Palermo

On January 16, 2005, VERNON T. PALERMO; beloved husband of Geraldine (nee Lockwood); loving son of the late Louis and Emily Palermo; brother of the late Louis Palermo; devoted father of Denise and James Gajewski, Dawn and Bill Pospisil, Donna and Stephen Goetz, Louis and Nicole Palermo and Diane and Greg Ewing; loving grandfather of ten grandchildren. Funeral Services will be held at the Lassahn Funeral Home (Overlea), 7401 Belair Road, on Wednesday at 12 P.M. Visiting Tuesday, 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Interment private.

For Donna Crivello, it was a joyous busman's holiday born of sadness. The co-owner and inspiration behind Donna's restaurants in Mount Vernon, Cross Keys, Charles Village and Columbia watched her Mount Vernon restaurant burn in a spectacular five-alarm fire last December. But she and husband Peter Adams went ahead with a planned trip to Sicily in August. Crivello's family is from Sicily, and she has returned there often. It is where she found the inspiration for, among other dishes, her signature Donna's Salad, a colorful array of roasted vegetables.

American League umpire Steve Palermo, recovering from a gunshot wound in the back suffered while helping two robbery victims, is experiencing "some degree of leg immobility," his doctor said yesterday.Palermo underwent surgery at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on Sunday, and the American League announced earlier in the week that there was no indication Palermo was suffering any paralysis from the wound.But in a statement late yesterday, the American League said that diagnostic studies "have now confirmed that injury to the nerve controlling his leg function did occur, and that some degree of leg immobility exists at this time."

It was nice to get back last week to the polite, quiet, gentle flow of traffic in Baltimore. Yes, that statement would seem to indicate I've taken leave of my senses, but please consider where I had just returned from: Palermo, the capital of Sicily – the island off the toe of the Italian "boot. " Now Palermo is a lovely city – vibrant, ancient and brimming with life – but to walk its streets is to gain an understanding of how it must feel to be a deer in central Pennsylvania on the first day of hunting season.

It was nice to get back last week to the polite, quiet, gentle flow of traffic in Baltimore. Yes, that statement would seem to indicate I've taken leave of my senses, but please consider where I had just returned from: Palermo, the capital of Sicily – the island off the toe of the Italian "boot. " Now Palermo is a lovely city – vibrant, ancient and brimming with life – but to walk its streets is to gain an understanding of how it must feel to be a deer in central Pennsylvania on the first day of hunting season.

DALLAS -- A bullet may have endangered Steve Palermo's ability to walk again, but the American League umpire said yesterday that he has his "game face on" and is eager to begin intense rehabilitation.Palermo, in his first public statement since he was shot while chasing a robbery suspect, acknowledged that his recovery will require a long effort at the Dallas Rehabilitation Institute."The DRI team and I are working toward one common goal and that's for me to walk again," he said in a written statement.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Steve Palermo will be on hand for the World Series, after all.Denied the opportunity to umpire in the Series because of a spinal injury suffered when he was shot while foiling a robbery in Dallas, Palermo said yesterday he has accepted an invitation from commissioner Fay Vincent to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 1 on Saturday night at the Metrodome.The Minnesota Twins will represent the American League against the winner of the NL playoff between Pittsburgh and Atlanta.

DALLAS -- Major-league umpire Steve Palermo sat in his wheelchair yesterday and explained that the robbers who shot him were in worse shape than he was."I'm going to walk again long before their punishment may be up," he said. "So who got the worst of it?"During an emotional hourlong news conference at the Dallas Rehabilitation Institute, the American League umpire vowed to come back fully from the injuries he suffered while aiding robbery victims outside Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant in Dallas on July 6."

MINNEAPOLIS -- When he was contacted two weeks ago and asked to consider throwing out the first ball to start the World Series, there were two reasons why Steve Palermo knew he had to accept."

The Toronto Blue Jays are certainly happy to be at the 90th World Series, although most of their players say the thrill is not quite so dramatic as it was a year ago.The Philadelphia Phillies are thrilled to be here, because no one outside of the Delaware Valley gave them a chance to beat the Atlanta Braves. Who can't like another worst-to-first story, anyway?But nobody could have been as happy to walk onto the artificial turf under Toronto's SkyDome as were Rich Hacker and Steve Palermo.

"Palermo's the most-conquered city in history. First the Phoenicians, the Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, then came the Arabs, the Spaniards and the Neopolitans. Now comes ... the American Army!" -- George C. Scott, in the film Patton PALERMO, SICILY / / The Normans. Don't forget the Normans. Or the Greeks, Vandals, Goths, Swabians, Aragonese, Savoyans, Austrians (in a trade for Sardinia and future considerations) and, finally, the Italians, through annexation via a referendum that was probably rigged.

On January 16, 2005, VERNON T. PALERMO; beloved husband of Geraldine (nee Lockwood); loving son of the late Louis and Emily Palermo; brother of the late Louis Palermo; devoted father of Denise and James Gajewski, Dawn and Bill Pospisil, Donna and Stephen Goetz, Louis and Nicole Palermo and Diane and Greg Ewing; loving grandfather of ten grandchildren. Funeral Services will be held at the Lassahn Funeral Home (Overlea), 7401 Belair Road, on Wednesday at 12 P.M. Visiting Tuesday, 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Interment private.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - The cardboard boxes stacked high in a South Hackensack warehouse don't look special. They're protected by little more than a couple of bolted doors and a padlocked delivery bay. Yet they contain one of the hottest items on the black market. "It's liquid gold," said Lt. David Salzmann, supervisor of the cargo theft and robbery unit of the New Jersey State Police. "It sells easily and for a lot of money, and it's very difficult to trace." The boxes are loaded with designer perfume from the likes of Versace, Hugo Boss, and Elizabeth Arden.

ROME -- Closing a chapter in Italian postwar history, a three-judge panel in Palermo acquitted Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister of Italy, yesterday of charges that he was the Sicilian Mafia's main protector in Rome.The verdict was a vindication for the 80-year-old Andreotti, who has spent much of the past decade in court. "Obviously, I am delighted," he said after watching the verdict, announced live on national television, in his Senate office in Rome. "It was not so great to have to wait so many years."

LIMA, Peru -- Marxist rebels released the ambassadors of the Dominican Republic and Malaysia and 18 other hostages yesterday after a Peruvian Cabinet official entered the residence of the Japanese ambassador in what appeared to be the first direct contact between the rebels and the government.Dressed in business suits and looking surprisingly refreshed and composed, the freed hostages hugged one another as they left the residence, then waved to other hostages who watched from second-floor windows.

This Just In: It's going to snow . . . possibly by Hannukah, probably by Christmas, definitely by Kwanza. That's what I get from 1996 Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack. It says the winter ahead will come in like a lion and leave like one. Now, before you go pooh-poohing this voo-doo, remember something: The Hagerstown almanack shamed a lot of TV meteorologists by succesfully predicting the memorable mid-Atlantic storms of the winter of 1993-94. Its forecasts were so good -- predicting 14 of Maryland's 17 storms that winter -- it attracted the attention of NBC "Today Show" weatherman Willard Scott, and even Peter Jennings found room for a story on "ABC World News Tonight."

It was seven weeks ago tomorrow that Steve Palermo's natural instincts put his life on the line.After 14 years as an umpire in the American League, Palermo was used to stopping disputes. Along the way, he probably even started a few.But this one was out of his area of expertise, and he stopped a bullet.Coming to the aid of a waitress who was being held up as she left a Dallas restaurant, Palermo was instrumental in making a citizen's arrest. In the process he was shot.There was some damage to the spinal column.

Mention food and baseball, and most of us think of hot dogs, peanuts and beer.That may change tomorrow when Palermo's Grill, a new Italian restaurant, opens in Timonium.Palermo's is a tribute to a baseball hero -- American League umpire Steve Palermo, who was shot while preventing a mugging roughly two years ago.After learning that Mr. Palermo had become paralyzed, Jerry and Pam Schiavino decided to name their restaurant after him. The couple has remained friends with Mr. Palermo since meeting him years ago in Little Italy.

I've been hot on the trail of something big, but up until last week, I just thought I had a great idea. Now, however, the proof has arrived. By gosh, I do have the answer to one of baseball's biggest questions.(By they way, does anyone have the name of a good orthopedic guy? I'm afraid I've just blown out a rotator cuff patting myself on the back.)Steve Palermo for commissioner.See there, brilliant. Simply brilliant. And very sensible, too.If you still consider yourself a baseball fan, and you were asked to name the three things most lacking in the game today, here's a bet your list would read:(1)

The baseball labor crisis has damaged two seasons, derailed too many great performances and alienated a significant portion of the game's fans, but it is possible that all of the negative fallout will end up having a positive effect on the sport. Especially if Major League Baseball really is ready to take a long, hard look at itself.Baseball owners assemble today in Minneapolis for a joint meeting that again will focus on the industry's unsolved labor situation, but the three-day meeting will begin with a serious examination of the way the sport is presented on the field.