Jackie

"Oh, I don't mean I'm afraid of him," Scotty Schulhofer said. "But you've got to pay attention to any horse that's won nine in a row."Fly So Free's fooling-around victory in the Fountain of Youth over the weekend raised a question: Who may be bold enough to send a 3-year-old to challenge him in the Florida Derby on March 16?Schulhofer, Fly So Free's trainer and fan, had a ready answer: Jackie Wackie, whose success in the Cryptoclearance at Gulfstream Park on Valentine's Day was his ninth straight.

Ed and Jackie Lanehart, retired and avid tenpin bowlers, are Ellicott City residents who do their league bowling at Brunswick Normandy and their tournament bowling wherever there's a tournament.During a recent seven-week period, Ed Lanehart played in tournaments in Tulsa, Okla.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Las Vegas, Nev. His wife joined him for the last two trips."Last year there were no Senior Olympics and the ABC Nationals were held in Cincinnati so that's where we went, and of course, the Hi Rollers in Vegas," he said.

Last Sunday evening started without fanfare, a normal league night of duckpins for the husband/wife duo of Jim and Jackie Dodson at Mount Airy Lanes.Jim is an old hand at duckpins. Jackie began her career three years ago."I guess I've been bowling for about 28 years," he said. "Since I was about 12 years old."They both bowl in three leagues at the Mount Airy center. In the Sunday Early Mixed and the Friday Night Early Mixed they bowl (( together.Jackie Dodson averaged 108 last season. This year her average has climbed to 114. But there was no indication that she was about to post her career-high single game and series; even less an indication that something extremely unusual was going to happen.

One gave her life, and one raised her, but each is her mother. One is energetic and outgoing, one soft-spoken and genteel. In age they are 20 years apart. Each is her mother. One didn't see her for 38 years. One dressed her in frills, served her fine Southern cooking and raised her in a family so close and secure and loving that she never wanted for another. One told people that she had only four children, never mentioning the infant daughter she'd had as a teen-ager and was forced to give up. One proudly told people that her daughter was adopted, believing it was something to be celebrated, not a secret.

North Carroll coach Greg Knill said having twins on his Panthers basketball team is fun, although it does cause some interesting problems.Sometimes Knill will try to talk to one girl when it's really the other. Also, there are times when Knill wants to say something to one player and must pause because he's not sure to whom he's talking.Life is twice as nice for Knill this year because two sets of twins play for him. Jackie and Jamie Nave plus Kelly and Krista Summers help North Carroll's opponents double their double vision.

Westminster-area resident Sally Shirley changed horses in mid-stream last weekend and found she has a rising star on her hands.At the Charlie Plumb combined training clinic, sponsored by the New Market-Middletown Valley Hounds, Shirley took the 4-year-old mare Jackie along as a replacement for a horse that was not quite ready for a two-day clinic.Jackie repaid Shirley's faith by working hard and rarely putting a foot wrong during the two days of dressage, cross-country jumping and stadium jumping.

During the 1947 baseball season, Jackie Robinson maintained complete composure in service of the greater good. Along with boxer Joe Louis, Robinson helped lay the integrationist groundwork for the civil rights movement that would follow in the 1950s. And for that, he's the only major league baseball player honored with a retired number by every franchise. In the rush to celebrate Robinson the social iconic figure, some forget the greatness of Robinson the player. He was already 28 when he reached the majors, so his career totals don't pop the eyes.

Hallelujah. Baseball fans: Another season has begun. After a long winter, such unpleasantness as John Rocker's mouth, Darryl Strawberry's demons and Ken Griffey Jr.'s power play are soon to be consigned to distant memory. Now it's the games that matter. But let's be honest, barring a miracle like 1969 (remember '69?), this summer is going to drag on forever for Orioles fans. But I can offer some solace as the Bronx Bombers rise inexorably to the top. It comes in the form of this spring's crop of baseball books now hitting the shelves.

"My husband Josh is such a baby," sighs Jackie, 28, the mother of two boys, ages 4 and 2, and a part-time X-ray technician in a large hospital. "If he objects so much to my working, why didn't he say so before?"Jackie says life with Josh had always been a guessing game. In six years of marriage, he rarely expressed an opinion. But now he's full of them. He used to adore her cooking and affectionately called her Julia Child. Now, he refers to her as the "hamburger-and-French-fries queen." The house, he says, looks like a disaster area -- though she rarely sees him lift a finger to help.