James Jones

Opinion: If the Maryland Terrapins win their last three regular-season games and lose to Duke in the ACC tournament final, they could draw a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. A 27-5 record normally wouldn't be good enough, but three of the losses would be to Duke and few other teams can match the Terps' record. Hey, it sounds crazy, but it could happen.Fact: Had Tamir Goodman played for Maryland this season, he would have missed five of 29 regular-season games for religious observances.Opinion: Highly recommended reading: David Remnick's "King of the World," about the two Ali-Liston fights; and Steve Rushin's hilarious "Road Swing," about a car trip taken in pursuit of the soul of American sports.

Ravens vice president of football personnel Ozzie Newsome flew home from Indianapolis on Sunday night, slept three hours and then walked into his Owings Mills complex office to find his voice mail already full.The Ravens had not posted any help wanted signs for defensive linemen, but it seemed as if everyone who ever picked up a football wanted to apply."I think every defensive lineman in the NFL has called me this morning," said Newsome.The Ravens lost two starting defensive linemen for most of the season in a 26- 21 loss to the Colts on Sunday night.

SundayMiami at RavensDOLPHINS: Out: WR Brett Perriman (knee); RB Stanley Pritchett (knee); G Keith Sims (elbow). Questionable: C Tim Ruddy (knee). Probable: LB Dwight Hollier (knee).RAVENS: Questionable: LB Peter Boulware (back); S Rondell Jones (knee); S Stevon Moore (knee). Probable: DT James Jones (neck); DT Tony Siragusa (ankle).Arizona at PhiladelphiaCARDINALS: Doubtful: CB J.J. McCleskey (knee). Questionable: S Tommy Bennett (chest); QB Kent Graham (ankle-knee). Probable: T James Dexter (knee)

Remember all those photos of Colin Powell decked out in his general's uniform? Chances are good it was made by a century-old Baltimore firm.Also on the Haas Tailoring Co.'s client list: Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, George Bush and -- in a few weeks -- golfer Tiger Woods.For 100 years, Haas has been making clothing in the city. The company has spent the last few decades tailoring custom suits for high-end retailers that cater to the powerful, wealthy or just plain big. Over the years, Gen. George S. Patton, the Temptations, Gov. Parris N. Glendening and most of the Baltimore Ravens have sported Haas' threads.

DURHAM, N.C. - James Earl Jones' commanding bass is so recognizable, even a hermit could place it immediately. It's Mufasa, the papa lion in Disney's hit The Lion King, it's Darth Vader in Star Wars. It has an air of compassion, of wisdom and omnipotence. And yet this Hollywood star spent the better part of his childhood with his mouth closed, plagued by a severe stutter. "It was so bad that I didn't speak at all," Jones, 74, told 200 students at a literacy celebration this week in Durham.

In a little room on Emory Street, with dusk falling like a veil across West Baltimore, the magnificent actor James Earl Jones leans into a microphone and begins to speak the words of a radio commercial."

We are knee-deep in what is annually one of the worst stretches of the television season. Commercial overload, coupled with a three-week hiatus of new episodes as the networks reload for the launch of their midseason replacements, serve as a nasty reminder of how bad American television can get. And, then, there is The 25th Annual Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts, a delight of holiday programming that connects us in our homes...

Washington -- When James Earl Jones was 14 years old, he traveled from rural Michigan, where he lived with his grandparents, to visit his mother in St. Louis. There, four young hoodlums welcomed the visitor to the big city: They cornered him on a street and demanded his money.Young James Earl Jones complied. Then he went back to his mother's apartment and got the junior stick-up men more change."The fact that I went home and got more change suggests that I did not fully understand that I was being mugged," Mr. Jones writes with understatement in his newly published autobiography, "Voices and Silences" (Charles Scribner's Sons, $24)

The voice roared through City Springs Elementary School's auditorium yesterday, causing a hush to ricochet through the room.It was a voice they had heard before -- Darth Vader in "Star Wars" and King Mufasa in "The Lion King" -- but now the school's 344 pupils sat face-to-stage with the real deal: actor James Earl Jones.Jones was at the East Baltimore school bringing to life the children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" and to launch Bell Atlantic's reading partnership, "Books and Breakfast," with the school.

Say On Golden Pond, and you probably hear the sound of loons on a lake. But in the production at Washington's Kennedy Center, it's the telephone that grabs your attention. That's because this new revival stars James Earl Jones, the voice of Verizon, whose first line on stage happens to be: "The phone works!" Of course, Ernest Thompson's play isn't about telephones or loons. It's about family. Specifically, it's about the family of a retired English professor, his wife and their grown and estranged daughter.