Yogi Berra

Suddenly, Sundays are shopping days in our bustling metropolis.Suddenly, there is an antidote to the tedium of watching pro football.Go ahead, make your day. Add a tingle or three to the experience of watching such thuds as today's festival of incompletions between the Bears and Packers.Try on a team.Yeah, that's the hot new ticket in town. Much as you give new clothes a look-see in the store mirror or take a car you covet for a test drive, try putting an NFL team on for size. Our size.How about the Baltimore Rams?

In the economic box score, Baltimore's 1993 All-Star Game put up some MVP numbers.For hotels, bars and caterers, it was a home run. For Inner Harbor restaurants, a double that stayed in the ballpark only because of the hot, sticky air. Downtown retailers at least got on base with a single.And for Baltimore's image, it was a grand slam off the warehouse."I think we showcased the city like it's never been showcased before," said Gil Stotler, Baltimore's assistant convention director, still reveling in the glowing compliments and flattering coverage that CBS television bestowed on the city.

Most memorable All-Star Games have a common element: momentous home runs. Starting with the first, fittingly hit by Babe Ruth at the inaugural midseason game between the two leagues in 1933, there has been a steady diet of homers in the intervening 60 years.There was the game-winning shot by Ted Williams in the 1941 All-Star Game, with two out and two on and the American League down one in the ninth. There was Johnny Callison's three-run home run to cap a four-run National League rally in the ninth inning of the 1964 game.

Washington. -- On July 27, 1948, President Harry S Truman issued his historic Executive Order 9981 to desegregate the armed forces -- not by some specified date but "as rapidly as possible.""It was a milestone in American history, similar to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball the previous year," Clark M. Clifford wrote in his 1991 memoir, "Counsel to the President."By persuading Truman to leave out a deadline, Mr. Clifford had placated Defense Secretary James Forrestal and a potential disaster in the services was averted.

"You could look it up."No one ever confused my mother with Yogi Berra -- except when it came to the use of reference books.Try as we might to squeeze homework answers out of her, my brothers and I always wound up trudging over to the bookcase to look it up.It could be a dangerous business. Open the encyclopedia to find out about the Louisiana Purchase, and the next thing you know, you're discovering how Louis XVI lost his head. Such browsing could cost valuable TV time. There was nothing worse than knowing my younger brother had finished his homework in time to watch "Lost in Space" while I still had math and science problems to slog through.

When Ronald Reagan, in discussing fundamental values at the Republican convention, erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln several positive principles, he joined a long line. Abraham Lincoln -- not Yogi Berra -- is the most misquoted American.Historians have been trying for over 40 years to set the record straight on the ''Ten Cannots,'' which run as follows:* ''You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.''* ''You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.''* ''You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

The Orioles came to the ballpark yesterday with their imaginations whirring for the first time in a while. That's what happens when it's still early in the season and you finally win a game after stacking up a passel of losses.Your imagination starts up. You start thinking about a parlay, turning the win into some momentum, another win, maybe even -- hold on now -- three or four in a row. You start thinking about making some noise. Finally.It is one of the game's most appealing aspects. What happened last week doesn't necessarily matter.