yankee [next season]. They can still talk to me," said Williams, who, since being stripped of his regular status in early May, has become a productive cog in the club's center-field rotation.

"We had to decide by a certain date. It was in the contract. Which does not mean you don't want him next year," said manager Joe Torre.

Yet Williams dropped a strong hint that fans may have only two months left to see him in a Yankees uniform, that after this season he might seek an opportunity to resurrect his everyday status.

When asked whether his preference was to iron out a new deal and remain in the Bronx, he said, "I would not comment on that in the interest of not incriminating myself."

"It wouldn't be fair at this point to start talking about next year," added Williams, who will turn 37 on Sept. 13, near the end of his 15th season in pinstripes. "I definitely would like to play next year. I feel healthy.

"But questions like these catch me off-guard because my mind is only on the next two months. I'm still a Yankee. In the time remaining, I want to try help this team win."

Williams signed for $87.5 million over seven years in Nov. 1998. The option was for $15 million in 2006.

Tony Womack started in center on Tuesday night against the Indians, but Torre indicated that Williams would draw the start in the last two games of the series. Williams, a career .301 hitter entering the season, was batting .245 in 88 games, with seven homers and 39 RBIs.

Voices on Palmeiro: Since they were off on Monday, when Baltimore's Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for 10 games by Major League Baseball for violating the sport's drug policy, the Yankees got their turn on Tuesday afternoon to share their thoughts.

Torre, on an obscure positive within the process: "What I'm pleased about is, I guess this case has been ongoing for a while and nobody knew about it. The fact it can go through the grievance process without anybody knowing about it is a big plus. In the event they'd find nothing to it, nothing comes to light. And that's important, because once it comes to light, everybody forms an opinion."

Mike Mussina, on some members of Congress doing some quick saber-rattling by again threatening legislation: "We've been doing this now, in this format, since Spring Training ... five months. I would hope parties would allow us to use the system in place, and make adjustments as we go along until we come up with a sound and effective process that works for everyone.

"To have all these people jumping in ... as a business, I wish we had a chance to solve our own problems before larger parties step in and solve it for us."

Gary Sheffield, on the only viable way to prevent future "unintentional" positives: "Why not govern the situation, where Major League Baseball invests money to provide the only source for players to buy vitamins or proteins or whatever?

"We are not experts in this stuff. Put it in experts' hands and give us one place to buy it. That's how you cut out all the excuses. All the 'I didn't know what I was taking.'

"I did talk to the union about that. Absolutely. And I left it at that. I can't make them do whatever. You haven't seen anything get done, have you? They don't owe me an explanation -- and you're darn straight they didn't give me one."

Around the bend: Carl Pavano makes his second -- and, hopefully, last -- rehab start on Wednesday in Florida. The Yankees have a hole in their rotation for next Tuesday, and hope that Pavano will be able to make that start against the White Sox at the Stadium.

"We'll see how he comes out of [this start]," said Torre. "If there's any hesitation at all, he'll spend some more days down there."

Pavano went on the disabled list with tendinitis in his pitching shoulder on July 7, but he hasn't pitched since June 27, and hasn't won since May 22.

On the mend: Jaret Wright, who on Thursday will make the second rehab start on a comeback road that dates back to his April 24 disabling with shoulder pain, isn't as close to a big-league return. Regardless of how Wright's start goes, Torre and his staff want to see him make two, perhaps three, more.

Ruben Sierra (strained hamstring) is in Cleveland working out with the club, but only to show when he's well enough to hit the rehab trail. When he is running loose and pain-free, he'll go to either Columbus or Trenton for a few games against live, higher Minor League pitching.

Coming up: Mike Mussina will try to reprise one of his finest games of the season when he faces the Tribe in Wednesday's middle game of the series. On July 7 he allowed only two runs in seven innings against the Indians in pitching the Yankees to a 7-2 win at the Stadium.