League

When Mike Blevins came to Howard County Recreation and Parks as a sports coordinator last fall, he and sports supervisor Mark Pendleton talked about new programs. One of them was dodgeball. Many adults remember dodgeball from their elementary school days. Now, the sport has made a comeback, as evidenced by a good response when the county started a league this spring. Blevins said 60 players participated in the six-team league, which will hold its championship at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Harper's Choice Middle School.

Old-fashioned leagues, patterned after the leagues of 40 and 50 years ago, are still around.They have five regular teammates plus one or two subs -- subs that usually don't get too much playing time because the other bowlers don't miss many league nights. Every team in the league with a local sponsor -- a lunch room, a gas station, a fuel company, a bank.Some guys have been in the leagues for 10 and 20 years. Everyone knows everyone, everyone knows everyone's families, his jobs, his hobbies.

From his days in the youth leagues of Highlandtown to his successful pro and college coaching career, Pete Caringi has always dreamed of the big leagues. Not just for himself, but for his sport.Mr. Caringi played for the defunct North American Soccer League and coached the defunct Maryland Bays of the nearly defunct American Professional Soccer League. Through the years, he has learned to be wary of predictions that soccer is about to join baseball, football, basketball and hockey among America's major leagues.

Acting one final time in what he called the "best interests of baseball," Fay Vincent resigned as baseball commissioner yesterday, precluding a potentially long and bitter legal battle with the owners who wanted to oust him.In announcing his resignation, Mr. Vincent urged the owners to maintain a strong role for the commissioner and not make him a "figurehead," as he said some owners would like."

Phil, are the Yankees ready?" the umpire asked the coach. "Whenever you guys want to take the field, go ahead." Over by the dugout, the coach started barking the lineup. "Nick, first base. William, go to second. Nathanial, you're in left field, buddy." "All right!" one of the players shouted. "I'm batting nine - and I'm 9 years old!" The Yankees sprinted out to the field and for once there were no boos, no taunts, no Derek Jeter groupies and no obnoxious chanting. It's just parents clapping and cheering for nine Yankees getting ready for the first pitch, with one of the players dancing an Irish jig. "We're not dancing," their coach, Phil Jacob, yelled from the home team dugout.

Two years ago, the NFL formed a special committee to deal with a crisis more dire than free-agent salaries or the use of instant replay to review referees' decisions: stadiums.The league, though America's dominant sport on television, at the box office and even in T-shirt sales, had fallen woefully behind in terms of jazzy venues. Baseball was opening acclaimed Camden Yards clones every year, but football had failed to establish even an acclaimed old stadium.But now, through a combination of franchise relocations, threatened relocations and multimillion-dollar political campaigns, the NFL has roared to the lead in the stadium game.

Howard Milstein has agreed in a letter to split a $400 million loan to buy the Washington Redskins with his brother, Edward, but has provided no documentation to back up the proposal, a league spokesman said yesterday.The loan is part of an $800 million package put together by the Milsteins and Daniel Snyder that won the bidding war to buy the Redskins from the estate of the late Jack Kent Cooke.Howard Milstein was originally going to borrow the $400 million himself, which would violate the NFL's debt rules, so the league asked that the loan be split between the brothers.

Bethesda -- The Maryland Nighthawks of the newly formed Premier Basketball League are banking that former Towson University guard Tamir Goodman still has enough cachet to help the fledgling league get off the ground. At a news conference held at Georgetown Prep yesterday, Nighthawks owner and league chief executive officer Tom Doyle introduced the player dubbed the "Jewish Jordan" by talking about his skills on and off the court. "This is somebody who epitomizes everything not only this team but this league should be about," Doyle said.

The baseball boys, some nearing 60, came out to play yesterday, looking swell, like a piece of Americana in Roland Park. Marching in a parade led by a vintage fire engine, a reunion of players led the way to their past, to the place where their league began on the Gilman School grounds. It was the spring of 1952, and there were 115 players in the "Midget" League, later to be called Little League, in a city at the height of its industrial might. It claims it is the oldest Little League in Baltimore and one of the oldest in continuous operation in the country.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Rick Gravel had to go just to the frozen lake behind his family's home to play hockey.Frozen lakes may be a rarity in Maryland, but the 31-year-old Greenbelt resident has found a reservoir of people interested in roller hockey."