Fundamentals

Good morning -- Orioles -- It might be a good idea to go over some fundamentals before you take the field against the Red Sox.

DEAR CAL -- I'm a new coach of a girls youth basketball team. We haven't won yet, but the girls try their best. I'm excited by that, but it's hard for me to be courtside and not know how else to encourage them. I feel that I should somehow be able to help them better. Where can I learn how to do that? Joanna Beatty, Owings Mills DEAR JOANNA -- This is a problem all coaches face at all levels. I'm assuming that you are dealing with younger kids. As a new coach, I would gather information from books or maybe even a Web site.

HERE'S a surprise: "There's no consistent link between fundamentals and stock prices," says David Dreman, money manager, in Forbes, Oct. 4. "Investors overvalue prospects of stocks with good fundamentals and undervalue prospects of weak stocks."If there ever was a time to heed this lesson, it's now. Even if blue-chips like Cisco Systems Inc. and Clear Channel Communications Inc. show sharp earnings growth, their prices could revert to their `mean,' meaning they would underperform. And even if unloved issues like Borders Group Inc. and Tenet Healthcare Corp.

After Monday's 512-point stock market collapse, Richard N. Dixon, state treasurer and newly elected chairman of the board of trustees for the Maryland Retirement and Pension System, sent a simple message to the retirement system's executive director: Buy, buy, buy."We don't look at interday events," said Peter Vaughn, therecipient of that message, who was optimistically weighing which stocks to add to the state's portfolio even before the market closed up 288 points yesterday."What we look at are the fundamentals -- are the fundamentals deteriorating in the market?

A Columbia software company became at least the 18th Maryland firm to go public since the beginning of last year, as Credit Management Solutions Inc. and its founders sold 2.6 million shares for $11.50 each.The offering left executives of the company owning more than 60 percent of the shares, and valued the firm overall at $82.9 million. The shares rose after Thursday's offering to close yesterday at $13.50.Credit Management sells software that lets consumer lenders automatically check the credit history of prospective borrowers and applies the lender's standard criteria for approving or rejecting loan applications.

Bring back Ripken Sr.In recent days, there have been several articles about what's wrong with the Orioles. I would like to suggest that there is one person who epitomizes traditional Orioles spirit with sound, basic fundamentals -- Cal Ripken Sr.Signing Cal Sr. for the remainder of the year as a bench coach Ripken Sr. could accomplish several purposes. He is an acknowledged sound baseball person who would goad and stimulate and assist some of the high-priced talent without resultant rancor.

Robert Spriggs came to Archbishop Spalding in search of a cure for losing.Despite a daily dose of fundamentals from Spriggs, the Cavaliers are off to a 2-7 start.Coaching a program never mistaken for being a basketball Mecca, Spriggs is not easily discouraged. Spalding has had only two winning seasons in the last 10 years, but Spriggs welcomes the challenge to succeed, which he calls "not a destination, but a journey.""It hasn't been frustrating to me at all. I'm upbeat," said Spriggs."The guys are really learning the basic fundamentals they needed.

Barreling through its sixth "hundred-marker" this year -- and reaching its 27th closing high since Jan. 1, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 13.84 points yesterday to close at 4,404.62.The Dow now stands 570 points, or 15 percent, above its New Year's Day level and 780 points, or 21 percent, over its 12-month low.The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and the New York Stock Exchange composite also reached all-time peaks.AND NOW WHERE? About 60 percent of this week's forecasters are optimistic vs. only 10 percent "bulls" last week.

It was one of those "a coach needs someone to play in goal" stories and Jeff Bachman was there for the taking.He was 9 years old playing midfield and attack for Freedom Optimist when he figured he'd see what it was like to be on the other end of a lacrosse shot."

Broadneck's 10th-year baseball coach Mark Stover's next win will be career victory No. 100.Stover's 20th-ranked Bruins play Mervo in Baltimore this afternoon and play their home opener at noon tomorrow against Bel Air of Harford County.Stover starts the season with a career record of 99-85 and has built a reputation as a proponent of fundamentals who knows how to play inside baseball.Of course, whether Stover was an advocate of inside baseball or not, he had to be such a coach last spring.

Throughout his minor and major league coaching career, Dave Trembley has been known as a stickler for the little things. He wants the game played right, and he knows his future as Orioles manager depends on this year's team taking a significant developmental step forward over the next three months. So it has to be frustrating for him to watch his club reduced to one of the worst base-running teams in baseball at this critical juncture in the organization's rebuilding process. He took the job intent on putting the "fun" back in fundamentals, and now a long series of fundamental lapses is threatening to be his undoing.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - As a falling stock market stoked fears that the nation's financial system was spinning out of control, the presidential candidates sought yesterday to shape the economic debate. Democrat Barack Obama accused John McCain of being out of touch after the Arizona Republican said the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remained strong. Their running mates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, joined a debate that became more acrimonious as financial losses increased throughout the day. "People are frightened by these events," McCain told thousands of supporters at a campaign stop in Jacksonville, Fla. "The fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very, difficult" times.

SOFTBALL No. 6 Hammond@No. 9 Centennial WHEN -- Friday, 4 p.m. OUTLOOK -- Not surprisingly, the two teams, which both feature strong pitching and good pop in their lineups, have surfaced as the top two in the county. With runs tough to come by, the team that better exe cutes the fundamentals - getting down a bunt and staying away from errors - will come away with the win. THE SUN'S PICK -- Hammond GIRLS LACROSSE No. 3 Mount Hebron @Centennial WHEN -- Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. OUTLOOK -- The 11-time defending state champion Vikings have been in a class by themselves in county play, winning 17 straight titles.

Ricky Treanor plopped himself down on the bench with a smile. The nearly 75-minute workout was over, and sweat poured off his forehead, but the 9-year old Annapolis boy still gripped the basketball. A star center on a team that dominated a local basketball league, he is part of the Fundamentals First camp operated by the city Department of Recreation and Parks that gets kids in shape and sharper for the winter basketball season. "It made me a better center, and I can shoot better," said Ricky, who also attended the eight-week camp last fall.

Tyler Martz stood clutched a football in his left hand and waited for a coach to yell out a signal. The 12-year-old Gambrills resident dropped back five steps and looked for someone running a slant pattern over the middle. He threw a perfect strike. Tyler repeated the drill over and over at GORC Park on Monday night, one of three two-hour practices the 110-pound team holds every week. The complexities of football require that many physical actions be performed almost without thinking.

Good morning -- Orioles -- It might be a good idea to go over some fundamentals before you take the field against the Red Sox.

DEAR CAL -- I'm a new coach of a girls youth basketball team. We haven't won yet, but the girls try their best. I'm excited by that, but it's hard for me to be courtside and not know how else to encourage them. I feel that I should somehow be able to help them better. Where can I learn how to do that? Joanna Beatty, Owings Mills DEAR JOANNA -- This is a problem all coaches face at all levels. I'm assuming that you are dealing with younger kids. As a new coach, I would gather information from books or maybe even a Web site.

I am concerned about my shares of UnitedHealth Group, which used to be the greatest. Will its problems hurt its stock further? - K.R., via the Internet You're not alone. Many shareholders of the large health insurer are feeling under the weather right now. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) shares are down 18 percent this year, a turnaround from robust gains of 41 percent last year, 51 percent in 2004 and 39 percent in 2003. Profits were up 26 percent in the firm's most recently reported quarter, thanks in large part to its acquisition of PacifiCare Health Systems.

ATLANTA -- When I was a child, reading was about my only option for summer entertainment. Growing up in Monroeville, Ala., meant I was deprived not merely of iPods and MySpace, but of cable television and a mall as well. My hometown didn't even have a McDonald's parking lot that bored adolescents could circle in their parents' cars. So I spent my elementary years with Little Women, The Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi and Huckleberry Finn. By the time I was 10 or so, I had acquired a taste for the weird tales of Edgar Allan Poe and the science fiction of Ray Bradbury.

Indianapolis -- The NFL scouting combine is typically a time when college players are put to the test for the benefit of pro football staffs, who are beginning in earnest their preparations for the draft in late April. But this combine, being held as usual at the RCA Dome, differs substantially because the league's personnel masterminds are being put through the wringer as well. With players beginning physical testing today, general managers and head coaches have their attention seriously divided, keeping one eye on their stopwatches and another on the multisided negotiations that will determine how they'll assemble their teams for this year and beyond.