Base

John Oates doesn't know if he'll be back next year as Baltimore Orioles manager, but he does know that there will be some changes in the club's spring training regimen if he can help it."There will be a lot more time spent on base-running," Oates said. "I've told Cal [Ripken] Sr. that this club could spend one whole week on base-running in spring training. One hour, one day a week doesn't get it."Oates was not being critical of Ripken, who handled the base-running instruction this spring, but he said that there was not enough time to do more than a cursory run-through of various base-running situations.

Maryland environmental officials gave their stamp of approval to Aberdeen Proving Ground yesterday, five years after disclosures of widespread Army violations of hazardous waste standards at the base.The Department of the Environment announced that the research base is in full compliance with a 1988 state consent agreement that expired last month.The agreement required the Army to meet state standards for the storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous material, establish a training program for waste handlers and regularly report on compliance to state environmental officials.

ROME -- The United States intends to close one of its two foreign naval bases that maintain nuclear submarines, a Navy spokesman confirmed yesterday. The 33-year-old base at La Maddalena, off Sardinia, will close because of "military reshuffling," said Cmdr. Mark McDonald. "We're adjusting our forces to meet our current and future security needs," he said. Italy's Defense Ministry announced the base closing this week, after Defense Minister Antonio Martino met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Washington.

Students arrive late for school, their buses randomly checked. Retirees, too, are stopped, on their way to the beauty shop. Joggers can't jog, fishermen can't fish and some worshippers have to carpool to reach the chapels-all because of the security crackdown at Fort Meade. With 30,000 active and retired military personnel living near the base and depending on access to its shops, and with nearly 5,000 children attending school on the base, the post-Sept. 11 entry restrictions for the Anne Arundel County base are reaching far beyond the soldiers stationed there.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Sam Perlozzo had the kind of day that all third base coaches dread, back when he worked for Davey Johnson with the New York Mets. A runner thrown out at home in the first inning. A runner thrown out at home in the second inning.And, yes, a runner thrown out at home in the third inning. After seeing the third man cut down, Perlozzo trotted back into the dugout, expecting Johnson to bark at him, and he figured he might as well be contrite. "Well," Perlozzo said, approaching Johnson directly, "I guess I'll just start holding the runners."

WASHINGTON -- Now that the 1993 military base closing exercise is over, the Pentagon can get on with reshaping the armed forces for the late 1990s and fitting them on a shrinking but still ample list of facilities.Forces are being reorganized and basing is being changed as new strategy evolves for an uncertain period of regional conflicts, terrorism, ethnic violence and peacekeeping operations.In the new scheme, with base closures coming from California to South Carolina, some big installations will inevitably grow bigger as ships, aircraft and personnel are shifted about.

WITH THE ZEAL of a convert, or at least of a guy who has changed jobs, Defense Secretary William Cohen is now the government's chief advocate for closing excess military bases.As a legislator from Maine 21 years ago, he fought so hard to save Loring Air Force Base that he succeeded in killing this phase of Pentagon cost-cutting for more than a decade. Though he says he understands "the anxiety and heartbreak" of his former colleagues caused by base closings, his new position is that the interests of the nation must prevail over those of individual states or localities.

When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, a unique idea was born across the ocean at an Army base in Maryland. With the end of the Cold War, generals and scientists at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County brainstormed: How could the Army forge research and development partnerships with private corporations and universities, and apply cutting-edge technology from the art of war to academia and commerce? Tomorrow and Wednesday, Aberdeen Proving Ground will present a Technology Showcase for nearly 200 research-oriented companies and universities, whose representatives will consider the base's vast resources, from one of the nation's fastest supercomputers to advanced laboratories and testing facilities.

LEXINGTON PARK -- From his office window here, Todd Morgan can see how the Pentagon's periodic shuffling of military bases has changed the face and pace of rural St. Mary's County. The large white-walled complex where Morgan works brims with the offices of defense contractors huddled outside the gates of Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Jets streak overhead as cars and trucks surge by on a highway widened from two lanes to six to accommodate nearly 20,000 civilian and military workers toiling on and around the sprawling base.

WASHINGTON - To thousands of communities, the battle to rescue military bases is a matter of economic life and death. As the Base Realignment and Closure Commission met yesterday for the first time since receiving the Pentagon's list of bases recommended for cutbacks or closing, lobbyists and unpaid activists thronged Capitol Hill in an effort to save bases. The commission is considered unlikely to make major changes. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged commission members yesterday to avoid changing Pentagon recommendations on base closings and adjustments, saying a slight change in one location could affect troops somewhere else.