Texas Stadium

IRVING, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys are ready to put a "No trespassing" sign on the Super Bowl.The best team that money can buy considers the Super Bowl its home away from home.After the Cowboys qualified for the Super Bowl for the third time in four years by bashing the Green Bay Packers, 38-27, in the NFC title game at Texas Stadium yesterday, they treated the return as a homecoming.Wide receiver Michael Irvin, who caught two touchdown passes from Troy Aikman, said, "Fellows, we're going home.

DALLAS -- Fans of the Dallas Cowboys will tell you that the hole in the roof of Texas Stadium is there to allow the gods to watch their favorite team play.It's a joke that infuriates the many Cowboy haters across the country, whose population probably pretty much equals that of the many Cowboy lovers.The higher authorities have never announced any such preferences, of course. But after the upturn in the Cowboys' fortunes in the past three weeks, it is indeed fair to wonder whether a divine hand is guiding them.

DEMAND A GREAT football stadium, Baltimore. Stay on top of the parties designing it. Make sure parking is not a headache, landscaping is not an afterthought and that a link can be forged at some point between the stadium and the Middle Branch waterfront.But delay by one year the 1998 scheduled opening? Nonsense.Postponing this project with no specific remedy -- if one is warranted -- would be a waste of time and money. The delay would cost $30 million in ticket sales to the Baltimore Ravens and in construction overruns to taxpayers, not to mention lost revenue to restaurants, hotels and other businesses counting on spinoff trade.

IRVING, Texas -- When you walk into Jerry Jones' office, you say "hello" and then wait for the echo.It's big, like everything else in Texas, decorated with brown leather furniture. A spacious wall unit is filled with game balls and pictures: Jones with President Bush, Jones shaking hands with President Clinton, Jones chatting with Elizabeth Taylor. All types of Dallas Cowboys memorabilia line the wall as one makes the long walk from one end of the room to the other.And finally, here sits Jones, the latest NFL executive to strike out on his own."

LOS ANGELES -- Are you ready for a made-for-TV movie about a made-for-TV execution?NBC is going to help bring some controversy to the February sweeps with "Witness to the Execution," a TV movie starring Sean Young and Tim Daly.The film is about a TV executive (played by Young) who comes up with the idea of televising the execution of a man (played by Daly) as a blockbuster pay-per-view event.The film ends by showing viewers Daly's execution."Witness to the Execution" has already been denounced by one U.S. senator for being gratuitously violent, but it turns out he hasn't seen it.NBC screened the film for critics here this weekend, and the final scene is nothing to get excited about.

IRVING, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys showed yesterday that you can take a Jimmy Johnson guarantee to the bank.Johnson predicted they would beat the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game and they did.Easily.Scoring touchdowns on four of their five first-half possessions, the Cowboys crushed the 49ers, 38-21, at Texas Stadium to set up the first back-to-back Super Bowl rematch, against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.Even the loss of quarterback Troy Aikman, who suffered a concussion on the Cowboys' first series of the second half, didn't stop Dallas.

IRVING, Texas -- Troy Aikman stood in front of the gathered media Monday afternoon, lobbing answers as easily as he does those 10-yarders over the middle to tight end Jay Novacek.After all, he has been in the league four years now, and he has learned more than just the intricacies of offensive coordinator Norv Turner's system, more than all the ins and outs for becoming a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback and 1992's third-rated NFC quarterback.Certainly a guy who figures how to throw for 3,445 yards, 23 touchdowns and a 63.8 percent completion rate in 16 games can figure what he's about to face.

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner yesterday said he hopes that Orioles president Larry Lucchino will be a part of one of the five groups bidding for the team in bankruptcy court.After speaking to a luncheon of horse racing officials at a downtown hotel, Steinbrenner said Lucchino's presence would be good for franchise stability."He and I have been on opposite sides of the fence sometimes, but he's a very bright guy and I think it would be nice if he were in the picture because that would give us the continuity," Steinbrenner said of Lucchino.

The magazine Financial World has come up with a gimmick that's almost as good as the Forbes list of the nation's richest people.The Forbes list is mostly just a bunch of educated guesses. Rich people don't exactly keep their money in a savings account at the bank on the corner.There are even some estimates that are way off. The magazine had Donald Trump listed as a millionaire when he was virtually broke. But the list gets a lot of publicity every year, and that's really the point of doing it.The Financial World gimmick is to list the value of sports franchises.

LOS ANGELES -- He was once known as the second-most powerful man in the NFL. Now, he's just another face in the crowd.Tex Schramm, the former president of the Dallas Cowboys, attended commissioner Paul Tagliabue's annual Super Bowl news conference yesterday as just another spectator.The days when Schramm was considered former commissioner Pete Rozelle's right hand man are long gone. He's retired and is attending this game as a guest of Rankin Smith, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons.Schramm, who was pushed out when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989, still roots for his old team, but he said he misses being involved.

All the hoopla surrounding the Dallas Cowboys' final game at Texas Stadium got me thinking about pro wrestling's significant place in the stadium's history. One of the biggest events of the wrestling territories era - World Class Championship Wrestling's David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions - was held there May 6, 1984. In the main event, Kerry Von Erich defeated Ric Flair to win the NWA world heavyweight title before a crowd of more than 30,000 (some sources list the attendance as more than 40,000)

IRVING, Texas - For all those conspiracy theorists who believe the NFL is out to get Baltimore - especially after Sunday's controversial finish - tonight won't change your mind. As the Ravens make their final push toward the playoffs, they must overcome another roadblock laid down by the league. The Ravens (9-5) play the Dallas Cowboys (9-5) in the final game scheduled at Texas Stadium, a situation in which it is usually tough to pull out a victory. Since the beginning of the 1996 season, teams are 11-2 in the last regular-season games at their old stadiums before relocating to new ones.

Jamison Hensley Cowboys, 24-10 The Ravens are catching the Cowboys at the wrong time. David Steele Cowboys, 27-17 Owens, Romo, Witten ... someone had better pay attention to DeMarcus Ware. Edward Lee Cowboys, 27-21 After watching what Ben Roethlisberger did, imagine what Tony Romo can accomplish. Peter Schmuck Cowboys, 23-13 Sorry, but everything points to the Cowboys in this one. Ken Murray Cowboys, 24-19 Tony Romo will probably have enough time to find Jason Witten. Mike Preston Cowboys, 21-14 Cowboys will be riding emotional highs of win over Giants and the Texas Stadium finale.

Matt Stover, a Dallas native who once sold programs in the parking lot at Texas Stadium as a young Cowboys fan, returns to the Irving, Texas, landmark this weekend to help close it down. After 18 seasons in the NFL, the Ravens kicker, 40, has seen his share of openings and closings in the NFL, some bitter, some sweet. Not many have carried the weight of tomorrow night's game against the Cowboys, who move into a new stadium next season. This is the Ravens' biggest game of the season, after they lost last week's biggest game of the season to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Ravens have not faced the Cowboys in Texas Stadium. So tomorrow night's final Cowboys game in the venerable sports venue will be the one and only for Baltimore. The last time the Ravens met the Cowboys was Nov. 21, 2004, at M&T Bank Stadium. At the time, the Ravens were 6-3 and the Cowboys were 3-6. When the dust cleared, the Ravens had a 30-10 victory, Kyle Boller was actually beginning to look like a quarterback and the team was 7-3 after 10 games for the first time in franchise history.

The poor NHL. Even when the league ties a hard-rocking outfit to its opening games, some kind of glitch happens. As part of the champion Detroit Red Wings' first game, the NHL set up to televise a piece of a Def Leppard concert, also happening in Detroit on Thursday night, in NHL Face-Off Rocks. During the show, the Stanley Cup was handed to the band's singer, Joe Elliott, who held it aloft for the benefit of the crowd and then proceeded to put it on a pedestal - upside down. At least he didn't try to pour some sugar from the Cup. Fertile thinking Helen Barnes wants to compete in the Olympics.

Maybe the NFC finally has a team that can challenge the front-running Chicago Bears. It won't be the Philadelphia Eagles, who lost Donovan McNabb for the season. It doesn't look good, either, for the Seattle Seahawks, who still don't have Matt Hasselbeck. The New York Giants and the Carolina Panthers, a pair of injury-depleted teams, might have a shot if they get healthy. But the team that probably has the best chance to beat the Bears in Chicago is the one that dispensed with the Indianapolis Colts yesterday, squeezed three turnovers out of Peyton Manning and terminated all talk about a perfect season.

For as long as he can remember, Adam Ballard has enjoyed punishing would-be tacklers. But Navy's junior fullback, envisioned by some as a worthy successor to recent Midshipmen star Kyle Eckel, also is hooked on working a different kind of crowd. When off campus sans uniform, Ballard can be found in jeans, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat, cutting loose at the karaoke bar that reminds him of his Texas home. And Ballard isn't just fooling around while serenading the folks at Lu & Joe's in Mount Airy with a Willie Nelson favorite or a beloved cut by Johnny Cash or Hank Williams Jr. Ballard likes to think he's laying the foundation for another career.

DEMAND A GREAT football stadium, Baltimore. Stay on top of the parties designing it. Make sure parking is not a headache, landscaping is not an afterthought and that a link can be forged at some point between the stadium and the Middle Branch waterfront.But delay by one year the 1998 scheduled opening? Nonsense.Postponing this project with no specific remedy -- if one is warranted -- would be a waste of time and money. The delay would cost $30 million in ticket sales to the Baltimore Ravens and in construction overruns to taxpayers, not to mention lost revenue to restaurants, hotels and other businesses counting on spinoff trade.

IRVING, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys are ready to put a "No trespassing" sign on the Super Bowl.The best team that money can buy considers the Super Bowl its home away from home.After the Cowboys qualified for the Super Bowl for the third time in four years by bashing the Green Bay Packers, 38-27, in the NFC title game at Texas Stadium yesterday, they treated the return as a homecoming.Wide receiver Michael Irvin, who caught two touchdown passes from Troy Aikman, said, "Fellows, we're going home.