Loss

Sometimes the small things make all the difference in professional wrestling. Too often, critics -- especially those on the Internet -- nitpick every decision WWE makes and find the logical or creative flaws. Many times, this creates an unnecessary sense or allegation of failure. But on tonight's Raw, WWE (or, more specifically, general manager John Laurinaitis) made a mistake that is almost unforgivable. While I personally wasn't offended by Sunday's match between John Cena and Laurinaitis at Over the Limit , many people have lashed out against the match.

College baseball Towson eliminated with 14-9 loss to VCU Junior first baseman Brent Mikionis had three hits and drove in five runs as fifth-seeded Virginia Commonwealth (34-24) overcame an early 3-0 deficit to post a 14-9 victory over sixth-seeded Towson (27-31) in an elimination game at the Colonial Athletic Association baseball tournament in Harrisonburg, Va. Playing their third CAA tournament game in 25 hours, the Tigers fell to the Rams in a game that ended well after midnight Thursday.

Next stop, Oakland. The Ravens can't wait to get there. Missing a golden opportunity to secure a wild-card berth in the AFC playoffs, the Ravens self-destructed in the second half Sunday and dropped a wrenching 23-20 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Asked how the Ravens would respond to the difficult loss, a terse John Harbaugh set the emotional tone he wants his players to follow this week before traveling to the West Coast to play the Oakland Raiders. "I know how they'll respond," the coach said.

The operators of Baltimore's city-owned Hilton gathered Thursday to defend the hotel's financial reputation, saying it has enough cash to cover its costs and emphasizing that city taxpayers are not on the hook for expenses or losses. Last year, the hotel lost $11.5 million. Most of that loss, about $9.6 million, can be attributed to accounting requirements, which do not represent cash losses, said M.J. "Jay" Brodie, who heads the Baltimore Hotel Corp., which oversees the Hilton's finances.

On December 14, 2003 DELORES L. beloved daughter of the late Charles and Helen Loss; dear sister of the late Donald Loss; loving sister-in-law of Eileen Loss. Also survived by numerous nieces and nephews. Friends may call at the Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville, Inc., 1630 Edmondson Ave. (1 mi. W. of Beltway Exit 14) on Tuesday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. Services will be held at the Augsburg Lutheran Home on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Interment in Moreland MemorialCemetery.

Columbia-based Ryland Group Inc. reported yesterday improved first-quarter earnings for its financial services unit, which helped offset a $5.1 million first-quarter pre-tax loss for the company's homebuilding operations.Roger W. Schipke, Ryland's chief executive, said the loss in homebuilding "reflects lower gross profit margins resulting from competitive price concessions in the latter part of 1992 and increased lumber prices.""Although our 1993 pricing is improving, we won't see this in our financial results until later in the year," Mr. Schipke predicted.

Continuing what industry observers say is a remarkable turnaround, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. posted a relatively small loss for the traditionally dismal second quarter.The Hampstead-based men's clothing company yesterday reported a net loss of $600,000 for the quarter ended Aug. 3, an improvement over the $2 million loss racked up during the same quarter a year ago.That translates to a second-quarter loss of 8 cents a share this NTC year, compared with a 29 cent per share loss during the year-earlier period.

DETROIT -- Chrysler Corp. said yesterday that it lost $82 million in the third quarter, significantly less than analysts had predicted.The results touched off strong buying of Chrysler stock, which rose $1.625 to finish at $12.75 on trading volume of 3.3 million shares.Chrysler's loss was on revenue of $7.5 billion, compared with a loss of $214 million a year ago on revenue of $6.5 billion. For the nine months the automaker has lost $892 million on revenue of $21.1 billion, compared with a nine-month profit last year of $37 million on revenue of $23 billion.

Perpetual Financial Corp., continuing its long bout with souring real estate loans, said yesterday it expects an additional loss of $31 million for the quarter just ended and warned that it could fall below regulatory capital requirements if its losses continue unabated.The latest report for the company -- the largest thrift in the Virginia-Maryland-Washington region -- continued this year's unbroken string of troubling financial reports. Not including its latest losses, Perpetual, based in Vienna, Va., had lost $67.3 million during the first three quarters of its fiscal year.

There's a name for it -- grief work. As if mourning for someone you love was a job you had to do in a certain way, and when you finished you could go on with your life. The steps are laid out in self-help books and the popular press: tasks like accepting the loss, confronting emotions of despair, anger and loneliness; learning to live in the present; dealing with the life changes. And of all the steps, the one most commonly accepted is that you have to express your grief to get over it. Maybe not. Emma Sue Solloway, a 59-year-old who lives in Catonsville, says she didn't have time to sink into depression after her husband died of a heart attack 15 years ago. Grief counseling wasn't something she ever felt she needed.

Maryland's upsets of No. 7 seed Lehigh in the NCAA tournament's first round and No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals are somewhat surprising considering that the Terps ended the regular season with a less-than-inspired 13-11 loss to Colgate. It was the second consecutive year that Maryland had dropped its regular-season finale to the Raiders, who used that victory to qualify for the tournament and bounce previously undefeated Massachusetts from the first round. After the most recent setback to Colgate, Terps coach John Tillman said he decided to adjust the team's usual practice routine.

The last time the Orioles met the Red Sox, they played baseball's version of the Boston Marathon - a 17-inning game at Fenway Park that completed Baltimore's first sweep of Boston since 1994. And the last time the Red Sox came to Camden Yards, they left with their season shattered, sending them prematurely into an offseason of upheaval. Its pretty clear that the Orioles have had the Red Sox's number of late, beating Boston in seven of their last eight entering Monday. But these Red Sox arrived at Camden Yards surging, winners of eight of their last 10 games as they try to work their way out of the early-season American League East cellar.

**The most impressive thing about 22-year-old outfielder Xavier Avery is the maturity and patience at the plate he has exhibited. It's something I didn't expect when he was recalled last week. The perfect case in point was in the third inning Monday. He came up with the bases loaded in a 2-0 game - and most rookies would have been feeling the heat in that situation. But Avery didn't try to do too much. He took a called strike from Clay Buchholz, and then fouled one off. So the kid was down 0-2. He ended up working a nine-pitch walk that scored the Orioles' first run. Ten-year veterans sometimes get too anxious in an at-bat like that.

Packed into a sardine can of an interview room with about two dozen reporters - most of them sending details of his outing to his home nation of Taiwan - Orioles rookie left-hander Wei-Yin Chen tried to explain the toughest day of his brief major league career. Through his first seven starts as a big leaguer, the 26-year-old has been close to perfect on paper. He came into Sunday's start against the Washington Nationals with a 4-0 record that included wins over the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers in his past two starts.

Mike Smith appeared dazed in the moments after his horse, Bodemeister, was again beaten by Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another - this time by a neck in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . The veteran jockey wore the frozen smile of a man hardly able to fathom what had just transpired. "I swear I don't know how he ran me down, man," Smith said after trainer Bob Baffert approached in the fading sunlight. "You did a good job," the 59-year-old trainer told the 46-year-old jockey, a fellow Hall of Famer and former Preakness winner who recently passed 5,000 career victories.

One of the underlying storylines of the clash between No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins and Maryland in Saturday's quarterfinal of the NCAA tournament is what unfolded during the regular-season meeting between these teams. That April 14 contest was highlighted by the Terps closing out the second half with six unanswered goals to cap a 9-6 victory at Homewood Field. The loss was the Blue Jays' second in three games, and Johns Hopkins would lose, 8-2, to Navy the following week. Johns Hopkins junior faceoff specialist Mike Poppleton conceded that forgetting about that regular-season setback is tough.

United Therapeutics Corp. shares gained 23 percent yesterday after the company reported substantially smaller second-quarter losses and said its just-approved drug is selling at a rate of $25 million a year. The Silver Spring company said it would have been profitable except for losses incurred in its bond-market investments, necessitating a $3.6 million write-down. The maker of Remodulin, a treatment for the life-threatening disease of pulmonary hypertension, reported a net loss of $3.2 million, or 16 cents a share.

MNC Financial Inc., the largest banking company in Maryland, reported a loss of $59 million yesterday as the company's third-quarter results continued to be overtaken by real estate lending woes.But the company, parent of Maryland National Bank and American Security Bank in Washington, showed some signs that the crush of worsening real estate problems that sent MNC reeling over the past year had abated significantly.The third-quarter loss, equal to 70 cents a share, compared with a loss of $173 million a year ago and an $82 million loss in the second quarter of this year.

Maryland shed 6,000 jobs in April, the federal government said Friday — the largest monthly loss in the country during a month when most states gained, but one that might have been overstated. The figures, which are preliminary and adjusted for seasonal variations, paint a much less rosy picture of Maryland employment than in recent months. As it released the April numbers, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that it also revised downward its estimate for March, showing Maryland losing 600 jobs rather than adding 1,500.

Kathryn Manion was "at a loss for words" Tuesday night — shortly after being honored for her way with them. At a private club in New York, Manion, 22, was named the 2012 winner of Washington College's Sophie Kerr Prize, which at more than $58,000 this year is considered the most lucrative undergraduate literary award in the country. The senior English major, a Clarksville native and graduate of Notre Dame Prep in Towson, said late Tuesday that her win was still sinking in, but that she was honored.