Snap

"It just snaps together?" I asked the salesman, pointing at the floor model of a simple plastic desk, just big enough to hold a computer and keyboard, a cup of coffee, a sweet roll, some note paper and a telephone -- the tools of my trade."Right," the salesman said. "Just snap it together or unsnap it to take it apart.""It doesn't have bolts, screws or anything like that?""Nope. All it has are grooves and tongues. Just slip one part into another and, pop, it fits into place. See, here? Got a nice tray for the keyboard that slides in and out."

You could pick a number of storylines from a sticky, summer-like Tuesday evening at Camden Yards and really not go wrong. There was the obvious, made-for-TV clip of Nate McLouth lifting a game-ending homer over the right-field wall in the bottom of the 10 th inning to give the Orioles a 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees and snap a season-worst six-game losing streak.  There was maligned closer Jim Johnson (2-4) throwing an eight-pitch, perfect 10 th inning to pick up the win after blowing three consecutive saves in the last week.

The Philadelphia Eagles made a late run at free-agent center Steve Everitt yesterday, when coach Ray Rhodes and senior vice president Joe Banner flew to West Palm Beach, Fla., where they met throughout the day with Everitt, his agent, John Macik, and Everitt's father, Michael.The Eagles were thought to have fallen out of contention for the four-year veteran, who has listened to offers from the Ravens, Eagles and New York Jets. Everitt visited the Eagles two weeks ago, when they offered him a six-year, $11.5 million contract.

Your browser does not support iframes.   When Orioles first baseman Chris Davis flailed at a changeup in the dirt Tuesday for the last out of the third inning, he says he was really frustrated. So he snapped. And so did his bat. Over Davis' knee in one quick motion. "It was misbehaving, so I put him in timeout," Davis said about snapping his bat. "It's not something I am proud of. It's not something, 'Hey, I can break a bat over my knee.' But in that situation out there, I knew I wasn't going to get a lot to hit and I still continued to swing at a ball in the dirt.

My sandy-haired, gap-toothed daughter likes to snap my picture on a cell phone as I'm eating my bran flakes in the morning and brooding over the front page of the Times, over which there is now more to brood than ever. She is 8, and she looks stunning in pictures - and I look stunned, as if someone had just clubbed me with a baseball bat. "Smile," she says, and I try, but still I look like an ugly white person who is fixing to die. My grandmother hated cameras, and we have the pictures to prove it. She stands by the back door of the little white frame house, on her way to pick beans into a pail, wearing a loose cotton dress, her hair up in a bun, a few strands loose, wire-rim glasses, cotton stockings and old shoes, and she gives the camera a sour look that says, "Oh for pity's sake.

WASHINGTON -- Bobby Wilson's timing was either impeccable or the Washington Redskins' rookie defensive tackle got away with one yesterday.Wilson pounced on a fumbled Atlanta snap late in the first half and the ensuing Redskins touchdown helped pave the way to a 56-17 rout of the Falcons at RFK Stadium.The Redskins held a 21-3 lead when Wilson pulled the defensive play of the game. Atlanta had first down on its own 23 when the Skins' first-round draft pick knocked center Jamie Dukes backward into quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver, who fumbled the snap.

WHEN YOU are young, tender and intriguing, almost everybody wants a piece of you. But as you become older, leathery and taken for granted, you need help to stay appealing. That is how it works with life and with green beans. Early in the summer, when the green beans first appeared in my garden, they were fetching. Their skin was so smooth, their centers so soft, their flavor so clean that I succumbed to the temptation to pop a few into my mouth, right off the vine. But as time marched on, the sun bore down and the novelty wore off. Picking the beans, once a labor of love, became a chore, one I often put off. As my interest in the beans waned, that of the bugs' increased.

Baltimore neighborhood leaders will be meeting tomorrow night with city planners to hear about ways that they can get involved with the future development of their communities. Using an approach they call "cluster analysis," planners hope to encourage Baltimore civic leaders to think more about the city as a whole rather than as a collection of individual neighborhoods, said Israel C. Patoka, director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods. Cluster analysis is a method of collecting and evaluating demographic data from city neighborhoods.

The Denver Broncos have quarterback John Elway's two-minute magic.The Buffalo Bills have quarterback Jim Kelly's no-huddle offense and home-field advantage.When it comes to Sunday's AFC championship game, the visiting Broncos don't underestimate the elements at Rich Stadium that help make the Bills an overwhelming 11-point favorite to reach Super Bowl XXVI.Those elements include crowd noise from 80,000-plus fans that can obscure the snap count, and a chill wind that can wreak havoc with the football.

LONDON -- British Prime Minister John Major, riding high in the polls, could call a snap postwar election, opposition politicians fear.The new prime minister lacks a popular mandate for his leadership, having replaced Margaret Thatcher after an internal Conservative Party revolt late last year.Members of the opposition say he could be tempted to go to the country as early as June, a full year ahead of the deadline for the next general election, assuming the allies are victorious in the Persian Gulf war.Mr.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter often is tough on pitcher Jake Arrieta, pointing out things the 27-year-old right-hander didn't do well when he turns in a strong performance. Tuesday was another adequate but uninspiring start this season from Arrieta, who allowed one run on three hits and five walks in five innings. He threw 112 pitches, 63 strikes, and couldn't record an out in the sixth. Showalter wasn't too critical of Arrieta this time, though. In fact, he seemed annoyed by the line of questioning afterward - basically saying that Arrieta needs to have better control and go deeper in games, but he won Tuesday and that should be the main point of emphasis.

BOSTON - Crazy things happen when the Orioles come to Boston. This wasn't a 17-inning game. No position players had to pitch. But the comeback the Orioles staged Wednesday night was one they needed to salvage this three-game series at Fenway Park. Trailing by two runs, the Orioles rallied for a five-run ninth inning against Boston closer Joel Hanrahan, capped by Manny Machado's three-run homer over the Green Monster in left field that gave them a dramatic 8-5 win. “It was a huge win for us,” Machado said.

Stevenson - ranked third in the latest United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll - has secured resume-building victories against No. 5 Rochester Institute of Technology and No. 7 Lynchburg. The team can now add No. 6 Salisbury to the list, and Wednesday night's 10-8 decision at Sea Gull Stadium in Salisbury may be the most significant in terms of psychological impact. “I think it's a pretty big win,” coach Paul Cantabene said Thursday morning. “We had lost to them four times in a row, including three times last year.

These two sides have split the last six meetings, but Navy won last year's contest, 10-6, at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Towson (2-4) is still smarting from a 10-9 overtime setback to Marist last Friday night in which neither team scored in the fourth quarter and the Tigers failed to score on an extra-man opportunity. Navy (3-3) snapped a three-game losing skid with a 12-11 decision against Lafayette last Saturday. The starting attack of juniors Sam Jones and Tucker Hull and freshman T.J. Hanzsche combined for eight goals and two assists.

Wednesday's supposed snowstorm wiped out UMBC's scheduled contest with No. 1 Maryland, but the Retrievers (1-3) are still trying to snap a two-game losing streak. UMBC has scored less than 10 goals in each of its three losses. Meanwhile, No. 10 Johns Hopkins got back into the win column with a 19-9 demolition of Mount St. Mary's on Tuesday night. The biggest mystery for the Blue Jays (4-1) is whether they will start senior Pierce Bassett or redshirt sophomore Eric Schneider in the cage.

With senior quarterback C.J. Brown rehabbing a torn anterior cruciate ligament, transfer Ricardo Young took all of the first-team snaps at the position as Maryland opened its spring practice schedule Saturday at Byrd Stadium. It was a chance for the junior to get valuable repetitions under center. "I felt like I threw the ball really well today," Young said. "I need to clean up on some details. Getting proper depths on drops. Just finishing off. I'm in a beginning stage right now. " Young transferred from New Mexico to play under Maryland offensive coordinator Mike Locksley , who was previously the Lobos head coach.

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.

One day after Matt Katula had errant snaps on two missed field-goal attempts, Ravens coach John Harbaugh said there will be no change in the team's long snapper for Sunday's AFC wild-card playoff game in New England. "No, I think Matt Katula is a quality long snapper in this league," Harbaugh said during his weekly news conference. "We see him practice every single day. We see it in pre-game, we see it in most of the snaps during the game. He'd be the first to tell you he's got to be better in that situation - and he does have to be better in that situation - but he's a really good snapper and he's going to be fine."

- Towson has seen the end of many streaks during its renaissance basketball season. It finished off another one Tuesday night at George Mason. Jerrelle Benimon scored a career-high 31 points, including 22 in the first half, as the Tigers halted a 20-game losing streak to the Patriots with an 85-81 overtime triumph. Marcus Damas (23 points) made a pair of game-clinching free throws with 7.6 seconds left in the extra period for Towson (17-13, 12-5 Colonial Athletic Association)

Jim Berkman laughed when asked if he sensed any relief from his players after Salisbury defeated Widener, 7-5, on Saturday. But the Sea Gulls coach conceded that getting a victory after back-to-back losses to No. 9 Lynchburg and unranked Washington & Lee provided the reigning national champion with some much-needed confidence. “We played awful good on defense,” Berkman said Monday morning. “We held them down. We should've had more goals than seven though based on what I saw on film.