Season Tickets

To make a deposit on 1996 Stallions season tickets, send $100 by check or money order payable to Save Our Stallions, Memorial Stadium, 1000 E. 33rd Street, Baltimore, Md. 21218; or charge by phone at (410) 554-1010; or drop off at the stadium office or at any Baltimore County Savings Bank branch. Special Teamers volunteers will also accept deposits at the stadium ticket office each Saturday in December from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It still felt like winter at Oriole Park on Saturday morning, but spring was in the air and baseball was already on the minds of the fans who showed up to shop for season tickets at the Orioles' first "Tag Day" since 2009. No, it wasn't a special promotion that allowed fans to take the field and play a rousing game of touched-you-last. It was an opportunity to walk around the ballpark and sit in the seats that are still available for purchase on a full- or partial-season basis.

The University of Maryland has instituted a new season-ticket policy for next basketball season. Anyone interested in buying season tickets first must pay at least $100 to join the Terrapin Club, Maryland's athletic booster organization."

The NFL should not be the real life equivalent of Gordon "Greed is Good" Gekko, yet the NFL behaves just like him. I grew up in Detroit, and as a kid my father took me to every Detroit Lions home game from 1966 to 1978. That is why when it was announced that the Ravens were moving to Baltimore, I was ecstatic. I had to buy a personal seat license in order to obtain season tickets. When I bought my PSL, I was told by the Ravens ticket office that one of its benefits would be that all PSL holders would have an equal chance to get Super Bowl tickets if the team ever made it. I got a second job so I could pay for the PSL. In 2001, I got married, and in 2003 my first child was born, followed by a second in 2007.

The Ravens sent out information packets yesterday assigning seats to 54,000 season-ticket holders for the team's inaugural NFL season in Memorial Stadium.Roy Sommerhof, director of ticket operations, said the team was in the process of mailing packages to some 18,000 season-ticket holders, accounting for those 54,000 season tickets.The packages include a letter from the Ravens and a seating chart of the stadium. Beyond that, Sommerhof said, the team has established a hot line (1-888-9RAVENS)

The Ravens' "select-a-seat" night on Thursday resulted in the sale of 497 season tickets, pushing the team's total to near 47,000 as it seeks to rebuild a fan base depleted by second-year defections.Team officials say they are confident they will replace the 8,000 ticket holders who gave up their seats in the off-season, and hope to be close to the total of 54,000 they had at the beginning of last season.Thursday night's event included autograph signings by players and some light workouts.

ONCE, AND THIS may surprise you, I was a person of great principle.I stood on principle. No principle was too high, too lofty.In fact, I used to keep a step-ladder with me, just in case I ran into a particularly lofty principle I felt required to stand on. That's how principled I was.I know others of principle.They won't eat meat on principle.They won't buy sweatshop-produced clothes on principle.They recycle 1992 Perot bumper stickers -- on principle.And me? I have purchased Ravens' season tickets.

Frank Storch fancies himself an "enthusiastic and ardent" Orioles fan. But unlike most baseball mavens, he's suing the Orioles so that he can keep his Camden Yards seats.This week, Storch filed suit against the baseball club, claiming team officials unfairly refuse to renew his 37 season tickets next season at Camden Yards.His lawyer, Aron Raskas, says Orioles officials want Storch's $45,000 worth of choice seats, including 10 in the first two rows directly behind home plate, to pass out among the team's new owners.

The long siege is over for the Baltimore Orioles. Or, at least, phase one of the long siege.Two months after announcing they were about to begin sending out seat-location notices -- and about a month after the angry letters and huffy phone calls started arriving at Memorial Stadium -- the Orioles say they've reached a milestone.They've picked out seats at Oriole Park at Camden Yards for their 15,000 existing customers -- and have started filling orders from roughly 5,000 new ones.Game tickets are scheduled to be in the mail by mid-March, Orioles spokesman Rick Vaughn said.

For the second time this month, Baltimore Orioles fans dialed furiously and clogged phone lines yesterday as they tried to come up with baseball tickets.But this time, they were buying for next season.On the first day of sales for the 1992 season, the Orioles' first year in the new downtown ballpark, team officials said they were swamped with calls and took orders for about 150 season tickets."We've brought in 10 extra people, and the phones haven't stopped," said Orioles vice president for sales Lou Michaelson.

Quann D. Massey heard his phone ringing at 2 o'clock Sunday morning. The screen showed an unfamiliar number. The voice on the other line - Massey wouldn't say who it was, other than a representative from the Ravens - told him to get to M&T Bank Stadium a few hours later. Tickets would be waiting, courtesy of Ray Lewis. Massey runs an AIDS-prevention program that is one of the causes to which Lewis has lent his support during his 17 years in Baltimore. If people elsewhere sometimes focus on Lewis' connection to a fatal double stabbing a decade ago, fans in the city where he came to define a franchise are more likely to speak of redemption.

For the first time in more than a decade, Baltimore sports fans wished for orange more than purple as they made their Christmas lists for Robbie Davis Jr.'s memorabilia shop in Timonium. In the wake of the Orioles' first winning season and first playoff appearance since 1997, interest in the club has remained high throughout the holiday shopping season. "It totally has," said Davis, owner of Robbie's First Base, which has peddled Baltimore memorabilia since 1989. "To the point where Ravens stuff has taken a back seat to it. " From season tickets to apparel to memorabilia, everything Orioles has sold well since the club's startling run ended in Yankee Stadium on Oct. 12. "Things continue to be very strong," Orioles spokesman Greg Bader said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Orioles informed their season ticket holders Thursday by email that they will not be raising plan prices in 2013. An Orioles official confirmed the correspondence was sent, telling holders of 81-game, 29-game and 13-game plans that their prices would remain the same, marking the fifth straight season that prices won't rise. Season ticket prices range from as low as $9 to $48 a game. Individual game ticket prices haven't been announced and usually are not until January.

If you're looking for any deep, revealing information about Stacy Keibler, something beyond the blonde hair and the 42-inch legs, you won't find it in the latest issue of Men's Fitness where she's both cover girl and cover story. But if you want more about the hair and the legs, by all means, spend the $4.99. In the June issue, which just hit newsstands, the Baltimore native beams suggestively from the cover, posing on a beach in a black two-piece bathing suit with a boy-short bottom.

What a wonderful piece of news the citizens of Maryland received when the Ravens announced they will not be increasing their tickets prices ("No rise in ticket price for Ravens," Feb. 4). This is the third straight season they have done so. Dick Cass and the Ravens management understand what Gov.Martin O'Malleychooses to ignore, namely that most Marylanders are struggling in these tough economic times: "We know that fans are stretching financially to buy our season tickets. " Though we came up short of the big prize, you made our city and state proud.

Marylanders woke Saturday to a slippery mess of snow, sleet and ice that tapered off by afternoon as temperatures edged past freezing, with few traffic tie-ups and no major accidents reported. In Baltimore, crews finished plowing all primary and secondary roads in the city by 11 a.m., spreading 275 tons of salt on more than 1,500 miles of pavement. The State Highway Administration reported no problems and bare pavement on most thoroughfares, though a minor early-morning accident on the westbound span of the Bay Bridge damaged a guard rail and closed the right lane, causing traffic to back up for miles for much of the day. The National Weather Service reports a slight chance for more freezing rain on Sunday but says temperatures are expected to rise into the 40s and even the low 50s this week.

The Spirit's owner says his money-losing professional indoor soccer team will go out of business unless it gets corporate and fan commitments to buy 50,000 tickets for the 1998-99 season by March 30."I don't believe we have any viable alternative," owner Bill Stealey wrote in a Feb. 23 letter to Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke. He said that in an attempt to spread chronic losses he has been absorbing, "Investors and limited partners have been pursued, and no one has stepped forward."The Spirit's general manager, Drew Forrester, elaborated in an interview Tuesday that Stealey, a former Hunt Valley businessman whose primary interest is his computer software-making business in Raleigh, N.C., has lost an average of about $500,000 a year during his six years of club ownership.

Despite uncertainties raised by the war in the Persian Gulf and a shaky local economy, the Baltimore Orioles appear on their way to a second consecutive year of record season-ticket sales.Lou Michaelson, Orioles vice president for sales, said that season-ticket sales for 1991 stand at 13,700. That is less than the record 15,024 sold by the Orioles last season but 243 ahead of the number sold last year at this time.By Opening Day, the Orioles expect to have sold out, or nearly sold out, their inventory of season tickets at 53,371-seat Memorial Stadium.

Above is a copy of the letter Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson and football coach Randy Edsall sent to Terps football season-ticket holders, calling this season "unacceptable. "

Gertrude's has announced the dates for its 9th annual Krautfest. Tickets went on sale Tuesday, Nov. 1. The dates of the 2012 Krautfest are Friday, Jan. 13 and Saturday, Jan. 14. The event features dancing to the traditional and contemporary polka music by Joy of Maryland and a buffet dinner. A cash bar will offer "Krautinis," seasonal German and Eastern European beers and specialty vodkas. The buffet menu comprises roasted beef borscht with sauerkraut, sour beef brisket, pork goulash, kraut-brasied red potatoes and carrots, peirogies and a charcuterie platter with Ostowski's kielbasa and Binkert's Bavarian bratwurst, knackwurst and weisswurst.