Make A Decision

Quote: "Right now, they're the best team on the planet. No one will argue that." -- Devil Rays right fielder Mike Kelly about the Yankees.It's a fact: The Rangers are 43-16 this season when they score four runs or more. They're 6-23 when they score fewer than four runs.Who's hot: Twins pitcher Bob Tewksbury. He has only 12 walks this season, an average of 1.03 per nine innings.Who's not: Tampa Bay, which has lost seven straight, has scored just four runs over 57 innings and has been shut out four of the last 10 games.

The decision the Orioles face with Ryan Flaherty was already one of the most difficult ones of the of the spring before major league camp began, and as the team's days in Sarasota are whittled away, the 26-year-old utilityman has done nothing to make the organization's choice any easier. Last season, as the Orioles' Rule 5 draft pick, the choice was more definitive. If the Orioles didn't keep Flaherty on the roster for the entire season, they'd very likely lose him. This year, Flaherty can be optioned to the minor leagues.

Carroll County commissioners will not be pushed into making a decision to change the way trash is collected in the county before the November election, Commissioner Donald I. Dell said yesterday.Westminster Mayor W. Benjamin Brown said that if the commissioners don't decide soon, officials from five towns may decide to dump trash in a Pennsylvania landfill with a lower tipping fee than the county landfill.Mr. Brown, who is running for commissioner in Tuesday's primary, asked the officials to make a decision before the election.

Like Ed Reed, Matt Birk has a decision to make about his future with the Ravens. And like the free safety, the 15-year center declined to say whether he envisioned playing out the final two years of his contract. “I don't know,” he said. “I'm worried about what I'm going to eat at dinner tonight. I don't make any decision until I have to. That's my motto.” Birk, 36, made his 113th consecutive start in Sunday's 24-9 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Wildcard playoff round.

A consultant is evaluating potential environmental problems at the former Telemecanique manufacturing plant for Carroll's commissioners, who want to acquire the building to house Board of Education administrative offices.Commissioner Donald I. Dell said yesterday that the possibility of losing the building to another buyer puts pressure on the county's governing board to make a decision soon.Commissioner Elmer Lippy said he remains interested in the building, but wants to know more about possible pollution before saying yes to a lease or lease-purchase agreement.

DESPITE good intentions, careful planning and firm decisions, parents may still have a tough time with the holidays, especially this year. Here are some strategies for handling difficult Christmas situations at home:* Give Santa a social conscience. If Santa will be bringing fewer or smaller presents than he has in Christmases past, you can prepare youngsters by telling them that there is less for everyone this year. Advise youngsters to make a short wish list because Santa just won't be able to deal with a long one.* If an older child really wants an item that the family cannot afford, let him figure out ways to get it. Offer to contribute however much you would spend on his gifts toward the item and let him make up the difference.

Terence Morris could make a decision soon on whether he will play a fourth season at Maryland. After the Terps' season was ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament, the junior forward from Frederick's Thomas Johnson said he would weigh his stock in the NBA draft. A 6-foot-9 forward, Morris could enter his name in the draft, or return to College Park for his senior season. Morris and his mother, Roxanne Bright, met last Tuesday to discuss his development and future with Tom Dickman, his high school coach.

The owner of a growing public relations business based in a Baltimore suburb talked about decision-making as an essential tool for driving a business -- or career -- to success. A woman in her 50s who started young and at the bottom, she spoke on a Saturday morning to young women who expect to match her success."I don't know anything that hampers a person more than the inability to make a decision," she said. "Even people who know they've done careful research and given a project their best let themselves get bogged down in indecisiveness.

State elections administrator Linda H. Lamone delayed a decision yesterday on whether to deploy the state's new voter check-in system in the November election until its manufacturer finishes testing a solution to one flaw remaining from the primary. "We expect that all of the reviews and the additional testing on all of the potential solutions can be accomplished in the next 24 hours and that we will be able to make the most informed decision to guarantee success in the upcoming election," Lamone said in a statement.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Bob Milacki took another step toward an Opening Day assignment and possible redemption here yesterday.The right-hander hung up four more scoreless innings in his third exhibition appearance, as the Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-3, to improve their preseason record to 6-3.Milacki was the starting pitcher in the last major-league game played at Memorial Stadium, last Oct. 6 -- a performance he'd just as soon forget."

The season-ending knee injuries of not one but two quarterbacks have left Maryland so depleted that it is deciding between two inexperienced players to be the new starter and must convert a freshman linebacker or tight end to be third string. The latest injury - a torn anterior cruciate ligament suffered by freshman Perry Hills in Saturday's loss to North Carolina State - leaves Maryland to choose between two very different sorts of quarterbacks: Caleb Rowe and Devin Burns. Rowe, a true freshman, is a redhead with a choir-boy face whose teammates describe him as a "gunslinger" because of the way he whips the ball around while directing two-minute drills in practice.

The Court of Appeals ruling this week calling for indigent defendants to be represented by lawyers at the court commissioner hearings that determine whether they'll be released before trial, granted bail or held in jail was an important step for justice in Maryland. These initial post-arrest proceedings can have profound effects on defendants - most of whom face relatively minor charges that will never go to trial - and on their families and communities. Ultimately, it will also be a good thing for taxpayers.

More than six years ago, Maryland's highest court voted to disbar Ira C. Cooke, once one of Annapolis' most prominent lobbyists, because of Mr. Cooke's conviction in an embezzlement case in California. A couple of years later, that conviction was reversed by the high court of California, and prosecutors in Bakersfield decided against a retrial. So, back in Annapolis, Mr. Cooke asked the Maryland Court of Appeals to reinstate him to the bar here. According to records, Mr. Cooke made that predictable request in the court's fall term of 2007 - by the calendar I've been using, four years ago - but the Court of Appeals only ruled on the matter late last month.

Not long after Chante Callaway and her boyfriend got engaged, they decided to move in together. They wanted to do a test run, to really get to know each other before they made the big jump. "I was like, `I feel I need to know you more,'" said the 28-year-old from Rosedale. And a few months later, they did. So much so that they decided that they weren't marriage material -- for each other, anyway. Whether they're deciding to get married, to move in together or even just to date exclusively, couples find themselves at a crossroads at least one time in their relationship.

Bruce Drinkwater, a big guy in jeans and a battered fleece pullover, sidles up to the manager of the Spirit Halloween Superstore with the gruff yet familiar air of a man ready to talk football. Instead he grunts: "Have any more angel costumes?" And then hastily adds: "In her size." She is Nicole, his 11-year-old daughter, and she's standing beside him, sparkling with excitement (and maybe a smidgen of glitter rubbed off from a nearby princess outfit). Her parents don't spring for trick-or-treating gear every October because often as not there's a dance-recital dress or past year's costume that she can wear just as well as something new. Lately, though, Nicole has grown so fast -- about an inch every six months, according to the pencil lines that rise like ladder rungs on the kitchen wall of their Timonium home -- that there's no way that the Raggedy Ann costume will fit again, nor will the footie pajamas she wore the time she dressed up as a baby.

State elections administrator Linda H. Lamone delayed a decision yesterday on whether to deploy the state's new voter check-in system in the November election until its manufacturer finishes testing a solution to one flaw remaining from the primary. "We expect that all of the reviews and the additional testing on all of the potential solutions can be accomplished in the next 24 hours and that we will be able to make the most informed decision to guarantee success in the upcoming election," Lamone said in a statement.

"They say opposites attract, and I suppose they do," says Stephanie, 41, a tall blonde in an ankle-skimming skirt who works part-time at a community arts center. "But maybe they can't live together."Stephanie and John, an industrial engineer, have been married for 10 years. When they first met, she found his gentle, logical and stoic nature unbelievably attractive. But now, she says, they're slowly driving each other crazy. The fact that his company might be moving to Northern California, causing her to move far from friends and family, makes her wonder if she really wants to spend the rest of her life with him."

The County Commissioners were supposed to make a decision on Carroll's largest-ever rezoning case during a public meeting last week.They did indeed make their decision -- only it was made in between staff meetings two days before the now-canceled public session was supposed to take place and, on the advice of the county attorney, it won'tbe made public until Wednesday morning."

AS IS MADE obvious again and again over the years, there is nothing more annoying than dining out with someone who can't decide what to order. You know how this whole thing goes, of course. Let's say you've just been seated at a restaurant with, oh, your sister-in-law and her husband, to pick a purely hypothetical situation. The server chirps out the specials, takes your drink order and leaves you with the menus. A few minutes later, the server's back with the drinks and asks: "Everyone ready to order?"

MINNEAPOLIS - The Orioles' medical staff has recommended that pitcher Sidney Ponson rehabilitate his right shoulder and not have surgery to repair his torn labrum, vice president for baseball operations Syd Thrift said yesterday. Ponson will meet with team physician Charles Silberstein on Friday before making a final decision, and if he agrees with the recommendation, he might be able to finish out the season in the starting rotation. The Orioles placed Ponson on the 15-day disabled list Friday, after a magnetic resonance imaging exam showed a tear in the labrum, or cartilage area in the shoulder socket.