Upper Deck

With 36,000 tickets having already been sold for this weekend's NCAA men's lacrosse championships, tournament organizers are preparing to open part of the upper deck of M&T Bank Stadium. "The upper deck will open when every ticket below is sold out," said tournament director Marty Schwartz. "We've set the wheels in motion to open it, but I'd still suggest that people buy tickets now and don't count on the upper deck being open." With the upper deck closed, a sellout is 40,200. Last year's final four drew a record crowd of 37,944 for the semifinals despite dismal weather.

Target Field's reputation as a tough place for power hitters hasn't vanished. The Twins, A's and Royals combined to hit only three homers in five games there last week, with Jason Kubel hitting one ball to the warning track in right that teammate Danny Valencia thought was "going to be in the upper deck. " … Keys to the Indians' fast start — shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera , who has four homers and 14 RBIs and won a game with a squeeze bunt; 3-4-5 starters Justin Masterson, Josh Tomlin and Mitch Talbot ; the bullpen trio of closer Chris Perez and lefties Rafael Perez and Tony Sipp , who allowed four hits in their first 17 innings; and greatly improved fielding, which manager Manny Acta is most happy about.

Upper Deck has become such a prominent part of the sports card landscape that it is hard to believe that its first cards were printed in 1989.And, according to Pete Williams in his book "Card Sharks" (Macmillan, 278 pages, $21.95), it's amazing that the cards were produced at all.Williams, memorabilia columnist for USA Today Baseball Weekly, looks at Upper Deck and how it changed the sports card industry. He spent 15 months researching the book and initially had the cooperation of Upper Deck officials, who later turned reticent.

Jed York faces quite a task. As president of the 49ers, the franchise his family owns, York has the challenge of coming up with a state-of-the-art stadium design for perhaps the world's most technologically discerning fan base — in the heart of Silicon Valley. Set aside the difficulty of actually getting a stadium constructed in California and consider the approach of the 29-year-old York, who envisions a venue that satisfies old-line fans and those from his plugged-in generation.

Even devoted Upper Deck fans may need a scorecard to recognize their favorite brand of baseball cards in 1994.Upper Deck, which pioneered the premium card and came out with a super-premium line this fall, has big changes in the works.The premium cards, called Upper Deck since their inception in 1989, will be known as Collector's Choice. The suggested price is dropping to under $1, and buyers will get 12 cards per pack. The two series of 320 cards each will be out in December and May.Upper Deck cards will be upgraded and be similar in quality to SP football cards, which made their debut this month.

Let's call it The Big Orchid for now because the Ravens' new stadium doesn't have an official name yet and that's a lot of purple coming out of the ground.It's a splendid place, no doubt, as well it should be for what it cost. The lower bowl, club level and luxury boxes are almost on top of the field. The scoreboards and sound system are terrific. There's an industrial feel that seems right for football. All that purple? Cool.But the upper deck? Well, not to tell you how to live your life or anything, but if your seats are up there, you'd better bring a Sherpa.

Until there was Upper Deck five years ago, there were just cards.Score had put color photos on its card backs the year before and generally jazzed up card design. But Upper Deck arrived with thicker, whiter card stock, security holograms and eye-catching photographs, starting the premium card market.Now everybody has a premium line to go with its regular product, including Upper Deck, which is upping the ante with a super-premium line called Upper Deck SP.The new 290-card baseball set features coating on both sides of cards, "borderless" designs, two years' worth of stats (1992 and the player's career-best season)

Collect sports memorabilia and see North America.That could be the motto of a growing group of collectors, fans of Upper Deck commemorative sheets. Sheets, produced by Upper Deck in limited quantities, are numbered and feature original artwork and/or reproductions of Upper Deck cards.The challenge for collectors is that they are one-shot deals, issued in conjunction with games or events. Upper Deck issued its first sheet in 1989, and fans have been traveling for them ever since.Alan Moore of Glen Burnie may be the mileage champ.

It's Week 2 of the NFL season, and Upper Deck just did a end run around the licensing feud between the NFL Players Association and NFL Properties.Upper Deck's NFL low series includes players under contract to both entities.Players under licensing contract to NFL Properties appear in a 50-card insert set in Upper Deck's NFL low series. These cards come in separate foil packs, are numbered G1 through G50 and carry the NFL Properties logo. Upper Deck lists odds of picking an NFL Properties pack out of a box at 1-in-30.

Who needs Hammacher-Schlemmer?Upper Deck Authenticated has filled its fifth glossy quarterly with autographed, licensed (often limited-edition) sports memorabilia.The cover of the 40-page catalog has autographed baseballs, the back cover lucite-encased oversized versions of Upper Deck cards. Then there's the one-of-a-kind collectible for the collector who has everything. Last time it was a used America's Cup yacht. This catalog has Dan Gurney's last race car -- autographed, of course -- for $180,000.

Joseph P. Hamper Jr., the last surviving member of the group of Orioles staff and investors who returned big-league baseball to Baltimore in 1954, died July 13 of a heart attack at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 84. Mr. Hamper, the son of an auto parts manager and a Baltimore public school teacher, was born in Baltimore and raised on Belle Avenue. After graduating in 1942 from Forest Park High School, Mr. Hamper attended the University of Maryland before being drafted into the Army.

Baltimore has a storied sports history, so we thought it would be interesting to come up with a Top 10 list of the strangest moments in the annals of Charm City. 1. On Dec. 19, 1976, minutes after a playoff game between the Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers, 33-year-old pilot Donald Kroner crashed his small plane into the upper deck at Memorial Stadium. Amazingly, no one was seriously injured, in part because the Steelers crushed the Colts that day and a lot of the crowd had left early.

From the press section in the upper deck of University of Phoenix Stadium the night of Feb. 3, it seemed as if the entire crowd for the Super Bowl was pro-Patriots - and, thus, pro-perfection. Everybody upstairs seemed to be wearing Patriots gear and colors, speaking Patriots accents and waving Patriots signs, most of them bearing "19-0" somewhere. You couldn't see the field that well from up there, way above the south end zone, but you could hear clearly. As the game wore on, and the designated-victim Giants kept refusing to go away, what you heard more of was silence.

WASHINGTON -- The media got a peek yesterday at Washington's nearly completed baseball stadium. The steel, glass and concrete home of the Washington Nationals is more bland than Camden Yards but more intimate, with an open-air feel and views of the U.S. Capitol dome from portions of the upper deck. Nationals Park, which debuts with a March 29 exhibition against the Orioles, is among a new generation of stadiums built smaller than its predecessors. Camden Yards seats about 48,000, but the stadium in Southeast Washington - about 36 miles from Baltimore - will seat about 41,000.

I was looking for some peace and quiet last night ... somewhere to ponder the mysteries of the ages and collect my thoughts without a lot of background noise or interruptions. So I'm writing this column from the upper deck in left field at Camden Yards. It's pretty nice up here. I haven't seen a single Red Sox fan and you can have a whole row to yourself if you want. It's sort of like flying US Airways, except that you have to pay for peanuts and the people on the ground look a lot bigger.

While mozzarella sticks are one of the more expensive members of the deep-fried family, their utter deliciousness justifies the $5-or-more price tag. We ordered the dish from four local restaurants and compared them. This is what we found: Mad River Bar and Grille 1110 S. Charles St. -- 410-727-2333 Hours --11 a.m to 2 a.m. daily The cooks at Mad River must have tossed a pinch of sugar into the deep fryer, because the mozzarella sticks, $6.25, came out more sweet than salty. They tasted odd, not bad, and after a little marinara sauce, we could barely notice the sweetness.

In its fourth season, Upper Deck resisted the temptation to put its migrating line in the final position to complete a square.Instead, it ditched the line and gave the cards a different, more sophisticated look.The card-front picture is offset by a shadow strip on two sides, creating a three-dimensional effect. Team logos are free-standing. The Upper Deck logo has a speeding baseball coming out of it and shares the top of the card with the player's name. For his position, you have to turn over the card.

What's an unrepentant Gordie Howe fan to do?The NHL's all-time leading scorer is Upper Deck's third hockey hero, meaning there are 10 insert cards chronicling Howe's career in the high series. But a random box of high series cards, which includes cards from the 440-card low series as well, yields just three Howes, and one of those is the silly "cover card."The good news about the high series cards is that Upper Deck finally Notebookhas those tear strips right. The original ones were about as reliable and neat as faulty tear strips on plastic bandages.

WASHINGTON -- Prior to embarking on his first road trip of this late season, Barry Bonds was asked about the booing he was all but certain to receive at RFK Stadium and elsewhere. "Bring it on, baby," he said. Last night, Washington Nationals fans granted the San Francisco Giants slugger his wish, making clear their disapproval of the man who has become a symbol of baseball's steroids era as the result of leaked grand jury testimony. But, as he so often does, Bonds made sure he didn't end the night without getting in a few memorable shots of his own. Bonds, with his home run hitter's swagger and outsized personality, practically made the game a sidelight with a prodigious blast on the field and a few verbal cannon shots -- directed at Congress and the media -- off it. Bonds' team won the game, too. After Bonds drew a four-pitch walk, Moises Alou hit a three-run homer off starter Livan Hernandez with two outs in the ninth to send the Giants to a 4-3 victory.