Snap

The future is now for Ben Grubbs. Grubbs, the rookie drafted by the Ravens to line up as a starting guard for many years, has split time with current starter Chris Chester at right guard for the team's first two games this season. "I definitely hold my own out there," said Grubbs, who played about 25 snaps in Sunday's 20-13 win over the New York Jets. "When I go out there, I don't think of myself as being a rookie. I think about playing hard for my teammates and playing hard for the guys to my left and to my right.

Lighting and edging your yard is a real snap when you use "Let's Edge It" snap-together bricks. The plastic bricks with built-in spikes to hold them in place come with and without solar-powered lights built into them. Swivel-action connectors allow you to create straight or curved designs to encircle a flowerbed or tree or follow a curved path. Installation requires no digging, mortar, heavy lifting or electrical wiring. $39.95 for a 25-foot section of unlighted plastic bricks; $61.95 for a 20-foot kit of bricks and four solar lights; $89.95 for a 40-foot kit with six solar lights.

On approach, the massiveness of his 7-foot-7 body screams intimidation. When he extends his right hand -- with a grasp so wide he can grip the top and bottom of a soda can between his thumb and index finger -- you wonder if a handshake is really a good idea.Then you watch him on the court just left of the foul line, demanding the ball, catching and shooting in one fluid motion. You can close your eyes and listen to the nets snap -- pop, pop, pop -- and remember his skilled, feathery shooting touch.

Ravens coach Brian Billick had seen enough.After watching his offense stumble through a spate of mental errors in yesterday morning's practice, Billick exploded. Then, he exploded again. Then, he made the offense practice for an extra 20 minutes before addressing the unit for another 10 minutes in animated fashion.Billick blew off more steam after strolling briskly across the practice field to talk with reporters."We are going to have a crisp, thorough two-hour practice. If it takes us two hours and 45 minutes to get it, that's what we'll do," Billick said.

1 Run Stephen Davis. The league's leading rusher with 1,095 yards, Davis has a thigh injury but can control the tempo of the game.2 Blitz Gus Frerrote. The quarterback hasn't played much this year and he's likely to be a bit hyper playing against his former team.3 Get the field-goal unit in sync. Slumping Brett Conway wasn't helped last week when Brad Johnson dropped a snap.

One of the first players spotted during pre-game warm-ups was former Ravens running back Bam Morris, who signed a one-year contract with the Chicago Bears last week.Morris did not play last night, and judging by how heavy he looked running sprints two hours before kickoff, it was probably a wise move by coach Dave Wannstedt. Morris signed with Chicago the day after Kansas City worked him out and said no thanks."They asked me [at Kansas City] what kind of shape I was in on a scale of one to 10, and I said about five," said Morris, who declared his weight to be 249 pounds, but appeared to be at least 20 pounds heavier.

WICHITA, Kan. -- Go ahead and call Matt Johnson a yo-yo. He'll take it as a compliment.Johnson, who often goes by his alias Brother Yo, is a certified yo-yo junkie who always carries one of the toys in his pocket and spends any spare moment throwing it down, snapping it up and spinning it round and round as he performs one of his 90 yo-yo stunts.Last month, Johnson -- who also manages Wichita Christian radio station KYFW-FM -- celebrated what he considers practically the most important holiday of the year: National Yo-yo Day, observed each year on the birthday of Donald F. Duncan, the founder of one of the world's leading yo-yo manufacturers.

One of the first things they tell you in journalism school is to avoid sweeping generalizations, since they often prove to be inaccurate at best and patently offensive at worst.Aw, what the hell ...Snap profile of an Orioles fan: Spends half the game on his cell phone yakking with his broker. Wine-sipper. Gucci-tassel-loafer-wearer. Doesn't want to get on the opposing team too loudly, lest others in his section put down their Wall Street Journals and turn around and stare.If he's in a luxury box, he's raking a shrimp the size of your thumb through cocktail sauce while asking his buddies: "Which one's Cal Ripken again?"

Brian Kinchen's strange, hard-luck 1998 season continues.Just when the Ravens' veteran tight end/snapper had worked his way back into the lineup after overcoming a torn tendon in his left thumb, Kinchen suffered another bad break -- on his left index finger.Not long after Kinchen had snapped on a first-quarter extra point, marking his first special teams snap since early in camp, he fractured his finger covering a punt."I don't even know how it happened. I hit a guy and blacked out. My main concern was getting off the field," Kinchen said.

Snap the ball. Hold the ball. Kick the ball.It sounds easy enough, but the Ravens managed to turn those chores into something akin to rocket science yesterday.Forget the dropped touchdown pass by Jermaine Lewis, the dropped interception by Rod Woodson.The lasting image of the Ravens' 20-13, season-opening, stadium-opening loss to Pittsburgh will be that of punter Kyle Richardson chasing after Harper Le Bel's errant snap, a crazy play that ended with Richardson tackled on the Ravens' 5-yard line.

This quarter was marked by missed opportunities. The Bengals took the opening kickoff and went 50 yards in 12 plays in reaching the 14-yard line before Shayne Graham's field-goal attempt was partially blocked by Kelly Gregg. The snap was high, and Graham had little chance to get his timing down. The Bengals took seven minutes off the clock. The Ravens marched down the field on their first drive, but quarterback Joe Flacco was intercepted in the end zone by Johnathan Joseph. Bengals Ravens Rushing 22 28 Passing 51 34 Total yards 73 62 Time of poss.

1 MIAA soccer clash: The No. 4 McDonogh boys get back on the field after falling to Perry Hall and losing their top ranking. The Dons travel to No. 2 Mount St. Joseph for a 4 p.m. match. 2 No snap : Football coach Ralph Friedgen has his weekly news conference today, when he'll try to explain how he'll keep his Terps up for Eastern Michigan after their upset of California. 3 Same old September: Stumbling toward the finish again, the Orioles start their last road trip of the season tonight in Toronto (7:07 p.m., MASN2)

Some people have flashbacks from bad acid trips. I have them from traumatic football experiences. I had one Monday night when the Ravens lost to the New England Patriots. And I'll bet an old acquaintance of mine, James David "Buddy" Ryan, who was at the game, did, as well. The flashback came on fourth-and-one after Buddy's son, Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan, called the timeout that negated a successful stand by the Baltimore defense. As you might recall, the Ravens stuffed the run again on the next play, this one by New England's Heath Evans.

Lighting and edging your yard is a real snap when you use "Let's Edge It" snap-together bricks. The plastic bricks with built-in spikes to hold them in place come with and without solar-powered lights built into them. Swivel-action connectors allow you to create straight or curved designs to encircle a flowerbed or tree or follow a curved path. Installation requires no digging, mortar, heavy lifting or electrical wiring. $39.95 for a 25-foot section of unlighted plastic bricks; $61.95 for a 20-foot kit of bricks and four solar lights; $89.95 for a 40-foot kit with six solar lights.

INDIANAPOLIS-- --When the still-perfect New England Patriots defeated the formerly perfect Indianapolis Colts, 24-20, yesterday, it proved a number of points. The hype was justified -- this did turn out to be Ali-Frazier, Magic-Bird, USA-USSR. It was Super Bowl 41 1/2 , and not only will it be hard to wait for their next meeting in the AFC championship game, it will be hard to watch the actual Super Bowl, because the gap between these two and the other 30 NFL teams is so colossal. Most important, though, the Clash of the Titans at the RCA Dome proved this: If the Patriots and their offense are in the process of making history, it is not because they score gratuitous touchdowns in the fourth quarter against the likes of the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins.

Wilde Lake senior center David Klotz has it down pat these days: Call the signals, get a clean snap to the quarterback and then burst ahead. It wasn't always so routine. After playing guard his first season of football in eighth grade, Klotz went to his first practice at Wilde Lake as a freshman, and his junior varsity coach asked him if he could snap. "I said: `Sure, I can do that,' " said Klotz, who is starting his third season on varsity. The first game, with a big nose guard lined up opposite him, he was so nervous he snapped the ball early and was called for a penalty.

The future is now for Ben Grubbs. Grubbs, the rookie drafted by the Ravens to line up as a starting guard for many years, has split time with current starter Chris Chester at right guard for the team's first two games this season. "I definitely hold my own out there," said Grubbs, who played about 25 snaps in Sunday's 20-13 win over the New York Jets. "When I go out there, I don't think of myself as being a rookie. I think about playing hard for my teammates and playing hard for the guys to my left and to my right.

Matt Katula has been the Ravens' starting long snapper since 2005. Along with punter and holder Sam Koch, Katula helped kicker Matt Stover lead the NFL in field-goal percentage with a 93.3 conversion rate last season. Matt Stover has said that one of the keys to his success is your ability to snap the football to Sam Koch so that the laces are always in the front when Sam catches the ball. How did you perfect that? It's all about rotation. The ball spins a certain amount of times. We just needed to figure out how many times it spins before it gets to his hands.

The NCAA has approved football timing changes that will bring back plays that were lost last season because of rules revisions designed to quicken games. In effect, the NCAA yesterday returned to the rules used two seasons ago, with the clock starting on a snap after a change of possession rather than when the referee signals the ball ready for play and time beginning on kickoffs only when the ball is legally touched, not when it is kicked. The rules oversight panel also moved kickoffs back from the 35-yard line to the 30 -- which should increase the number of returns and their distance -- and limited the play clock to 15 seconds after commercial breaks in TV games.

Good morning --Florida basketball -- Everyone is back, but repeating is never a snap, even for the Gators.