Canadian Football League

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke clashed angrily with City Council President Mary Pat Clarke yesterday when she offered a Monday morning quarterback's view of his deal to entice a professional football team back to Baltimore.In what could foreshadow the mayoral race next year, Mrs. Clarke accused the mayor of practically giving Memorial Stadium to the Canadian Football League without getting any concessions for the city. Mr. Schmoke shrugged off the criticism as cheap "political shots.""Even the most nonprofit of groups -- Head Start programs -- pay $6,000 or $7,000 a year to rent our schools and educate our kids," Mrs. Clarke said during the heated Board of Estimates meeting.

How much importance is attached to Baltimore's entry into the Canadian Football League can be measured via the comments of the commissioner, one Larry Smith, who says the reaction was so overwhelming that representatives from 22 other cities called almost immediately to inquire about the criteria for making application and gaining acceptance.So Baltimore now, in reality, has become an attention-getting billboard for the CFL, a catalyst to its future growth. What happens to the Baltimore (CFL)

From Canada: Thanks, CFLsYour first year of football "Canadian style" must have certainly been a memorable experience for the city and the people of Baltimore.As witnessed by your presence in our fall classic, the Grey Cup, your football team and management have done your city proud. Your presence has added renewed interest, dimension and vitality to the Canadian Football League.I speak as an individual, but I am certain that my thoughts are reflected by many Canadians who are pleased to have the Baltimore [CFLs]

Living the bachelor's life, I tumbled out of bed late a couple of Saturdays ago and walked out into the bitter January air, a sharp beard bristling from my face and breakfast on my mind. Arriving at the Grand Opening of the new Super Fresh on 41st Street, I found myself in a virtual mob wedged next to Mayor Schmoke.His Honor was cutting ribbons, smiling blankly and shaking hands with eager patrons. When he turned toward me, I responded like any good Hampdenite; I bored him. ''Nice to meet you Mr. Mayor,'' I murmured.

Jim Speros finally got a lease yesterday to put a Canadian Football League expansion team in Memorial Stadium. Now the question is, who will pay for renovations that may run as much as $3 million or more?There were no ready answers at City Hall, where Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke signed a five-year lease to bring pro football back to Baltimore, or in Annapolis, where Gov. William Donald Schaefer hedged on state funding.Schaefer said the arrival of a CFL team in Baltimore would have no impact on the city's efforts to lure an NFL team to a sports complex at Camden Yards.

After losing two receivers to injuries last week, the Baltimore Stallions got a lot healthier at that position yesterday, when they signed former Winnipeg standout Gerald Alphin.Alphin, an eight-year Canadian Football League veteran who caught a career-high 18 touchdown passes for the Blue Bombers in 1994, had been a free agent since Sept. 1.That's when Winnipeg decided to release him, rather than pay the remainder of Alphin's 1995 salary. Under the terms of the league's collective bargaining agreement with the CFL Players Association, a team must pay a full season's salary to a player who has at least six years of experience and is with that team after Sept.

The hardest part of Canadian football to take is the season.To avoid the Edmonton winter, they are butting heads in the Baltimore summer.Will players stand for this? More important, will fans?The introduction of the Canadian Football League to Baltimore threatens to break the National Football League monopoly on professional football in this country.That is what is so interesting about the Baltimore CFLs, unless you also happen to like the game.The NFL was given every opportunity not to allow this to happen.

Havre de Grace. -- Common sense rejects as ludicrous the idea that Canada is a second-rate country, but that's not much help to those insecure Canadian intellectuals who are paralyzed to the point of psychosis by an overpowering sense of inferiority.Their condition isn't just a sense of inferiority in general, either. It's a sense of inferiority specifically to the United States, and it's reinforced by a dark suspicion that just about anything coming up from the south -- especially if it's well-received by most Canadians -- is bad.The Toronto Star's recent lamentations concerning the Canadian Football League, printed on this page two weeks ago today, were a wonderful example of northern-style egghead angst about American culture.

Baltimore's exhilarating, death-defying, liver-chilling -- anybody got a few spare adjectives to throw onto the pile? -- victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Sunday to win a Canadian Football League division title is a fabulous gift from the gods of sport, which, unfortunately, not many people around here had particularly requested.It's nice, it's nice, we assure each other, hoping not to appear ungracious while we find out from somebody exactly what it is we've won. A great victory, certainly.

There's going to be something different about the Colts Band. The organization has become synonymous with Baltimore, in good times and bad, with or without a football team, and demonstrates a loyalty to its constituency that approaches fanaticism.The music-making marchers' resilience and devotion as non-paid volunteers have given them a distinction that no other musical organization can begin to challenge, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. They keep performing even with no team to represent.