MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports In the unfortunate ESPN vernacular that is, it was called an instant classic, and it was if you consider 15 gut-wrenching innings, 15 pitchers, 4 hours and 58 minutes of anxiety and 472 high-stress pitches to be instant. The decisive moment came on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports For the baseball fan whose team is not involved in the Major League postseason, watching the opening rounds of the playoffs – the wildcard series and the divisional series – is not unlike watching the first weekend of March Madness. There are games to get lost in everywhere, in seemingly…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Baltimore Ravens were booed off the field by the Baltimore fans after Sunday’s 44-10 loss to the meh Houston Texans, making them 1-4 for the first time in 10 years. Put this up there with one of the most embarrassing losses in franchise history, let us count the ways.…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Aside from losing my FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY football card on a push in the Miami-Florida State game, it wasn’t a bad weekend. It just would have been easier to have lost my AMUSEMENT on a blowout. Speaking of which, just as recent Maryland football sellouts, which we can count on…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports As the rest of Baltimore was coming to grips with the in-progress Ravens disaster for the coming four months, Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias and interim manager Tony Mansolino laid to rest the just completed Orioles disaster of the previous six months, a lost season in the middle…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports We went to the ballgame in Baltimore yesterday. Why? Why not? It’s baseball, stupid. It’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the best ballpark ever (after Memorial Stadium), and it’s going to be a lot different from here on out; so we wanted to check it out one last time as…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports For the entire offseason we were told by the pundits (or, as the great Tom O’Rourke called them, “the wonks”) that the Baltimore Ravens were a favorite to be in the Super Bowl, if not the Super Bowl champion. The Ravens defense was said to be among the NFL elite,…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Maryland’s 27-10 win at Wisconsin on Saturday was huge, and the most important Maryland football win in some time. Granted, Wisconsin doesn’t appear to be the Wisconsin we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, and the fans at Camp Randall Stadium certainly took every opportunity to remind Badgers head coach Luke Fickell…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Robert Redford said, “The glory of art is that it can not only survive change, it can lead it.” Redford died on Wednesday at the age of 89. He was an actor, a director, a producer and the founder of the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival, as well…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The news of the passing of Steve Luse remains difficult to process. When a wonderful man moves on from us, it leaves an enormous void. Steve’s gentleness, his kindness and his humor stay with you forever, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking of him. Steve, of course, was…
