Two Guys

Wondering what to do in your golden years? Think all the talk about today's "active seniors" is a lot of AARP propaganda? Do yourself a favor: Stop by the Bykota Senior Center in Towson any Monday, Wednesday or Friday and watch the old guys play hoops. Thirty show up, but keep your eyes on the real geezers, the guys in their 80s: sharp-shooting Arky Vaughn; Bucky Kimmett, a former star at what is now Towson University; Ralph Piersanti, his former teammate on the Tigers; Joe Lamantia; and Hank Thielemann The five will represent Maryland at the Summer National Senior Games in California in August.

People in big cities around the world are walking 10 percent faster than they did a decade ago, according to a study by an English psychologist that came out last week. Singaporeans were at the top of a list of 32 cities surveyed, but the pace has been picking up everywhere. The study's author, Richard Wiseman, attributes this to anxiety, a general sort of Type A impatience, and the urge toward instantaneousness let loose by the cell phone. New York was the only American city included, and it came in an unexciting eighth, just ahead of Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

This much is clear. The Ravens, in dire need of a wide receiver to complement diminutive Pro Bowl player Jermaine Lewis, plan to select at least one in this weekend's NFL draft.This much is likely. Since the 1999 crop of rookie wide-outs appears to lack the depth that characterizes most drafts, the Ravens will address their wide receiver problem early.In other words, if either North Carolina State's Torry Holt or Ohio State's David Boston is available when the Ravens make the 10th overall selection, one of them figures to be Baltimore-bound.

The Loyola College basketball team finally stood up yesterday and chased away the Reitz Arena demons in rousing fashion.The Greyhounds wiped out a perplexing home-court jinx with an impressive 86-61 victory over St. Peter's in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game that let the rest of the league know that explosive point guard Jason Rowe and his teammates still can play with the MAAC's upper-echelon teams.It was Loyola's first win this season over a top-five MAAC team and ran its recent surge to 5-2. The victory cooled off the Peacocks (10-12, 8-6)

A series about three friends and two dogs sharing one house debuts on NBC tonight. Here's betting it won't be around much longer."House Rules" (8: 30 p.m.-9 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) introduces us to three lifelong friends -- two guys (David Newsom and Bradley White) and one gal (Maria Pitillo). It's a good thing they like each other, since hardly anyone else could tolerate them; it's hard to think of another sitcom with less appealing characters. The two guys make the dudes on "Friends" seem like rocket scientists, while the gal only exists so her buds can dump on her and she can lovingly forgive them.

When Norv Turner was named coach of the Washington Redskins in 1994, he quickly started sweeping out many of the players left from the Joe Gibbs regime.One of the victims was Frank Wycheck, the former University of Maryland tight end who had fit into Gibbs' system as an H-back."I just didn't think I was getting a fair shake up there. He [Turner] wanted to get rid of all the old guys and I don't think it was right. They brought in all those guys from Dallas and it sort of backfired on him," Wycheck said.

Sunday's Cincinnati-Ravens game will be a watershed game for the participants, to be sure, but also for the broadcaster, ESPN and the announcers.We'll get to the import of the contest to ESPN in a bit. But for analyst Paul Maguire, the game's significance lies with its timing as opposed to the combatants.You see, Sunday's is the eighth broadcast -- four preseason games and four regular-season contests -- that Maguire, Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann will work together, and Maguire, the former Buffalo Bills punter-linebacker, assumed that the newly formed threesome would be clicking by now."

YESTERDAY, when I read President Clinton had hurt his knee by catching his heel on the edge of a step, I felt sorry for the big guy.Not only did he sustain a substantial injury, serious enough to put him under the surgeon's knife, he also had a sorry story of how it happened.In guy-culture, it is OK to get hurt as long as you are injured while you are trying something risky."What happened to the knee?" a guy will ask a fellow whose leg is covered with an apparatus that resembles a downspout.

How do you replace a 30-year-old broadcasting institution?If you're WCBM-AM (680), and the institution you're trying to replace is local mainstay Tom Marr, you scour the nation -- but don't neglect your own back yard.The nation part explains why you've been hearing a bunch of new voices on the air from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily for the past several weeks. So far, four hosts -- including one that's really a team of two guys -- have had a week each to convince WCBM's listeners and management that they deserve to replace Mr. Marr, who left Baltimore in February for a radio job in Philadelphia.

People I know in the city of Baltimore are incessantly on the point of moving away. Exactly where, they're not sure, but it's apparently in to an America where crime does not exist, and no one's afraid to walk the streets. It's an America we think we remember from our youth, or the movies, which are seen in our heads through missing and mist.In the city, everybody thinks this fairyland exists in suburbia. In suburbia, they know otherwise. Did I say "they?" I live in the city but sometimes shop in suburbia.

Wondering what to do in your golden years? Think all the talk about today's "active seniors" is a lot of AARP propaganda? Do yourself a favor: Stop by the Bykota Senior Center in Towson any Monday, Wednesday or Friday and watch the old guys play hoops. Thirty show up, but keep your eyes on the real geezers, the guys in their 80s: sharp-shooting Arky Vaughn; Bucky Kimmett, a former star at what is now Towson University; Ralph Piersanti, his former teammate on the Tigers; Joe Lamantia; and Hank Thielemann The five will represent Maryland at the Summer National Senior Games in California in August.

The front covers of men's lacrosse media guides are usually reserved for the returning leading scorer, the impenetrable goalie or the physically imposing defenseman. Geoff Leone and Bobby Lennon don't necessarily fit the bill, but that didn't prevent Navy from putting the two on the cover of this season's guide alongside senior defenseman and team captain Andy Tormey. It's an illustration of the respect the Midshipmen coaches and players have for two seniors who play a defensive midfielder position that rarely attracts much attention.

Long before helicopters started falling on doctors and chemical spills were threatening to wipe out Chicago, ER was a show where two guys could disappear in a game of basketball and talk about life or about nothing at all. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/toydept)

Archbishop Spalding's Jordan Cohill knew history was at stake when he lined up against Tyler Tippett in the final match of yesterday's dual meet against top-ranked Mount St. Joseph. The fifth-ranked Cavaliers trailed the Gaels by two, and if Cohill prevailed, Spalding would have its first victory over the area's No. 1 team in wrestling. Cohill won the hard-fought bout at 160 pounds by a point, and the Cavaliers won, 28-27. "Everybody was telling me the pressure was on me," Cohill said.

A day after the retirement of Steve McNair, the Ravens took the practice field not knowing who their starting quarterback is going to be. Will it be the more experienced Kyle Boller? Will it be intriguing prospect Troy Smith? Or will it be someone not even on the roster right now? Ravens coach John Harbaugh praised the work of Boller and Smith at this week's minicamp, but he didn't rule out the possibility of a rookie draft pick starting at quarterback this season. "It'll be tough for anybody to come in and win a job against [Boller and Smith]

People in big cities around the world are walking 10 percent faster than they did a decade ago, according to a study by an English psychologist that came out last week. Singaporeans were at the top of a list of 32 cities surveyed, but the pace has been picking up everywhere. The study's author, Richard Wiseman, attributes this to anxiety, a general sort of Type A impatience, and the urge toward instantaneousness let loose by the cell phone. New York was the only American city included, and it came in an unexciting eighth, just ahead of Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

overheardinnewyork.com What's the point? -- Admit it - when you're on a crowded city sidewalk, you can't help but catch snippets of other people's conversations. And some of the things you pick up along the way can be pretty hilarious. The folks at this Web site do all the legwork for you, posting short exchanges they overheard from random people on the streets of New York City. What to look for --No one, from the lady on the bus to two guys in suits to a kid selling lemonade, is safe.

Craiglist.org, the Internet site full of free classifieds organized by city, is a certifiable phenomenon. I'm hearing Craigslist stories all the time now, including, of course, the one about the "full-service female escorts" who've been flying into BWI to rendezvous with "clients" who hired them through the Web site. The most famous - and far more inspiring - Craigstory is the one about Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald bartering his way, over the course of a year, from a red paper clip to a house in Saskatchewan.

A one-run lead. A fearsome hitter coming to the plate. The ninth inning of the Orioles' Saturday game against the Los Angeles Angels certainly seemed like dangerous territory for a rookie closer. But Chris Ray struck out Vladimir Guerrero and rapidly dispatched two other batters to earn his fourth save overall and his first protecting a one-run lead. Manager Sam Perlozzo no longer seems surprised when his young reliever thrives under pressure. "I'm sure he's glad to get that out of the way," Perlozzo said of the tough save.

The U.S. Army has dropped its case against the only officer to face criminal charges in connection with the beating deaths of two prisoners held by the United States in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said yesterday. The officer, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, led a reservist military police company at the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan when the two men were killed in December 2002. The prisoners died after guards kneed them repeatedly in the legs while each was shackled to the ceiling of his cell.