Crowd

On paper, Sunday night's WrestleMania looked as if it could be one of the strongest installments in the event's 28-year history. In execution, it was anything but. I personally avoided Twitter and Facebook, so that the thoughts I would be sharing here would be as purely mine as much as possible. The show lacked the feel of WrestleMania; the first hour felt rushed and most of the matches seemed to be missing something. The show wasn't bad by any means, so I don't want people to misread what I am saying, but I expected more.

Dylan Bundy might be the future of the Orioles' rotation, but the future is now for the High-A Frederick Keys, who have pulled out all the stops for the 2011 first-round pick's Carolina League debut Saturday night against the Salem Red Sox. The team opened the gates to Harry Grove Stadium early after a sparsely attended concert by the Milkshakes, a local Grammy-nominated children's group, and with about 45 minutes remaining before the first pitch,...

In the wake of WWE's Over the Limit pay-per-view, a new Intercontinental champion has been crowned, four other champions continue to hold onto their titles and John Laurinaitis remains employed. Sunday night's show delivered an evening of quality entertainment and good in-ring performances. On a non-major PPV event, WWE delivered a product that surpassed the expectations of many. Here's a match-by-match look at the show: Battle Royale This last-minute addition to the card was a means of crowning a No. 1 contender for one of the midcard titles.

Whether it's a wedding on the beach, a White Marlin fishing tournament, muscle car shows or ocean baptisms during the annual Jesus at the Beach festival, Ocean City isn't afraid to mix things up a bit. The resort offers an ample dose of tradition, yet just enough novelty to keep things fresh. Ocean City has officially declared the summer of 2012 the "Summer of Thanks. " As a way for the town to show appreciation to all who have supported the resort throughout the years, look for a bevy of fun, discounts at hot spots, and town-wide promotions for vacationers.

Deputed Testamony is 32-years-old. His dark brown coat is shaggy, and his biggest excitement is going into his paddock at Bonita Farm for three or four hours of grazing each day. He is a pensioner, an icon. The oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race. But when Billy Boniface looks at the horse in his paddock, he sees the striking colt that was born and trained at the family farm and raced to victory in the 1983 Preakness - the last horse bred or trained in Maryland to do so. "Oh my gosh, I still get goose bumps when I look at him and remember that day," said Boniface, who was 18 then and had just taken over the breeding operation at the farm.

What a difference in the crowd from Raw in Miami on April 2 to Raw in D.C. on April 9. It was essentially the difference between a rock star show and an indy act. Yes, Miami's crowd had many WWE diehards who made an entire WrestleMania weekend of it with Raw as their final event (unless they traveled to Orlando for Smackdown). Those crowds are typically the loudest. But the crowd in Washington seemed to buy tickets and be content to sit on their hands. I don't often make comparisons to Corpus Christi, Texas (which I deem the quietest WWE audience in the world)

After a seven-year delay, Randallstown residents cheered Monday over an announcement that a Walmart will open on Liberty Road next year. Officials and residents have long hoped that the store — a planned $9 million, 160,000-square-foot supercenter with groceries and a pharmacy — would revitalize the aging commercial corridor, encouraging other national retailers and restaurants to set up shop in the affluent, largely black community....

Tom opens calling it the "hardest fought season ever. " I'm not sure about that, but I will say that this is one with a lot of strong competitors, few loathsome personalities, and a satisfying final three. It starts with the pro dancers (the "real" pro dancers, not just the troupe) dancing to a song I would probably know if I were 20 years younger, but I'm not and the only 16-year-old in this house is a cat. At the end of the song, we get the pros walking the floor with their celebrity partners.

Mike Smith appeared dazed in the moments after his horse, Bodemeister, was again beaten by Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another - this time by a neck in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . The veteran jockey wore the frozen smile of a man hardly able to fathom what had just transpired. "I swear I don't know how he ran me down, man," Smith said after trainer Bob Baffert approached in the fading sunlight. "You did a good job," the 59-year-old trainer told the 46-year-old jockey, a fellow Hall of Famer and former Preakness winner who recently passed 5,000 career victories.

"It looks like a big, sweaty, sexy mess of people out there," said Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine to the Preakness InfieldFEST crowd. His eyes did not deceive him. The Los Angeles pop-rock group proved to be an excellent choice for the InfieldFEST crowd, with its handsome TV-judge frontman (Levine is on NBC's "The Voice") and earworm pop. Throughout its 80-minute set, Maroon 5 kept reminding the large crowd how surprisingly deep its 10-year catalog runs. There were old favorites ("This Love" and "Sunday Morning")

Whether they live in Baltimore or its suburbs, whether they're here every day, once in a blue moon or never at all, everyone has an opinion, everyone has prejudices, everyone constructs their own reality about the city. For some, it's a dangerous urban "hell hole" with a deserving "Third World profile. " No talk-radio bigot used those cruel and racially charged terms. Two college professors, one from Johns Hopkins and one from Loyola, did - and in a 2008 essay that affirmed in a national publication what television viewers had seen for years in the prime-time entertainment that exploited Baltimore's complex human problems: poverty, ignorance, violent crime, drug addiction.

"It looks like a big, sweaty, sexy mess of people out there," said Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine to the Preakness InfieldFEST crowd. His eyes did not deceive him. The Los Angeles pop-rock group proved to be an excellent choice for the InfieldFEST crowd, with its handsome TV-judge frontman (Levine is on NBC's "The Voice") and earworm pop. Throughout its 80-minute set, Maroon 5 kept reminding the large crowd how surprisingly deep its 10-year catalog runs. There were old favorites ("This Love" and "Sunday Morning")

Midnight Sun contributor Ellie Kahn saw the English dubstep DJ Rusko headline Rams Head Live on Monday night. This was her take: It wasn't until nearly midnight when the Hollywood sign-like letters flashed on in the darkness to spell out Rusko. Before then, Sigma performed covers of Waka Flocka Flame's "Hard in Da Paint ," Big Sean's "Dance," Flux Pavillion's "Bass Cannon " and hundreds of midriff-bearing, neon-wearing, 20-somethings and teenagers with unforgiving black X's on their hands tried to figure out why Rusko was so late.

Giant Food of Landover is using new labels to help shoppers identify gluten-free foods. The blue and green signs will be used to mark nearly 3,000 products sold by the region's largest grocery chain. About three million Americans have to eat a gluten-free diet because of Celiac disease, an immune disorder in which gluten damages the lining of the small intestine. Others have adopted thegluten-free dietfor other personal or dietary reasons. Gluten is a protein found in carbohydrates including wheat, barley and rye. Gluten can also be used as an additive in items such as soy sauce and licori   “    

The crowd inside Pratt Street Ale House on a recent Saturday night was anemic. It was 1 a.m. and a handful of couples idled at the bar and at the sandy brown high-top tables. Some talked among themselves, others watched a hockey game on ESPN. "Don't Stop Believin'" was on. A half hour later, lights came up, and the bartenders started shooing everyone out. The scene looked like something out of a brand-new bar on a Tuesday night, not one that's been open for three years, and a place that's doubled as the home for Oliver Breweries for 19. But the same thing happened two nights earlier, also some time past midnight.

What a difference in the crowd from Raw in Miami on April 2 to Raw in D.C. on April 9. It was essentially the difference between a rock star show and an indy act. Yes, Miami's crowd had many WWE diehards who made an entire WrestleMania weekend of it with Raw as their final event (unless they traveled to Orlando for Smackdown). Those crowds are typically the loudest. But the crowd in Washington seemed to buy tickets and be content to sit on their hands. I don't often make comparisons to Corpus Christi, Texas (which I deem the quietest WWE audience in the world)

NBC Sports says it had 170 employees in Baltimore this week to cover the Preakness, and from the looks of the TV package it presented, all of them earned their keep. NBC's network coverage started at 4:30 p.m., and it hardly ever sagged for more than a minute or two right up until the start of the race some two hours later. And that's no mean feat given that the horse racing world is essentially on hold until the start of the race on the day of a Triple Crown event. What I am saying is that once you show the infield crowd dancing to Maroon 5, overhead shots of the Inner Harbor and Pimlico, ground level shots of the grandstand, women in hats, tables full of crab cakes, Black-eyed Susans all in a row, and the horses in their stalls, what do you do for the other hour and 50 minutes?

Patterson basketball star Aquille Carr is featured in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of this week's issue of Sports Illustrated. The clip in the Jan. 23 issue, out on newsstands now, reads as follows: Aquille, a 5' 7" junior guard at Patterson High, scored 19 points in an 85 - 76 win over Price High (Los Angeles) to earn MVP honors in the feature game of the Brandon Jennings Invitational in Milwaukee. Last season he scored 31.7 points per game in leading the Clippers to their first city championship since 1976 and first regional title, and was named The Sun's All-Metro player of the year and MaxPreps' national sophomore of the year.

Reactions to Robert Lane Greene's post at Johnson  on split infinitives  got me to thinking about the One Way Only crowd.  Specifically, it was a comment by David M. Rowe: Yes, avoiding split infinitives at all cost can be labored and pedantic. Making them the default usage, however, reduces an authors tone to the level of over-hyped consultants' jargon. ("Our model allows you to rapidly, effectively and inexpensively improve your forecasts. " Ugh!