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.

If you don't plan ahead to see a game at Camden Yards this season, or you want to watch the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees play there, then expect to pay more than you did in 2009. For the first time, the Orioles are charging a game-day ticketing fee of between $1 and $5, depending on the original price of the seat, for every home game this year - if that ticket is purchased after 12:01 a.m. on game day. In other words, walk up to the window to buy tickets on game day and you'll pay extra.

If you don't plan ahead to see a game at Camden Yards this season, or you want to watch the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees play there, then expect to pay more than you did in 2009. For the first time, the Orioles are charging a game-day ticketing fee of between $1 and $5, depending on the original price of the seat, for every home game this year - if that ticket is purchased after 12:01 a.m. on game day. In other words, walk up to the window to buy tickets on game day and you'll pay extra.

The Baltimore ordinance seems clear. Drinking an alcoholic beverage "in open container" on a "street, etc., or in vehicle" is illegal, and violators are subject to fines of up to $500. A judge can throw you in jail for up to a month. That rarely happens, of course. But if you ask people who live near M&T Bank Stadium, it never happens on a day the Ravens play at home. They complain that many laws, particularly the one governing where revelers can drink beer and throw their empty cans, seems to get lost in the revelry of the spirited tailgate.

The voice was loud and angry. It rose above the noise of the fans watching the Ravens train at McDaniel College on Wednesday, like the whine of a blender in a crowded bar. "Hey, Flacco!" the voice cried. "What about the handicapped zone?" Joe Flacco shook his head. "Guess that's supposed to make me feel bad," he said softly. The Ravens quarterback had just spent a few minutes signing autographs after the team's morning practice. But he hadn't made it over to a group of fans in wheelchairs, having been pulled aside by a member of the team's public relations staff to do a media interview.

Brenda Arbogast was one of those mothers who swore her son would never play football. Fearful of injury, and not knowing much about the sport, she was completely against the idea until a trusted friend convinced her it would be OK. Many years later, with her son's playing days long behind him, the 48-year-old full-time accounting assistant is not only still a fan of the game she grew to love, but now spends much of her free time supporting it at the...

North County football coach Gary Liddick paid Jordan Moskal a compliment every linebacker wants to hear: "He's just always around the ball." In his second season starting on varsity, Moskal has become the focal point of a defense and a leader of a senior-laden team that is primed for another strong playoff run. In last year's Class 4A East regional playoffs, the Knights lost a lead in the final 25 seconds against Arundel, which went on to reach the state...

Before you saw the Old Town Gators, you heard them coming. "WHO GOT YOUR BACK?" the pint-sized football players would chant as they marched in their electric blue-and-orange uniforms through East Baltimore streets to their home field on game days. "I GOT YOUR BACK!" the 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds would echo back over the sound of cleats clicking on pavement. Leading the parade - often chanting and clapping with dreadlocks flying - was their 31-year-old coach, Aaron McCown. A one-time high school quarterback and wrestler, he said it pumped up his players to march through "the projects," where many of them lived.

By 11 a.m., they started coming, a crush of purple-clad fans descending, but for a moment, on the tiny neighborhood of Sharp-Leadenhall as they made their way toward the beckoning stadium. The residents here are accustomed to this, used to the strangers who invade their park and streets every Sunday, come football season. Fans from across the city and state - and even out-of-state - pour in from all sides on their way to M&T Bank Stadium, a sports facility that has been their neighbor for years, but one many residents have never visited.