Departure

Going into the offseason, Chris Davis hoped next year would bring another opportunity to be the Orioles' everyday first baseman - along with a chance at redemption. Despite having his best season at the plate - Davis set career highs in homers (33) and RBIs (85) - some early-season struggles at first led to his move from the position in late May. The Orioles used him as their designated hitter, and experiments in right field and left field worked well. But earlier this month, just after the Orioles non-tendered first baseman Mark Reynolds, Davis received a phone call from Orioles manager Buck Showalter.

Baltimore's 1st Mariner Arena will host the Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball tournament for three years, starting in 2014, officials from the city and league confirmed Wednesday. The city now offers a centralized location for the conference, CAA commissioner Tom Yeager said, and more amenities than long-time host Richmond. "It's closer for many of our fans," Yeager said after a news conference at Visit Baltimore's offices downtown. "And while we hope they're there to watch basketball, we realize that they're focused on having a good weekend.

The University of Maryland's planned departure from the Atlantic Coast Conference has raised questions about the league's long-term survival, a sobering prospect for fans that grew up on games between the Terps and their Tobacco Road rivals. The first notes of panic emerged Monday, after Maryland announced plans to leave for the Big Ten and its far greater television riches in 2014. "I think the ACC is vulnerable right now," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski in taping his show Basketball and Beyond for Sirius XM Radio.

Quint Kessenich equates the move to a college football power leaving the SEC. "I don't see any positive for the lacrosse program," the ESPN analyst says of the University of Maryland's jump to the Big Ten Conference. "You're talking about the potential of severing rivalries with North Carolina, Duke, Virginia. " In leaving the ACC for the Big Ten, Maryland's football and basketball teams will trade one set of big-time opponents for another. But the picture is murkier in lacrosse, perhaps the university's third signature sport.

Nervous, but ready. That's how Troy Hernandez, one of the Blast's two new goalkeepers this season, described the first time he walked on a soccer field as a professional player. He was playing outdoors for the Wilmington Hammerheads in the USL Pro League this summer when the team's starting goalie went down with an injury six minutes into the playoffs. Hernandez, who didn't see any playing time during the regular season, was pressed into action. The 25-year-old native of Canada thought about the hard work he put in during training to be ready for the moment.

Billie Insley sits in a red leatherette chair at Your Shoe Service in Linthicum, smoking a Wave cigarette and facing a stack of stuff packed for moving or disposal: sheets of leather, boxes of fresh heels and soles, some bearing the red-and-black label of the old Cat's Paw Rubber Co. His life's work is nearly done. In a matter of days, they'll take out the last of the heavy stitching, sanding and polishing machines that have been here as long as he has, since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and the Baltimore Orioles were the newest thing in the American League.

The second CEO in Legg Mason's history announced last week he was stepping down, raising the question: What's next for the Baltimore-based money manager? Only the board — or more precisely, activist shareholder and Legg director Nelson Peltz — may know. And for now, Peltz isn't talking, at least publicly. But the abrupt resignation of CEO Mark R. Fetting after fewer than five years at the helm has fueled speculation that Legg is headed for a breakup. Legg has nine major money-management affiliates, some of which would be attractive acquisitions for other asset managers needing to fill out their lineup, analysts said.

The two high-ranking school employees who signed contracts with former Baltimore County Superintendent Joe A. Hairston before he retired have both left the system. The contracts would have paid the employees nearly a half-million dollars if new Superintendent Dallas Dance had fired them when bringing in his own leadership team. Dance had reassigned Donald Peccia, the assistant superintendent of human resources, and Phyllis Reese, the chief communications officer, when he took over on July 1. On Tuesday night, the school board approved Peccia's retirement and Reese's resignation, both effective Aug. 1, as part of personnel moves.

Kyle Hogan's nightmare began in 2004 amid a child custody dispute with his estranged wife, when she took their daughter to her native Philippines and told him they weren't coming back, he said. For the next eight years, Hogan, 43, of Hanover, doggedly sought to reunite with his daughter, seeking help from police and through the Anne Arundel County courts; at one point this year, his wife was charged with abduction, court records show. Just last month, with the assistance of the Maryland State Police and other police agencies, he and his daughter, now 12, settled into a new life together in Anne Arundel County.

More than 2,500 companies depend on Barcoding Inc. when it comes to making sure products arrive and leave on time. But for competitors in this weekend's Junior Olympic Sailing Festival, relying on the Baltimore-based corporation has been a matter of personal safety. Barcoding Inc., created in 1998, is in the business of facilitating the transportation of products through the use of barcodes. The organization provides clients with the barcodes and the technology to scan them. The sailing festival, which ends Sunday in Annapolis, found a way to use Barcoding Inc.'s technology to its advantage.