Clubhouse

Between 1990 and 1992, the Pittsburgh Pirates won three consecutive National League East titles, prompting revival of memories of the Pirates' 1979 World Series championship and their adopted song, "We Are Family." Picked up by such players on the '79 team as Willie Stargell and Dave Parker, the Sister Sledge tune symbolized the mix of nationalities and backgrounds in the Pirates' clubhouse then. But even families bicker, and several arguments among Pittsburgh players of the 1990s centered on - among other things - music.

First, Steve Reed came over and put Elrod Hendricks in a bearhug. Steve Kline did the same moments later. Jay Gibbons was next and then Miguel Tejada walked across the clubhouse to Hendricks' locker and gave the Orioles' longtime bullpen coach a firm pat on the back. Nearly three weeks after suffering a minor stroke, which he admitted had him scared and feeling he "was not going to make it," Hendricks returned to the Orioles' clubhouse and put on the jersey he has worn for 37 years. "It was a good feeling," Hendricks said of being back with the Orioles for the first time since April 14, when he had the stroke while the Orioles were playing against Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg, Fla. "I missed it enough where I don't know what it's going to be like in retirement, but I know that I am not going to like it. I watched the games every night.

The visiting clubhouse at Fenway Park is one of the most uncomfortable places in baseball. It's cramped, it's old - a bandbox with few idle places where you won't be in the way. When you're losing, it can be a place of misery and seem more suffocating. But when you're winning, as the Orioles are? Well, let's see. Right-handed reliever Luis Ayala carried a giant, mulitcolored pinata under his arm coming out of the showers following Friday night's 13-inning win. The same night, reliever Darren O' Day poked into a postgame interview scrum with Mark Reynolds, using a hole puncher as a mock microphone.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- After a night in which they twice rallied before receiving a ninth-inning home run from Cal Ripken, the Orioles arrived at The Ballpark yesterday still stunned by how a potentially uplifting moment against the Texas Rangers could be overwhelmed by another Texas-sized dose of clubhouse intrigue.Worse than the 7-6 loss was how it happened.Former Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro yanked a two-run, two-out double off reliever Arthur Rhodes (1-2) to break a hard-fought 4-4 tie in the seventh inning.

They convene about 10 minutes after the game, forming a circle with their chairs in one of the far corners of the Orioles' clubhouse, where most of the relievers' lockers are located. The tone is light and the conversation is almost always baseball, sometimes a play from the game that just ended; other times a debate on the best approach to getting a certain hitter out. It's not just a gathering of the Orioles' bullpen, however, because everyone in the clubhouse -- aside from reporters who are playfully taunted when they dissect the circle -- is welcome.

William Randolph Hearst would try anything to boost his newspapers' circulation, offering his subscribers racehorses, gold coins, fabricated stories about starving orphans and yellow journalism that ignited the Spanish-American War.But the scheme hatched by his Washington Herald was so outrageous that he fired the publisher responsible for it. The Herald built a utopian, all-white summer colony north of Annapolis, used its front page to sell lots in "Herald...

The one-story clubhouse in Southeast Baltimore has wood floors and framed photographs of members who have died. It feels like a chapter of an Elks Club, the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars. But the members are big beefy men who wear red crosses on their backs. Many are covered in tattoos, and some grow long pointed beards. They belong to the Chosen Sons - a motorcycle club started by city police officers in 1969 that bills itself as the largest in the state. For decades, the Chosen Sons has been an insular group, wary of outsiders and little known except in the East Baltimore neighborhoods where they gather.

Not since the spectacular early morning fire of July 4, 1944, leveled old Oriole Park at 29th Street and Greenmount Avenue had Baltimore experienced a more emotional loss of a historic sporting venue than when the old clubhouse at Pimlico went up in flames in an eight-alarm blaze in 1966. Ever since 1870, when the Maryland Jockey Club returned horse racing to Maryland, the Steamboat Gothic-era members' clubhouse had been host to generations of race-goers who gathered on its broad porches and in its dining rooms, club rooms and parlors to urge on such legends as Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Man o' War, Citation and Sir Barton.

Gates open: 8:30 a.m.Post time: 11 a.m.Admission:General admission: $12Clubhouse: $15Infield: $25Seating capacity:New Grandstand: 6,415Old Grandstand: 5,926Clubhouse: 1,285Sports Palace: 160Standing room: 22,000 estimateInfield capacity: 60,000Terrace box seats: 3,936Total: 99,722Parking:General (Preakness Way and Rogers Ave.): $20 per car, $40 per busClubhouse preferred (Maple and Belvedere Avenue): $30 per car, $135 per busValet: Extra $10 in Clubhouse lotHayward Avenue Preferred: $80 per car, $250 per busParking capacity:General spaces: 2,100Clubhouse preferred spaces: 1,500Valet spaces: 300Hayward preferred spaces: 320Betting windows: 750 (including temporary windows on Preakness Day)

What 129th Preakness Stakes, second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown Where Pimlico Race Course When Today, post time 6:15 p.m. Distance 1 3/16 miles Purse$1 million Gates open 8 a.m. First race 10:30 a.m. Weather forecast: Partly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid-80s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Preakness Day admission: Clubhouse: $18 Grandstand: $15 Infield: $42 Seating capacity: Main grandstand: 5,691 Old grandstand: 5,926 Clubhouse: 1,269 Sports Palace: 160 Dining 1,806 Turfside Terrace: 891 Terrace box seats: 3,936 Standing room (est.