Dice

Members of Maryland's slots panel, worried that neighboring states are enhancing their casinos, recommended Friday that lawmakers allow table games like blackjack and poker at the five slots locations voters have approved. "It is apparent we are well behind the curve," Commissioner D. Bruce Poole said at a slots commission meeting Friday. "We are running catch-up with other states." The commission's decision came hours after a key vote by Delaware lawmakers to allow dice and card games at their gaming facilities.

Probably no sport is more romanticized than baseball. And what could epitomize that romance more than bloggers who, as a labor of love, write every day about their favorite team, even if that team has had 11 losing seasons in a row? The 2009 season for the Orioles is under way, and there are no fewer than a dozen and a half blogs to help you follow the team. The most-visited are tied to the biggest media, such as Peter Schmuck's The Schmuck Stops Here at baltimoresun.com and Roch Kubatko's School of Roch at masnsports.

How many different ways can Maryland's slots proposal be messed up? Perhaps this was all predictable from the start. Has there ever been a state that has acted so ambivalently over slots? That has had such a long-running, love-hate, passive-aggressive relationship with the darn things? That has flirted with them for years and years but, now that they're finally on our doorstep, can't quite bring itself to seal the deal with a satisfying, yes I said yes I will Yes ending? More like, maybe I said maybe I will Maybe, as it's turned out, even though voters supposedly settled the matter back in November when they amended the Constitution to let 15,000 of the machines into the state.

It's a bit dangerous to peddle in hyperbole, so let's allow Jason Brown to offer up the grand pronouncement. "He could be that guy," the Ravens center said the other day. "He could be that guy who makes people forget about Jonathan Ogden." Before you declare sacrilege against one of your own, catch your breath and let's slowly digest this a bit. Brown is referring to fellow offensive lineman Jared Gaither, the second-year giant who has forced defenders all across the NFL to memorize his name in pretty short time.

At this juncture, I wouldn't want to bet even a subprime mortgage on this presidential election. As perhaps never before, multiple hidden factors could alter the outcome. Judging by polls, it would seem that Sen. Barack Obama will be our next president. But polls only reflect what people say they think, not what they really think. Which is to say, we have both an election and a shadow election in progress. The latter, in which unconscious motivations come into play and buried prejudices surface in the privacy of one's voting space, is the one that counts - and that can't be quantified in advance.

1 Battle at the top: Back and forth atop the American League East go the Red Sox and the Rays. They meet again tonight at 7:10 in St. Petersburg, Fla. 2 Rolling the dice : Replacing the manager as you bear down for a wild-card spot is quite a gamble. See how it's playing out for the Brewers against the Cubs (8 p.m., ESPN). 3 Back to work: After three days off in their sort-of bye week, the Ravens return to practice today. Check Ravens Insider at baltimoresun.com for any news. 4 Local showdown: Towson hosts UMBC in men's soccer at 4 p.m. A suggestion: They should play for something like the Old Oaken Bucket or Paul Bunyan's Axe. The Bushel of Crabs?

America may be very much at war, but in the nation's pop culture trenches, telling stories about Iraq is a losing battle. That truth has become increasingly clear as the same American majority that supported the start of the war in 2003 has come to consistently tune out feature films, TV series, books and nightly news accounts about the conflict today. In July 2005, cable channel FX introduced producer Steven Bochco's Over There, the first TV drama to air concurrently with a war in which it was set. Despite much advance praise, the series about a platoon of Army soldiers fighting in Iraq bombed in the ratings.

Rocco's Real Life Recipes: Fast Flavor for Every Day By Rocco DiSpirito Talk With Your Mouth Full: The Hearty Boys Cookbook By Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh Stewart, Chabori & Chang / $27.50 / 2007 Both Rocco DiSpirito's and Rachael Ray's books leave the impression of having been tossed off to keep the franchise going. Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh are not as well-known, but they seem to have put much more effort into their book. They're celebrities, too, albeit of a different order - they're Chicago caterers who won a Food Network reality show and now have their own show, Party Line With the Hearty Boys.

The Ravens need to gamble and replace Steve McNair as the starting quarterback with Kyle Boller for Sunday's game against the Cincinnati Bengals. No, I haven't lost my mind. And I don't think Boller is the answer, either. But because coach Brian Billick won't fire himself and it's too late to hire another offensive coordinator, there doesn't seem to be any other choice. The Ravens are desperate, and a change is needed. After the humiliating 38-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night, this is a team in need of a spark.