Railbird

May 15, 2008

By nature, he's a bird trainer. But he's no chicken.

Recent columns

• NFL not playing fair on Spygate

  May 12, 2008

  Everybody wants Spygate to go away. That's understandable. Especially when "everybody" includes the NFL itself.

• Team showing fight under Harbaugh

  May 11, 2008

  NFL practices, no matter what time of year, erupt into slugfests from time to time. But all things considered in what used to be dubbed Camp Creampuff, there was nothing ordinary about what happened at the indoor practice facility in Owings Mills yesterday.

• NCAA looks out for No. 1

  May 8, 2008

  Ibelieve that if the NCAA wanted to, it could -- in conjunction with the NBA and with the blessing of the fans -- give players reason to attend school, stay for a while and get some real educational benefit from it, including a degree.

• Fantastic? Not yet

  May 5, 2008

  The big showdown in the new Boston Garden yesterday ended up being the entire first round of the NBA playoffs in a nutshell. Game 7 of the Boston Celtics vs. Atlanta Hawks was a dud.

• If QBs falter, who'll get blame?

  May 4, 2008

  Imagine if some day, in the not-too-distant future, we wake up here in town to the harsh realization that ... it wasn't Brian Billick's fault after all.

• Washing hands of Bonds didn't clean up baseball

  May 1, 2008

  Somewhere, Barry Bonds is laughing. He's not working, but he's got to be laughing.

• Left tackle still a hole for Ravens

  April 28, 2008

  No matter who else the Ravens picked, this will be forever known, for better or worse, as the Joe Flacco Draft. Which is too bad, because if the Ravens' draft follows the usual pattern, it should produce a wealth of productive players from the final five rounds yesterday.

• Motion in pocket, but no clear lane

  April 27, 2008

  Troy Smith must be very uncomfortable. Or unhappy. Or, at least, very, very confused.

• Busy hyping Tejada lie, ESPN misses bigger story

  April 24, 2008

  As much fun as it would be to pick at ESPN for its "expose" of Miguel Tejada, promoted so aggressively before airing in full this week, it is more instructive to dig into what could have -- and should have -- been exposed.

• Girardi turning down O's left team with better fit

  April 21, 2008

  It wasn't one they'll be talking about years from now when they tell the story of the Orioles' return to glory. If they talk at all about yesterday at Camden Yards, it'll be about how fans and players were teased by a downpour all day, then got one when things were almost finished. And about how Steve Trachsel couldn't pitch quick enough or George Sherrill couldn't go to the plate enough (instead of over to first) to get the game in before the rain soaking the rest of the area finally soaked the ballpark.

• Black QBs owe McNair big debt

  April 20, 2008

  Some 24 hours after Steve McNair announced his retirement, Troy Smith said he had yet to speak individually to his former teammate, mentor and friend, only as part of the team farewell meeting that had ended in a standing ovation.

• First and 10 for Ravens

  April 18, 2008

  Let's not pretend we didn't see this day coming eventually. We just didn't know it was coming this specific day.

• A chance to change basketball

  April 13, 2008

  At the front of a meeting room in a downtown San Antonio hotel on the morning of the NCAA championship game sat 13 of the most powerful figures in American basketball -- together looking like the stage on Deal or No Deal, except they were wearing suits, not mini-dresses. (Thank goodness.)

• Still missing

  April 10, 2008

  It has been three days now, and the ground hasn't opened under the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., and swallowed up the building. So the selection of Dick Vitale didn't turn out as apocalyptic as one would have thought.

• 20 years later, another Kansas miracle

  April 8, 2008

  Sometimes a tie isn't a tie, but a loss. Thus it was at the Alamodome last night, when the first overtime in the national championship game in 11 years tipped off. The score was 63-63. But Memphis had lost.

• Calipari, Self underrated strategists

  April 7, 2008

  Because college basketball is a more fertile breeding ground for misperceptions and easy stereotypes than most sports, it might come as a mild surprise that Memphis' John Calipari and Kansas' Bill Self share a piece of their coaching background.

• Chalk knocked out of Heels

  April 6, 2008

  What was the bigger shocker in the Alamodome last night? That the top-seeded, former No. 1-ranked team whose credentials got slighted all year long advanced decisively into the national championship game?

• Memphis' Dorsey takes a road all his own to Final Four

  April 5, 2008

  There hardly is a prominent athlete at any level who has not said, usually as a self-motivational tool, "Nobody ever thought I would be here."

• Not-so-hot topics

  April 3, 2008

  My cheap sports watch loses a minute here and there over the course of a few weeks, so yesterday I double-checked to make sure I had the right time. I did. It was, in fact, the year 2008.

• Reality bites for O's

  April 1, 2008

  Everybody warned you that this could be bad. But, understandably and to your credit, you believed.

• Forget about it

  March 31, 2008

  Welcome to Major League Baseball 2008: Let's Move On.

• Orioles fans still clinging to hope

  March 30, 2008

  The Orioles are selling hope. If the scene at Camden Yards yesterday is any indication, the fans are buying it.

• No one's scoffing at Canseco's second volume of allegations

  March 27, 2008

  You know you have to buy Jose Canseco's new book, Vindicated, if only to keep the characters and their plot lines straight.

• The fall of the ACC

  March 24, 2008

  Think Duke is off its game in recent years? It's not alone. Its entire conference is not feeling the Madness these days, either.

• Defeated Duke has also lost its luster

  March 23, 2008

  It's one thing to hate Duke. Even Mike Krzyzewski admitted, the day before yesterday's West Regional second-round game at Verizon Center, that he couldn't remember the last time the crowd at any arena besides Cameron Indoor Stadium was on his team's side.

• Lofty praise

  March 20, 2008

  Will Thomas might be playing his last college basketball game tonight, in George Mason's first-round NCAA tournament game against Notre Dame in Denver. Of course, there's a good chance this won't be his final game, even though Mason is a No. 12 seed and from the Colonial Athletic Association and Notre Dame is a No. 5 seed and from the Big East.

• No party favors for Coppin, Mount

  March 17, 2008

  Try to forget, for a moment, that on one of the most exhilarating days in the history of college basketball in Maryland, the NCAA popped the state's balloons even before CBS' selection show went on the air.

• Small wonders outdo UM

  March 16, 2008

  If your spirits have risen and fallen with the fate of the Maryland basketball team this season, and the past four, you might have looked at the scene inside RAC Arena yesterday and felt a wistful nostalgia. Or a raging jealousy. Or a bitter fury. Or an involuntary muscle twinge, as you flung the remote at your TV.

• Tiger Valley?

  March 13, 2008

  Tiger Woods and Caves Valley surfaced in the same news story again recently. Twice.

• Phelan belongs in Basketball Hall of Fame

  March 12, 2008

  There are plenty of good reasons to root for Mount St. Mary's tonight. If the Mountaineers beat Sacred Heart in the Northeast Conference tournament championship game, they'll reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1999, and the first time since a certain bow-tied iconic figure retired after 49 years at the school in 2003.

• Up-and-down Vasquez always a big factor

  March 9, 2008

  He's the most unpredictable player on the Maryland men's basketball team, maybe one of the most unpredictable ever to wear the uniform. Thus, the reactions to the loss to Clemson at Comcast Center a week ago were wholly predictable.

• Cheer for this

  March 6, 2008

  The sudden run of success by the UMBC men's basketball team has been a revelation even to the students on the Catonsville campus. "I've probably talked myself to 50 students who had never been to a UMBC athletic event in their lives," junior Jake Steel said yesterday by phone between classes.

• Hollow defeat for Terps

  March 3, 2008

  Greivis Vasquez walked through the runway to the Maryland locker room and left others to observe the madness unfolding behind him. James Gist squatted under the basket near the Terps bench, hands clasped over his head, also unable to look.

• Search unnecessary; Classic has a home

  March 2, 2008

  Check off Brian Carroll as being in favor of playing the Face-Off Classic in Baltimore on a regular basis. Sort of. Scoring the game-winning goal in overtime in his hometown, in front of his family and friends, has its appeal, he said.

• Time for Bisciotti to own up

  February 26, 2008

  About midway through his three-hour, silence-breaking radio chat yesterday, Brian Billick said he fully expected "snippets" of his comments would be pulled out and played up.

• Are Terps destined to scramble for NCAAs each year?

  February 25, 2008

  You could be the most ardent Maryland supporter or the fiercest Gary Williams defender or have the longest, most bitter memories of the darkness of the post- Len Bias days.

• In sordid sports world, NBA singled out

  February 24, 2008

  Last weekend during the NBA's All-Star festivities, players, executives and others rebuilt houses in New Orleans.

• Maturing Suggs deserves praise, long-term contract

  February 21, 2008

  There are a lot of things the Ravens should be worried about between now and the start of the 2008 season. Keeping Terrell Suggs long term should not be one of them. If it is - or if it becomes one - they have no one to blame but themselves.

• Caught a break

  January 19, 2008

  Not that Jason Garrett isn't making enough money now, but the Ravens should send him a bonus. A thank-you for not taking the head coaching job. A token of appreciation for sparing the franchise a big potential headache and, possibly, for opening the door to a better candidate.

• Bisciotti should take chance, put Ryan in charge

  January 1, 2008

  Rex Ryan should be hired as the Ravens' next coach before he gets away.

• Throw out the lead runners

  December 16, 2007

  After everything the Mitchell Report laid out about the depth and breadth of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, after all the suggestions and recommendations, after all the names were named and blame was assigned ... the same two foxes were left to guard the henhouse.

• Unanswered questions with hasty conclusions

  November 28, 2007

  Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, said it as well as it could be said. The sudden, violent, premature death of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, he said yesterday, "leaves many people behind struggling to understand it."

• Pearl of Baltimore

  November 22, 2007

  For 45 minutes Tuesday night, Earl Monroe and a roomful of wistful and inquisitive basketball observers brought the Baltimore Bullets back to life.

• Steele: Vick case leaving no stains on NFL

  August 19, 2007

  In the past month or so, a lot of people have said or written that this Michael Vick mess, coming at the end of more than a year of raging player misconduct, is enough to make them swear off the NFL for good.

• Steele: Vick will need a replay of Lewis' major image rehab

  July 23, 2007

  If anyone had said to you seven years ago that today Ray Lewis would be hosting a radio show in the coming season, you'd probably ask how he can broadcast from state prison. That is, once you'd have stopped laughing.

• Steele: Guilty or not, Vick deserves everything coming his way

  July 19, 2007

  Let's all take a deep breath. Neither the NFL nor the Atlanta Falcons should kick out Michael Vick just because of an indictment, and just because he "sounds" guilty. It didn't happen with Kobe Bryant or Ray Lewis, and as we know now, it shouldn't have happened to the Duke lacrosse players.

• Baseball's steroids pitch has a self-serving spin

  May 10, 2007

  Allow me briefly, in this baseball-related column, to channel Allen Iverson:

• Arena first step in filling basketball void in city

  March 25, 2007

  Enough area basketball fans and observers said it while walking around HSBC Arena last weekend to make it more than a fleeting thought by a niche audience:

• Another Colt in No. 88 jersey is more injustice for Mackey

  January 29, 2007

  Old-time Baltimore football fans weren't the only ones who thought there was something strange about the sight of No. 88 on the Colts.

• Sainted Hall should allow all tainted players

  November 30, 2006

  You don't want to be in the shoes of the Baseball Hall of Fame voters right now. A lot of them don't want to be in their shoes.

• With O'Neil's passing, bit of past slips away

  October 8, 2006

  Everybody, it seems, has a Buck O'Neil story today. My story is this: I never got the chance to meet him.

• Robinson's dismissal is crying shame

  October 1, 2006

  For the second time this season, Frank Robinson was moved to public tears. The first time, in May, after he had to bench an overmatched catcher in mid-inning, showed the depth of his humanity beneath that famously tough exterior.

• Memory of shock, emptiness still fresh 20 years later

  June 19, 2006

  I was sleepy. But I couldn't have been that sleepy.

• Lonise Bias: reaching people since 1986

  June 18, 2006

  Lonise Bias has made it her mission over the past 20 years that her son Len's death not be in vain. Tuesday was the latest proof that it was not.

• Barbaro's injury may be too much for racing to bear

  May 23, 2006

  The question being asked about thoroughbred racing in America right now sounds familiar. But it's a little different. Thus, so is the answer.

• Injury to Barbaro bringing millions of fans together

  May 22, 2006

  The word "unusual" is being used by the doctor performing the operation, and by the head of the facility at which it was performed, to describe the injury that sent Barbaro here.

• Cheers for Palmeiro's last at-bat could be start of new beginning

  August 15, 2005

  WITH TWO OUTS and two on in the bottom of the ninth inning yesterday afternoon, the Rafael Palmeiro saga officially turned back into a baseball-only story.

• Forgiveness is in air at yard as team's fallen hero signs in

  August 12, 2005

  IT WAS big, almost as big as the girl waving it over her head. It was bright orange with black lettering, and it read, "Welcome Back Raffy."

• Fans can make a stand -- by sitting at home

  August 11, 2005

  SO, Rafael Palmeiro is still lawyering up. Fine. He spent the last nine days of his 10-day steroid suspension in silence and solitude.

• Anthony saves face; message saves lives

  May 12, 2005

  OFFICIALLY, THE gathering in a vacant lot behind Johns Hopkins Hospital yesterday afternoon was the kickoff of a state-run anti-violence project.

• As a voice is stilled, memories are stirred

  March 7, 2005

  IT WAS THE spring of 1977. I was 12 years old, living in Landover, pondering my upcoming ascent to high school and sitting at a crossroads. I needed a baseball team to call my own, and it was obvious by then, six years after the Senators moved, that my hometown was not going to provide me with one.

• Heading back to East Coast a long, strange trip for columnist

  September 9, 2004

  YOU'RE NEVER coming back from there.