New Stadium

OK, name the stadium, already. Pick one out of a hat if you have to. Do something.This is not that hard.Comedy is hard. Naming a stadium is easy.Camden Yards, OK?Orioles Park, OK?Orioles Park at Camden Yards?What's the problem? How long can this take? As somebody told me the other day, whatever you name it, people are just going to call it the new stadium.Name it New Stadium, then.Do something.For a while, all the back and forthing was cute. Now, it's dumb. And maybe petty, too. There was a story in The Washington Post the other day suggesting that the governor and the Orioles were feuding over the name.

Major League Soccer's D.C. United is no longer exploring the possibility of moving to Baltimore, according to The Washington Post. The franchise had flirted with the city as it attempted to convince some government entity to give it a favorable deal on a new stadium. But the team's managing partner, Jason Levien, told The Post that "the stars are aligning in a good way for us" in D.C. and that the team would focus on financing a project there with city assistance on infrastructure costs.

After backing away from plans to add an eight-story office building to the former B&O Warehouse in Camden Yards to house the State Highway Administration, the Maryland Stadium Authority has set July 15 as the deadline for developers to submit proposals for offices, hotel and meeting rooms, tourist attractions or other privately funded projects on state-owned property just east of the new stadium.The state's official request for proposals, advertised Sunday, marks the first time the Stadium Authority has made any part of the 85-acre stadium parcel available for non-sports-related uses.

When Sasho Cirovski walked onto Maryland's campus in 1993 as the new men's soccer coach, he took one look at some of the antiquated facilities and said, "We're going to build a national championship program. " Since making that bold statement, the ninth-ranked Terps have won two NCAA titles, advanced to six College Cups and brought home four ACC championships. Cirovski, however, is still expanding his vision as he opens his 20th season Sunday against No. 12 Louisville. Cirovski has set a new goal for a state-of-the-art, soccer-specific stadium, seating 8,000 to10,000 on campus, within the next five years.

CHICAGO -- Everything felt wrong. The sign on the glass wall of Comiskey Park said . . . wait. Stop right there.The sign on the glass wall of Comiskey Park? Since when do baseball stadiums have glass walls? And since when do they have rules like these etched into them:"No jeans."No cutoffs."No tank tops."No abbreviated attire."Tailored shorts acceptable."Children on weekends only in Stadium Club."This was the Stadium Club entrance to the new Comiskey Park. The new Comiskey Park was designed by the same architectural firm that has designed the new stadium in Camden Yards.

Reveling in the Ravens' victory over Indianapolis last season, owner Art Modell said, "In all my years, I can never recall a game in Cleveland, Denver, or wherever, where there was so much electricity. It was deafening, unbelievable enthusiasm."Recalling the Minnesota Vikings' visit, Brian Billick said last January, "The fans really got behind [the Ravens] With the enthusiasm of the fans in that new stadium, I was blown away by Baltimore."But reeling from another bitter defeat to Jacksonville last Sunday, several players privately offered a different view.

About 80 percent of Ravens season-ticket holders from last season have taken the plunge and bought seat licenses and tickets for the new downtown stadium scheduled to open for the 1998 season.The team has informally extended its deadline for its 18,328 current season-ticket holders, who were supposed to have had their deposits in by Dec. 18. The team has received renewals from about 16,000 of those customers, representing more than 45,000 of the current 56,000 season tickets.The team began calling the remaining customers yesterday.

Major League Soccer's D.C. United is no longer exploring the possibility of moving to Baltimore, according to The Washington Post. The franchise had flirted with the city as it attempted to convince some government entity to give it a favorable deal on a new stadium. But the team's managing partner, Jason Levien, told The Post that "the stars are aligning in a good way for us" in D.C. and that the team would focus on financing a project there with city assistance on infrastructure costs.

Forget the nostalgia. Discard any illusion. Admit it, Mom and Dad: Taking kids to an Orioles game is work. There are drinks to juggle, seat disputes to settle, bathroom visits to monitor and boredom to allay, or at least withstand, as you try to remember who's on first.But some of the new facilities, policies and services at Oriole Park at Camden Yards are intended to take some of the work out of taking the kids to a baseball game. Which means the whole baseball experience could be a little more fun -- for kids and grown-ups.

If you grew up listening to Bert Jones pass his way down the field at Memorial Stadium -- while you stood in a seemingly interminable line for a soda in a dank concourse -- prepare for a culture shock at the new Ravens digs.The $220 million facility will be bigger, the concourses wider and the fan amenities greater. There are fold-out changing tables, cup holders on the seats and, yes, plentiful washrooms.And the setting, too, couldn't be much different. Gone will be the views of Ednor Gardens' tidy rowhouses and the traffic tie-ups along 33rd Street.

Maryland football fans will get a look at the new field at Byrd Stadium -- as well as the team's next starting quarterback  -- when Fan Appreciation Day is held Saturday beginning at 3 p.m. The new synthetic turf field created quite a bit of buzz when rumors surfaced that it would be black. There was also some discussion about it this week when junior quarterback C.J. Brown suffered a season-ending knee injury making a cut on it during a...

More than three hours before game time, Stevenson alumnus Scott Murray stood amid a growing contingent of tailgaters in a parking lot overlooking the school's new $9 million stadium. He couldn't help but smile. "We started as just a small girls school," said Murray, a 2001 graduate of the one-time commuter school known until three years ago as Villa Julie College. "Football kind of puts us on the map. " The feeling was shared by many among the sellout crowd of an announced 3,500 on Saturday night, as the Owings Mills school played its first Division III home game and came away with a 46-43 win in double overtime over nonconference foe Christopher Newport.

After a two-year absence, Syracuse and Virginia will return to the Face-Off Classic, and Johns Hopkins will participate in the Big City Classic for the first time, event organizers will announce Thursday. Those storylines highlight a joint announcement from Konica Minolta and Inside Lacrosse, which will organize both tripleheaders involving games of local and national implications. The Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore is scheduled for Saturday, March 12 and will feature the return of Syracuse and Virginia, two programs that have captured a combined 14 NCAA championships but hadn't participated in the event since 2008.

One of the few positives that accompanies the end of summer is the arrival of pennant fever which allows a lucky handful of cities to harbor sandlot dreams of October glory. Sadly, for yet another season, the playoffs will elude both of our local teams. The Orioles have, at least, perked up under their new manager, but the Nationals? Their rusty collection of mediocre arms, tired bats, and underwhelming prospects is locked into another last-place finish. The sting of this year's disappointment was worsened by the announcement that Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals' top young phenom who struck out 14 batters in his first big league start, was felled by a potentially career-ending arm injury.

At the Baltimore Ravens headquarters in Owings Mills, digital media assistant Ryan Mink churns out a constant stream of Twitter, Facebook and blog posts while tracking what fans are saying online. At the team's stadium in downtown Baltimore, Larry Rosen, vice president of broadcasting, tinkers in the new, multimillion-dollar control room where he hopes to rivet fans with high-definition imagery of plays on the field. "If you're going to be here," he says, "let me thrill you. " Meet two members of the behind-the-scenes team that conducts an interactive media blitz for the Ravens.

Twice in the past year, Baltimore has become a soccercentric city. It happened last summer, for a day, when two of the world's best teams, AC Milan and Chelsea, came to M&T Bank Stadium, bringing more than 72,000 fans with them. It happened recently, during the monthlong World Cup, when fans of the game piled into bars and crowded near the harbor to watch the U.S. team's run to the knockout round. But could it happen on a more regular basis? City officials, developers and local soccer aficionados believe it can, if plans move forward for a soccer-only stadium and if Baltimore is successful in attracting D.C. United away from Washington.

They're playing the Stadium Game in Buffalo and New England these days.Two franchises that would seem to have little in common -- the Bills have led the league in attendance five straight years and have gone to three straight Super Bowls; the Patriots are near the bottom in attendance and wins -- have a common desire for a new stadium.That's because merely drawing fans isn't enough to keep owners happy these days. They want stadiums that produce a lot of revenue with such bells and whistles as sky boxes and club seats.

Dear Dr. Stadium:The Orioles' dugout at Memorial Stadium is on the third-base side, but it will be on the first-base side at the new stadium. I assume that season-ticket holders on the first-base side at Memorial Stadium will still have priority for comparable seat locations. Am I correct?( Samuel I. Rosenberg BaltimoreDear Mr. Rosenberg:Thanks for your letter and for raising this fascinating question. You do not mention whether you are a season-ticket holder with excellent field-level boxes on the first-base side at Memorial Stadium and a burning desire to stay there at the new downtown ballpark or (more likely)

When Pete Medd and Jim Cherneski launched Baltimore's latest professional outdoor soccer incarnation in 2006 with Crystal Palace USA, they set modest goals and achieved modest success. Three seasons later, the former Towson University teammates have expedited the program in the hope of playing in a 10,000-seat, $35 million downtown stadium close to the city's Camden Yards sports complex. On Wednesday at a news conference at ESPN Zone, they unveiled a new name (Crystal Palace Baltimore)