Locker

It's May, the air is sultry, the flowers are blooming, the Orioles stink and the Preakness is right around the corner. So the logical question is: Are you ready for some football? Maybe you'd better be. I say this because unless you're a masochist who enjoys watching the Orioles get pounded every night, you might want to turn your attention to the Ravens' first minicamp this weekend in Owings Mills. In the NFL, of course, there's really no such thing as the offseason.

Prosecutors are portraying Gilbert Arenas as a thuggish intimidator who tried to pressure his teammate into a cover-up, as they argue for a three-month jail sentence for the NBA star on a weapons charge. Arenas' lawyer says his client is "a peaceful man" who played a misguided prank and has already been severely punished for bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room. He says the more fitting punishment is probation and community service. Both sides staked out their positions Tuesday in court filings, ahead of Friday's sentencing in D.C. Superior Court.

T he sweeping victory of "The Hurt Locker" at the Academy Awards wasn't just a triumph for American independent filmmaking. It was a championship moment for independent-film showcases like the 2009 Maryland Film Festival, which made the movie its closing-night presentation. Kathryn Bigelow, the director, and Mark Boal, the screenwriter, maintained creative control of their audacious artistic enterprise from the first words Boal put on paper to Bigelow's final cut. They pulled off the feat of putting audiences in the boots of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit.

A feeling of regret lingered in the Ravens' locker room, where players packed up their belongings after their final team meeting of the season Monday. The Ravens finished 9-7 in the regular season and won a playoff game for the second straight season. Still, cornerback Domonique Foxworth refused to call the season successful. "I think we played a team that we could have beaten last weekend but we didn't," said Foxworth, alluding to the 20-3 divisional-round playoff loss at Indianapolis.

In one corner of the Ravens' locker room, Joe Flacco was being asked to make sense of the recent past. In another, Derrick Mason was just trying to make sense, and it wasn't going well. On the day after the day after, the Ravens came back to The Castle on Monday morning to clean out their lockers before embarking on what will be - for Mason and many of his teammates - a very uncertain offseason. So, forgive them if they aren't quite sure what to think of what happened this season or what might happen before the next one. "It's definitely abrupt," cornerback Domonique Foxworth said.

WASHINGTON - -NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Washington guard Gilbert Arenas indefinitely without pay Wednesday, saying a gun incident in the Wizards' locker room last month and Arenas's behavior since had led him to conclude "that he is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game." Stern's action, announced in a scathing statement issued from his office in New York, cast into doubt the future career of one of Washington's most colorful athletes, who once delighted basketball fans with his All-Star play but has been seeking to regain his form this year after missing most of the past two seasons with a knee injury.

Wizards star Gilbert Arenas released a statement Monday after meeting with law enforcement officials. And Arenas' lawyer says the player voluntarily met with prosecutors and detectives and answered every question during a two-hour interview. In his statement, Arenas repeated his assertion that he brought four guns to the Verizon Center to store in his locker in order to get them out of his house and away from his children. He said he mistakenly believed that recent changes in D.C. law made it legal for him to store them there.

Amid conflicting reports on what happened in the Washington Wizards locker room, the matter clearly goes beyond the team's original statement about Gilbert Arenas storing unloaded guns in his locker. What began with the NBA looking into a possible violation of its own rules has turned into an investigation involving the U.S. Attorney's Office and District of Columbia police. The implications are serious, with the legal system, the league and the Wizards in line to take possible action if the allegations prove true.

College basketball Maryland men land guard recruit Pe'Shon Howard Pe'Shon Howard, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound combo guard from Oak Hill (Va.) Academy, committed to Maryland during an unofficial visit to College Park on Saturday. Howard, a senior, said he chose the Terps over offers from Georgia Tech, Northwestern, South Florida, UCLA and Virginia. "I definitely like the environment, I like the players, the coaches, and it's in the ACC," Howard said. "The fact that I would play early [was important]