Yelling

COLLEGE PARK - As freshmen last year, Rob Armstrong and Conrad Bolston got yelled at. A lot. Some of it was deserved - Maryland needed Armstrong and Bolston to contribute immediately, and there were plenty of rookie mistakes to correct - but most of the yelling was simply the coaching style preferred by Terps defensive line coach Dave Sollazzo. Sollazzo, you see, yells when he wants to encourage, yells when he wants to teach and yells when he wants to discipline a player. As far as he's concerned, if he isn't yelling at someone, he's just not trying hard enough.

COLLEGE PARK - Slow things down. Keep them simple. Resist the urge to chew out a player who moves to the wrong spot on the floor or throws the ball away or fails to box out properly. Be a teacher first. Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams, an admittedly impatient person, reminds himself of such guidelines as he envisions a unique season. Williams, 58, has led youthful teams before, but never a team as inexperienced as his latest collection. The 2003-04 Terrapins feature five freshmen and six other players who have not played for more than a year at the Division I level.

ON THE JORDAN-IRAQ BORDER - Had the gun fired as the American soldier intended, perhaps no one would have heard the shot anyway, not with all the car horns blaring and the incessant yelling back and forth in English and Arabic. Some of the yelling came from the U.S. soldiers stationed on the Jordan-Iraq border. They were given orders this week not to allow men ages 20 to 45 to enter Iraq, but nobody trying to cross into the country had heard about it until after traveling 4 1/2 hours from Amman, or farther.

When the Orioles went 4-32 to finish last season, the tailspin slipped beneath the national radar screen because people couldn't look at the standings each morning and figure out just how badly things were going, unless they did the math. The Detroit Tigers haven't had that luxury this season. Their latest stretch of futility started Opening Day. With each loss, Jay Leno seems to have a new joke for his monologue. If this feels unjust for the Tigers, they seemed to spend last night taking it out on the Orioles, pounding them into a humiliating 6-1 loss at Camden Yards.

Baltimore County police investigated a report that a woman was heard yelling for help Sunday night on the street where a 52-year-old state worker was later found bludgeoned to death, officials said yesterday. But the officers apparently didn't knock on anyone's door. And they left the street in Randallstown where Linda Carol Brooks was found beaten with an axe and maul late Monday, saying they didn't notice any signs of distress. Police say they don't know if Brooks was killed Sunday night.

On deck Bary Zito of the Athletics goes for his AL-leading 19th victory night, facing the Royals. He said it "Coming off the field every inning, I can hear the fans yelling at me, `Don't strike, don't strike.' If I was in their shoes, I'd feel the same way." Paul Lo Duca, Dodgers player representative

A grown man whose job lets him boss the Army around sports feathers and a beak in public and shells out $1,000 at Maaco for a purple paint job. A Cockeysville bride-to-be plans a Ravens-themed wedding. And a Baltimore City firefighter tattoos a black bird's head on his leg to one-up a friend with a purple pool table. Ravens fanatics like these might be looking for religion, say Ph.D.s who ponder why fans do what they do. They could be searching for community in a world where eye contact is feared.

LAS VEGAS -- Yesterday's news conference for Saturday's heavyweight rematch ended with Lennox Lewis and his entourage walking out, refusing to pose for the traditional photos between the fighters. Shouting at him as he left was Baltimore's Hasim Rahman, the man from whom Lewis hopes to regain the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation crowns he lost via a fifth-round knockout in April. "Come on back, Lennox! I'm not going to hit you in the mouth until Saturday!" Rahman yelled as Lewis departed.

IN A FEW minutes, Shannon DeVido is scheduled to sing the national anthem in front of 40,000 at Camden Yards, and right now, she's the color of alabaster. It is an absolutely gorgeous evening: clear and 75, after a week in which Baltimore was as cool and airy as a rice paddy in Vietnam. We are standing maybe 15 feet from home plate as the Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies loosen their arms in front of the dugouts, but I am not thinking about the weather or the ballgame right now. I'm thinking about what I'll do when DeVido passes out from anxiety.

"The Fighting Fitzgeralds" is an old-fashioned, ethnic, working-class, network sitcom. That means the characters continually shout at each other, address each other with such terms of endearment as "you moron," and regularly slap each other on the back of the head. And network television executives wonder why viewers tune out and critics are pronouncing the sitcom dead. "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" is a program that makes you wonder how anyone in management would approve spending a million dollars to develop something as old, moldering and oozing with stereotypes as this.