Amateur

You take your good news where you get it and here's mine: the Preakness sent Kegasus packing. You remember Kegasus. Sleaze-ball centaur with the biker haircut and beer gut? Budweiser-swilling centerpiece of the Infield Fest ad campaign the past two years? Gone. Got the proverbial pink-slip. You won't see him Saturday for the 138th Preakness Stakes. "He went back to the islands and I haven't seen him since," Maryland Jockey Club president Tom Chuckas joked the other day. Good thing.

Wings stood off to one side. The propeller lay in a carton. But the main part of Carl Kesselring's pet project was clearly recognizable as an airplane in progress. "I don't have fear of getting in an airplane," he said, standing in a hangar in Suburban Airport in Laurel surrounded by tools, parts and the remains of a bird's nest that fell through a hole in the roof. "I have confidence in my ability to make it work properly. " Kesselring's daring hobby is increasingly shared by other enthusiasts as the number of amateur-built airplanes grows every year, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association.

Joan Winchester shot 1-over par on the back nine to separate herself from the rest of the field, and her 38-37--75 won the inaugural Baltimore Women's Amateur championship yesterday at Mount Pleasant Golf Course.Winchester, from Rolling Road Golf Club, included three birdies in her 2-over-par tour of the 5,294-yard course. Earlier this summer, she had won the Women's Metropolitan and Elkridge Seniors titles.Shirley Williams, the Spring Publinx champion, shot 38-38--76 on her home course to take second place.

Connor Hankin's dorm room at Virginia could be a tack room. There are collages of race horses on the walls and riding boots in the closet. On the desk sits a framed picture of Hankin and his BFF, Battle Op, an aging grey gelding on whom he nearly won the grueling Maryland Hunt Cup last year. Clearly, Hankin has a thing for racing. Most mornings, the freshman from Butler rises at 7:15, drives to a farm outside Charlottesville, saddles his ride and gallops over the grassy hills, popping some fences, for nearly an hour.

CHEVY CHASE -- Jeff Thomas made sure this one did not get away -- and did it in record fashion.Thomas, not out of the lead for the first three rounds, but a runner-up last year after a closing 76, had a 1-under-par 69 and a 72-hole total of 276 to win the 89th Middle Atlantic Amateur championship at Columbia Country Club yesterday.Thomas, from South Plainfield, N.J., started the day with a five-stroke lead, and when it was over, the margin was a tournament-record-tying 10 over runner-up Scott Inman, 71286.

NEWPORT, R.I. -- Champions make great plays in pressure situations. For a fifth straight year, Tiger Woods has proved he is a champion.Woods, 19, who had won three U.S. Juniors and one U.S. Amateur in the last four years, pulled off a superb 8-iron shot on the 36th hole yesterday to thwart Buddy Marucci, 2-up, at Newport Country Club, becoming the ninth player to defend successfully his Amateur title.The 140-yard shot into a moderate breeze to the second tier of the elevated green hit 18 feet past the cup, then spun back down the hill.

The Western Maryland championship and the Farmington Invitation, a pair of long-running tournaments, will provide the highlight for area men and women amateurs this week.The 28th Western Maryland Amateur, a 54-hole stroke event to be held Friday through Sunday at Oakland Country Club, annually attracts some of the top players from the Baltimore-Washington and Tri-State regions. Past winners include current PGA Tour member Donnie Hammond and former Maryland State Amateur champion Kirk Lombardi.

Mike Benner of Patuxent Greens Golf Club in Laurel shot 1-under-par 71 and earned the medal by two strokes in on-site qualifying for the Maryland State Amateur at Hillendale Country Club yesterday.For most of the day, Bryan Koslowski of the Naval Academy GC was alone in second, but J. R. Shasteen of Montgomery Village G&CC, playing in the final twosome, registered a 73.With 123 players after 32 places in today's draw, there was an 18-for-two playoff at 78. It was the largest playoff in tournament history and would have been larger but for the failure of two of the 78's to appear for the overtime.

The 1990 United States Tennis Association National Amateur Indoor Championships will be held at the Greenspring Racquet Club in Lutherville Dec. 28 through Jan. 1 and will feature the best amateur and collegiate players in the country.Men's and women's singles qualifying competition will be held at Greenspring next Saturday and Sunday. Four finalists, two men and two women, will advance to the main draw of the tournament. Entries for the qualifier must be submitted by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Kevin Allis surged into the lead of the Middle Atlantic Golf Association's Men's Amateur championship with a 1-over-par 71 and a 54-hole total of 217 at Baltimore Country Club yesterday. The final round will be played today. Allis, the 1984 Maryland State Amateur champion, started the day three strokes off the pace. Greg Rodgers, a St. Paul's School senior from Phoenix, rode a 69, the day's best round, into second place at 218. The round by Baltimorean Allis, 41, runner-up in the City Amateur and fifth in the Maryland State Mid-Am this summer, included birdies at the 10th and 17th holes and three bogeys.

- The volunteers of the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas project leave no log unrolled, no stone unturned in their quest to document the state's dirt dwellers. When the earth is moist after a soaking rain and the temperatures whisper spring, the herp patrol - short for herpetology - spreads out in search of slithering, hopping, plodding critters along the fringes of farm fields, sunning themselves on pond rocks and making new burrows at the edges of vernal pools. These amateur census takers aren't picky.

When Stacey Barich turned the modest dining room of her Parkville home into a tiki bar inspired by the 1930s, it became a project of passion for the 40-year-old photographer. Pairing her love of vintage culture with a growing obsession with authenticity, Barich quickly found herself on eBay, searching and bidding for additions to the new favorite room in her house. The research and collecting quickly led Barich to the world of handcrafted cocktails. "Once that happens, you're picking up old vintage books on how to make things," Barich said.

The Orioles are looking to further bolster their amateur scouting department by adding a second national crosschecker, and they are focusing on a candidate that has strong ties to the organization and executive vice president Dan Duquette. The Orioles have asked for and been granted permission to interview Matt Haas, the Eastern U.S. crosschecker for the Miami Marlins. Teams typically permit their staff to interview with other clubs only if it signifies a promotion, which this would.

Et cetera Kraus loses in U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur quarterfinals Meghan Stasi of Oakland Park, Fla., was never behind, but it took a birdie on the 17th hole to finally subdue a stubborn Andrea Kraus of Pikesville, 2 and 1, in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur championship at Briggs Ranch Golf Club in San Antonio. The match marked the first time Kraus, 52, a member of Hayfields CC, had been behind past the eighth hole all week, but she used two back-nine birdies to stay in contention.

The life of a triathlete is decidely different for amateurs and pros. For Ben Bartlett, a 25-year-old former high school runner who turned to triathlons while in college at William and Mary, the goal is to get his pro card. After financial issues led to Bartlett selling his racing bike and marital problems led him to quit training altogether, Bartlett hopes to attain his card in next spring's Columbia Triathlon. For Suzy Serpico, a 32-year-old elementary school gym teacher who ran in college at Salisbury, the goal was reached at last year's Columbia Triathlon.

Et cetera Hutsell tied for lead at MAPGA Pro tourney David Hutsell , PGA director of instruction at The Elkridge Club, and Chip Sullivan of Troutville, Va., are tied for the lead at 6-under-par 137 in the Middle Atlantic PGA Professional Championship at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va. Wayne DeFrancesco of Columbia is at 4-under. The field of 162 slims down to 70 for today's final round on the River course. The top 11 players and three exempt players - including Hutsell and DeFrancesco - will advance to play in the PGA Professional National Championship in June at Sunriver (Ore.)

The best young amateur fighters from a half-dozen associations in the region will congregate at the Naval Station in Annapolis (Route 648) this weekend for the East Coast Olympic Style Boxing Championships.Beginning with the quarterfinals Friday at 8 p.m. and continuing through the semifinals Saturday at 8 p.m. and the finals Sunday at 2 p.m., competition will be held in a dozen weight divisions. The winners move on to the U.S. Amateur Championships in Colorado Springs, Feb. 25 to March 2.Tickets for the South Atlantic Boxing Federation-sponsored event are priced at $4 (session)

Shane Patterson and Paul Haviland, the two youngest players ever to win the Maryland State Amateur Golf Championship, offer an interesting contrast.Outside the fact that both Patterson and Haviland were 20 years old at the time of their triumphs, there is little else to share in their roads to victory.Patterson, who won the title earlier this week while turning back Steve Thomas 3-2 in a 36-hole final at Bethesda Country Club, entered the event following two years as a member of the Louisiana State University golf team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation.

Henry Pendleton has been racing motocross bikes for the majority of his life, and considering that he is only 11 years old, that's saying something. The Annapolis resident will be at the Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., on Sunday competing in the 31st Annual Red Bull AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship - the biggest and most well-known amateur motocross race in the world. But the only reason Henry will be in Tennessee on Sunday - the only reason he races motocross - is that he was bored on vacation and needed something to do. The Pendletons were in Denmark, and 5-year-old Henry was riding down the road in his father's car. Pete Pendleton was looking for sources of entertainment for his young son, but he wasn't the one who spotted the miniature four-wheelers for sale on the side of the road.

Horse racing Sham trainer 'Pancho' Martin dead at 86 Hall of Famer Frank "Pancho" Martin , the trainer of Sham, who finished second to Secretariat in the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, died Wednesday night at his home in Garden City, N.Y., after a brief illness. He was 86. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, the Cuban-born Martin saddled 3,240 winners worth more than $47.5 million, including champions Autobiography, who won the Eclipse Award as the nation's top older horse in 1972; Outstandingly, 1984's top 2-year-old filly; and Sham, who won the 1973 Santa Anita Derby.