Claws

On its release in 1961, Enzo Ferrari called the Jaguar E-Type “the most beautiful car ever made.”  Wisely, Jaguar decided that its alphabetic successor, the F-Type, wouldn't be a replacement for its iconic forebear. Rather, this new, low-slung two-seater is a bold statement of what's new, modern, cool and sexy. Driving it is to understand the definition of thrilling. Oh sure, it's also a luxury sports car: There's that tastefully refined, leather-clad interior and posh, toggle-rich cockpit (using only the finest materials and metals, of course)

The Chesapeake Bayhawks had been officially eliminated from playoff contention entering their game against the New York Lizards on Sunday. That didn't stop them from making a late comeback in a 12-11 road win for their fourth win of the Major League Lacrosse season. "Our theme and motto for today was that sometimes playing for nothing means everything," Chesapeake coach Dave Cottle said. "Even if we didn't have a chance at the playoffs, we could still play for pride and for each other.

TC Listen up football fanatics.There's a new game in town called Pro-Box Indoor Football, featuring the Baltimore Claws who will play five games during the next three months at Du Burns Arena on Boston Street in southeast Baltimore.The season opens tonight at 7:30 when the Claws play host to the New England Crusaders.If the Claws and the six-team Atlantic Coast Professional Football League find that fans are receptive to this brand of football that includes a penalty box and man-down situations after 15-yard penalties, Claws owner and general manager Jerry Fair said yesterday that the league would return bigger and better in February with 10 teams.

On its release in 1961, Enzo Ferrari called the Jaguar E-Type “the most beautiful car ever made.”  Wisely, Jaguar decided that its alphabetic successor, the F-Type, wouldn't be a replacement for its iconic forebear. Rather, this new, low-slung two-seater is a bold statement of what's new, modern, cool and sexy. Driving it is to understand the definition of thrilling. Oh sure, it's also a luxury sports car: There's that tastefully refined, leather-clad interior and posh, toggle-rich cockpit (using only the finest materials and metals, of course)

In case anybody has been looking all week for a score on last Saturday night's Baltimore Claws game with the New England )) Crusaders in pro-box indoor football at Du Burns Arena, forget it.There was no score because there was no game in what was supposed to be the debut of a six-team Atlantic Coast Professional Football League.The Crusaders never made it to Baltimore after one of the two vans carrying the 24-man squad broke down near Marion, Pa., forcing an embarrassed Claws general manager Jerry Fair to call off the game and refund the $7 per ticket the fans had paid.

Buying crabs is a fairly straightforward proposition - if you know what you want. Below are a few tips about what to expect and what to look for when buying crabs: • Specify gender: Crab gender is easy to distinguish: male crabs (or "jimmies") have a narrow, T-shaped "apron" on the back of their shell, while female crabs ("sooks") have a wide apron. In addition, live females have red-tipped claws, while male claws are blue. While both can be eaten, limits have been set this year on the number of females crabbers can catch.

Soft-shell crabs are Rick Baxter's livelihood. His family-owned company, Baxter Soft-shell Crabs, on the Eastern Shore, supplies the seasonal delicacy to restaurants in Maryland, Washington and Virginia. It follows that soft-shell crabs would be a family staple. But even in the Baxter home, soft-shell crabs were an acquired taste. "What my wife did the first time to get our kids to eat them, she cut them up in small pieces, dipped them in tempura mix. She fried them and put a plateful on the table," says Baxter, whose children are 10, 11 and 13. "In 10 minutes, they were dipping them in ketchup and eating them like french fries," he says.

What: The Baltimore Claws Pro-Box Indoor Football team in the newly formed five-team Atlantic Coast Professional Football LeagueWhen and where: Claws will play five games this summer at Du Burns Arena on Boston Street. Claws are playing all home games because other teams had trouble getting arenas. Tonight is the first game, with the New England Crusaders providing the opposition.Rules of game: Pro-Box Football has nothing to do with Arena Football. It is a cross between indoor soccer, box lacrosse (indoor lacrosse)

Bad Press: The Worst Critical Reviews Ever, edited by Laura Ward (Barrons, 256 pages, $14.95). One of the great natural unfairnesses of life is that unkind reviews of books, plays, music -- whatever -- and especially vicious ones live on in memory and anthologies while favorable ones die young. Here, Ms. Wood, an irrepressible enthusiast for aesthetic savagery, has compiled a magnificent compendium of dismissals. Among my favorites: "The triumph of sugar over diabetes" -- George Jean Nathan on the writing of J.M. Barrie.

Here we are again at 500 HarborView Drive, now J. Leonard's Waterside, formerly Pier 500.I was here as a reviewer only two years ago; but now the place has a new name, a new owner (a partnership led by J. Leonard Schleider, owner of Cameo Caterers) and a new upscale American menu. There's even a new motto: "Fine Dining in a Casual Way." That means you can stop in after the ballgame for tournedos Atlantis with Madeira demi-glace.I'm not unhappy about being here again, because this is a wonderful setting for a restaurant.

A Virginia rock climber was arrested on Jan. 8 after police accused him of killing a friend by striking him in the head with a claw hammer at a Maryland park in late December. David DiPaolo, 31, of Bristow, Va. faces a manslaughter charge in connection with the death of Geoffrey Farrar, 69, of Arlington, Va. U.S. Park Police said Farrar was found suffering major head trauma at around 2 p.m. Dec. 28 near a Potomac River tributary at the base of a rock face at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park in Bethesda.

Buying crabs is a fairly straightforward proposition - if you know what you want. Below are a few tips about what to expect and what to look for when buying crabs: • Specify gender: Crab gender is easy to distinguish: male crabs (or "jimmies") have a narrow, T-shaped "apron" on the back of their shell, while female crabs ("sooks") have a wide apron. In addition, live females have red-tipped claws, while male claws are blue. While both can be eaten, limits have been set this year on the number of females crabbers can catch.

My cat keeps going after the couch with her claws. We keep them clipped and try to redirect her attention to her scratching post, to no avail. Is there any way to keep her from destroying it? It's very frustrating when cats scratch our things, but it's a necessary behavior that relieves stress and may even prevent arthritis. Let's combine your great start of trimmed nails and an appropriate outlet with a few ideas to make your couch less tempting. Even if you cat's discipline strays, remember not to punish or yell.

A local charity will benefit from the beer-making skills of Vincent and Suzanne Powers, winners of the second annual H.E.R.O Homebrew contest run by the DuClaw Brewing Company. The Nottingham residents won the contest with their Chocolate Chipotle Stout, beating 54 other home-brewed offerings. The beer will be made by DuClaw and sold in the chain's brewpubs and at retail locations. Proceeds will go to a charity that will be chosen at the end of June or the beginning of July. "We're open to suggestions," said Dave Benfield, CEO of the Maryland craft brewing company, founded in 1996.

DuClaw Brewing Company is still negotiating to purchase a 167,000-square-foot warehouse in Harford County for a future brewery, the company's president and the site's broker said Tuesday, a project that could make the brewer a major player in the regional craft beer market. Though an original deal fell through, Dave Benfield, the craft brewer's president, is bullish on the project, contrary to an early published report in a local trade. "I'm extremely confident we'll be producing beer starting in 2013 out of the new facility," he said.

The Bel Air Bobcats, having taken just one Chesapeake (upper) Division contest prior to Monday's home tilt with Bo Manor, scored 10 times in the final three innings to hand the visiting Eagles an 11-9 loss. Bel Air moved to 6-7 overall on the year and 2-7 in upper division play. Trailing 4-1 after the top half of the fourth, the hosts exploded for six runs in the home half of the inning to take a 7-4 advantage. Bo Manor answered in the fifth with five runs, but the Bobcats had more in the tank, plating four in the bottom of the sixth to grab the two-run lead that carried them through the end of the contest.

Here we are again at 500 HarborView Drive, now J. Leonard's Waterside, formerly Pier 500.I was here as a reviewer only two years ago; but now the place has a new name, a new owner (a partnership led by J. Leonard Schleider, owner of Cameo Caterers) and a new upscale American menu. There's even a new motto: "Fine Dining in a Casual Way." That means you can stop in after the ballgame for tournedos Atlantis with Madeira demi-glace.I'm not unhappy about being here again, because this is a wonderful setting for a restaurant.

SHE HOLDS on to my neck as though I were a tree rooted at the edge of a cliff, the very edge of the world, beyond which lies the shadowy realm of things that go bump in the nightmares of children. Four years old, she has been through enough to feed the night-time beasts of old men. The Howard County shelter where I work and she lives with her grandmother offers warmth and food and a place to play. She goes to a good day-care center, where she has begun to exercise the intelligence hidden behind her stammer.

Sophomore forward Luke Apfeld came off the bench to score a career-high 24 points in only 22 minutes as Vermont (6-7) took an early lead and didn't look back in a 65-49 nonconference win over Towson on Friday night at Towson Center. The loss dropped Towson to 0-12 and was the Tigers' 31st in a row. The record for consecutive losses by a Division I team is 34, by Sacramento State. The overall record is 51 straight by New Jersey Institute of Technology as it transitioned from Division II to Division I. Apfeld made all 11 of his shots from the field, including his only 3-point field goal attempt.

Remember the Maryland crab cake? It no longer exists. It has been replaced, in the hearts and appetites of Baltimore restaurant diners, by a thing called the jumbo lump crab cake. Tastes change. The crab cake once was a humble second-day meal, composed of the gleanings of a crab feast - flavorful claw meat and, if you were lucky, unbroken pieces of backfin. The restaurant crab cake of today, almost without exception, is made with jumbo lump, a packing category that didn't even exist a few generations ago. And there's another major difference: In the old days, the crab cake served in Baltimore restaurants was made from Maryland crab meat.