Corner

A 10-minute downpour came at the start of the second half last night in Millersville. Then came the goals.But it was persistent lightning over the area shortly thereafter that had the final say as Old Mill and visiting Glen Burnie settled on a 2-2 draw after play was halted with 12 minutes left in regulation.Just prior to the stoppage, the No. 14-ranked Gophers (0-0-1) got the tying goal when senior Sal Montavago sent a rocket from 45 yards out that quickly found the top right corner.Both teams came into the early season with the question of who would do the scoring.

IMAGINE the bedlam inside a factory where 64 percent of the products topple off the assembly line, where 89 percent of what remains is labeled "substandard."Walk the length of that line and you will find every response that might be found at a disaster site. Over there, front-line administrators and employees struggle valiantly to stay the course, while at other stations, teams stand around in frustrated disarray, and at a rare station, individuals are inexplicably compounding the problem.

Standing on one of Baltimore's most infamous street corners yesterday, City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III held up a broom and pledged to sweep open-air drug markets out of the city.The mayoral candidate unveiled his plan to implement the zero-tolerance policing strategy in Baltimore that has aided other cities. The crime-fighting effort would be complemented by treatment on demand for the city's estimated 59,000 drug addicts, Bell said."This broom is going to be our symbol from here on out," Bell said.

LAS VEGAS -- Trying to understand what makes Mike Tyson tick can be a ride on a runaway carousel.The former heavyweight champion inspires awe, shock, fear and loathing. As boxing's albatross, he is treated like a freak-show exhibit, with his mounting problems only adding to the public's fascination.Tyson's bizarre ear-chomping affair with Evander Holyfield in fall 1997 prompted the Hollywood Wax Museum in Los Angeles to move his likeness from the Sports Hall of Fame wing to the House of Horrors, alongside the cannibal Hannibal Lechter from "Silence of the Lambs."

Y ESTERDAY'S street ball heroes: Look at 'em all, down there at Robinson and Pratt streets in East Baltimore, in the very shadows of Highlandtown Middle School in their T-shirts and sneakers, with middle age just around the corner but youth still fresh inside their heads.Half of them have moved out to suburbia now, the way people sometimes do. But they make their way back here, once a year for the last 10 years, back to the old neighborhood, and the old corner, in a kind of pilgrimage to the past, to play the game that carried them through summers of old.Curb ball: one of the old city games, squeezed into any available open space, squeezed between houses, squeezed onto narrow streets, squeezed between cars driving through.

A glimpse over the television director's shoulder shows the next transformation involving the corner of West Fayette and Monroe. Two video screens, each the size of a compact disc box, display views from two cameras capturing a scene distilled from a book detailing a year in a West Baltimore neighborhood overrun by illegal drugs.Actors are portraying the sadness of a real father and the alienation of a real teen-age son. In take after take the boy turns away from his father's soft-spoken plea to stay in school, stepping off the curb outside the corner bar, turning his back on his old man, dropping his dreadlocked head and walking out of the picture.

British playwright David Hare is one of the hottest writers on Broadway this season. Last month's opening of "The Blue Room" made national news (with a power assist from a brief nude scene by Nicole Kidman). In early March, the playwright will star in his autobiographical one-man show, "Via Dolorosa," and after that comes "Amy's View," starring Judi Dench.Actually, Hare's plays have become somewhat of an annual fixture on Broadway. His 1996 Broadway entry, "Skylight," makes its local debut tomorrow at Fell's Point Corner Theatre.

Martin O'Malley's huge victory is a measure of how tired, how angry, how fed up Baltimoreans have become with drugs and killings -- the cancerous stuff at the city's core. Black and white, we voted for someone with energy and drive, and we seem to believe that energy and drive should be focused, for starters, on eradicating the violent drug commerce that brought Baltimore national notoriety.O'Malley grabbed this issue right out of the gate.Last night, an hour before the polls closed on one of the most stunning mayoral elections in the history of Baltimore, I stopped for the traffic light at the corner of Harford Road and the Alameda.

Mount Hebron's field hockey team has out-cornered nearly every opponent this season, but the No. 15 Vikings usually had to find some other way to win -- until the playoffs.Yesterday, Katie Jeschke scored the game-winner on a penalty corner as the Vikings edged Hereford, 2-1, in a state Class 2A semifinal at Goucher College. The senior nailed a drive past lunging Bulls goalie Christina Restivo into the right corner of the cage.The goal broke a 1-1 tie and sent the Vikings (11-5-2) to the state final for the second time in three years.

THE INTERSECTION of Monroe and Fayette streets is not just any busy crossroads. It is known around the world as a 24-hour, open-air drug market, thanks to "The Corner," the 1997 book by David Simon and Edward Burns that described a year of hopelessness and addiction in West Baltimore.One would think all that publicity would have mobilized the Police Department and other city agencies to eradicate the drug market. Think again. Dealers and zombie-like addicts are as numerous as ever at that corner.

Two-time defending champion and No. 1-ranked Garrison Forest dominated play from the beginning of the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship game to the end of the first overtime Sunday. But it wasn't enough to beat No. 6 Bryn Mawr, which used two corner opportunities to upset the Grizzlies, 2-1, in double overtime. "We hadn't been able to beat Garrison since the 2006 championship game," said Bryn Mawr senior Evie Freeman, who tapped the ball over the stick of Garrison goalkeeper Emily Cain for the game-winner.

The mourners tried to set seven white candles on the dried blood that had spilled on Kenwood Avenue. Some fell down before they could be lit; the flames quickly blew out on the others, snuffed out in the stiff breeze much like the young life they had gathered to remember. Jerrod Reed, all of 16, just back from a trip to Miami, was hit in the head by a bullet while standing on an East Baltimore street corner, Kenwood and Madison, a few blocks from where he had lived with his older sister, grandmother and an assortment of other relatives.

The corner of East Baltimore's Milton Avenue and Biddle Street has two liquor stores, a convenience store, a church, blowing trash, a police surveillance camera, kids peddling drugs and idle men worn from age and disability catching up with old friends and old times. Today, it is to have turkeys. Six of them, to be exact. And four hams. And plenty of other food set up on donated tables in front of one of those nondescript corner shops that sells malt liquor in 40-ounce to-go cans and seems to proliferate in impoverished neighborhoods, as common as boarded-up rowhouses and vacant lots.

When the Ravens report for mandatory minicamp today, they'll try to take another step in moving past last year's dismal season. Their latest veteran addition, cornerback Fabian Washington, is on a similar path. Washington, who was traded from the Oakland Raiders on April 27, is coming off the worst year of his NFL career. He was abruptly benched for poor tackling early last season before getting arrested on a domestic battery charge after the season. That's why the Ravens only needed to give up a fourth-round pick to acquire the former first-round selection.

Eddie Brooks sold his colorful array of baseball hats, sweaters, pennants and sunglasses during Orioles FanFest at the corner of Camden and Eutaw streets, an area off-limits to vendors during games the past two years. The event Saturday wasn't an actual contest, so Brooks was able to sell at a spot that will be closed to vendors again come today's Orioles season opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. The event provided Brooks a brief flashback to the good old days. "If you came to a game in 2003 or 2004, everything was set up. All up and down Camden Street, people were selling pizza, there were umpteenths million hat stands.

Ted Kastanakis flips the lid on a compartment of his hot dog cart. It opens with a clang, sending a cloud of steam pouring into the cold winter air. With metal tongs he pulls out a pink frank and nestles it on a bun. The blond woman and young girl standing nearby watch carefully as he squirts a bead of ketchup along the frank and dabs on some mustard. The hot dog is for the girl. "Can you turn the dog a little so the ketchup won't spill over?" the woman asks. "And a lot of napkins, please."

Glenelg's No. 15 field hockey team proved last night that it's not how you start the game, it's how you finish. The Gladiators fell behind in the first few minutes of the state Class 2A semifinal against Winters Mill, but they finished big with two goals in the final four minutes to clinch a 3-1 victory at Broadneck. Kristy Black scored the game-winner with 3:50 left and Amy Thompson added an insurance goal with 26 seconds to go. The scoring finished an intense final 12 minutes for the Gladiators in an otherwise even game.

The turning point in what many are calling the best season of Chris McAlister's career came two months after admittedly his worst. That's when the Ravens cornerback decided to call a timeout on life. Panthers@Ravens Tomorrow, 1 p.m., Ch. 45, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Ravens by 3

Bryn Mawr field hockey coach Jeanette Budzik was a little concerned when her No. 5 Mawrtians took the field against No. 3 Fallston yesterday. Coming off Thursday's emotional win over rival Roland Park, Budzik said she feared the Mawrtians might not have the stamina left to contend with the Cougars. Early on, it appeared she was right, but that changed late in the half. At first, the visiting Cougars dominated play, but Bryn Mawr's defense held and Hilary Wilson provided a late first-half goal to give the Mawrtians a 1-0 victory.

Ahalf-dozen years ago, folks living along tiny rural roads in a section of southern Anne Arundel County got together with county planners to recommend their preference for future development. The country crossroads at Wayson's Corner, little changed in decades and most famous for its bingo hall, had grown a bit shabby. But the South County Small Area Plan urged a sprucing-up that maintained "a sense of place" by providing community services and reusing buildings, such as turning the old tobacco warehouse into an antiques mart.