New Team

Nervous is how St. Vincent Pallotti senior defender Jazzmine Chandler described the moment. Even a little scared. She didn't feel the jittery flash before the two Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship games she has played in, or any of the many times a top-notch forward was trying to race past her. So what had Chandler frazzled? The day after tryouts during her freshman year, the new team was assembled and each player was asked to stand up and say what she could improve on for the coming season.

WALDORF-- --Even after taking part in a half-century of opening days, Brooks Robinson still gobbles them up like a hard smash to third. Tomorrow night, the former player and broadcaster will experience the first pitch from a different point of view: as owner of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, Maryland's newest professional baseball team, and leader of "Crustacean Nation." "It's fun. It's exciting. It really is," the Orioles Hall of Famer says. Everything about the team is new, from 4,100-seat Regency Furniture Stadium with the hand-operated scoreboard to the soft blue and vibrant red uniforms to "Pinch," the fuzzy mascot who resembles a blue crab only after a couple of Natty Bohs.

Annie Wagner was never unhappy during her two years at Johns Hopkins. She ranked third in scoring on the Blue Jays as a sophomore in 2006 and figured prominently in coach Janine Tucker's plans for the next two years. She liked school, had a lot of friends and did well in class. Still, when her sister, Janice, talked about her experiences at James Madison, Annie wondered if Harrisonburg, Va., might be the better place for her, too. The sisters had always been close -- going to St. Paul's together and playing lacrosse together since they were little -- and they regretted not being at the same college.

Arena football is coming back to Baltimore, this time armed with a new team, a slew of new owners and, if all goes according to plan, a renewed sense of business acumen. With the Baltimore Mariners joining 15 other franchises, the American Indoor Football Association is looking to put on a show full of fast-paced excitement on the field and void of financial difficulties off it. The league will begin its 2008 season Saturday, when the Mariners visit the Reading Express. "We have businessmen now that have the ability to own and run a business," AIFA co-owner John Morris said at a news conference yesterday to announce the 2008 season, alluding to the league's 13 new ownership groups.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Perhaps the most interesting thing about the arrival of John Harbaugh in Baltimore this month is that the dialogue cuts both ways, from the new coach of the Ravens to the players, and from the players to the new coach. Once his coaching staff was in place, Harbaugh's next step was to introduce himself to his new team. The conversations that followed were revealing. "Every guy that comes in, it's almost like they've got a script," Harbaugh said yesterday between drills at the NFL scouting combine.

KISSIMMEE, Fla.-- --This is the way baseball works in 2008. Disgruntled slugger gets traded to new team for a fresh start. Slugger has an additional spring in his step, a wider smile on his face, an extra-peppy, "just happy to be here" cliche on his lips. Slugger then is asked about steroid allegations and federal investigations, averts his eyes and stumbles through typical, attorney-advised "no comment." Yesterday, former Orioles star Miguel Tejada put on his No. 10 Houston Astros jersey for the first time and ran drills with his new teammates on a gorgeous Central Florida day. There were no clouds in the sky. An ominous one, however, hung over Tejada's locker.

A center midfielder for the No. 14 Loch Raven girls soccer team, Taylor Moyer has spent four years on the varsity. She helped the Raiders to the state semifinals last season and into last week's Baltimore County championship game, where they fell to Eastern Tech, 3-1. She also plays lacrosse and basketball for the Raiders. A member of the National Honor Society and the math honor society, she has a 4.78 weighted grade point average. Considering a career in business, perhaps in fashion merchandising, she belongs to the Future Business Leaders of America.

Orlando, Fla. -- Going into last night's game against the expansion Orlando Sharks, Blast coach Danny Kelly made sure his team would not have a letdown after starting the season 2-0. "Detroit showed us last year that an expansion team is capable of making it to the finals. We were not going to take Orlando lightly," he said. His team clearly got the message, routing the Sharks, 17-6, in a Major Indoor Soccer League game. The Blast set the pace early with Jamaican native Machel Millwood giving Baltimore a 2-0 lead.

You've been here before, right? This little midseason crossroads where you hope that whatever transpires the next three months of the baseball season makes you forget everything that transpired the previous three months. It's where you gaze up at the top row of warehouse windows and beg, plead and bargain. I'll dress my kid like an Oriole Bird bobblehead for the next 10 Halloweens if you can just sign a cleanup hitter. The on-field story lines are yawn material at this point. Almost all of the intrigue surrounding the Orioles over the second half of the season will take place away from the playing field.

In the touching, droll and engrossing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, fear and loathing beset the wizard world. Harry Potter must master his own distress and everyone else's. While conquering self-doubt and outbursts of teen anger, our hero has to fight both the Luciferian evil of Lord Voldemort and the creeping, insidious cruelties of small-minded bureaucrats. Aptly enough, the movie opens at the witching hour, midnight, at area theaters. Bringing in the longest Potter novel (870 pages)