Young Players

For the Spirit next season, the rebuilding will continue in the same building.Despite losing four of its top five scorers from 1995-96, the Spirit finished its fifth year in the National Professional Soccer League with a 20-20 regular-season record and an advance to the second round of the playoffs, where it lost for the second straight year to the Cleveland Crunch.And, yes, general manager Drew Forrester says, the club is staying in Baltimore despite a dip in attendance at the Arena for the third straight year and its lowest total (4,929)

Football for pre-high school youngsters is alive and thriving in Anne Arundel County. In fact, it's expanding. Bob Brandenberger, who supervises youth leagues for the county's Department of Recreation and Parks, said Anne Arundel has 22 youth football organizations competing in those leagues, plus a few more programs that compete elsewhere. The largest of the county-affiliated programs, in terms of players, serves the Severna Park and burgeoning Gambrills-Odenton areas; the smallest is in the Marley section.

Bruce Arena's hiring as coach of the U.S. national men's soccer team, rumored for weeks, became official yesterday in New York, where he said he will start building toward the 2002 World Cup by searching for new, young players."

The just-completed 1991-92 American Hockey League season was like a roller-coaster ride for the Skipjacks.They accelerated to an early lead, hit the doldrums at Christmastime and continued to sink until they reached bottom with a 10-game losing streak in February and March.They lost only twice in their last six games, but the damage had been done and Baltimore finished out of the Calder Cup playoffs for the first time in three years and the second time in the four years they have been affiliated with the Washington Capitals.

It was shortly after the All-Star break, about the time the California Angels started to leave the rest of the American League West in its wake, that Doug Melvin made an interesting observation.It is one that Orioles fans might not want to hear, or believe."Sometimes I think there are teams that almost have to hit bottom before they start to put things together," said the Orioles' former assistant general manager. "It happened to Cleveland, and I think that's what has happened with the Angels."

Let's start with the assumption that the Orioles are going nowhere this season, an assumption about as safe as the sun's chances of coming up tomorrow.If so, there's really only one thing left to play for this season -- the future. Next season and beyond.Part of that process is the jettisoning of several pending free agents unlikely to return. Look for that sometime in the next three weeks.But there's another part the Orioles should undertake in the second half of this season.They should give some of their young players a chance to play.

Dave Trembley reminds you of a guy in a knife fight and all he has to defend himself is a swizzle stick. Sure, it's unfair to judge the Orioles manager solely by the team's cataclysmic collapse since the All-Star break. Key players (George Sherrill, Aubrey Huff) were traded from under him. Others (Adam Jones, Nolan Reimold, Brad Bergesen) were hurt. The starting rotation was shaky, even before they shut down a couple of promising youngsters to save their arms. The bullpen was one giant mushroom cloud day after day. None of that was Trembley's fault.

WASHINGTON - The day after the NBA draft has the feel of the day after Christmas, as 29 clubs try to figure out just what arrived under the tree the day before. In that vein, Washington Wizards coach Doug Collins looked like the proverbial kid taking his new sled out for a post-holiday test run yesterday, appraising the three gifts, guard Juan Dixon and forwards Jared Jeffries and Rod Grizzard, the team picked up in Wednesday's draft. "We feel like we have three first-round choices sitting up here that all bring something a little bit different," said Collins.

WIMBLEDON, England -- The running joke at Wimbledon is the statue of Fred Perry that stands inside the front gate of the All England Club has a better chance of winning a title than a flesh-and-blood British tennis player.Perry was the last British man to win Wimbledon. That was back in 1936.It seems that the British just don't do tennis anymore. The oddsmakers at Ladbroke's betting parlor said it's 1,000-1 against British players winning a men's or women's singles title this year. Which begs the question: Why are the odds so low?

WHEN HE HEARS sports talk radio callers say blow up the Wizards, Washington general manager Ernie Grunfeld thinks back to the start of the season. Fans were "unbelievably supportive" of the Wizards' plan to rebuild with young players, to go about things "the right way." "The city understood that," Grunfeld said. Way back then - it seems so long ago - the post-Michael Jordan Wizards were running and gunning, taking down Western Conference powers such as the Mavericks. Free-agent gym rat Gilbert Arenas was looking every bit the $64 million answer.