Boxer

The Maryland Parole Commission, meeting in Baltimore, granted boxer Mike Tyson parole yesterday. As long as Indiana authorities, for whom the heavyweight champion is also serving time, agree, Tyson's release should occur by June 4.In a news release, the parole commission said it based some of the decision on "the expressed intent of the victims" that Tyson "should not have been incarcerated" for attacking two motorists in Gaithersburg last summer.In a 5-1 vote, the parole board decided Tyson will have a two-year supervised release -- he will have to report twice a month to parole officials who could revoke parole and return the boxer to jail.

TOKYO -- In a concrete and neon canyon in Japan's most famous drinking district, the boxer stands ready to become a human punching bag."Please hit me," he calls out to the crowd of gawkers that quickly forms. A one-minute all-you-can-slug session costs $9 for men. Women may vent their aggression for half-price. The boxer wears a mouthpiece and headgear, but he doesn't raise his fists to block the blows. His defense is limited to ducking, at which he excels.Since February, when financial desperation drove him into the streets, Akira Hareruya, a former professional boxer once ranked 17th in Japan, has suffered bloody noses, black eyes and broken ribs.

It is the ordinary events and experiences that have inspired Jack Winder as a writer.His son's snake collection.His observations about golf.Trumpet lessons given to him as a boy during the Depression in Southwest Baltimore.Stories based on such everyday memories are filling up the days -- and the notebooks -- of the avid golfer, former boxer, Navy veteran and retired district manager for the former Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland, now Bell Atlantic."I've always liked to write, and if you're going to write, you have to write about what you know," said Winder, 73, of Westminster.

LOS ANGELES -- To paraphrase Mark Twain, who once said reports of his death were "greatly exaggerated," it may be premature to write Sen. Barbara Boxer's political obituary in her re-election bid against State Treasurer Matt Fong.Just a few weeks ago, the Democratic incumbent trailed her lesser-known Republican challenger, 48 percent to 44 percent, in Mervin Field's California Poll and seemed headed for defeat. But a new survey by the Los Angeles Times has her ahead, 49 percent to 44 percent.

Everyone knows about the Mike Tysons, Evander Holyfields, and gold-medal winners like Oscar De La Hoya who can demand multimillion-dollar ring purses, fill arenas and attract worldwide audiences on pay-per-view.But what about the hundreds of boxers minus Olympic jewelry who scuffle in small fight clubs for purses that barely pay the rent?Take Dana Rucker, the Baltimore super middleweight who passed up a chance to go to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.The converted kick-boxer was all but guaranteed a place on the U.S. boxing team after winning the National Golden Gloves in 1994 and the National Festival tournament a year later.

THERE ARE plenty of reasons to resent Andrew Segal. He's successful, the owner of one of the fastest-growing private commercial real estate companies in the nation.He's getting rich: Segal's Boxer Property rakes in $40 million a year in rents.He is largely self-made, having parlayed, in just six years, a single Dallas office building into a portfolio of more than 60 projects in four states.He's just 31 years old. He is charming and persuasive, too.Segal is also a newlywed, as of yesterday.

LOS ANGELES -- Two contrasting scenes here the other day portray the nature of the fight for California's Senate seat between incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer and her Republican challenger, state treasurer Matt Fong.In bright sunshine, Ms. Boxer stood on the steps of a major hospital trauma center, citing the deadly statistics -- 40,000 fatalities a year from guns, including 5,000 children. Ms. Boxer declared: "My opponent says we don't need any more gun laws. . . . We don't need another senator marching lock step with the gun lobby."

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Republican drive for 60 senators -- a filibuster-proof majority -- might involve this possible carom shot: If Republican Matt Fong, California's treasurer, pulls well ahead of Sen. Barbara Boxer, that might help elect Republican senators in, say, Nevada, South Carolina and Kentucky.Big, populous California has many expensive media markets, so campaigns devour dollars by the bushels. A close California race will siphon Republican dollars from around the country, right up to Election Day. California campaigns can spend $1 million in a few days.

Partway through "The Boxer," amateur fighter Danny-Boy Flynn, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, is engaged in a crucial boxing match in Belfast. Not only has the fight become a political metaphor, but it is also a means by which Danny-Boy might seduce a former girlfriend, who sits in the gallery. During the triumphant bout, while the steam and beery cheers of the audience rise, Danny-Boy shoots her a glance captured in a camera flash.It passes in a nanosecond, but that one look -- fierce, glittering, animal -- is a defining moment in "The Boxer," a fine new film from director and co-writer Jim Sheridan.

Abraham Sobel, a retired master plumber and noted amateur boxer, died in his sleep Wednesday at Overlea Garden Nursing Center. The longtime Pikesville resident was 91.The son of Latvian immigrants, Mr. Sobel was raised above the family's bakery in Baltimore's Little Italy and educated in city schools.As a youth, he would swim from Pratt Street to Federal Hill and back six times without stopping, according to Ray H. Leonard Jr., past president of the Veterans Boxing Association International Ring 101.He said that Mr. Sobel would retrieve watermelons and cantaloupes that fell from Eastern Shore produce boats docked along Pratt Street and boat owners would pay him a nickel or a dime.

Washington - In formally asking for the release of the second half of the $700 billion financial bailout fund yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama is promising Congress that he will do a better job than President George W. Bush in spending the money to help average Americans. "We're going to focus on housing and foreclosures. We're going to focus on small businesses," Obama told reporters yesterday. "We're going to focus on what's required to make sure that credit is flowing to consumers and businesses to create jobs in the United States."

You could say William J. "Billy the Kid" Johnson's style is a knockout. Literally. The Baltimore native is a professional super middle-weight boxer. But that's only one of several hats he wears. Johnson manages the local offices for Velocity Express, which makes deliveries for NeighborCare pharmacies, and he owns B-Quick Bail Bonds. On top of all that, Johnson is one of the top players in the World Poker Tour Amateur Poker League; he's trying for a seat at the World Series of Poker. When we caught up with him, he was practicing in the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore Hotel ballroom during the American Lung Association's Casino Night.

I love fresh peas. And that's what got me out of bed early one Sunday morning. I met a friend at the Baltimore Farmers' Market, and we weaved though the crowd. We both saw people we knew, and one I stopped to talk with was Marvin McDowell, whose wife, Eula, sells many varieties of her bean soup there. Marvin is a boxer turned trainer and founder of the Umar Boxing Program Inc., an inner-city boxing facility. The Maryland Boxing Hall of Famer said he was working with someone who was preparing to fight in a national competition.

As an amateur boxer, safety Tom Zbikowski had more than 70 fights, but none like the one he is about to enter when the Ravens open training camp July 21. The Ravens return two starting safeties, Ed Reed and Dawan Landry, and they really like Jim Leonhard, a fourth-year free agent added during the offseason. The Ravens usually keep four on the roster, and if they had to start the season now, sixth-round draft pick Haruki Nakamura would probably beat out Zbikowski for the final spot. But, because a final decision won't be made for several months, that gives Zbikowski time to prepare.

When this newspaper launched its Web site in 1997, it held a seminar at an off-site location for staffers to learn about the Internet. The Sun's first Web editor asked the class to type any subject that came to mind into the "search engine." How cool, I thought, and typed in the name of my daughter's favorite toy: the American Girl Doll. To my horror, those words summoned a very graphic porn Web site. I did all I could to throw my body to shield the screen from the newsroom secretary sitting beside me in Internet 101. Even a few years later, I recall an editor wondering whether the Internet would ever "amount to anything" after I'd written about some Web development.

64 Frank Sinatra Jr. Singer 63 Rod Stewart Singer 59 George Foreman Boxer 55 Pat Benatar Singer 28 Sarah Shahi Actress

Five-piece folk-rock band Carbon Leaf is best known for its songs "The Boxer" and "Life Less Ordinary." The band's newest album, Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat, came out last year. Tom McCormack is also slated to perform. The band plays at 7:30 tonight at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. N.W., Washington. Tickets are $20. Call 800-955-5566 or go to tickets.com.

It didn't surprise Franchon Crews when she made a bit of a splash on American Idol in 2005. The 19-year-old from West Baltimore has long believed she had the talent for a singing career. "I believe I'm able to touch people and make them cry," Crews said. But she is on the verge of making bigger headlines in another industry, as one of America's top female boxers. "She's in shape and attractive outside of the ring, but in the ring, I'll just say she's not your average girl," said James Berry, Crews' sparring partner for the past two years at Baltimore's UMAR Boxing Club.

Marcus Henry doesn't have to be a boxer - not with the looks of a model and his job as a computer programmer. But the Parkville resident says he's "in it for the love of the sport," which is why he swaps hours of excellent pay for trading blows during the grueling sparring sessions it takes to be an amateur boxer who travels nationwide and abroad while working toward becoming a professional world champion. U.S. vs. Belarus exhibition Tonight, 8, Michael's Eighth Avenue, Glen Burnie

A boxer (Omar Epps, above) helps a female promoter fight her way into the sport in Against the Ropes (8 p.m.-10 p.m., TMC).