Palermo

Bo Jackson took batting practice for the first time this season yesterday, and Chicago White Sox manager Jeff Torborg said there is a possibility the outfielder could resume his baseball career next month.Jackson, who has an injured left hip, faced approximately 75 under-handed pitches from teammate Frank Thomas in a batting cage beneath Comiskey Park. Jackson then went on the field and threw for about 10 minutes with pitcher Melido Perez.* UECKER: Former major-league catcher Bob Uecker, the voice of the Milwaukee Brewers for the past 20 years, is expected to undergo surgery within the next few days for an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta.

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.

The Navy called in experts from around the nation yesterday to determine the cause of a massive explosion Sunday at its weapons testing facility in the Washington suburbs.Munitions experts took inventory in nine similar bunkers around the Naval Surface Warfare Center in White Oak between Silver Spring and Beltsville to make sure stored ingredients used to make explosives had not been disturbed. Residents neighboring the center cleaned up broken windows and wondered what to expect next."It makes you wonder what else is back there, what else could happen," said Howard Phoebus, whose third-floor condominium in Beltsville overlooks the center's eastern edge.

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.

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.

"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.

Job bombshell hits hardFederal workers at David Taylor Research Center in Annapolis and the Naval Surface Warfare Center in White Oak are still reeling from Friday's news that hundreds of jobs are slated to be taken from their facilities as part of Defense Department cutbacks.Both centers held "state of the center" meetings Monday to give employees the official word."It's hitting pretty hard," said Jim Scott, spokesman for the Taylor Center. "It [morale] was kind of gloomy and somber.""People are really stunned right now," said Diane Palermo, spokeswoman for the warfare center.

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."

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- During a season in which the disabled list in both leagues is overflowing, Marty Springstead has had more problems with injuries than any manager or general manager.Springstead is the American League's supervisor of umpires and his charges have been dropping from a lot worse things than heat exhaustion, which felled NL ump John McSherry last week.If there was a disabled list for umpires, Springstead would be over the limit -- with nobody on a rehabilitation assignment.

Seamstress, 84A Mass of Christian burial for Sadie Palermo took place Sept. 27 at St. Andrew by the Bay Church in Cape St. Claire.Miss Palermo, 84, died of cancer Sept. 24 at the Annapolis Convalescence Center.Born and raised in Brooklyn,N.Y., she worked as a seamstress for a glove manufacturing company.Miss Palermo is survived by two brothers, Michael LaCourte of Annapolis and Andrew LaCourte of Long Island, N.Y.; and a niece, Jessie McCoy of Arnold.HERBERTA. CHANDLERMachinist, 32Graveside services for Herbert A. Chandler of Glen Burnie took place Sept.