If this were, say, 1973 or before, we’d be sitting around waiting. On both sides of town. We’d be two weeks removed from the last football game Allegany and Fort Hill had played this season, and nearly two weeks away from the next one they’ll play, which, of course, would be the annual Turkey Day Game. But this isn’t 1973 as time stops for no one and nothing, including an Allegany-Fort Hill football game; so we find ourselves six days shy of the Campers and the Sentinels meeting for the second time this season.
Spent part of Saturday afternoon watching folks file into Greenway Avenue Stadium for the Homecoming Game. Spent another part of the day listening to the Homecoming Game on the four radio stations that broadcast it; then the rest of the afternoon watching folks file out of the stadium to their cars before watching the delayed version of the game on television.
For better or for worse, Greenway Avenue Stadium’s going to be a different edifice when we enter it for next year’s Homecoming Game than it will be Saturday when we enter it for this year’s Homecoming Game.
Not to dwell on it, but yes, it was a mistake.
The Fort Hill community lost a member of the family on Friday. Many lost a favorite uncle; many more a beloved brother. Fort Hill High School lost a loving son.
Whether or not your personal feelings for Rush Limbaugh are along the same lines as the title of Al Franken’s 1996 book, “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot,” know one thing: Rush Limbaugh is not an idiot.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim absolutely own the New York Yankees of the Bronx.
The last any of us heard or saw of the baseball postseason was Oct. 15, 1997 when the Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1-0, in 11 innings at Oriole Park at Camden Yards to win the American League pennant.
Jack Heise, who passed away on Monday at the age of 84, was known as Mr. Maryland, and was inducted into the University of Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.
Had the strangest feeling on Sunday while watching the Ravens-Patriots game. Look, I would never say I felt like a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but I can tell you I experienced quite a bit of empathy for all of their moaning and whining through the years about the Patriots and Tom Brady, because the personal-foul penalties that seemed to be called on the Ravens like clockwork after they had seemingly stopped the Patriots on a third down, really took an edge off of what was an otherwise tremendous NFL game.
Baltimore Orioles manager Dave Trembley finds himself to be one of Charm City’s most talked about fellas, and not because he’s often mistaken for the Priceline Negotiator (he was referred to as the Strikezone Negotiator the other day, but that was shot down once we were reminded you are not permitted to argue balls and strikes).
These are not pleasant times along the Capital Beltway, as over/unders are being established as to whose head will be the first to be served on a stick: Redskins coach Jim Zorn’s, or Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen’s.
Years from now, with all due respect to the Northern Huskies, Friday night’s 28-25 victory over Allegany will be remembered as the first Keyser football win in the beautiful new Alumni Stadium at Tornado Alley that opened two Fridays ago when Keyser defeated the Huskies, 34-0.
We’ve discussed it before.
Normalcy has seemingly returned now that we’re fully entrenched in another football season, and that’s a good thing you say?
The Allegany Gridiron Club and Allegany High School have put together quite a day today for Alco fans and high school football fans from all over the area as the “Reunion of Champions” takes place shortly after the Campers take on the Grand Prairie Composite High School Warriors from Alberta, Canada, 1 p.m., at Greenway Avenue Stadium.
Had a lot of down time for the better part of two weeks while recovering from an old boating injury — old if you consider 14 days a long time — and during this time, I had ample opportunity to consider my plight compared to the plight of others and to develop a perspective on how we too often take the suffering of others for granted, and fail to realize how lucky we truly are.
Big night Thursday as our favorite baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, and our favorite pitcher, the Indians’ Aaron Laffey, come to Baltimore to face the Orioles.
BRAVO to the Washington Nationals for hands-down the best week of their five years in the nation’s capital.
Y.E. Yang’s staredown?
On Friday, four friends and I went boating on the Chesapeake Bay, reliving old times, creating new ones, and reveling in each other’s company for a far-too-short glorious summer day in the Land of Pleasant Living.
I’m willing to believe David Ortiz because he seemed so sincere on Saturday afternoon when he said, sure, he took a lot of over-the-counter substances and vitamins “back in those days,” but never, not once, did he take steroids.
With the rebuilding of the Orioles in full swing, and the ongoing re-Pirating having become as much the norm as the late ’70s and early-to-mid ’80s Bucs changing uniform combinations (hideous uniform combinations at that), it’s clear that not only did the dog days of summer arrive in both Baltimore and Pittsburgh, but disappeared almost as quickly as a highball seemed to whenever young Spaulding Smails was in the room.
I really would like to empathize with Melvin Mora — or, as my friend Mr. Zapf calls him, Melvin Morose — but I just can’t.
Don’t know if you have access to MLB Extra Innings on satellite TV in your home or where everybody knows your name, but for those of us who are fortunate enough to have some access to it, we were doubly fortunate to be able to watch the absolute gem pitched Friday night by Cleveland Indians lefthander Aaron Laffey.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, of course, has been accused of rape by a casino hostess, who claims in her civil suit the alleged attack took place one year ago in Roethlisberger’s room at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.
Watching the Baltimore Orioles run the bases is like watching a little kid continue to touch the hot stove and burn himself for the eighth time in the past week.
The sorrow spread so rapidly with the news of Pat D’Atri’s death on Wednesday.
The feeling here is the league with the best record in interleague play should have the homefield advantage in the World Series, not the winner of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what the feeling is here.
ON FRIDAY, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked readers, “If second baseman Freddy Sanchez is traded, will it be the last straw between you and the Pirates?”
Of 3,206 respondents, 63 percent answered yes, and 37 answered no.
Orioles manager Dave Trembley went medieval Tuesday night in Seattle, popping his cork in the first inning of the Orioles’ eventual 12-4 win over the Mariners after yet another one of those umpires’ calls went against his club.
Rafael Palmeiro is sticking to his story: He has never used steroids.
After the publisher had gone back downstairs to his air-conditioned office after good-naturedly (I think) trying to convince us it really wasn’t that hot in the sweltering newsroom, my colleague Mike Sawyers and I no longer had to pretend we weren’t doing anything (although in fairness to me, it was my day off) and started doing what we normally do in our spare time and talk baseball.
Does Shaq have anything left in the tank?
So Greivis Vasquez is returning to Maryland for his senior year, and the Terps have reportedly told top-10 recruit Lance Stephenson they are no longer interested.
There’s a brand new native of Cumberland in town and his name is Jackson Joseph Wootten, born Tuesday, June 16, 2009, at Memorial Hospital to Joe and Terri Lynn Wootten.
What follows are authentic dialogues we here in the sports department have had with some coaches while they are calling the scores of their youth baseball and softball games in to be reported in the paper.
Matt Wieters? Nah, it’s not Matt Wieters. It’s the Detroit Tigers, stupid. There’s just something about the Tigers coming to town that creates a buzz in Bawlmer, hon.
Suddenly, the Baltimore Orioles are very interesting and actually fun to follow, because, in case you haven’t noticed, the future is here, with the biggest chunk of it scheduled to arrive tonight at Camden Yards.
Just when you thought we were this close to waving off the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron Jordan — er LeBron James — does something like Mike and makes what was about to be a 2-0 Orlando Magic Eastern Conference semifinals lead, a 1-1 series with a big momentum swing going Cleveland’s way as the series resumes tonight in Orlando.
Kobe and LeBron; LeBron and Kobe. Depending on your allegiances, that’s all we’ve been hearing for the past two months since the NBA playoffs got under way.
Don’t know if there is an official name for the center field plaza at Nationals Park or not, but if there isn’t, a strong case can be made to name it Hollidayville in honor of its most famous and most loved resident, broadcaster Johnny Holliday.
Sports Illustrated has noticed, and most of the beat writers have posted notice on their Sunday morning baseball pages. Yet all you have to do is go to Camden Yards and you’ll hear it. Listen, and you will hear the realization that president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail has fleeced the Seattle Mariners in much the same manner his dad, Lee MacPhail, did other big league clubs in the 1960s when he ran the Baltimore Orioles.
How compelling were the first six games of the NHL Eastern Conference semifinals between the Penguins and the Capitals?
If I were approaching tonight’s NHL Eastern Conference semifinal Game 7 with the attitude that my entire evening will be ruined if a certain team doesn’t win, I would say the Capitals would be the team I would be rooting for.
A strange karma has seemed to settle upon the Baltimore Orioles, and based on my extensive study of the practices and teachings of Swami Sivananda’s integral (or synthesized) version of the classical yoga paths, combining the paths of raja, hatha, bhakti, jnana and karma yoga, I believe the Swami might be inclined to call this particular karma reality.
The bad news is I didn’t get to watch the NFL draft on television last Saturday.
“Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” also known as Tinker to Evers to Chance after its refrain, is a 1910 baseball poem by Franklin Pierce Adams and immortalized the early 20th-century Chicago Cubs infield of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance completing a double play.
Very much have been enjoying watching and listening to the Pirates so far this season. Not only is first-year broadcaster Tim Neverett a pleasure to listen to, but the Buccos’ pitching hasn’t been too hard on the eyes either.
The late Stanley Bowman Thomas, longtime baseball coach at Salisbury High School known simply as “Chief,” will be honored posthumously by the Salisbury-Elk Lick school district this evening when the Salisbury High Elks take on Shade High School at 7:30.
On Saturday, April 25, the Cumberland City Mini-Marathon at The Stadium will be held to benefit the renovation of Greenway Avenue Stadium. Events include a 2.62-mile run, a 1.5-mile walk, and a toddler trot. The run and walk will begin at 9 a.m., and the toddler trot will start after all participants have finished the run and walk. Registration on race day will begin at 8:45 a.m.
What in the world could be better than pitching in a big-league baseball game on your birthday? OK, pitching and winning a big-league game on your birthday, but the Cleveland Indians’ Aaron Laffey did all he could do there two days ago, Wednesday, April 15, in Kansas City, making his first big-league start of the year after starting the season in Triple A Columbus.
After Diamondbacks right-hander Jon Garland made his National League debut Friday night, his manager Bob Melvin said, “It looked like the ball was jumping out of his hand better than some of the spring training outings.”
Allegany High School baseball coach Duane McMinn, your basic early-to-bed, early-to-riser during the school week, decided what the heck.
In 13 years, Mark Teixeira has come half circle — 180 degrees, mind you; not the full 360.
This will mark the 27th straight year the three major-league teams within three hours driving distance of here will not win a World Series. Or a pennant.
My friend Duke knows her football pretty good as we like to say at our Mensa Cumberland meetings, so the day before he was traded to the Chicago Bears, I asked her what she thought of this whole Jay Cutler thing.
In watching the Kristi Toliver-Marissa Coleman era at the University of Maryland come to a tearful end on Monday night, you almost had to wonder by the time the Lady Terps had arrived in Raleigh for the regional semifinals if they hadn’t already spent too much emotion and left it in College Park where Toliver and Coleman were accorded a heroes’ send-off after Maryland’s first two NCAA tournament games were played at Comcast Center.
oday as the Elite Eight winds down and Bracket Nation braces for the Final Four, the Atlantic Coast Conference finds itself with one team — North Carolina — standing among the best of college basketball.
Joe Garagiola once said, “Baseball is a funny game.”
A tough Tuesday outing in a minor-league game didn’t help his cause at all, and on Wednesday Allegany High School’s Aaron Laffey was informed by the Cleveland Indians he would at least begin the season at Triple-A Columbus as fellow Cleveland left-hander Scott Lewis was awarded the final spot in the Indians’ rotation, and will break spring training with the major-league club.
On March 4, 1993, Jim Valvano was awarded the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award at the first annual ESPY Awards and, not long before his death to cancer, delivered one of the most memorable acceptance speeches any of us can remember, compelling one and all to follow the very advice he was giving as he was giving it.
“To me,” Valvano said, “there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives.
(Revised and reprinted from Friday’s editions in its entirety.)
The Maryland Terrapins are a team remindful of that favorite dog you felt, for his own good, needed to be put down the sooner the better.
The Maryland Terrapins are a team remindful of that favorite dog you felt, for his own good, needed to be put down the sooner the better.
Just as it’s been for the better part of a half-century, the field of the Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament is loaded.
Vindication for Gary Williams?
Even the truest of true Maryland fans had to be happy North Carolina won on Friday, defeating Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals in Atlanta.
I still don’t know if I’m ready to concede Greatest College Basketball Game Ever to Thursday and Friday’s Syracuse-Connecticut Big East quarterfinal, but I’ll admit somewhere around the fourth overtime I was willing to enter it into the conversation.
So it’s Thursday and I’m beginning my morning jog on the campus of Washington Middle School when a car pulls up and the two nice folks inside want to know if Bishop Walsh School is in the neighborhood.
If I were a betting man, I would have bet every last Brooks Robinson baseball card I own that if the Allegany Campers boys basketball team would be going to the state tournament this week it would not be to the one in College Park, but to the one in Catonsville for the purpose of showing its support for the Allegany Camper girls basketball team.
With the exception of Pittsburgh Steelers fans, NFL fans everywhere are afraid their team believes it’s the one that can repair Terrell Owens.
Sure, there’s a bit of a nip in the air, and sure, it’s likely to get colder before it gets any warmer, even though that’s rather difficult to believe right now.
In his first start of the spring on Thursday, Cleveland Indians lefthander Aaron Laffey worked two innings, gave up one earned run and two hits, struck out one and induced three groundball outs, including one for a double play, which, given how Laffey pitches, is a good thing.
Leo Mazzone has had some rude awakenings in his time, but he’s never enjoyed them as much as he is now.
It doesn’t do any good to complain about the officiating, because like the weather, even though everybody loves to moan about it, nobody can do anything about it.
One of the many reasons Maryland fans take such delight in seeing the Terps beat North Carolina goes back to Roy Williams’ first ACC media day as the Carolina coach when Maryland coach Gary Williams was referred to as “the other Williams” in the conference.
The Orioles and Brian Roberts agreed on Friday to stay together for four more years — five if you count this year — and despite what some of us may or may not think of his past actions (or in this case it would inactions), that’s a pretty good thing for both Baltimore and the all-star second baseman.
Yesterday, February 14, of course, was the day lovers everywhere long for: the day pitchers and catchers report.
Attending the annual Dapper Dan Awards Banquet always provides me with a great sense of hope. Not because its arrival means we’re only two weeks from pitchers and catchers reporting, although that certainly doesn’t hurt, but because I come away each year more and more impressed with the young people who live, go to school and play here in our area.
Please, no more Michael Phelps jokes, although I’ll admit I got a chuckle out of the Washington Times columnist who wrote, “At least now we know why he needed to take in 12,000 carbs a day.”
From amid the tumult and infighting that had been the University of Maryland athletic department the previous half-fortnight, came to Cumberland a friendly breath of fresh air via Simi Valley, Calif.
There they sat Thursday afternoon in Tampa in all of my Super Bowl splendor.
It was Interactive Tuesday this past week on ESPN2 for the Maryland-Boston College basketball game, meaning fans watching the Terps blow a 16-point lead to the Eagles at home had the opportunity to log on to ESPN’s web site and provide opinions to various questions and vote on different polls asked by the network. The opinions and results were then scrolled along the top of the screen while the game was going on.
Southern Garrett setter/outside hitter Shayna Sweitzer is the 2008 Sports Shoppe Area Player of the Year, heading up this year’s Times-News All-Area volleyball team.
Dogs are barking; vultures are circling; sharks are attacking, and it’s understandable why. The Maryland men’s basketball team is ... well ... not good.
Perhaps this should give us a little more insight as to why the Dallas Cowboys have fallen to the level of carnival act that they have and likely won’t be able to be taken seriously as “the Dallas Cowboys” we used to know until owner Jerry Jones gets a serious football person to make the personnel decisions that will make his team a serious football team again.
Here in Two Hours From Everywhere, Md., we have heard very few Ravens or Steelers fans say they hope the other team wins the Super Bowl if it wins today, and even fewer who say it who really believe it.
It’s been a year like no other for J.R. Perdew, which is saying something when you consider nothing else but the winter he spent coaching in Venezuela. The pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox, who on Thursday was announced to be this year’s top award recipient by the Dapper Dan Club of Allegany County, has been on the move from the get-go, even when it’s been nearly impossible for him to get out of bed.
J.R. Perdew has been attending the annual Dapper Dan awards banquet since he was a child — often times as a speaker, often times as an award winner, many more times as a spectator who is a big fan and supporter of all area sports.
I don’t want this to sound as though I had little or no faith in my favorite professional football team, but last month when I signed up and paid up to attend a conference championship party at a local Pittsburgh Steelers stronghold, the furthest thing from my mind was the Baltimore Ravens reaching this week’s AFC title game.
Anymore when Ed Reed pops up on my screen all I can really do is laugh. I mean, at any time you almost expect the Ravens safety to make a big play — be it an interception, a long return of the interception, a blocked punt — because he’s made so many of them
Had the good fortune of hearing from Joe Ross the other day.
The best part about my job has always been meeting so many different people, and there was nobody more different and more enjoyable to be around for me than Walley Mahle, the former football coach at Bishop Walsh and Keyser high schools in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
For me, anyway, it’s not the Christmas season until I hear Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” and since I finally did hear it the other day, I am now completely immersed in the spirit of Christmas and it’s true meaning. So let’s get to the gifts:
It’s been close to two years since Baltimore has hosted an Ed Sullivan kind of NFL game (that would be “really big” for you youngsters), so with the Pittsburgh Steelers coming to town less than two weeks before Santa Claus does, Charm City will be out in full force to make sure this big game works out better than the last one did.
Saturday’s state championship game in Baltimore played out to be a once-in-a-lifetime game; at least for me it did, as I know I had never been to a football game — a championship football game at that — at any level that played out the way the Fort Hill-Dunbar game did, with the Poets going 91 yards in the final 1:56 to secure the touchdown and the game-winning two-point conversion with just two seconds remaining.
It’s a cliché that’s as old as the University of Maryland itself: Maryland breaks your heart, no matter what the sport.
Bill Cowher will coach in the NFL next season, and here’s why: CBS is making a bloody fool of him each week on its NFL Today pre-game show.
First of all, let’s be clear here. I don’t normally watch the pre-game shows, but if I do, I watch Fox and CBS, because the entire gang over at ESPN has gotten just a little too precious for my Sunday-morning Bloody Mary time-slot tastes. So, while I think Fox has the best pre-game show of the three, I do enjoy what I hear from the guys on CBS: James Brown, Dan Marino, Shannon Sharpe, Boomer Esiason (the real Boomer), and Cowher.
They haven’t experienced the most conventional route to get here, but the West Region champion Fort Hill Sentinels find themselves one win away from a return to the Maryland Class 1A state championship game next weekend at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium.
So you have the football-on-Thanksgiving-day Jones, but just aren’t up for killing your appetite this afternoon by having to watch the Detroit Lions again.
