Parity

From the beginning, we're hooked by the Darwinian nature of sports. We trust that at the final buzzer, the best team will be the one left standing. It's this simple and unalienable truth that keeps us coming back for more, that encourages us to wave foam fingers and build our entire week around three hours of weekend couch time. I love that the best competitor reaps the rewards, and I like that after the season the soil is tilled and every team has the chance to start anew. But I should probably make a confession: While I love the idea of parity in sports, too often, the practice of it puts me to sleep.

In the beginning, clickers were a man thing.Surveys in the early 1990s found that in about two-thirds of American households, men basically had seized the remotes."

PARIS -- Europe's new currency, the euro, was introduced in January not only as a culminating step in European union, but also with the conviction that it would provide a new and powerful rival for the dollar.Now the euro -- launched at a value nearly 20 percent higher than the dollar -- has fallen to near-dollar parity. It traded yesterday at $1.03 to the dollar, down 11.3 percent for the year. Markets and analysts rumbled with forebodings that the European currency would fall below the $1 barrier, a seeming humiliation for the European Union.

The 26 best lacrosse players in the world casually walked into their first U.S. national team meeting, only to receive a startling introduction to coach Bill Tierney.He told them to sit down and explained in detail how to do line drills. Tierney then charged over to the blackboard and distinctly des- cribed how many players he wanted in each stretching line.Welcome to Lacrosse 101 by Tierney, a strict philosophy that has guided Princeton to five NCAA championships in seven years -- during what many refer to as an age of parity -- and landed him as coach of the U.S. national team.

US Airways said yesterday that it has improved a contract offer to its pilots, promising higher compensation than its competitors provide, as well as job security. But pilots remain skeptical.The airline made its offer Friday, upgrading a July offer that promised parity with competitive airlines. In the latest offer, the airline promised compensation -- including salary, benefits, financial returns and productivity -- at parity plus 1 percent of the average of the four larger airlines.Pilots in a proposed low-fare, low-cost division would get parity plus 1 percent of the average compensation at Delta Express and Southwest.

US Airways Group Inc. rejected its pilots' latest proposal yesterday, saying it would significantly increase the company's costs in the future rather than achieving the parity the airline insists it needs with other major carriers.In a surprise offer this week, the union agreed for the first time to work toward creating parity between US Airways' pilot costs and the average of other major airlines. The pilots proposed, however, that parity be achieved by 2002, rather than immediately as the company had requested.

The dispute over the Orioles' parity clause is the most public evidence yet of growing tension between the state's most visible landlord, Maryland Stadium Authority chairman John Moag, and his biggest tenant, Orioles owner Peter Angelos.Publicly, both men say they get along fine. But observers say the behind-the-scenes tension began almost as soon as Moag took over the stadium authority post and supplanted Angelos as the head of the city's NFL effort. Angelos even tried to get Moag replaced last year, sources said.

If the powers postpone aid to refugees in Zaire long enough, the problem will have gone away.Cheer up. USAir will change its name to US Airways.The city school lawsuit settlement is described in terms that obscure whether it brings funding parity with the rest of the state, which explains how it was reached.Q. Where are the snows of yesteryear? A. Ashtabula, Ohio.Pub Date: 11/15/96

What's being imposed upon you, dear citizen of Maryland, is (( without precedent. A record high price is about to be extracted for watching a football game. In some instances, a spectator will be asked to pay for the same seat three times. That's never happened before -- anywhere on the face of the earth.No. 1, you'll be paying for it via the lottery, which amounts to money raised by public funding. No. 2, there'll be a surcharge, otherwise known as a permanent seat license or PSL (which could be interpreted to stand for permanent seat larceny)

The Orioles are asking the state for millions of dollars in rent credits, stadium loans and improvements to Oriole Park as part of what the team claims is its legal right to parity with the Ravens.By triggering the "parity clause" of the team's lease, Orioles officials have begun what is sure to be a long and complicated process of comparing the terms of the deals the Maryland Stadium Authority has bestowed on its two major-league tenants.The matter will ultimately be resolved through negotiations or binding arbitration.

Baltimore's police union wants to jettison a decades-old contract provision that requires the city to give firefighters the same pay raises that police officers receive, hoping the move will clear the way for larger pay increases. The police union leadership filed a lawsuit against the city last week on grounds that the parity or "me too" provisions of the fire unions' contract puts the police in the position of "indirectly" negotiating for fire wages, according to the complaint filed in Baltimore Circuit Court.

I couldn't help but notice those empty seats in Tampa, Fla., last weekend during the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. Here's the thing about the ACC. All this parity (mediocrity?) is great for the individual campuses because each school can imagine it has a shot at the title. And most do have a shot. But having no dominant teams - no heavyweights - doesn't play as well on the national stage because there's no compelling story line. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/terpsblog)

Psychiatric self-interest groups have tried for years to force insurance companies to cover the treatment of mental illness and addiction. Treating depression as well as disturbing and sometimes simple problems in living on the same level as cancer, heart disease and diabetes is the essence of what has come to be known as "parity." Now, through political legerdemain, this government-mandated coverage has just become law as an amendment attached to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

UMBC's Don Zimmerman has been a head coach for 22 years, and he can't remember the last time there were so many one-goal or overtime games. Neither can Virginia coach Dom Starsia. In regards to college lacrosse, the word "parity" has been repeated so many times that it has become a cliche more than reality. Not anymore. Not when No. 8 Johns Hopkins loses two overtime games in a row, one of them to Hofstra. Not when No. 7 Syracuse plays three overtime games in a row. And then there is No. 18 UMBC (3-3)

From the beginning, we're hooked by the Darwinian nature of sports. We trust that at the final buzzer, the best team will be the one left standing. It's this simple and unalienable truth that keeps us coming back for more, that encourages us to wave foam fingers and build our entire week around three hours of weekend couch time. I love that the best competitor reaps the rewards, and I like that after the season the soil is tilled and every team has the chance to start anew. But I should probably make a confession: While I love the idea of parity in sports, too often, the practice of it puts me to sleep.

Parity is no longer in vogue in the NFL. There can be no parity as long as the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts are playing like All-Star teams from another league, hammering everyone they face. Or when the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams are both 0-8, staring at a season when the best they might do is win three games if they get really lucky. The Patriots flogged the Washington Redskins, 52-7, yesterday while the Colts crushed the Carolina Panthers, 31-7. Next week, they renew their AFC hostilities in Indianapolis in the closest thing to Armageddon the NFL has. There appears to be no stopping the Patriots.

Corey Patterson, Orioles outfielder Is there more parity in baseball now than since you can remember? Yeah, definitely. I was watching the Devil Rays play on Opening Day and they can hit. They were hitting, stealing bases, running a lot. Before, there were teams that you played and it was almost like an automatic win. [Now] it seems like if a team is a little suspect on pitching, they sure can hit. Or if they can't hit as well, they can sure pitch. ... It's very rare nowadays to have teams who do both poorly.

The beauty of the NFL can't be found in Tom Brady's smile, the dressing room of the Carolina Panthers' cheerleaders or John Madden's RV. It's simpler than that, and you'll see exactly what I mean before the 2006 season is barely a few weeks old. More than any other sport, pro football is ruled by parity, which makes accurate predictions nearly impossible and makes reckless ones absolutely essential. With that in mind, it's pretty easy to see that nearly every scenario this season is realistic for the Ravens, including the dream sequence - spending next offseason snuggling each and every night with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

For years, mental health professionals and support groups have pushed insurers to provide the same benefit dollars, access to doctors and hospitalization coverage for mental health as they do for physical illness. And for years, opponents of behavioral-health parity have argued that loosening the often-stricter limits on mental health coverage would be too costly. A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine attempts to measure what that added cost would be - and estimates it at close to zero.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Even though NASCAR contests races on high-banked speedways, it wants a level playing field. And, this year, perhaps more than any other, NASCAR has taken steps to give its Winston Cup series an NFL-like parity. Throughout its history, NASCAR has been willing to tinker with rules nonstop - trying to make sure one make of car doesn't have a mechanical advantage over another - so much so that the specifications have been known to change from week to week. Now, after years of talking about it, NASCAR has finally gone to a common, aerodynamic template.