Home Plate

Northeast (17-0) and Old Mill (12-4) will complete April 19's controversial suspended game, with Old Mill leading 6-5 in the top of the 13th inning, at 3:45 p.m. Monday at Northeast High.In what was thefirst high school game played at Joe Cannon Stadium in Harmons, Old Mill took the 6-5 lead on a controversial play at home plate that resulted in an argument between Northeast coach Harry Lentz and home plate umpire Warren Williams. Stadium supervisor Barry McGraw then enforced an agreed-upon curfew and halted play.

I am standing over home plate in the new stadium at Camden Yards -- not in a dream, not even in a field of dreams, but on a semi-private tour of what is a grand and wonderful construction site that is beginning to shape up into what promises to become a grand and wonderful new stadium.I am wearing a hard hat. That's one of the many great things about visiting a construction site, which, much more than baseball really, brings out the little boy (or girl) in us. Bruce Hoffman, executive director of the Maryland Stadium Authority and leader of this little expedition, has "Bruce" on the back of his hard hat, whereas mine only has "Guest," but I don't mind.

My attempt to photograph a major league pitch en route to home plate began when I visited a friend in Salt Lake City in July. I had a 600 mm lens and played with capturing pitches between the mound and plate at a minor league game in Utah, experimenting in search of fresh sports images to capture. This photo was shot at an Orioles game late in September - the first I covered after the Utah experiment. At first, the effort didn't work. The delivery by the Orioles' starter kept placing him behind the batter in the viewfinder, and the umpire positioned himself in such a way that you couldn't see the ball.

The Orioles weren't the only ones to wind up losers at Memorial Stadium yesterday.Five men with tickets to the last home opener at the 33rd Street ballpark were arrested when they allegedly tried to resell them for more than their face value, a violation of city law.The police, working undercover in the huge crowd that gathered outside the stadium before the 2:05 p.m. game, said the tickets were being sold for prices ranging from $10 for a $7.50 ticket to...

Manager Phil Regan sat down in his office at 1:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon, pen in hand, desk cleaned off, ready to write Cal Ripken's name onto an Orioles lineup card for the shortstop's 2,131st straight game.But Regan had a problem: He didn't have any of the special lineup cards created for events such as this one, with five carbons to make six copies. The AL office had given him only one.For more than two hours, then, Orioles media relations director John Maroon tried contacting league officials, searching for another lineup card.

AMONG THE 50,700 fans who witnessed the final baseball game at Memorial Stadium, few will forget the carefully staged transplant of home plate to the new Oriole Park at Camden Yards.Five white-suited groundskeepers riding in a stretch white limousine rode onto the field, dug out the 50-pound marker, dumped it into the trunk and then drove quickly downtown, under motorcycle police escort, for a ceremonial replanting that was carried live on Memorial Stadium's big center-field screen.It was just one tear-jerking moment among many and, alas, it was a fake.

Quote: "I joke about it [hitting], but I take it very seriously."-- Phillies pitcher Curt Schilling, who hit his first major-league triple.It's a fact: By adding five rows of premium seats behind home plate (the first two rows cost $150 per game, the next three $100), the Mets cut the distance from the plate to the backstop from 65 feet to 50.Who's hot: The Cardinals' Joe McEwing has played four positions -- second, third, left and center -- and is hitting .429 (12-for-28).Who's not: The Mets' Bobby Bonilla had a rough night, going 0-for-4 on six pitches and being booed all game by the home crowd.

More than three decades after playing his last game as an Oriole and nearly four months after succumbing to illness, Curt Blefary made it safely to home yesterday at Memorial Stadium. Sports fans, construction workers, a former teammate and the late slugger's widow watched as Blefary's ashes were scattered in the dirt at what's left of the old ballpark on 33rd Street, the site of his greatest athletic triumphs. For Lana Blefary, it didn't matter that the stadium is dying its own slow death, ravaged by a demolition crew.

Buster Olney, ESPN baseball reporter and former Orioles beat writer for The Sun "Cal collapsed into a batting slump immediately after he broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-game record, hardly a surprise given the extraordinary energy that he had expended on those remarkable days and the days leading up to them. His batting average slid downward in mid-September - not that anyone really cared. "They had a day game in Detroit, and he struggled at the plate again. The fans filed out, and the writers went into the shoebox clubhouse at old Tiger Stadium and talked to Cal and the other Orioles, and returned to the press box to write our stories.