Comeback

Last week we learned that adult children of divorce will almost always revert to childish behaviors. Case in point, Briana, the daughter previously known as The Most Reasonable Person in Orange County, dissolved into a impertinent, recalcitrant, petulant brat upon meeting her mother's boyfriend. This week Briana grows up and fights like a big girl … but we'll get there soon enough. Elsewhere in the O.C., there are tiaras to be worn and bling to be bought as Alexis goes all out for her little princesses, and Slade decides to declare Gretchen his queen.

News Roundup •••• Adam Sessler, host of G4TV's gaming flagship “X-Play,” has left the network and the long-running show. Sessler was a fixture on the network's previous incarnations, ZDTV and TechTV, having co-hosted “X-Play” with Morgan Webb for nearly a decade. [ Kotaku ] •••• A new study has found that playing “Tetris” can ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It can also get you kicked out of math class if you play it too conspicuously on your TI-86 calculator.

John-John Williams IV has a story in Wednesday's Taste section about the revival of the formal afternoon tea tradition. Afternoon tea is not to be confused with high tea. Afternoon tea has various applications in England, depending on class. But let's say that there is the domestic version, performed in households, and the institutional version, performed in fancy hotels. That version let's call formal afternoon tea. It's that version that's the focus of Williams' story . The tradition comes and goes in Baltimore.

UMBC's thrilling 17-16 overtime decision over America East rival Albany last Saturday - which included a five-goal run in a span of 2 minutes, 18 seconds in the fourth quarter - put the Retrievers squarely in the mix for the top seed and homefield advantage in the conference tournament. While that victory was reminiscent of the program's nine-goal rally in a 14-13 win against the Great Danes in the America East Tournament final in 2008, coach Don Zimmerman said he would prefer if the team didn't dig itself such a big hole.

Joe Flacco showed he could rebound Sunday, passing for three touchdowns just a week after throwing four interceptions. But the Ravens quarterback progressed in another area as well — delivering a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter. Coming through in pressure situations is often how quarterbacks are ultimately defined. In Sunday's 24-17 win over the Cleveland Browns, Flacco put together his fifth game-winning, fourth-quarter drive of his 40-game career. In comparison, Kyle Boller had six of them in his 53-game career.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Former All-Star center Alonzo Mourning will attempt a comeback next season after being forced to retire from the NBA earlier this season because of a kidney transplant, a member of the New Jersey Nets' organization said last night. Mourning played in only 12 games after signing a four-year, $22 million free-agent contract. He appeared in his final game Nov. 22 and underwent a transplant on Dec. 19. He returned to the bench occasionally late in the season and joined the team on the road for the first time in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Jim Palmer's latest comeback attempt apparently isn't a comeback at all. Palmer said yesterday that "there is no truth" to a report in Tuesday's Denver Post that he seriously is considering resuming his major-league baseball career.But then he repeated many of the things he told the Post reporter."I just told him I was going to throw. You never know. I may play in the Senior [Professional Baseball]League. Why? Because it's something to do."Palmer, 45, hasn't pitched in a major-league game since May 1984, when the Baltimore Orioles released him. But he often has spoken of trying to resurrect his 19-year career.

STANDING FIRM. By Dan Quayle. HarperCollins. 387 pages. $25.NOW that Richard Nixon's rehabilitation is over -- having collapsed of its own inflated weight once a self-aggrandizing Henry Kissinger jumped on the bandwagon -- the time is right for Dan Quayle's comeback. For Democrats no less than stand-up comics, this is heartening news.The cue for Mr. Quayle's re-emergence is his book, "Standing Firm," a surprisingly readable mixture of bitchiness, blame-deflecting and braggadocio in which it turns out that everyone except George Bush and Dan Quayle is responsible for everything that went wrong in their administration and re-election campaign.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The "other" comeback is coming along quite nicely, even if left-hander Mike Flanagan isn't getting quite the same kind of attention that routinely has been paid to past and present teammate Jim Palmer.Flanagan made an impressive 1991 exhibition debut yesterday, bucking a stiff wind to pitch three scoreless innings in the Baltimore Orioles' 6-3 victory in 10 innings over the New York Yankees at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, but he wasn't ready to proclaim his comeback a success quite yet."

PHOENIX -- When Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace continue their battle for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, Neil Bonnett will be a member of the TNN team describing the action.Next season, Bonnett intends to be on the other end of the cameras in at least six races.The Charlotte Observer learned yesterday that Bonnett is planning a comeback, running a limited schedule of major events including the season-opening Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the inaugural Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

His throwing arm wrapped in a huge bag of ice, he and his Orioles teammates taken through a roller coaster of a night, catcher Matt Wieters put it perfectly. “This year nothing's really come easy so far,” he said. On a night when the Orioles nearly gift-wrapped a win to the White Sox on a chilly Chicago night at U.S. Cellular Field, frustration and elation merged within a matter of innings. The Orioles went into the eighth inning down three runs, unable to give starter Jake Arrieta the run support he deserved while committing three errors in the field.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter said he kept Nolan Reimold out of the starting lineup for Monday's series opener against the White Sox partially as a precaution because the Orioles leftfield had been dealing with a nagging leg cramp. That seemed to be news to Reimold when the starting lineup was posted before Monday's game. But for the third time in this young season, Reimold managed to play a key role in the late innings -- this time in the Orioles' 10-4, 10-inning win. After coming in to Monday's game as a pinch hitter for Endy Chavez in the seventh, Reimold hit a solo homer to lead off the ninth off Chicago closer Hector Santiago, crushing a 95 mph full-count fastball over the left-field fence.

UMBC had gone more than a month without trailing in the first quarter, but that all changed Saturday night as the Retrievers found themselves in a 5-1 hole en route to a 10-8 loss to America East rival Stony Brook. The four-goal deficit in the first quarter compounded by six turnovers impacted UMBC (4-6 overall and 2-1 in the conference), which hadn't trailed in the first since March 10 against Johns Hopkins. “I think we just came out flat and turned the ball over six times in the first quarter, and that allowed Stony Brook, who I thought was ready to play, an opportunity to build a lead on us,” coach Don Zimmerman said Monday.

TORONTO - From the day early this spring when Orioles manager Buck Showalter decided to place Nolan Reimold in the leadoff spot, he told Reimold he didn't need him to become a different player because of his new place atop the batting order. “I don't want him to start being chop-shop,” Showalter said. “I want him to be Nolan Reimold and get deep into some counts, and when it's time to square up a ball and do something with it, go ahead and do it. Don't change anything.

On Sunday afternoon, the Washington Nationals copied the formula that gave them two victories to start this season — except for the important part. Their offense stalled. Their pitching, in this case seven stellar innings from Jordan Zimmermann, kept them in the game. They staggered the Chicago Cubs in the final innings. They just never completed the comeback. In a 4-3 loss before an announced 31,973 at Wrigley Field, the Nationals nearly shocked the Cubs again after Adam LaRoche drilled a two-out home run in the top of the ninth, an offensive spasm after another punchless beginning.

One year ago, Chad Tracy tried to keep his career alive in Japan, halfway out of baseball and halfway around the world. Saturday afternoon, after another crucial hit keyed another delirious rally that led to another Washington Nationals victory, Tracy became, briefly, the No. 2 Twitter trending topic in the United States. Two games in, the Nationals' season has already reached this level of absurdity? They already believe they can win without offense from innings from one through seven?

The Race of My Life Hermann Maier with Knut Okresek Velo Press/320 pages Recently translated from German and published in the United States, The Race of My Life is the story of Hermann Maier's long, painful comeback from a motorcycle accident that nearly ended his skiing career at its peak in 2001. What is truly illuminating about the Herminator's story is that it's a warts-and-all tale. It's not like Maier always knew he'd make it back. Like any human who has his livelihood suddenly snatched away from him, Maier at times lashed out, threw things in anger and wanted to give up. And then he went back to work with the determination of a champion.

ARE YOU discouraged about the recent poor performance of your stocks? Cheer up. "Despite enduring a stock market that could conjure nightmares for macabre master Edgar Allan Poe," says Black Enterprise magazine, July, "it may well be time for investors to re-enter, retool and reposition themselves in the stock market." The article quotes Larry Folmar, chief investment officer of Folmar Group, a Michigan-based advisory firm: "Technology stocks are poised for a comeback, and at these prices everyone should buy back a significant position.

The Towson men's lacrosse team is beginning to make a habit out of rallying from fourth-quarter deficits. For the second straight game, the Tigers dug themselves out of a hole with four unanswered goals in the final eight minutes to outlast visiting UMBC, 12-11, before an announced 1,362 at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson on Wednesday night. Sophomore midfielder Thomas DeNapoli had a team-high four points on three goals and one assist, senior midfielder Carl Iacona added three goals and junior goalkeeper Andrew Wascavage turned aside a career-best 17 shots to help Towson (7-3)

Towson forged the program's largest fourth-quarter rally when it turned a 9-3 deficit into a 10-9 win in double overtime against Colonial Athletic Association rival Hofstra Saturday night. It was the Tigers' largest comeback in the second half. The previous mark was a four-goal hole in the third quarter to Loyola in 2001 before that squad notched a 19-14 victory. How that victory will impact the program is undetermined, but coach Shawn Nadelen said he was pleased to see his players' willpower.