Game Days

I can picture it now. A triumphant Drew Brees holds the Super Bowl trophy aloft as confetti rains down on him and fireworks explode around the Miami stadium. A voice asks, "Drew Brees. You've just won the Super Bowl. What are you going to do next?" And instead the usual plug for Disney World, he says, "I'm going to crisscross this nation of ours promoting heath care reform, banking regulation, immigration reform and term limits!" The Super Bowl, a national holiday devoted to beer, football and food, has gone political.

On game days in the town of Union Bridge, students at Francis Scott Key High School seldom have difficulty figuring out which of their classmates play varsity softball, even if they're not carrying gloves.They're the ones making a fashion statement.As a symbol of team unity, players dress alike during the school day, sometimes a bit outlandishly. In an effort to stand apart from the crowd, they've been known to wear uniform socks with shorts or wear their hair in pigtails."It's that link that kind of unites them," said Eagles coach Joe Linthicum.

Another year, another series of moves on Ravens radio.For a third straight season, the cast of characters is being changed on Ravens broadcasts on WJFK (1300 AM) and WLIF (101.9 FM), with the biggest shift coming among the game announcers themselves, where former analyst/sideline reporter Bruce Cunningham has been taken out of the mix on game days.Also, Tony Harris, news anchor at channels 45 and 54, will be host of the team's Sunday pre-game show, with Stan "The Fan" Charles, last year's pre-game and post-game host, taking over just the post-game program.

There is a 40 percent chance that today will be a washout. Today is a Saturday in early June, a time when hundreds of events from birthday parties to baseball games are scheduled to be held outside. The last time I looked, the forecast called for a 40 percent chance of scattered showers.Now showers, as veteran weather report readers know, are different from rain. Showers are bursts of precipitation. Rain, however, means steady precipitation. If it rains, you're going to get wet. If it showers, there is a good chance you can take cover and emerge later to push away the puddles.

TAMPA, Fla. - Carl Harbuck and Matthew St. John claim to have the best seats for Sunday's Super Bowl XXXV matchup between the Ravens and New York Giants, but it's not what you think. They have to get to the game about eight hours early and they're going to be a good 1,700 feet from the field of play. You see, Harbuck and St. John will be piloting the Budweiser.com blimp that will provide the network overhead shots of the festivities at Raymond James Stadium - and about 60 other major television events over the course of the coming year.

A year of planning is peaking as Baltimore primps and gussies itself for all the soldiers, sailors and fans coming to town for Saturday's Army-Navy football game at PSINet Stadium. The city will skim crud off the Inner Harbor's waters. It will sandblast away some of the graffiti. And with banners, buttons and welcome signs, it will put on a big, gleaming smile for all the visitors (and TV cameras) to see. Then, it will wait for the visitors to crack open their wallets and spend, spend, spend.

Towson resident Jerry Turner and his sons have watched the Ravens play in the new stadium. But his daughter, Maria, 18, has been reluctant to go because of an unfortunate experience with rowdy spectators at Memorial Stadium.When Turner's daughter came to her first professional football -- game, she was doused in beer by a bunch of drunken fans and vowed never to return.Experiences like hers led the franchise to adopt the Fan Credo, a list of rules and expectations for conduct in the downtown stadium.

For nine years, Bobby Nyk didn't miss a single Ravens game, home or away. That home streak is impressive enough, but it was all those away games that earned him the nickname "The Ravens Road Warrior. " It's a moniker worn proudly by the 62-year-old Baltimore native, who spent most of those nine years working for the team as a DJ outside the stadium on game days. "I don't think anyone's been to more away games than me, except for maybe Nestor Aparicio," the retired Howard County teacher says, referring to the Baltimore radio sports personality and rabid Ravens fan. "Him, and of course the players.

On a humid night at an overgrown baseball field in Waverly, a couple of kids are thinking about starting up a game. Christopher Ayestas, 13, throws a softball in the air and swings at it with a silver bat. A few of his friends run to field it.But a few minutes into the game, interest flags, and the kids scatter.With Memorial Stadium now little more than a hulking shell, that is as much baseball activity as Waverly and other nearby neighborhoods see on game days. Residents miss the old days.

Despite snow flurries and a chilling wind, thousands of people turned out at Oriole Park at Camden Yards yesterday to get their first good look at the place.Fans in parkas, office workers in pinstripes and the merely curious came to the ballpark at lunchtime. Admission was free.And last night, hundreds more gathered outside the stadium for a pep rally to greet Orioles players just back from Florida, many of them seeing their new baseball home for the first time.The rally was a brief affair, but not a disappointment to the baseball fanatics collecting free pennants and balls handed out by a costumed Tony the Tiger in a cereal promotion and then getting autographs on them from players.