Sunday streak least of O's concerns

July 6, 2008

No, Brian Roberts said, looking perplexed at the question. This loss today at Camden Yards, which came with a near-tidal wave of negatives that all but washed out the positives, was not going to be the start of the Orioles' same old summertime routine.

Recent columns

• City sits on sideline in NBA competition

  July 6, 2008

  The two news items from early and late Wednesday weren't exactly related, but they were more than coincidental. In the morning: a front-page story in The Sun about how The Relic on Howard Street (aka 1st Mariner Arena) still makes a decent profit. At night: a settlement that allows the NBA's SuperSonics to move from Seattle to Oklahoma City.

• The Babe went to bat for black players

  June 29, 2008

  Oh, was Linda Ruth Tosetti ever asking for it. Raise yet another pedestal for her grandfather, Babe Ruth? Make Jackie Robinson share Major League Baseball's singular honor with someone who seems saturated in praise from every segment of American culture? Pit these two iconic figures, and all the accompanying baggage, against each other?

• Shaq's bad rap

  June 26, 2008

  Full disclosure: When the first snippets surfaced of Shaquille O'Neal dogging Kobe Bryant onstage at a New York club, I laughed. The more I heard, the funnier and more absurd it got.

• Cassell not ready to ring out career

  June 23, 2008

  Two days after soaking in the love of the fans in his basketball home, Sam Cassell bathed in the admiration of the fans in his real hometown. And after spending most of Saturday evening as the center of attention at a celebrity charity game at the Towson Center, Cassell proclaimed that neither Boston, Baltimore nor the NBA had seen the last of him in uniform.

• Elevating the debate over 'one and done'

  June 22, 2008

  The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics can always be counted on for spirited debate, intense scrutiny and strong recommendations in its semi-annual meetings. The most fascinating product of last week's get-together in Washington, however, concerned a topic on which no resolution was reached - or could be.

• The un-Mets

  June 19, 2008

  How gracious of the New York Mets to give the Orioles faithful a present for the one-year anniversary of their team's regime change: crystal-clear proof of how lucky they are.

• Cabrera still searching

  June 16, 2008

  Two batters into the game, Camden Yards was soaked in as much deja vu as sunshine. Uh-oh, went the buzz among the announced crowd of 31,000-plus. Cabrera doesn't have it today.

• Repairing image no slam dunk for NBA

  June 15, 2008

  The good news is that in a span of three hours Thursday night - from the time David Stern tried again to spin his league's growing officiating controversy to the climax of the greatest comeback in Finals history - the national conversation about the NBA took a refreshing turn toward the positive.

• Ogden top of the line

  June 13, 2008

  When Brett Favre officially retired that day in March in Green Bay, he drew a big crowd, much as Jonathan Ogden did yesterday in Owings Mills. Just like Favre's announcement, and like Michael Strahan's earlier this week, Ogden's farewell was carried live on national TV (in homes that get the NFL Network, at least).

• Ogden's graceful exit

  June 12, 2008

  It wouldn't have been fair for Jonathan Ogden to leave the game for good last year, when his left big toe seemed to be making the decision for him. Then again, it's not that much more fair for him to be leaving now, accompanied by the stench of a 5-11 season.

• Biggest stars take a back seat at LPGA Championship

  June 9, 2008

  So much for the orderly transfer of power.

• O's charm is not limited to city

  June 8, 2008

  Putting "Baltimore" back on the Orioles' road jerseys next season is a good thing; no one can argue that. Anything the franchise can do to cater to the core of the fan base - after all the years of alienating it in so many ways - is welcome. You don't have to be an Orioles lifer to get that.

• Patrick deserves credit for Indy 500's resurgence

  May 26, 2008

  Even though Scott Dixon won the Indianapolis 500 yesterday, every driver in the race, even the two other women, ought to send Danica Patrick a thank-you note.

• Baltimore is no-brainer for lacrosse's hub

  May 25, 2008

  Back in March, the Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium brought four elite lacrosse programs together for an electric season opener: Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Syracuse and Virginia. Less than three months later, three of those four - all but Princeton - convened again in Foxborough, Mass., with a little more on the line.

• Time for Hill to go to hoop

  May 22, 2008

  Don't come looking here for any angry condemnations of Congress for sticking its nose into steroids and Spygate. Our elected national representatives are not only entitled, but also obligated, to do what they can to clean up whichever multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-supported sports business proves incapable of cleaning itself up.

• Sport needs 'Brown' to win Crown

  May 19, 2008

  To fully grasp what a big deal it would be for Big Brown to win the Triple Crown, you have to understand what horse racing was back when it last happened, what it is today and what has happened in between.

• Belmont seeming more and more like 1-horse race

  May 18, 2008

  If you're looking for a dissenting voice in the clamor about the history Big Brown is about to make, don't go looking for it near the jockey scales area at Pimlico Race Course.

• Railbird

  May 15, 2008

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

• 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.

• 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."

• 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.

• 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.