Lipscomb

Every time Gino Marchetti takes a step, he remembers The Game. It was Dec. 28, 1958. Marchetti's Baltimore Colts were playing the New York Giants in what is now known as The Greatest Game Ever Played.It was fourth down. Marchetti had just made the tackle on Giants running back Frank Gifford, when his Colts teammate, Gene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, fell on him, breaking the ankle that still bothers him today.By the time Marchetti was carried off the field and the ball was marked, the Giants found themselves short of the first down.

COLLEGE PARK -- Central, seemingly able to play at only two levels -- run-and-gun and self-destruction -- put both on display last night in their 82-64 triumph over Aberdeen for the Class 2A championship at Cole Field House.The Falcons (24-3) parlayed two first-half runs into a 13-point lead, but that was a mere warm-up for the three-minute clinic they put on in the third period.Leading 42-32 one minute into the second half, the Prince George's County school went on a 14-0 spree, with its defense setting up many of the points.

THE GIFT of DRISCOLL LIPSCOMB. By Sara Yamaka. Simon & Schuster. Illustrated by Joung Un Kim. 32 pages. $15.THE GREAT BALL GAME: A MUSKOGEE STORY. "Retold" by Joseph Bruchac. Dial Books. Illustrated by Susan Roth. 32 pages. $14.99.EMILY AND ALICE AGAIN. By Joyce Champion. Gulliver Books.Illustrated by Sucie Stevenson. 32 pages. $14.5/8 The Gift of Driscoll Lipscomb," is a colorful book that's designed for young readers ages 4-8 but will be best appreciated by young readers who are keenly esthetic, which of course describes your child or grandchild, right?

You know the story by heart: A writer spends years finishing a book. But agents don't return her phone calls, and publishers ignore her queries. Except for the occasional rejection letter, she hears nothing.And then there's 17-year-old Sara Yamaka.Three years ago, the Park School student whipped out a children's story in a few hours. She bypassed agents and sent it directly to a publishing house -- a route that normally condemns even a beautifully written book to oblivion. Not this time.Sara's story, "The Gift of Driscoll Lipscomb," was picked up by Simon & Schuster this year and hit the bookstores about a month ago. And the author isn't even old enough to vote yet."

Essex Community College freshman guard Sean Lipscomb sets the tempo for the men's basketball team with his play on the court.And his mere presence may set the tone for the future of the program.Lipscomb, a two-year starter at Dunbar, is averaging a team-high 27.4 points per game to lead Essex (3-2) to its best start in 10 years. The Knights are coming off a 5-16 season.Knights second-year head coach Terry Maczko and assistant coach Tony Smith pulled a coup by luring Lipscomb to Essex, and they are hoping that Lipscomb's positive experience at the school will attract more of Baltimore's best players.

Sean Lipscomb (Dunbar) and Dominique Minor each scored 25 points to lead host Essex Community College (6-3) to a 98-84 victory over Catonsville CC (5-2) in men's basketball yesterday.Essex CC led only 44-42 at the half, but dominated the second half with 54 points to secure the win. Walter Wright contributed 19 points for the Knights.

Senior forward T. J. Hall, last year's Patriot League MVP,led Navy to a 91-63 exhibition win over Korabel (Ukraine) at Alumni Hall yesterday.Hall, from Port Jefferson, N.Y., scored 22 points, grabbed five rebounds, hit all four of his attempts from three-point range and made seven assists.Korabel's Oleg Tkatch scored 26 points and added four assists and four steals to his totals.Navy received solid contributions in the middle from junior center Alex Kohnen (17 points, 11 rebounds) and senior forward Wes Cooper (14 points, nine rebounds)

John Thanos' letters from prison show a man hungry for death, though the details of his dying terrify him. He's exhausted by the long legal overture to the last act of his life. He wants out, whatever the cost. Now the state of Maryland prepares to oblige him.Thanos in his isolation imagines a hideous expiration. The state says otherwise. Thanos in his letters talks of "the relentless fury" of his body "screaming, jerking and thrashing in agony for what seems like forever." The state now says it will be gentler.

The small, hexagonal gas chamber on the second floor of the Maryland Penitentiary was last used on June 9, 1961.It was only 5 years old at the time. Until 1956, prisoners sentenced to death were hanged.Its last occupant was Nathaniel Lipscomb, convicted of murdering Mae Hall, Lottie Kite and Pearl Weiss, all of East Baltimore. The women were raped and strangled over a two-week period in late 1958 and early 1959.His lawyer, Robert B. Watts (later a judge) recalled: "There was no question he was guilty.

When Christel Lipscomb got a good look at the inside of her mouth for the first time, she could barely believe what she saw.There were untreated cavities, leaking fillings, tarter, gum disease -- well, suffice to say there were a lot of things that most people would rather not know about, let alone see, existing in their mouths.Mrs. Lipscomb, a 54-year-old from Glen Burnie, was in the chair of local periodontist Dr. Harold Packman for the first time when she found out what was was going on -- or rather going wrong -- in her mouth.

Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney was right to reject the attempt by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's attorneys to throw out perjury charges against her through an overly expansive interpretation of the legal principle that protects her legislative acts from prosecution. The notion that votes and debate, specifically, would be exempt from prosecution speaks to our values about the separation of powers in government. But the idea that any act Ms. Dixon commits while an elected official - standing at a ribbon-cutting, for example - should be exempt would eliminate any possibility that she or any other politician could be held to a standard of ethics.

Even a long-shot candidate for governor has enough friends and supporters to pose for the pictures on his campaign Web site, right? So why is Republican Mike Pappas resorting to stock photos? Not that you can really tell from looking at the firefighters, children and others pictured on www.pappas2010.com. But one shot looks fishy, at least to people here at The Baltimore Sun. The guy pictured is David Ettlin, The Sun's former night metro editor. He's shown smiling, with rowhouses in the distance, beside these words: "Jobs are about quality of life and opportunity for both employer and employee."

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon could have two separate criminal trials, defense attorneys announced yesterday, saying that the theft and perjury indictments will not be combined. Dixon's defense attorney, Arnold M. Weiner, would not say why the trials will be separated and called the announcement "everyone's decision." State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh said the decision rested with the defense and would not affect the way he tries the cases. Dixon's trial on charges that she stole gift cards from needy families will go forward on Nov. 9. No date has been set for the perjury trial.

Lawyers for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon will not ask a judge to jettison the theft charges against her but did file a 29-page motion on Friday requesting again that the perjury charges be dismissed. Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled in May that similar perjury charges against the mayor could not stand because they were brought using tainted evidence that violate her legislative immunity. Now, the judge will be asked to determine how broadly that immunity is defined. Dixon has been charged with two counts of perjury for failing to report gifts from developer Ronald Lipscomb on her city ethics form.

Howard Dixon, a retired city police officer who gets paid $60,566 a year to hold the door for the mayor, is a more valuable public servant than might be imagined. Valuable to the mayor he serves, anyway, in a don't ask, don't tell kinda way. Take that day in 2004 when, state prosecutors say, Sheila Dixon handed a wad of cash - $4,000, in $100 bills - to Howard Dixon, who is paid to escort her to events and who is no relation. Prosecutors allege that then-City Council President Dixon, just back from a Chicago shopping spree with developer-boyfriend Ron Lipscomb, asked Howard Dixon to put the cash in his bank account, and then write a check to help cover her whopping American Express bill.

Investigators with the State Prosecutor's Office found that Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon made $13,800 in "unexplained cash" deposits in a six-week period during the spring of 2004, one of many details to emerge in a mammoth court filing that raises questions about Dixon's financial dealings as City Council president. Ronald H. Lipscomb, a former Dixon boyfriend, provided about $4,000 of the sum, but investigators do not know the source of the rest of it, a fact that prompted one member of a grand jury investigating the mayor to ask: "Does the City Council President make that kind of money?"

Developer Ronald H. Lipscomb paid $8,750 for a political survey for a state delegate running against Sheila Dixon for mayor in 2007, according to an account of the transaction in court papers filed Monday. Del. Jill P. Carter, a Baltimore Democrat, denied any knowledge of the poll in an interview on Monday. She has not been accused of accepting donations over the $4,000 limit on individual contributions. The poll was disclosed in documents filed by attorneys for City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton, who has been charged as part of a wide-ranging City Hall corruption probe with accepting a poll from Lipscomb.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's lawyers say that the new criminal charges brought against her by the state prosecutors rely on faulty evidence and a vaguely worded city ethics statute and should be dismissed, according to court papers filed Tuesday. Arnold M. Weiner, Dixon's lead attorney, wrote that state Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh is trying "to twist alleged violations of the Baltimore City Ethics Code into criminal violations." Dixon faces perjury charges for failing to report lavish gifts from her then-boyfriend, city developer Ronald H. Lipscomb, on her ethics forms, and theft charges for using gift cards intended for needy families.

The plea deal had been negotiated long before John Paterakis Sr. made it official in a Baltimore courtroom on Friday. And the bread man turned Harbor East honcho seemed more than ready to sign off on his guilty plea to a couple of campaign finance violations and move on. Judge Dennis M. Sweeney had just started listing the terms of the agreement and the details of Paterakis' sentence. He had barely ordered the first fine, for $1,000 - and had yet to mete out a second, $25,000 penalty and probation - when Paterakis reached into a pants pocket, pulled out two blank checks and had a pen poised to fill them out. It was an impressively quick draw for the 80-year-old Paterakis, but then, he's written a lot of checks over the years.

Back when I first joined The Baltimore Sun, a photographer and I were coming back from an assignment in Fells Point, and he was doing what all good old-timers do - pointing out significant sites along the way for a newbie. That's where Grace Hartigan paints, that's where the body turned up the other day. Waving toward some low-slung nondescript buildings where tractor-trailers were maneuvering on and off a narrow street, he said something like, "And that's owned by one of the most powerful men in town.