THE ANSWER TO THAT, OF COURSE, IS NO;
BUT  THERE’S  ALWAYS  TV BROADCASTS
AND SATELLITE RADIO TO FILL THE GAP

Being a sports fan in Baltimore has changed
from what it was like in the ‘good old days’
— but are things  better now?  or worse?

GAMES MORE ACCESSIBLE, BUT REMOTE
 
By David Maril
 
Despite the Orioles failing to qualify for post-season play, there’s a sense Baltimore is once again a prospering big league professional-sports city.

The Ravens, impressively adding their own chapters to the great local football legacy the Colts created, are defending World Champions.

The Orioles did go into an offensive tailspin the last month of the season. But that doesn’t diminish the fact the team turned the corner from over a decade of losing. Two straight winning-seasons and a number of promising young players, especially on the mound, mean that, as the late Curt Gowdy used to say, the team’s future is in front of it.

It’s been great to hear fans talking as much about the Orioles as the Ravens. It’s a bit of a reminder of the old days in Baltimore, during the late 1950s, 60s, 70’s and early 80s with the O’s and Colts.

If you are a young sports fan, however, there’s a big difference from those Baltimore glory days of yesteryear. In most cases, unless the tickets relate to a gift or business-association deal a parent has arranged, it’s unaffordable for most kids these days to attend more than a few baseball games a season on their own.

At least in Baltimore there are still plenty of opportunities to attend games if you can afford the ticket prices. However in a city like Boston, with small, overly hyped Fenway Park, tickets are so scarce many Red Sox fans wait to see their team play in Baltimore, then fly down on Southwest Airlines and stay at Inner Harbor hotels.

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RETIRED  RAVEN  BENNIE  THOMPSON
ALSO PLAYS, AS 180 ‘MINI GOLFERS’
CHALLENGE  LOCAL  CELEBRITIES

18 M&T Bank employees volunteer at event
 
By Sara Heilman
 
Not many people can say they’ve had the opportunity to challenge a celebrity — such as Baltimore Colts legend Tom Matte — in a round of miniature golf.

However, some 180 local “mini golfers” did just that last weekend at the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation’s annual Mini Golf Tournament in Perry Hall.

Each year in Baltimore the charitable organization holds the event to raise money for its major purpose: the fight against child abuse.

Perry Hall Mini Golf, on East Joppa Road, closed its doors to the public all day Saturday to host the event, which featured local celebrities including Matte and retired Baltimore Ravens safety Bennie Thompson, along with Miss Annapolis Jade Kenney and a contingent of Baltimore Blast cheerleaders.

The charity — which is named for Ed Block, who as head athletic trainer of the Baltimore Colts was honored for his work with disabled children — works to improve the lives of neglected and at-risk youngsters and to stop the cycle of child abuse.

Following its humble beginning in Baltimore in 1978, recognizing a Colts player each year for out- standing character, the foundation was incorporated as a charitable organization in 1986.

Since then, it has expanded to include all 32 National Football League teams.

Along with Walmart, M&T Bank is a major sponsor of the Mini Golf event and has had a long partnership with the Ed Block foundation, the organization’s communications director, Paul Mittermeier, told Voice of Baltimore in an interview during the event.

This is the second year the major sponsor, M&T, has been involved in the Mini Golf Tourney, Mittermeier said, terming the event “a huge success.”

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STEPHEN TABELING, AGE 84 & LONG ‘RETIRED,’
IS STILL A COP, GIVING INSIGHT AND ADVICE;
CO-WRITTEN BY TV INVESTIGATIVE PRODUCER

Published by Balto. True Crime, Stephen Janis co-authored;
in association with — and edited by — VoiceOfBaltimore.org

TO BE FEATURED SATURDAY AT BOOK FEST IN MT. VERNON
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
The book is titled You Can’t Stop Murder: Truths About Policing in Baltimore and Beyond. It’s a page-turner.

But it isn’t fiction; its truths are even stranger.

For long before TV’s “Homicide” and “The Wire” made their mark on television viewers, casting the City of Baltimore in the role of Murder Capital of the World, Detective Stephen Tabeling was investigating crime in Charm City, most notably the all but forgotten assassination attempt on former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and the random shooting of seven cops by a jilted Westside teenager.

The attempt on Schaefer occurred in April 1976, less than a week before an 18-year-old gunman in West Baltimore opened fire and shot seven police officers, killing one, all because his girlfriend dumped him and he was despondent over it.

In just four days, beginning April 12th and ending on the 16th, a Baltimore city councilman and a police officer were murdered on Tabeling’s watch, in the early years of his tenure as a detective in the Baltimore Police Department. In addition to the two dead men, eight others were shot as well, including a secretary/typist at City Hall.

Schaefer, who was in Annapolis at the time, was not directly threatened, despite being the target of the disgruntled gunman’s wrath. But another city councilman — the grandfather of current Maryland First Lady, District Court Judge Catherine “Katie” O’Malley — suffered a heart attack during the melee, that took his life less than a year down the line.

Tabeling has just completed a book — published by Baltimore True Crime, in association with Voice of Baltimore — chronicling these and other events of his long career in law enforcement, including the 1973 murder of a drug-dealing Maryland state delegate in a midtown parking garage.

He solved that crime but ran afoul of a major civil rights leader of the day, who turned the trial into a racial vendetta against Tabeling and the Baltimore City Police, resulting in the murderer’s stunning acquittal.

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WOULD  AL JAZEERA ENGLISH
HIRE ‘THE MOST TRUSTED
MAN  IN  AMERICA’?

Can the new network put focus
back  on hard-news coverage?

ENTERTAINMENT PASSING FOR ‘NEWS’
 
By David Maril
 
The Al Jazeera America news network has been launched and we can only hope that it will do something television journalism has gotten away from — delivering factual, comprehensive and hardcore journalism.

It’s way too early however to evaluate what they are doing and where they are going. But on the plus side, they have hired a number of very solid, well-respected television journalists, like Adam May, former anchorman and reporter for Baltimore’s WJZ-TV.

If Al Jazeera America can succeed at providing in-depth, fair and professional news coverage, perhaps it will influence the other TV news outlets to cut back on the light, superficial features that have little relevance.

News professionals need to wrestle content control away from the entertainment influence that has taken over most of the national and local news coverage.

If Walter Cronkite were alive today and in his prime, he would be the perfect type of news anchorman for the new network to hire.

Cronkite, who died in 2009 at age 92, was recognized for his ethics, high journalistic standards and credibility.  When he signed off each nightly newscast with, “And that’s the way it is,” millions of viewers believed him.

He was often cited as “the most trusted man in America.”

Unfortunately, one has to wonder if Cronkite would have been able to operate as a television newscaster today. With the TV news emphasis on style at the expense of substance, his background as a respected journalist in the field would probably hurt him more than help.

We are living in a fast-paced changing world as far as television news coverage goes. Audiences who want to be spoon-fed from the right tune in Fox News. Those who want their news coverage coming in from left field watch MSNBC.

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WINS AGAINST ACTIVIST BUCHHEISTER,
DESPITE  POLITICAL VULNERABILITY,
BY VOTE OF 1774-1332 (57-43%)

Will face political neophyte in November
 
Maryland’s capital city, Annapolis, which has reelect- ed only three mayors in more than half a century, nominated Democratic incumbent Joshua J. Cohen Tuesday to run against a political neophyte in the city’s general election Nov. 5.

Cohen defeated challenger Bevin Buchheister, an attorney and downtown civic activist who is president of the city’s Ward One Residents Association, by a vote of 1774 to 1332, or 57 to 43 percent.

On the Republican side, political neophyte Michael J. Pantelides overwhelmed Robert A. O’Shea Jr., a consultant for defense firms and medical companies, 808-410, with Frank Bradley, a retiree best known for playing Santa Claus at Christmastime, finishing a distant third with 41 votes, or 3 percent.

Pantelides took 64 percent of the GOP vote to O’Shea’s 33 percent.

Pantelides is an at-large member of the Annapolis Republican Central Committee and president of the Germantown-Homewood Civic Association who has served as campaign manager for two GOP candidates in the past.

A 2007 graduate of West Virginia University, he briefly sold advertising for The Annapolis Capital and Baltimore Sun and currently works in sales at Vocus, a Beltsville-based cloud marketing software firm. His father is local land development consultant John S. Pantelides.

Cohen, who by all accounts had been considered politically vulnerable, won handily over Buchheister.

However, unlike Baltimore, where Republicans rarely ever get elected — the state’s largest city has had only one GOP mayor since the 1930s — Annapolis often elects its mayors irrespective of political affiliation, so winning the Democratic primary there, despite the overwhelming registration, is not a guarantee of victory in November.

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