First Game

EastGiants QB Kent Graham felt woozy after throwing three interceptions and being lifted last Sunday against Philadelphia, but he was lucid enough to lobby for his job. "A lot of quarterbacks have thrown three interceptions during a game. Troy Aikman has thrown three in a game, and Jake Plummer has thrown three or four in a game and they're still in there playing. Today, it just didn't work for me," he said. It turned out that Giants coach Jim Fassel didn't have to make a decision because the doctors discovered Graham had suffered a concussion.

Cubs: Mark Grace had his first error of the season when a ball bounced up and hit him in the face, but he had two singles to tie Billy Herman for 10th on the club's career list at 1,258. Sammy Sosa has reached base in 38 of 40 games. The Cubs are 21-0 when leading after the seventh inning and are 10 games ahead of last season's pace after 40 games.Expos: Dustin Hermanson, who gave up three first-inning runs, was replaced after two pitches in the second inning against the Giants because of a mid-back strain.

ON THE closing day of our Little League season, I stood with the team on the outfield grass between first and second base. I was enjoying the warm Saturday morning sunshine. In the hubbub before the ceremonies began, kids and dogs milled around, some of them banging into my legs. I didn't react. I was an assistant baseball coach, and by the end of a season, we tend to be a callous breed. You take your knocks but you stand your ground.Suddenly the kids standing near me laughed and pointed at my leg. One of the dogs, a free-ranging dalmatian, had relieved himself on my pants leg. He must have mistaken me for a tree, or dead wood.

Brewers: Manager Phil Garner used the same batting order for the third consecutive game. Marquis Grissom batted .360 for the Indians vs. the Marlins in the World Series.Cardinals: Mark McGwire hit his 390th home run, putting him ahead of Johnny Bench and in a tie with Graig Nettles for 28th all-time.Diamondbacks: Arizona drew 45,590 for their fourth game and continued to lead the majors with an average of 44,927. Rookie Travis Lee, who was 3-for-4 in his first game, has struck out five of his past seven at-bats.

NEW YORK -- The Cleveland Indians came to the Bronx last night hoping to puncture the aura of invincibility that has grown up around the New York Yankees during their record-breaking 1998 season.Instead, they found those pinstripes impenetrable in the opening game of the American League Championship Series. Left-hander David Wells turned in another impressive performance and the New York offense came back to life to score a 7-2 victory before a deafening sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium.Maybe the Yankees aren't unbeatable, but they're doing a pretty good imitation.

Centennial ace Kim May hadn't pitched in more than a week heading into yeserday's doubleheader at the Centennial Spring Tournament.And throughout her first game back from spring break -- a 13-7 victory over Mount de Sales -- the rust was in great evidence.But when it came time to face the fifth-ranked Institute of Notre Dame for the championship, it didn't take the windmiller long to return to form.After a shaky start, May seemed to get stronger throughout the )) game, giving up two hits over the final six innings and striking out six of 10 hitters during one mid-game stretch to lift the No. 4 Eagles to a 7-1 win."

Linda Byus of Forest Hill is a little unhappy with her tenpin average this year."I'm down about 10 pins from last year," she said. "I still have about 168 but I'd like to get it higher."Byus, bowling for about 14 years, had a pretty fair day in April 1992, when she shot a 279 game, striking from the first through ninth frames."That day I was so nervous in the 10th frame that all I wanted to do was throw a decent a ball and not miss the spare," she said.That's exactly what happened and the 279 became her career-high game -- until early this month.

Top-ranked McDonogh lost its first game of the season as No. 7 Loyola held off the host Eagles, 12-10, yesterday in an MSA A Conference game.Chris Marshall had two triples to lead a 13-hit attack for the Dons (3-0, 2-0).McDonogh fell to 2-2, 1-1.

Back in the beginning, when we were still breaking in the shiny new digs at Camden Yards, there was the First Game, the First Win, the First Night Game, the First Loss, the First Sunday Game, the First Grand Slam, the First Rain Delay, the First Ball Off The Tall Wall in Right, the First Todd Frohwirth Glove and Cap Throw, and, of course, the memorable First Sam Horn Triple.Then there was the First Rise in Ticket Prices. No, wait. Make that the First Annual Rise in Ticket Prices.You figured that had to be it, right?

PHILADELPHIA -- The City of Brotherly Love is primed for th 93rd meeting between Army and Navy. Over near the Liberty Bell yesterday there was a pep rally and cheerleading contest to get the fans pumped up. And at The Gallery Mall downtown tomorrow a huge Army-Navy Holiday Festival is planned.But the game is what this weekend is all about, and today more than 67,000 fans will pack Veterans Stadium and millions more will tune in on television (noon, channels 13 and 7) to watch a game that, regardless of team records, will showcase college football in its truest sense.

The New York Knicks needed Stephon Marbury to play, then suspended him a game and docked him nearly $400,000 in salary yesterday after saying he refused. The disgruntled guard insists he never told coach Mike D'Antoni "no" and plans to appeal. D'Antoni wouldn't go into specifics of their conversation that took place before Wednesday's loss in Detroit, though he made it clear he asked the point guard to play because the Knicks were short-handed. Marbury will not be paid when he sits out tonight's home game against the Golden State Warriors and will lose an additional game's pay for Wednesday's actions.

When asked what the key is to being a successful pitcher, Hammond junior Stephanie Speierman delivers an answer as fast as her overpowering fastball: "Loving it." It's more than safe to say the two-time, first-team All-Metro standout loves pitching. Last year, Speierman led the Golden Bears to the program's first state championship, tossing a perfect game in the team's 4-0 win over North East-Cecil for the Class 2A championship at the University of Maryland. For the season, Speierman went 23-1 with a 0.20 ERA, setting a state record with 426 strikeouts.

Logic might suggest that if you're going to spend the fall dodging arrows from competitors in a very tough football league, the way No.1 Gilman will, it may not be the smart thing to do to go looking for an archer with a good aim from another conference to take the first shot. Yet the Greyhounds, though deeply respectful of their opponents, say DeMatha, the Washington area's top-ranked team, is the perfect team to meet to begin the 2006 season. "I've always been playing DeMatha first in all of our games," said senior lineman Ned Lundvall.

Cleveland Regional First Round Tomorrow At Nashville, Tenn. UC Riverside vs. North Carolina, 8 p.m. Louisville vs. Vanderbilt, 30 minutes after first game Sunday At West Lafayette, Ind. Missouri State vs. Purdue, noon Bowling Green vs. UCLA, 30 minutes after first game At Trenton, N.J. Dartmouth vs. Rutgers, 7 p.m. TCU vs. Texas A&M, 30 minutes after first game At Norfolk, Va. Army vs. Tennessee, noon Old Dominion vs. George Washington, 30 minutes after...

Massachusetts men's lacrosse coach Greg Cannella has resisted the temptation, even as his team sits below .500 and is considered to be in serious danger of missing the NCAA tournament. It would be easy -- and understandable -- for Cannella to glance down his sideline during games, see several of his key players from back-to-back NCAA quarterfinalists in street clothes with injuries, and wonder what could have been. "You can't do that," said Cannella, whose team improved to 3-4 and ended a three-game losing streak Tuesday with a 12-4 victory over winless Sacred Heart.

With all the buzz about such violent adult fare on the gaming consoles as True Crime: Streets of LA and the Vice City series, titles aimed at children tend to get lost in the shuffle - even among those teens and preteens who probably shouldn't be playing the more violent video games. But with an interest in giving parents alternatives - especially parents who might hear only about the worst of the worst and fear that a Microsoft Xbox is nothing more than a new way to desensitize their young ones to relatively real acts of wanton violence - we have taken a look at several children's games that not only will engage your younger teen-agers and preteens for hours, but also won't offer the level of realistic violence that is consuming the older-teen market.

ATLANTA - Despite overwhelming criticism of the format from coaches, the chair of the NCAA's women's basketball committee says the organization will stay with the plan to award first- and second-round sites to predetermined locations for next year's tournament. Cheryl Marra, a senior associate athletic director at Wisconsin, said that while the committee hopes to eventually stage the entire tournament on neutral courts, awarding the first and second rounds to 16 schools that bid for them is a good idea for now. "I don't believe we will stay still forever," said Marra, who's in her first year as chair.

Unconventional as it was, No. 10 Westminster ultimately got the sweep it was looking for yesterday. Completing the April 19 game against South Carroll, suspended in the bottom of the third inning due to weather, the Owls came away with a 10-4 win over the Cavaliers in Westminster to clinch both the Carroll County crown and Central Maryland Conference title. In yesterday's originally-scheduled game that followed, the two teams were tied at 5 going into the bottom of the seventh inning before the umpires suspended play due to darkness.

CINCINNATTI - The Ravens play those Same Old Bengals today. No matter how you dress them up, until they start winning consistently, they're still the worst NFL team of the 1990s, with the worst front office and one of the league's worst secondaries. So as the Ravens prepare to meet the Bengals today in game No. 2 at Paul Brown Stadium, I will part from my usual advice to Ravens coach Brian Billick of running the football, and suggest he unleash quarterback Elvis Grbac. Billick should abandon his standard conservative offensive approach on the road and go with three wide-outs early.

Who's hot Jamie Moyer of the Mariners has allowed 16 hits and three runs in 21 innings over his past three starts, a 1.29 ERA. Who's not The Blue Jays have been held to two or fewer hits six times this season. Line of the day Juan Gonzalez, Indi ans designated hitter (first game) AB R H RBI HR 4 2 3 3 1 NATIONAL LEAGUE Who's hot Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies has stolen 28 straight bases and leads the NL with 33. Who's not Mike Hampton of the Rockies is 1-5 with an 8.58 ERA in nine starts since June 10. Line of the day Vinny Castilla, Astros third baseman (first game)