Fame Game

Frank Reich, who spent most of his NFL career looking over Jim Kelly's shoulder, now finds himself looking over his own shoulder.Reich, who started just eight games for the Buffalo Bills while backing up Kelly for the past decade, starts a new phase of his career today when the two expansion teams, the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars, make their debuts against each other in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.At the age of 33, the former Maryland quarterback only has to beat out Jack Trudeau, the former Colts and Jets quarterback, to win the Panthers' starting job.But Carolina coach Dom Capers says the job is wide-open.

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- With frustrating losses mounting and rumors swirling that their manager could be fired, maybe the Orioles needed a day of low-stakes baseball. They got one yesterday in the shadow of the game's greatest shrine, beating the Toronto Blue Jays, 13-7, in the annual Hall of Fame Game exhibition. The result didn't matter much, but the Orioles elicited some "oohs" and "ahs" from an enthusiastic sellout crowd of 9,791 that doesn't get to see major leaguers up close every week.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Fox Sports Net have agreed to a 10-year-deal for the cable outlet to carry regular-season men's basketball games in a newly created Sunday night window, beginning with the 2001-02 season. The deal, of which financial terms were not disclosed, gives the network of regional sports channels the rights to 19 games per season. That will include 14 league games from December to March and five non-conference games in November and December. They will likely air in the 7 p.m. time slot.

The sweat is flyin', pads are makin' contact and monosyllabic grunts are in the air. That can only mean that it's time again for another season of that curious American spectacle, football.From now until early February (may the saints preserve us), we'll be treated to hourly updates on this team's quarterback situation or that team's use of the 3-4 defense.Between now and the merciful end of the Stupor Bowl, the weekly pre-game shows and the daily "SportsCenter" will feature some disaffected running back who declares that neither the front office nor the fans truly understands what he's all about, as well as a teed-off defensive back who will tell any microphone that will spread the word that no one respects him because opponents constantly throw to his side.

If you can gather the strength to lift the remote in the midst of the stifling heat, maybe you can click on NBC Sunday night - it's time for football. The network debuts its new Sunday night announcing team of Al Michaels and John Madden in the telecast of the Hall of Fame Game between the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles at 8 p.m. (WBAL/Channel 11 and WRC/Channel 4). Madden, who seemingly has appeared on every network in existence - coming soon, James Lipton interviews Madden on Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio - will appear Sunday as a newly minted Hall of Famer.

The waiting and wondering are over. Monica Seles is returning to competitive tennis, as of tomorrow's ballyhooed exhibition against Martina Navratilova (Ch. 13, 2 p.m.) at the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Center.But CBS analyst Mary Carillo, who will call the match alongside Tim Ryan, cautions against quick assessments of Seles' physical and mental condition from the match."It [the match] is meaningful only in that it will be her first time. I don't think the outcome or even her performance is all that important.

Boy, that football off-season really flew by, didn't it?Actually, football, or for that matter, any sport, never really goes away long enough for anyone to miss it these days. With free-agent signings, minicamps, hot stove talk and the rest, all the major sports have pretty much settled into 12-month-per-year operations.Of course, it's certainly in the leagues' best interests to have you thinking about them all the time, and not just during the season and on game days. After all, those Cal Ripken T-shirts are just as attractive at Christmastime as they are in late July.

The thumping sounds coming from Camden Yards yesterday were caused by a few more people jumping off the Orioles' bandwagon. Two straight losses may not touch off a panic, but they'll bring some leaps of lost faith.The Seattle Mariners scored five unearned runs off Scott Erickson in the third inning and piled on from there, taking a 10-4 victory before 48,199 that denied the Orioles their sixth consecutive series win.A two-out error by Jeff Reboulet in the third opened the gates and the Orioles (52-53)

It was a sensation I'd experienced while touring plantations in South Carolina and walking the Forum in Rome, that feeling that because I was standing in a certain place, I was linked intimately with the span of human history. I stared at the bronzed images of Grover Cleveland Alexander and Tris Speaker and Mule Suttles and felt I was communing with figures from my past. I pictured Speaker playing center field only a few paces behind the shortstop. I heard the crowd murmur as an aging Alexander befuddled the mighty New York Yankees in the 1926 World Series.

Denny Neagle, a graduate of Arundel High School who plays && with the Class AAA Portland Beavers, gave up four runs in six innings but got the win in the Minnesota Twins' 6-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants in the Hall of Fame exhibition game yesterday in Cooperstown, N.Y.Neagle, 22, an All-Metro selection in 1986, was named Maryland's Minor League Player of the Year at the Tops in Sports banquet this year.Jarvis Brown's sacrifice fly drove in the winning run, and Shane Mack, Kent Hrbek and Chili Davis each hit a bases-empty homer.