Cfl

Last night's Baltimore-Winnipeg CFL exhibition game at Memorial Stadium went into overtime and did not end in time to be included in this edition. A complete report can be found in later editions.

It's been a lot of years since there's been a professional sports year like this one for fans of the Baltimore teams. It was the year Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, "Star Wars" was first seen by movie theater audiences and Jimmy Carter took the oath of office to become president. It was in 1977 that the Orioles finished the year with a respectable record of 97-64 and in second place in the American League East. The Baltimore Colts finished the NFL regular season with a record of 10-4 and fell in the playoffs.

Baltimore will christen its inaugural season in the Canadian Football League with a Thursday night, July 7 opener against, appropriately, the Toronto Argonauts at SkyDome.CFL commissioner Larry Smith wants to borrow a page from one of baseball's best rivalries -- the Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays -- for the occasion."Larry Smith told me he wants us to open in Toronto," said Jim Speros, owner of Baltimore's CFL expansion team. "He wants to build the rivalry up."Speros is more than happy to oblige.

Emblazoned on Stevie Baggs' left trapezius in cursive letters is a distinctive tattoo: "Shakespeare. " It's safe to say there aren't many NFL linebackers nicknamed after the English poet and playwright. Signed by the Ravens over the weekend to a one-year, $390,000 contract with no signing bonus, the former Canadian Football League standout has proudly worn the sobriquet ever since his college days at Bethune-Cookman. "My fellow linebackers told me, 'Bro, you're making so many plays, I'm just going to call you Shakespeare,'" Baggs said.

* Today is the final day to reserve tickets without paying a deposit. Call (410) 321-1983 and give ticket location preference, or send order to: Baltimore Football CFL Inc., P.O. Box 15440, Baltimore, Md. 21220-0440 (must be postmarked before midnight tonight).* After midnight tonight, all reservations by phone or mail will require a $50 per ticket deposit ($53 for VISA or MasterCard charges). Everyone who has already placed orders must send in deposit of $50 per ticket ($53 for charge orders)

The clock is running on Jim Speros' bid to put a Canadian Football League team in Memorial Stadium next summer. Can the Potomac, Md., native wait for a lease until the Maryland Stadium Authority's 60-day NFL reprieve expires in mid-February?The answer from the CFL yesterday was no."There is no date written down anywhere in the league constitution," said John Tory, chairman of the CFL board of governors. "But the practicalities are such that we can't afford to have it go much beyond the end of January.

What's good and bad about the Canadian Football League as fans await tomorrow's Baltimore-Sacramento game here and, going quickly to the age-old question, will first impressions be lasting or subject to subsequent revision?Good: Speed of the game and its wide-open concept.Bad: That more Americans aren't conversant with it.Good: Opposing linemen are restricted to lining up a yard off the ball, which makes line play more enjoyable instead of seeing two forces colliding in a knot of entangled bodies.

On the occasion of Baltimore's formal entry into the Canadian Football League, they trotted out the glamour boys. There, on a stage with local and foreign dignitaries, were two quarterbacks sitting side by side who had passed for more than 6,000 yards each last season.Between them, Doug Flutie and Dave Archer have torn up a lot of CFL secondaries.Yesterday, before a news conference that introduced Baltimore as the CFL's 11th franchise, they were the CFL's perfect pitchmen. You want action, you've come to the right place.

The CFL team attempting to gain entry to Baltimore not only wants to revive the Colts name, but also wants to tap into the resources of some of old Colts personnel.Ernie Accorsi, the last general manager the Colts had before sneaking off to Indianapolis in March 1984, has been asked to become a consultant to a prospective CFL team in Baltimore. He said he has not accepted the offer."I haven't agreed to anything," Accorsi said from Florida, where he has been vacationing."They asked me to consider helping them in an advisory role, but it's not a position with the team.

Four weeks after his concessions deal with ARA fell apart, CFL Colts owner Jim Speros got a check he could take to the bank."This one is a real check," Speros said yesterday, announcing a five-year contract with Fine Host Corporation at a news conference on the playing field at Memorial Stadium. "It goes to the bank. It has a signature on it."On a day when Speros' CFL bank account got a shot in the arm, even he could joke about the failed deal that left him without a concessionaire. On April 18, he was presented a mock check for $1 million by ARA-Martin's.

The buyout  that Maryland negotiated with former defensive coordinator Todd Bradford is to pay him $300,000, according to a copy of the agreement obtained under a public records request. The document, dated Jan. 12 and obtained today, says Bradford was to get $50,000 on Feb. 3 and will receive $250,000 on July 12. Bradford, hired from Southern Mississippi, was at Maryland for just one season and was replaced by the University of Houston's Brian Stewart. Bradford's contract had two seasons left and had guaranteed him $350,000 per year.

MONDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS NASCAR Truck Series, Ford 200 SPEED12:30 Baseball Arizona Fall League Championship (T) MLB1 M. basket. Maui Invit., Memphis vs. Michigan ESPN23 Maui Invit., Duke vs. Tennessee ESPN25:30 Paradise Jam, Third Place: Teams TBA CSNP6 Gardner-Webb@Indiana BIGTEN6:30 Northwestern State@Cincinnati MASN7 CBE Classic, Missouri vs. Notre Dame ESPN27:30 North Florida@Ohio State BIGTEN8:30 Paradise Jam, Final: Teams TBA CSNP8:30 CBE Classic, California vs. Georgia ESPN29:30 Maui Invit., Chaminade vs. UCLA ESPNU9:30 Maui Invit.l, Georgetown vs. Kansas ESPN2Midnight W. basket.

Former Baltimore Stallion coach Don Matthews, one of the winningest coaches in the history of the Canadian Football League, has been elected to the CFL Hall of Fame, the league announced Friday. Matthews won 231 games and 5 Grey Cups during his 22-year career, as well as five more as an assistant coach. In 1995, he guided the Stallions to the Grey Cup during the league's brief expansion into the United States, which marked the only time a team outside of Canada won the league championship.

Former Baltimore Stallions Tracy Ham and Elfrid Payton were among five men chosen Tuesday for induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Ham, who was the the CFL's Most Outstanding Player in 1989, played quarterback for the Edmonton Eskimos, Toronto Argonauts, Stallions and Montreal Alouettes. The Most Outstanding Player in the 1995 Grey Cup game won by Baltimore, he held at the time of his retirement the record for most rushing yards by a quarterback. Payton, who trails only Grover Covington on the all-time sacks list with 154, won two Grey Cups, including one in Baltimore.

I agree that Michael Vick will play pro football again - it's just that he'll be doing it in Canada with its wide-open style, or in the Arena Football League, where some club might be desperate to sell tickets. This is not to say that Vick doesn't deserve another chance to play in the NFL. That's not for me to judge one way or the other. But there's just too much working against it. For starters, it is difficult to say when exactly Vick will be eligible to play in the league again. His guilty plea in Virginia yesterday on dogfighting-related state charges helps clear the way for an early release from federal prison, perhaps to a halfway house, according to reports.

Mark Frye's full transformation from a football player to a lacrosse player was complete awhile ago, but the Bayhawks midfielder is providing plenty of flashbacks from his days on the football field. There are times when the former Severna Park High running back will weave his way through traffic and scoop up a loose ball. There are the end-to-end rushes, sometimes resulting in Frye singeing the corner of the net with a shot or feeding a teammate for a transition goal. Then, there are the bone-jarring hits that Frye has been known to deliver on occasion.

Jim Speros' dogged pursuit of a Canadian Football League team for Baltimore could finally reach pay dirt today at City Hall.Barring an unlikely last-minute commitment from an NFL team to move here, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke was to sign a lease that allows Mr. Speros' CFL expansion team to play at Memorial Stadium this July.The lease, to cover a period of five years, must be approved by the city's Board of Estimates and the CFL's Board of Governors tomorrow. Mr. Speros, a Virginia businessman and native of Potomac, in Montgomery County, is to formally introduce the franchise in a ceremony Thursday in the Constellation Room of the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore.

Even as Charlie Ward prepares for a basketball future, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers cling to the belief they can persuade the Florida State quarterback to go Canadian.When the 1993 Heisman Trophy winner went undrafted by the NFL in this week's seven-round college lottery, it gave hope to the Blue Bombers, who own Canadian Football League rights to Ward. So far, they're rejecting inquiries about Ward's availability."We're serious, we're not entertaining any offers for him," Cal Murphy, the team's general manager and coach, told the Winnipeg Free Press.

Moves Baseball DODGERS: Placed P Kevin Brown on 15-day DL with posterior medial sprain in right elbow. Recalled P Bryan Corey from Triple-A Las Vegas. WESTERN BASEBALL LEAGUE: Suspended former NL MVP Kevin Mitchell, Sonoma County Crushers manager, for seven games for throwing a punch at opposing team's third-base coach. College VANDERBILT: Announced hiring of Xavier coach Melanie Balcomb as women's basketball coach. Football CFL: Suspended Winnipeg Blue Bombers OL Brandon Dyson for two preseason games and first regular-season games for an incident in last year's Grey Cup game.