Base

Deputed Testamony is 32-years-old. His dark brown coat is shaggy, and his biggest excitement is going into his paddock at Bonita Farm for three or four hours of grazing each day. He is a pensioner, an icon. The oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race. But when Billy Boniface looks at the horse in his paddock, he sees the striking colt that was born and trained at the family farm and raced to victory in the 1983 Preakness - the last horse bred or trained in Maryland to do so. "Oh my gosh, I still get goose bumps when I look at him and remember that day," said Boniface, who was 18 then and had just taken over the breeding operation at the farm.

The size of the crowd at Camden Yards on Friday night even surprised Orioles manager Buck Showalter. Some of it could have been attributed to the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. The postgame fireworks promotion probably brought a few out as well. The sudden excitement over the first-place Orioles also had to have some effect. Whatever brought the fans out to Camden Yards for the Orioles series opener against the Kansas City Royals, it filled the ballpark with a rare buzz for late-May.

Sheila Dixon needs to eat some humble pie ("Rawlings-Blake and Dixon trade shots," Aug. 30). It was quite amazing to read her statement that Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is "an egotistic somebody who's very self-centered and very selfish. "  Ms. Dixon needs to know that whenever she points a finger at someone, there are three more pointing at her.   Jeanne Z. Kushner

The hit that turned the tables on the Orioles on Saturday evening was one that reliever Darren O'Day had never seen in his two-decade-long baseball career. It opened the door for a young Kansas City Royals team that needed just that opportunity against an Orioles team it couldn't beat in three previous meetings this season, each decided by two runs or fewer. With the Royals trailing by a run in the seventh inning, first baseman Eric Hosmer's leadoff slow roller off O'Day teetered along the third base line in front of the bag, between O'Day and third baseman Wilson Betemit, who were looming over it waiting for the ball to turn foul.

I agree with the basic premises of Jay Hancock's article in the Dec. 26 edition of The Sun relative to the government's failure to plan ahead ( "This decade, let's focus on the future for a change" . He stresses the "...need to focus government and business alike on the next decade, not the next election or quarter" and indicates a "...need for the right government rules to make it work: property rights, courts, national defense (and)...

The Colorado Rockies on Friday finalized a one-year, $1.3 million contract with infielder Melvin Mora , 38, who spent the past 10 seasons with the Orioles. He will back up young slugger Ian Stewart at third base, a position where he played 809 games for the Orioles. The versatile Mora has played every infield and outfield position in his career. In 2003, he made the American League All-Star team as an outfielder. He won the AL Gold Glove award at third base the following year.

Orioles slugger Mark Reynolds has started the past three games at first base, something some fans called for in the season's first half when the third baseman was throwing balls away like he was a young Kyle Boller. Reynolds is second in the American League with 21 errors, all of them coming at the hot corner, but he has been solid there since the All-Star break. The move to first base was necessitated by the Derrek Lee trade to Pittsburgh and the sore shoulder of Chris Davis, who was acquired at the trade deadline in a different deal.

It certainly wasn't a tough sell when the Orioles asked young third baseman Josh Bell to move across the diamond and start getting some work at first base this spring. "Playing any other position, it doesn't matter," Bell said. "I just want to be in the lineup and hit, so whatever I have to do to make the team, whatever I have to do to contribute, that's what I want to do. " Bell, who hasn't played first base since entering pro ball, has been getting a crash course on the position during workouts from bench and infield coach Willie Randolph , and he started his first game there today in the Orioles' 2-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins.

Former Orioles interim manager Juan Samuel told the Philadelphia media in a conference call Thursday that he "couldn't be any happier, I'm ecstatic" to have signed a deal to coach third base for the Philadelphia Phillies, the team with which he began his big league playing career in 1983. Later, Samuel called it "unfortunate" that he couldn't work out an agreement to return to the Orioles as third base coach on Buck Showalter's 2011 coaching staff, something he was sure 10 days ago was going to happen.

The Orioles had perhaps their worst defensive game of the season in a 7-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, and Matt Wieters ' playing a new position had nothing to do with it. With Mark Reynolds out with a sore left ankle, manager Buck Showalter gave his regular catcher his first big league start at first base. It was an uneventful debut for Wieters, who wasn't hit a ground ball. "I felt comfortable," said Wieters, who accounted for the Orioles' only run with a seventh-inning homer.

Overcooking is what kills asparagus for most people. Memories of gray, limp and pungent spears follow wary eaters like ghosts from a nightmare. But when treated right, asparagus is a versatile and complex vegetable. Its flavor profile can switch from green and grassy to sweet and nutty just depending on how it's cooked. That's why so many chefs love to put this "grande dame of spring" on their menus. Ben Simpkins, the executive chef at Richardson Farms in White Marsh, makes an asparagus "cappuccino," in which a cup half-filled with hot asparagus soup is topped with cold asparagus foam made by shooting the cold soup through a whipped-cream gun. "I love asparagus, and this is my favorite dish," says Simpkins.

Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts will begin an injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday night at Double-A Bowie, which means that he has up to 20 days to work his way back into the major league lineup. That's happy news - considering that he has spent a grueling and frustrating year recovering from the compound effects of a pair of concussions - but the announcement just before game time Tuesday night only amplified all the questions that remain about his future and the impact of his potential return on the first-place Orioles.

As jockey Joe Bravo slid off Teeth of the Dog to talk to trainer Michael Matz after Saturday's Preakness, he was smiling. It might have seemed an odd expression for a jockey whose horse had just finished fifth. But Teeth of the Dog was the highest-finishing Maryland-trained horse in the race - and it had been a glorious race. Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another came from 31/2 lengths back down the stretch to forge ahead of the betting favorite, Bodemeister, by a neck at the finish.

Deputed Testamony is 32-years-old. His dark brown coat is shaggy, and his biggest excitement is going into his paddock at Bonita Farm for three or four hours of grazing each day. He is a pensioner, an icon. The oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race. But when Billy Boniface looks at the horse in his paddock, he sees the striking colt that was born and trained at the family farm and raced to victory in the 1983 Preakness - the last horse bred or trained in Maryland to do so. "Oh my gosh, I still get goose bumps when I look at him and remember that day," said Boniface, who was 18 then and had just taken over the breeding operation at the farm.

Eastpoint Mall, in southeast Baltimore County, is being sold at auction on May 29, the auctioneer announced. Tidewater Auctions LLC will conduct the foreclosure sale at 11 a.m. in front of the Bosley Avenue entrance of the Baltimore County Circuit Court in Towson. The auction is the result of a lender's lawsuit against Thor Equities LLC, the New York-based investment firm that bought the mall in 2006. There is 850,000 square feet of leasable space in the shopping center, situated on a 67-acre parcel between Eastern Avenue and North Point Boulevard.

The first round of the Division I men's lacrosse NCAA tournament is over, and the quarterfinals for next weekend are set. Here is the schedule: Saturday, May 19 (at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis) Maryland (10-5) vs. No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins (12-3), 12 p.m. Denver ((9-6) vs. No. 1 seed Loyola (15-1), 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 20 (at PPL Park in Chester, Pa.) No. 5 seed Virginia (12-3) vs. No. 4 seed Notre Dame (12-2)

Planning and winning the Persian Gulf War were easy compared to a new battle faced by the Bush administration: It wants to close 31 major military installations around the country.The last time this was tried was 1988, when the Reagan Administration attempted to shut or scale back 86 military facilities. After a major battle with Congress, only one, Pease Air Force Base in Newington, N.H., has closed.Military bases provide jobs and economic benefits to the communities in which they are located, but when they have outlived their usefulness, become white elephants.

The main void Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette saw in his team's batting order was its on-base percentage. The lineup had plenty of power last season but not enough men on base to capitalize on that strength in the American League East. And the acquisition of 30-year-old infielder Wilson Betemit fits that mold well. Betemit signed a two-year deal worth roughly $3 million guaranteed with a 2014 vesting option based on performance incentives that could raise the total value to $6 million, according to an industry source.

His day-to-day work has not changed. The routine for Graham Motion is no different now than it was in the early 1990s, when he first became a thoroughbred trainer. "We send them out there, see how they are doing, take what we can from what we see and do it again the next day," Motion said last week. He spoke from the grounds at the Fair Hill Training Center, a bucolic full-service facility nestled near the northeast corner of the state. Motion, who has pointed Kentucky Derby fourth-place finisher Went the Day Well to Saturday's 137th running of the Preakness Stakes, has settled in here as one of the most respected in his field.

When units from Ellicott City's fire Station 8 roll out on a cardiac arrest call, each crew member already knows who will start chest compressions, who will operate the defibrillator and who will provide artificial respiration to get oxygen flowing to the brain and heart. It might sound like an obvious plan. But the advance coordination is part of a new effort by Howard County's first responders to get quicker and more efficient help to those in urgent need. "Believe it or not, this is groundbreaking," said Dr. Kevin G. Seaman, the medical director of the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services.