Fan Base

A day after leading a whitewashing of Cleveland's football team, Ravens coach Brian Billick had a few words for Browns fans on the matter of Art Modell. The Ravens beat the Browns, 35-0, Sunday in what was owner Modell's final game against his old team. Modell was the owner of the old Cleveland Browns from 1961 to 1995 before moving the franchise to Baltimore in 1996. Billick, apparently fed up with how Modell is perceived in Cleveland, gave an impromptu explanation of his version of the situation that led to Modell moving the franchise.

Ryan Fogelsonger could have been a Californian all along - with his blond hair, bright smile and easygoing manner. But the effervescent Fogelsonger broke in as a jockey in his home state of Maryland. By winning regularly at Pimlico, Timonium and Laurel Park, he won the Eclipse award last year as the top apprentice jockey in North America. As fate would have it, Fogelsonger traveled to Beverly Hills to accept his trophy. He had never been to California before. He loved it. "It's too beautiful out here," he said recently from Pasadena, Calif.

Inside the Orioles' clubhouse, there's a sad air of inevitability to it all now. Vice presidents Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan have said nothing to suggest otherwise, so it's almost assumed that the season will end next Sunday in New York, and shortly into the next week, the club will announce that manager Mike Hargrove has been fired. Why? The Orioles aren't saying. Beattie declined to comment again Friday when asked about Hargrove, whose contract officially expires Oct. 31. Flanagan isn't talking either.

Larry Lucchino, Boston Red Sox president, weaves his way through a Yawkey Way crowd 20 minutes before the start of a game. As he talks excitedly about the "perpetual street fair" going on around him, fans turn away from their cold draft beers to shake his hand and schmooze. He's the Pied Piper of Renovation. It has been 18 months since Boston welcomed a new Red Sox ownership group led by money manager John Henry. To the relief of baseball fans throughout New England, the new owners are trying to save Fenway Park, the team's home since 1912, rather than pursue a new stadium.

Must a country music star trade her country soul to become a pop diva? Find the answer in the latest singles from Shania Twain, Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes, each of whom parlayed country music fame into across-the-board pop success. All three have just released the first singles from new albums, but only one is a hit with country fans. Twain's "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" is getting country listeners good, making its debut this week at No. 21 on the Radio & Records trade publication's list of the most-played records on country stations in the nation.

Light rail ought to go on Eutaw Street instead of Howard, anyway. The IRA got caught with its fingers in the cocaine drawer. Cheer up. George is reading the new bio of John Adams. Stephanie Ready coached men's basketball for only two years and is being asked to recruit a fan base to an entire start-up professional league. She probably will. Ravens don't run. They fly.

After a weekend of virtually nonstop negotiating, joke-telling, obfuscating and trigger-pulling, Orioles vice president of baseball operations Syd Thrift took a breather yesterday. He spent the afternoon watching a clubhouse of diminished payroll and diminished name recognition beat the Cleveland Indians behind a rookie starting pitcher and a rookie center fielder. Then he bounced through the post-game clubhouse ecstatic at what he had seen. "The people loved it, I thought," he said, beaming.

Nestled in the heart of Columbia, Rep Stage sits like a hidden jewel.In its six years as a professional theater company, Rep Stage -- Howard Community College's theater company in-residence -- has seen its reputation flourish and its regional fan base grow.Rep Stage productions are unlike what some theatergoers have come to expect of community theater: no sagging backdrops, overly melodramatic performances by amateur actors or kitschy revivals of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.Instead, a ticket to a Rep Stage show buys a couple of hours of risky, energetic, modern professional theater.

Ravens ticket buyers are an upscale group that rates the new stadium as somewhere between good and excellent but wishes the beer didn't cost so much.A survey conducted for the team by J. D. Power and Associates -- the folks who rank consumer satisfaction with cars and other products -- confirms what many Ravens fans have guessed about football's changing fan base in Baltimore.The average household income of people attending Ravens home games is $78,322, and 40 percent reported household incomes of $90,000 or more.

Those folks at the National Football League are no dummies. Not any more.The past few years, the NFL has plopped franchises into every Southern town with at least one stoplight, but meanwhile ticked off millions of fans in the older cities it's abandoned. Net gain: about 13 fans.So this year, the NFL is trying something different. It's going to "grow" its fan base using a little more TLC. This fall, there will be NFL-sponsored flag football (co-ed!) for kids. There will be a new line of NFL "leisure wear" specifically for women.