Park Rangers

The Texas Rangers finally went home last night, but not before they had wreaked havoc on the Orioles' pitching staff for the second straight game and salvaged a split of the four-game series at Camden Yards.They followed up a double-digit offensive performance on Sunday with a nine-run explosion in the second inning last night and scored a 13-6 victory.It was just another ugly reminder of the pitching crisis that has thrown the Orioles' division title drive into reverse. Starter Fernando Valenzuela lasted just 1 2/3 innings and gave up seven runs as the opposition scored in double figures for the fifth time in the past 13 games.

Karla Nitz and her three children were whiling away a sunny summer afternoon, clambering across the rocks lining Gunpowder Falls in search of acorns and frogs. That's when they were approached by strangers on horseback.Within minutes, Nitz had been handed a map of woodland trails, and Karis, the Bel Air woman's 8-year-old daughter, was petting one of the horses.Score another point for customer relations for Gunpowder Falls State Park's fledgling Volunteer Mounted Patrol.Since last month, a small group of horse lovers has been saddling up for excursions on the more than 100 miles of trails in Maryland's largest park.

Red Sox: Mo Vaughn singled leading off the eighth for his 1,000th career hit. Boston entered with a .320 team average at Fenway Park.Rangers: When he was with Boston, Aaron Sele was 38-33 with a 4.41 ERA in 108 starts. Entering the game, Texas had four of the league's top nine hitters (Ivan Rodriguez, Tom Goodwin, Mark McLemore and Juan Gonzalez).Pub Date: 5/02/98

No sooner had the morning ferryboat chugged out of the Fernandina Beach marina when somebody popped the question."All right, let's get this over with," said Jerry, a brash, middle-aged businessman on vacation from Atlanta. With a cold Busch beer in one hand and a bag of boiled peanuts in the other, he looked at the young woman in the Greyfield Inn uniform, offered a charming, crooked smile and asked, "Did you see any of them from the wedding?"Everybody on board the boat to Cumberland Island, Ga., all seven of us, knew exactly which wedding he was referring to. The one that starred John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette and, of course, Cumberland.

Langley Park man, 28 faces harassment chargesA 28-year-old Langley Park man has been charged with harassing five women and two teen-age girls at Sandy Point State Park this weekend by swimming between their legs and "grabbing their legs, thighs and buttocks," Department of Natural Resources Police said.The women and teen-agers complained Sunday to two park rangers that a man had been harassing them.The DNR police said German A. Nieto was charged with harassment, disturbing the peace and five counts of fourth-degree sexual contact.

Tenn in stable condition after falling 20 feetROCKS -- A 15-year-old Bel Air girl slipped and fell about 20 feet yesterday from the King and Queen Seat, a popular place for rock climbing in Rocks State Park, authorities said."

KENT ISLAND -- A windsurfer whose sail collapsed in mid-Chesapeake Bay during yesterday's brisk, frigid winds was able to paddle several miles across the bay to safety, Natural Resources Police said.Natural Resources Police spokesman John Verrico identified the windsurfer as Michael Giblin, 26, of Arnold.Mr. Giblin, who Mr. Verrico said was wearing a waterproof suit during his venture, paddled more than three miles to Kent Island on the Eastern Shore when the sail on his board failed.The windsurfer was noticed to be missing about 4 p.m. by park rangers at Sandy Point State Park, east of Annapolis.

A Baltimore County man died yesterday after plummeting 70 feet while climbing in Rocks State Park in Harford County.Maryland Department of Natural Resources spokesman John Surrick said Donato L. Pozon, 32, of the first block of Whitelaw Place in White Marsh, was climbing the rock formation alone and without safety equipment when he slipped on a wet surface about 11: 50 a.m.Witnesses and park rangers tried unsuccessfully to revive the man. He was pronounced dead...

Lake Superior never gives up its dead, Gordon Lightfoot sang in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."The balladeer's line is about the hundreds of bodies from Superior's shipwrecks that have never been recovered, among them the men of the Fitzgerald, an ore carrier that went down with all 29 hands in a 1975 storm.But the words apply just as well to the vessels on the lake's bottom. The largest of the Great Lakes never surrenders its sunken ships to the decay, corrosion and encrustation that, over time, obliterate man-made objects in saltwater.

IT'S August. In Baltimore. How are you coping in our time of hazy, hot and humid weather? Find yourself sweating profusely every time you step outdoors? You've been to the pool. You've been to the beach. You've been to the waterpark. Heck, in your search for heavy-duty relief, you even ran through the sprinkler a few times. Yet the sweat drips on. May we suggest a visit to one of the area's waterfalls? Imagine. You're standing in a shallow pool while gallons of cool water cascade down from above.