Nickname

Imagine trying to defend a client accused of killing someone who comes to court with the word "murder" tattooed across his neck. Or trying to convince a jury that the suspect is really a good guy even though his best friend knows him only as "Bloody Batman." With gangs gaining strength in Baltimore, nicknames are gaining popularity on the street, and more often than not it's a nickname rather than a real name by which many are known. And law enforcement authorities, especially the feds, don't hesitate to use the monikers.

Celtics@Wizards 7 p.m. [Comcast SportsNet] Boston forward Glen Davis announced last week that he no longer wants to go by "Big Baby." Does that mean we can now use the nickname instead for his chronically whining teammate Rasheed Wallace, left?

Christian "Chris" Godwin, a veteran newspaper copy editor who earned the sobriquet "Capt. Deadline" from newsroom colleagues during his more-than-30-year career, died Saturday of metastatic cancer at Hospice of Queen Anne's County in Centreville. He was 49 and lived in Dover, Del. Mr. Godwin, a fourth-generation newsman, was born in Miami, and moved with his family to Anchorage, Alaska, where his father was an FBI agent and his mother was an editor on The Anchorage Times. While a 14-year-old student at West Anchorage High School, Mr. Godwin began working as a copyboy for the Associated Press bureau chief in Anchorage.

Howard Arthur "Hound Dog" Brown, an Eastern Shore huntsman who bred foxhounds, was a fox hunter until his late 80s, when he switched from a horse to a pickup truck to continue his pursuit of the elusive prey. Mr. Brown, who was 96, died in his sleep April 22 at Chestertown Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Mr. Brown was born in Baltimore and was raised in Reisterstown and Westminster. He attended Carroll County public schools until dropping out in the eighth grade. "He then began working with horses.

Marcus Smith has stood out in training camp for his acrobatic catches and great hands. The rookie wide receiver stands out among his teammates for a different reason. Q: Did you ever have a nickname that stood out for better or for worse? A: Guys call me "Bullethead." I've been called "Bullethead" since college. These guys don't know me from college, but they still call me the same name. I don't know how it translates to me, though. Maybe my head's not shaped normal, I guess. It's nothing I can control.

The Rev. Richard Wise Shreffler, who had pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Bel Air for more than 30 years and was also active in Baltimore homeless and AIDS ministries, died May 1 of pneumonia at his home in San Antonio, Texas. He was 88. Mr. Shreffler was born and raised in Shelby, Ohio. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1942 from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, he entered Naval Training School at Annapolis. Commissioned as an officer in 1943, he participated in the D-Day invasion and was later assigned to the Pacific theater of operations.

WERQ-FM (92.3), the urban contemporary station better known by the nickname 92Q, retained its spot as Baltimore's most-listened-to radio station for the fourth quarter of 2007, pulling in an average of 387,300 listeners who spend at least five minutes a week tuned in. The latest Arbitron numbers released this week show country station WPOC-FM (93.1) in second place for total listeners, with an average of 370,200, followed by WLIF-FM (101.9) and its adult contemporary format, with an average of 345,700.

The animals are toast. Humans rule. If 41 years of Super Bowl history can be used as a gauge, the Patriots, Packers, Cowboys or Giants will beat the Colts, Seahawks or Jaguars in the season's ultimate game Feb. 3. Unless, of course, the Chargers upset all carbon-based life forms, not to mention Las Vegas oddsmakers. Since the first Super Bowl in January 1967, teams with manly names have triumphed 31 times while teams named after animals have won nine. The Green Bay Packers kicked off human dominance with back-to-back wins, beating two other virile teams, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders.

At 6 feet 3 and 337 pounds, defensive tackle Anthony Bryant is hard to miss. But the one body part that gets the most attention is not his broad shoulders, massive arms or expansive chest. It's his calves. Bryant's calves are 20 inches in circumference, a byproduct of doing 1,000 calf raises a day with 100-pound weights as a teenager in Newbern, Ala. Naturally, Bryant's legs have earned him the nickname "Calves" from teammates such as linebacker Terrell Suggs and defensive end Trevor Pryce.

In a recent TV commercial, he plays Lau, the hapless badminton player whose leg is impaled by a shuttlecock launched from the racket of baseball's "Big Papi," David Ortiz. In his native Laos, he's known as Khankham Malaythong. But here, in his adopted homeland, you can call him Bob. "I am Bob now, legally," says Malaythong, 26, pulling his U.S. passport out of his pocket as evidence. You also can call him one of more than a dozen Marylanders competing in the Pan American Games, which began yesterday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.