I Thought

As an airborne traffic reporter for WQSR radio, Joy Pons is accustomed to being in a plane -- but she's not accustomed to being on a plane. Naked. With 40 men watching her. Ms. Pons found herself in that unusual situation when she agreed to pose for a Playboy magazine and video feature called "Girls of the Radio."How Ms. Pons, who describes herself as self-conscious and stable, ended up posing for Playboy is somewhat of a mystery, even to her.It all started last fall, when WQSR morning show host Steve Rouse heard that Playboy was looking for female radio personalities to pose for a video and magazine shoot.

The argument could be heard first, neighbors said. Then the police lights began flashing through their windows. Residents in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood, not unfamiliar with police activity, said they peered outside. A man they recognized as a neighbor lay on the concrete in just his boxer shorts, not moving much and apparently wounded, they said. "I heard the argument, and I came down to the first floor to look and saw all the police and the man laying on the ground. I thought it was a dead body," said Sanyika Fitzpatrick, a 15-year resident of Walton Court, a residential box of homes northwest of downtown and across Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from Maryland General Hospital.

There's The Story . . . the fairy-tale account of how an autographed napkin and a mother playing Cupid helped bring Kelly and Cal Ripken Jr. together; then there's the lesser-known tale of what took place six months later.The latter begins not with Once upon a time but with a line from Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .Kelly had just returned from an idyllic trip to Japan with the Orioles in 1984. She and her boyfriend, baseball superstar Cal Ripken Jr., had discussed getting engaged as they waited in a Tokyo airport.

Reigning national champion Salisbury has won the past 11 meetings and 14 of the last 15 with Washington College. But as the two sides prepare for the latest installment of the “War on the Shore” series Wednesday night in Chestertown, Sea Gulls coach Jim Berkman said he and his players have no intention of overlooking the Shoremen. “They've got a win over a team that beat us,” Berkman pointed out Monday. “They beat [Washington and Lee], 8-4, and we lost to W&L, 7-6. So they have a couple good wins on their schedule.

I know the Orioles wanted it, but I thought [Brian] Roberts would choose free agency so he would have a better shot to win. And I thought the Orioles, who are playing for long-term success, would try to build their future foundation by dealing him for prospects. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/cornersportsbar)

A story in yesterday's editions incorrectly identified the alma mater of Washington Redskins wide receiver Mark Stock. He went to the Virginia Military Institute.The Sun regrets the error.Mark Stock knows what it's like to make it all the way to the final NFL roster cut before getting the pink slip.It happened to him with two teams in 1990 and 1991, and he was stunned both times."I thought I was the third receiver," Stock said of the Steelers' decision to cut him in 1990 after he played eight games as a rookie in 1989.

Maryland Goode answers call for Terps One of the biggest question marks for Maryland heading into this fall was who was going to catch the football. Five games into the season, the Terps might have found another option. Junior tight end Jason Goode, a former All-Metro standout for Woodlawn and Archbishop Curley, was used in the slot and helped Maryland disguise which formations it was running Saturday in a 27-23 loss at Georgia Tech. He finished with four catches for 33 yards, including an 18-yard reception on third-and-three that landed the Terps on Georgia Tech's 3-yard line in the first quarter.

David Lord has learned that one of the most important attributes for any girls soccer coach is patience. And he needed lots of that at Broadneck this season.The team was relatively young, with only two senior starters. And it lacked a superstar who could take over a game and single-handedly turn defeat into victory.And it still won nine games and made the region finals.No wonder Lord counts this season among his most rewarding in six years at the Cape St. Claire school."There were a couple years where I thought our team was a state playoff team.

Apparently, it is the middle class, not the greed heads in banking and on Wall Street, that is responsible for the current economic crisis. We've run up our credit cards and borrowed against our houses and spent until the well went dry. Now our houses aren't worth what we owe on them, and there is no more room on the credit cards. Our wages are stagnant, or we're out of work altogether, and we can't pay what we owe. The economy is in the tank, and it is all our fault. I wish the government would make up its mind.

Woodlawn coach Gerald Russell said he hoped to use yesterday's Baltimore County Indoor Track Relay Championships at the Fifth Regiment Armory as a springboard to the regional and state meets.With the Warriors' seven-point win over Perry Hall, however, he first might have to pull his runners out of the rafters."We're still trying to peak for regionals and states," Russell said. "I think if the kids keep focused, they have the potential to go all the way."Woodlawn won the meet with 63 points, followed by Perry Hall with 54 and Milford Mill with 23.The Warriors exceled in the short- and middle-distance events, mixing and matching relay teams to gain a sizable lead before the longer events.

Ray Rice's amazing 29-yard catch-and-run on fourth down-and-29 and the Ravens' eventual 16-13 overtime win against the San Diego Chargers Sunday overshadowed a few miscues such as the offense's ineptness in the first half, the unit's inability to create a consistent pocket for quarterback Joe Flacco and some inopportune penalties. Another gaffe that didn't end up hurting the Ravens was the ill-fated decision to go for it on fourth down-and-1 on the Chargers' 14-yard line with 34 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

I had a moment looking around my living room this morning where I thought it looked like a tornado had hit. Maybe it was actually Tropical Storm Isaac. The National Hurricane Center predicts that Tropical Storm Isaac is likely to form in the Caribbean Sea by Wednesday. ( Scott Dance has more on that here .) Who knows if it will end up on the East Coast, but even the possibility of that makes me rethink my storm metaphor. I'm no fan of hurricanes and tropical storm. I grew up in the Houston area until high school, so storm warnings -- and actual storms -- were not unusual, to say the least.

Boy, talk about losing sight of the important things in life. I thought Kate Gosselin was history -- a cancelled has-been relegated to the junk heap of reality TV "stars" -- used, abused, exploited and trashed out by the TV industry after all the ad-dollar toothpaste was squeezed out of the the tube. But no, I was wrong, and Kate Gosselin is starting what TLC describes as another season tonight at 9. But she is starting it amid rumors of cancellation -- what a way to fly. Check out the way this intreview with "Today" show host Ann Curry opens on a question about being cancelled.

This is not a story from my media beat. It's only a footnote to the story in the Baltimore Sun this week about City Councilman Robert Curran telling a resident in his district that if he wanted to get police to respond more quickly to a 911 call, he should lie and tell them there is a gun involved. Just a footnote, but I think it's an important one. You can read the story by Sun reporter Rebekah Brown  here . I was the resident who...

Karon Abraham scored 19 points and defending champion Robert Morris beat Mount St. Mary's, 80-62, on Sunday night in the Northeast Conference semifinals. The second-seeded Colonials (22-11) will play top seed Quinnipiac on Wednesday March 10 in the conference championship for a berth in the NCAA tournament. The Colonials will be playing for their seventh conference tournament title. Rob Robinson added 14 points, Dallas Green had 11 and Velton Jones 10 for the Colonials, who had split two games this season with Mount St. Mary's and beat the Mountaineers in last year's NEC title game.

I know the Orioles wanted it, but I thought [Brian] Roberts would choose free agency so he would have a better shot to win. And I thought the Orioles, who are playing for long-term success, would try to build their future foundation by dealing him for prospects. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/cornersportsbar)

Neither Dennis Edwards nor the Annapolis running game truly got untracked, but the Panthers still had enough to outlast Poly, 72-56, last night to regain the championship of the 16th Capital Classic basketball tournament.No. 2 Annapolis (8-0), which lost in last year's tournament final to Northwestern of Prince George's County, won its 20th straight game since a loss to top-ranked Dunbar last January.The Panthers had a more balanced attack than the Engineers (6-3), took better care of the ball and played tough defense when the game was on the line.

Centennial put two teams on the field at Westminster yesterday. The first one, according to the coach, was an embarrassment.The second was the same group that came to life after halftime to produce a 2-1 victory and end the home team's regular-season 37-game non-losing streak that dated to the start of the 1995 season.Senior Jill Seewagen scored both Centennial goals, opening the scoring less than two minutes into the second half off a pass from Caitlin Marshall. Then she broke a 1-1 tie with a partially screened shot that had the right angle into the far corner of the cage with 8 minutes, 51 seconds left.

For hours, the Obama faithful sat in the pews of Baltimore's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, watching a large-screen television and waiting for the election results. When CNN announced that he had won, people ran down the sanctuary's aisles, crying. And later, near midnight, when Obama appeared on screen, the crowd of more than 200 stood and cheered. Some clasped their hands, as if in prayer; others waved and chanted "Obama, Obama," or took photos of the television screen. Denise Mattei wiped away tears.

It was Saturday, May 21, 1988. I was 20 years young. He was one year my senior. We had dated for a year and a half. I was about to make the biggest decision I had ever made in my life. And I felt comfortable that I knew what I was doing. I thought that I had a good idea what such a major commitment would essentially mean. I also thought that, with time as my friend, I would eventually figure out all of the intricacies of this thing called marriage that I did not know. Isn't that what most of us, if we are honest, do as human beings?