Dante

Rockies: Dante Bichette entered the game 9-for-20 with six RBIs against Kent Mercker, but went 0-for-3 with a strikeout, groundout and double-play ball.Cubs: Mark Grace ended a two-day, 0-for-8 skid in the first inning with his seventh home run. He has hit all seven homers in May, a career high for a single month. His previous high was six in August 1989. The team has homered in 11 straight games and has hit at least one homer in 15 of its last 16.Pub Date: 5/29/98

WASHINGTON -- Maybe Robert Pinsky is a time traveler.Dark, lean, never without a pen, Pinsky moves through the same world as the rest of us. But he often seems to be in deep communication with ancient voices.He dazzled critics a few years ago by merging with the mind of the medieval Italian poet Dante, and putting an exciting translation of the "Inferno" on the best-seller list.And he just as easily chats about his life in cyberspace, his work as poetry editor for the online magazine Slate.

Novels afford many pleasures, but we don't demand the same satisfactions of them all. Here is an early summer menu of fiction, the profound and the effervescent, realistic and post-modern, domestic and foreign:***"Exiles" (Alfred A. Knopf. $25. 384 pages) presents three short novels by Philip Caputo ("Rumors of War"). With intricately fashioned realism, the author journeys to Connecticut, the South Seas and Vietnam with Conradian fervor. In "Standing In," young Dante Panetta, a barber by day and a musician by night, loses his mother.

LINWOOD, N.J. - Night Life was so loved by legions of Atlantic City's barroom faithful that when he was laid to rest nearly 40 years ago, a five-hour procession of mourners filed past his white-satin-lined coffin. There were 20 limousines behind the hearse that carried Night Life to an elaborate granite stone that still marks his grave.Not bad for a dog.And even though they have long gone to their own graves, a legacy has been left behind by the owners of more than 3,800 assorted animals that are buried - some rather opulently - in a hidden glade off Shore Road.

Keith Huggins' former classmates at Liberty High School should not be surprised to find his name among the closing credits of the Hollywood movie "Dante's Peak."After all, they voted Huggins "Most Artistic" during their senior year in 1988.Huggins, 26, works as a digital artist for Digital Domain, a California company that created the computer graphics for "Dante's Peak," which, according to its distributor, Universal Pictures, scored the biggest opening in movie history on Feb 7.The Carroll native was among 100 artists who worked on the movie's post production, using graphics computers to create realistic effects for the fictitious Dante's Peak.

Dante's Peak" is essentially a remake of "Jaws" with the role of the shark played by a mountain.Now, since a mountain doesn't slither through the water under a fin that cuts a wake of ominous bubbles, the poor filmmakers must strain credulity to work up the requisite early thrills.A man falls down a mountain and breaks his leg!Two people are boiled in a Jacuzzi from hell!The hero is corrected in public by a supervisor!Somebody who wants cappuccino gets espresso!Worst of all: The water turns brown!

When Westminster senior Dante Partlow touches the football, good things usually happen for the Owls. It's nothing new for the 5-foot-10, 185-pound tailback.Partlow remembers the first time he carried the ball in organized play. He was 9 when his family moved to Carroll County and a little late signing up to play for the Chiefs of the Westminster Optimists' rec program."I was new to the area and the coach already had the team pretty much set when I came out late. The first time I got the ball, I scored a 60-yard touchdown," he said.

Joseph Gallagher has been reading "The Divine Comedy" for about 25 years now; most Baltimoreans have given Dante less of their time, or none. But book readers know uneasily that they owe him a try sometime, this medieval exiled Florentine who ranks with Homer and Shakespeare.Dante, building his 100-canto "cathedral of words" to heighten interest in the afterlife, assigned himself the role of visitor, over Easter weekend, 1300; and, as his tour guides, selected Virgil (Hell, Purgatory) and Beatrice, an idealized sweetheart (Paradise)

On Thursday, 18-year-old Dante Swain passed the math test that qualified him to earn a long-sought high school equivalency diploma. Friday night, after a call to his mother in East Baltimore, Mr. Swain headed home for the weekend, boarding a commuter train that would crash in Silver Spring."

Baltimore CityArchbishop Curley Friars1994-95 record: 12-16.Coach: Dan PoperaTop players: Mike Palmere, 6-3, Jr., F; Brad Bush, 6-4, Sr., C; Ron Ricccitelli, 5-11, Sr., G; Jamie Cruz, 5-10, Sr., G.Outlook: The Friars improved from two victories in 1993 to 12 last season, but lost all-league performers Ryan Hax and Jason Karolkowski to graduation. Curley will be inexperienced with four sophomores and juniors, but will have more overall depth. Popera believes Palmere and Bush will improve the team's rebounding, and is encouraged by the fact the team played together during the summer.