Team Meeting

Spinning serves and kill shots. An orange plastic ball flying over wooden tabletops at speeds nearing 100 mph. Shrieks and grunts from players. Teams from across the nation and from more than 30 countries -- including Argentina, China, Hungary, Trinidad and Venezuela -- converged on the Baltimore Convention Center yesterday for the start of the North American Teams Table Tennis Championships. As a spectator sport, table tennis has been generally ignored in the United States, with most attention given to professional tennis and players with household names.

"I'm a grown man. I know how to act." Darren Sharper Minnesota Vikings safety, after a team meeting Saturday to go over a handbook on the code of conduct

Remember the Titans? Seriously, remember those guys? Tough defense. Smash-mouth offense. Perennial playoff team. If the current group that has lost 12 of its past 17 regular-season games, including a 34-7 embarrassment Sunday to the Pittsburgh Steelers, provides only a dim reminder of those hard-as-nails Tennessee clubs, imagine how quarterback Steve McNair feels. "It is very different, but it's an adjustment we all have to make, as far as dealing with veterans and dealing with young guys," McNair said yesterday.

Defending champion Mexico avoided a major upset yesterday, edging the fourth-seeded Republic of Korea, 3-2, on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning in the single-elimination round of the Cal Ripken 12-and-Under World Series in Aberdeen. Seeking its third consecutive World Series title, Mexico will face another tough opponent today when it takes on the Dominican Republic, an 8-0 winner over Australia, in the international championship game at 1:05 p.m. Oahu, Hawaii, advanced to a third straight United States championship game by outlasting the Bronx, N.Y., 6-3, yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- The Washington Nationals have shuffled their lineups, contemplated trades. Yesterday, manager Frank Robinson convened a pre-game team meeting that he said was to "clear the air" and get players more focused. Then the Nationals went out and nevertheless lost their 13th straight one-run game, a 3-2 decision to the San Diego Padres in which Washington managed five hits. Instead of pre-game meetings, maybe the Nationals need a collective hug, or an amulet, or an exorcist. Anything to reverse the red tide engulfing their season and threatening to take them out of wild-card contention if things get much worse.

For Mount Hebron's No. 1 girls lacrosse team, games don't get any bigger than tonight's showdown with visiting Moorestown High from New Jersey. The marquee girls game in the nation this season features the teams ranked No 1, the Vikings, and No. 2, Moorestown, by laxpower.com. Both teams are 12-0. Both are defending state champions multiple times over. "We told the girls this is one of the biggest games you'll ever play with the exception of an NCAA championship, because of all the hype," said Mount Hebron coach Brooke Kuhl-McClelland.

An effort to shape a vision for the eastern Baltimore County enclaves of Essex and Middle River will move this week to a supermarket-turned-church on a boulevard that one area resident calls "a place time forgot." In what could be a crucial step in forming a plan to sustain the area's revitalization, a team of architects, planners and preservationists from across the country will meet merchants and residents from the county's east side Thursday at Essex Church of God on Eastern Boulevard.

Given one last chance to hold a team meeting yesterday, his first season as Orioles manager ending with a victory, Lee Mazzilli stood in front of his players with dark shades hiding his eyes and emotions that were much too obvious. He wanted to thank them for the effort, for not quitting on him. He wanted to say a lot of things, if only the words had come more easily. If only they had come at all. "It didn't last long," he said, "because I couldn't get through it." On the field, the Orioles chucked baseballs and caps at a crowd of 42,104 after a 3-2 win over the Boston Red Sox at Camden Yards.

Top-ranked Mount St. Joseph and No. 2 Archbishop Spalding open tonight in the 44th Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament at Frostburg State. The metro area's top two teams would meet only in the final of the championship round if each wins its first two games. Led by Baltimore Catholic League tournament Most Valuable Player Will Thomas, BCL champion St. Joe (28-4) opens at 5:45 tonight against Roman Catholic (20-8) of Philadelphia. BCL runner-up Spalding (27-7) and Rudy Gay, the regular-season BCL MVP and McDonald's All-American, follow at 7.30 against last year's runner-up and USA Today's 20th-ranked team, St. Joseph's Prep of Philadelphia.

The Forest Park football team was cool toward its academic coach, until he went the extra mile. Or 400. Ever since Greg Ford volunteered last year to drive a player to a funeral in Delaware and then to the team's game in West Virginia, the Foresters have followed his lead. They attend study halls and inquire about college. They behave, in class and out, and resist the fad of wearing knee-length T-shirts. Since Ford's arrival in September 2002, the team's combined grade point average has jumped nearly half a point, from a 1.8 (D-plus)