Grip

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs founded Ball So Hard University in jest, but three months later, the joke has become a serious legal dispute. In a recorded introduction for an early-November game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, when players recite their names and alma maters for the TV cameras, Suggs said, "Sizzle. Ball So Hard University. " He chose to forgo his real name and college, Arizona State University, in favor of a nickname and a fictional institution based on the refrain of a 2011 hip-hop song by Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Nearly half the members of Congress are millionaires, according to an analysis of net worth by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The center found median net worth for a member of the House to be $725,000; for a senator it was $2.4 million. (The value of family homes was not included in the analysis.) Congressional freshmen - those elected in the tea party-inspired revolt of November 2010 - are among the financial elite, too. In fact, 60 percent of freshmen senators and 40 percent of rookie representatives have net worth in the millions.

Don Gerding of Rodgers Forge couldn't believe it when he heard the news that former Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan had died. "It was upsetting," he said. Gerding worked with the former Oriole pitcher the 1970s and 80s, when Flanagan did some rep work in the printing and engraving business for Dempsey & Carroll while he was still pitching at Memorial Stadium. "He was a 33rd Street phenomenon," Gerding said. Flanagan, a Cy Young Award winner who became a television announcer and top executive with the club, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Wednesday afternoon on his property in Sparks, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation into his death.

Parody has been the operative word in NASCAR for a long time, coinciding with a five-year championship run by Jimmie Johnson. Competition? It was a joke. Fast forward to this season, when another P-word dominates the headlines: Parity. Ryan Newman's victory in New Hampshire gave the Sprint Cup circuit 13 winners in 19 races — equaling the total from the entire 2010 season. The modern NASCAR record is 19 winners, set in 2001. Although that will be tough to break, there's no question that the rumble of stock cars brings all sorts of unique and intriguing possibilities every weekend.

Cafe Hon owner Denise Whiting stepped up after Sheila Dixon's fall to assume the role of top Charm City villainess. Now, with Honfest protests looming, a city stripped of its favorite term of endearment watches to see if Whiting will lose her hold on "hon" just as Dixon lost her fur coats and Jimmy Choos. Will rebel vendors defy Whiting's orders and sell cat's-eye glasses? Will aspiring mayors and other pols ignore her no-politics-in-a-public-street decree and work the crowd? One hopeful sign that, given enough pressure, Whiting's greedy grip can be loosed: She got so busy defending her "hon" copyright last winter that she let her Twitter account lapse.  "Cafe Hon abandoned this account, so we could swoop in and parody them," writes whoever is tweeting as @cafehon.

Arnold Blumberg plops the zombie head on a table at the front of the small theater. "I brought a friend," says the University of Baltimore professor, clad in an unbuttoned black shirt adorned with red skulls. Blumberg is meeting his class for the first time and it seems appropriate that he greet them beside "old Worm Eye," undead star of the 1979 Italian cult film "Zombi 2. " It was Worm Eye's decaying visage that called to a young Blumberg from the shelf of a Randallstown video store in the 1980s.

It was inevitable after the popular and critical success of their 2001 World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers," which told the story of the drive to conquer Hitler and Mussolini, that executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg would return to finish the job. "The Pacific," which tells the story of the war against Japan, is here - it begins tonight on HBO - and is its forerunner's equal in emotive strength, weird poetry and technical bravura....

T he road to the national championship goes through Syracuse. And C.W. Post. And SUNY Cortland. And Onondaga Community College. Last year, the aforementioned New York schools captured the Division I, Division II, Division III and National Junior College Athletic Association titles, respectively. So, has the Empire State replaced Maryland as the pre-eminent lacrosse hotbed? One former player turned analyst doesn't see it as a trend, but as a continuation of what has always been.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has asked the state's top energy regulators to order that new power be supplied in Maryland at cost-controlled prices in an attempt to bring down electricity rates. While urging the Public Service Commission to take that step, O'Malley also indicated he might abandon his effort to impose broader re-regulation of the energy industry through legislation. That proposal failed in the last General Assembly session, and the governor vowed to bring the bill back, but he doesn't appear to have the necessary support.

During his first season as an everyday major league center fielder, Adam Jones approached the Los Angeles Angels' Torii Hunter and told him one of his goals. "I want one of your Gold Gloves," Jones said to Hunter before an Orioles-Angels game in 2008. Jones got his wish Tuesday, though not at Hunter's expense. He became the first Oriole to win a Rawlings Gold Glove in 10 years when he was one of three American League outfielders awarded the annual prize for defensive excellence.