Groove

The return of Billy Cundiff from a sore left calf wasn't the only positive sight for the Ravens. The kicker converted a 42-yard field goal and three extra points and booted two touchbacks in the team's 24-16 win against the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday. Even more significant, according to Cundiff, was the familiar, satisfying feeling of being able to kick without feeling pain or limitations. “I think the thing I took away from it the most was my ability to be aggressive,” he said.

The return of Billy Cundiff from a sore left calf wasn't the only positive sight for the Ravens. The kicker converted a 42-yard field goal and three extra points and booted two touchbacks in the team's 24-16 win against the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday. Even more significant, according to Cundiff, was the familiar, satisfying feeling of being able to kick without feeling pain or limitations. “I think the thing I took away from it the most was my ability to be aggressive,” he said.

For 13 years, Baltimore's Laura Lippman, creator of the Tess Monaghan private-eye series, has shown mystery fans that high-caliber writing is more potent than full-bore gunplay. But a new wave of media interest, and the release Tuesday of her most ambitious nonseries novel yet — the harrowing, impassioned "I'd Know You Anywhere" — suggest that Lippman, 51, is on the verge of breaking out to bigger audiences as a master storyteller, not just a master of her genre. If it all comes through, her work will soon be ubiquitous.

Admittedly, I didn't stay up late to watch the Orioles beat the Athletics on Monday night. Once the Woah Bundy era officially began around midnight, it was time to flip over to Hallmark Channel and doze off to “Golden Girls.” But if there's a night to stay up late with the Orioles on this road trip, it's tonight. It's just one game out of 162 in another lost season, but it could have an impact on the future of the Orioles' rebuilding effort. Brian Matusz, whose early-season struggles and subsequent demotion was one of many punches to the stomach the Orioles have endured in 2011, will make his first major-league start in more than a month . After going 1-4 with an 8.77 ERA in six major-league starts, the young left-hander spent some time in Triple-A Norfolk.

The Capitals' season continues to see-saw with 21 games left before the playoffs. They haven't been able to get in a steady rhythm since a strong November, winning a few games before losing a few then doing it all over again and again. Yet somehow, the Capitals remain well within striking distance of the first-place Lightning in the Southeast Division and they have a comfortable 14-point cushion on the playoff outsiders in the Eastern Conference. They are one hot streak away from storming off with the division and claiming at least the No. 3 seed in the East.

How Stella Got Her Groove BackMusic from the Motion Picture (Flyte Time/MCA 11806)Obviously, if you're putting together the score for a film with a title like "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," you're going to want music with plenty of groove. Moreover, given the story's Caribbean setting, you're going to want a specific kind of groove, one that suggests the sweet, hot sensuality of Jamaica - but without going entirely native."Music from the Motion Picture 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' " meets both criteria, and then some.

When Tricky began his career, working with the British dance music combine Massive Attack, he came up through the club bTC circuit in and around Bristol, England. As such, he was used to working in the studio and did occasional DJ gigs.But playing on a stage, in front of a rock and roll band? That was something totally unknown to him. So when he went solo, and began touring behind his debut album, "Maxinquaye," he was a little less than confident on stage."When we started off, we were shy," he says over the phone from a tour stop in Knoxville, Tenn.

The Maryland Groove 19-and-under basketball team, featuring five county players, leaves next Wednesday for Jacksonville, Fla., and the AAU Junior Men's National Tournament.The Groove, under the direction of Arundel High coach Gerald Moore, includes seven other players from the Baltimore area. The team qualified for the nationals by winning the Junior Men's Eastern Zone Championships last month at Central Senior High.The championship game of the nationals is July 1."Hopefully, we'll be there," said Moore, who has coached the Groove for four years.

With the turf course at Laurel Park softened by weekend rain, the $55,525 Japan Racing Association/Chrysanthemum Stakes was shifted to the main track, where Big Rut coasted to length victory over Trim Account.Trainer Hamilton Smith said he would have scratched Big Rut if the race were on the soft turf.The colt went 1 1/4 miles on a fast track in 2 minutes, 3 seconds and paid $4.20, $2.40 and $2.40.Pub Date: 11/10/96

There really is a downside to everything. The Orioles starting rotation has turned the corner. The club has turned into a contender. The early weeks of the season have featured one pleasant development after another.But in the midst of all the fun and festivity, Mike Flanagan quietly struggles to fit into his new role.Life does not begin at 40 in the major leagues, but Flanagan is starting over again. The change isn't quite so apparent as last year, when he converted from starter to reliever in his 16th season.

In the end, the University of Virginia was a good team with great motivation. When it came down to crunch time in the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse championship Monday afternoon at M&T Bank Stadium, Virginia defeated Maryland, 9-7, because the Cavaliers had an edge. They had something to prove. A lot of them didn't want to address the issue after the game, but the underlying theme to their championship run was they wanted to prove to the lacrosse world that they could win a national championship without their star twin midfielders, the Brattons, who were suspended at the end of the season for personal reasons.

Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom had another strong workout Tuesday, perhaps his most focused exercise since arriving in Maryland, despite the fact that it was raining at the Fair Hill Training Center. Instead of running him in the mud, trainer Graham Motion sent Animal Kingdom out on the Tapeta Footings synthetic track for the second straight day, but he instructed jockey David Nava to make Animal Kingdom chase after a series of horses staggered in front of him to get the Derby winner back into the groove of racing.

Last season in previewing HBO's "Treme," I said that in 30 years of writing about television, I had never heard music used as organically, wisely and powerfully as it was in the New Orleans-based series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. I also said I never expected to hear it done better on TV. I was wrong. Sunday night's opening of Season 2 takes it to another level. And the use of music just keeps getting stronger and stronger through each of the episodes made available by HBO. In the Season 2 opener, titled "Accentuate the Positive," there is one knockout musical production after another.

The Capitals' season continues to see-saw with 21 games left before the playoffs. They haven't been able to get in a steady rhythm since a strong November, winning a few games before losing a few then doing it all over again and again. Yet somehow, the Capitals remain well within striking distance of the first-place Lightning in the Southeast Division and they have a comfortable 14-point cushion on the playoff outsiders in the Eastern Conference. They are one hot streak away from storming off with the division and claiming at least the No. 3 seed in the East.

Pole doesn't equal win Keith Groller The Morning Call The conspiracy theorists already are stirring. The same cynics who believe that every NBA playoff series that goes seven games is fixed are ready to pounce should Dale Jr. win the Daytona 500 on the 10th anniversary of his father's death at NASCAR's most famous track. Really, what could help the sport and its sagging TV ratings more than having its most recognizable driver come out of his doldrums and win NASCAR's Super Bowl, especially when in this case an entire season follows the Super Bowl?

For 13 years, Baltimore's Laura Lippman, creator of the Tess Monaghan private-eye series, has shown mystery fans that high-caliber writing is more potent than full-bore gunplay. But a new wave of media interest, and the release Tuesday of her most ambitious nonseries novel yet — the harrowing, impassioned "I'd Know You Anywhere" — suggest that Lippman, 51, is on the verge of breaking out to bigger audiences as a master storyteller, not just a master of her genre. If it all comes through, her work will soon be ubiquitous.

Last Saturday night was a dream come true for Paul Crowl. It was a night he had worked long and hard for as the Upperco native won his first career late-model feature at the Hagerstown Speedway.Crowl, 36, picked up the lead from the pole starting spot and right from the start he felt the pressure of Frankie Plessinger of McConnellsburg, Pa.Plessinger had found the high groove on the half-mile clay oval to his liking and was just about to take the lead on lap six when the caution was waved, putting Crowl back in front on the restart.

"How Stella Got Her Groove Back," a tropical romance based on the novel, Stella gets her groove back relatively early in the game. Which is all to the good, since that means filmgoers wind up getting a major groove on for the rest of this funny, sensuous and thoroughly delicious picture.Angela Bassett plays Stella Payne, a divorced 40-year-old financial consultant with an 11-year-old son. Stella is comfortable: She has feathered a sumptuous nest in a gorgeous San Francisco neighborhood, her son is a terrific kid, and she maintains a close, if sometimes fractious, relationship with her two sisters, Angela (Suzzanne Douglas)

After an uncharacteristic bullpen session before Thursday's game, rookie starter Brian Matusz walked to the Orioles dugout and sat down. He was both frustrated and confused as he gripped the baseball and closed his eyes, wondering what had happened in the 4 1/2 weeks since his surprise call-up to the major leagues. "It just wasn't me," Matusz said. "I had to break it down and remember what got me here." There had been promising glimpses during Matusz's first five big league starts, but nothing like Sunday, when the 22-year-old left-hander put it all together in overpowering the Cleveland Indians over seven dominant innings in the Orioles' 5-2 victory in front of an announced 20,643 at sun-splashed Camden Yards.

Jeremy Guthrie did everything that a top-of-the-rotation pitcher shouldn't do Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels. He put the Orioles in a three-run hole before their first at-bat, allowed runs two different times after his team had scored to get back in the game, walked just as many hitters (two) as he struck out and surrendered another home run. The only good news for Guthrie (7-12) was that the Orioles' late rally in an eventual 17-8 defeat kept him from suffering his fifth straight loss and 13th of the season.