When your rival has your number

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Baltimore Ravens so have the Pittsburgh Steelers in their head (not to mention the Kansas City Chiefs). Why else would a group of veterans who have rarely beaten the Steelers as Ravens themselves tell first-year Ravens players, “You’re not a Raven until you beat the Steelers?” When it was…

A tree not growing in College Park

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows on empty seats at SECU Stadium when they’re not empty, which makes the latest “Locksley must go!” outrage from Maryland football fans worth taking with a grain of salt. Don’t misunderstand, those who are occupying the seats each Saturday in SECU, and those…

Bad moon has risen … Where did you say?

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The West Virginia Secondary Schools Athletic Commission, better known as the WVSSAC or, even better, the SSAC, has become a mini-series. And among the so many immortal words of the late great Spencer, West Virginia native, Charles E. Lattimer, “It’s a (goshdarn) mystery.” Through over 35 years as a sportswriter…

Commanders, Steelers and Ravens, oh, my!

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Mike Tomlin is a very smart man, despite what some Pittsburgh Steelers fans might tell you on any given day, which I’ve never understood, but that’s not why we’re here today. Late Sunday afternoon after his team’s 28-27 win over the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium in Landover, the Steelers…

No need to round up the usual suspects

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports So, who framed Sam Sentinel? The answer to that would be no one. The Fort Hill Sentinels unknowingly had an ineligible player on the roster and have forfeited the five wins the player played in this season. So then, who anonymously blew the whistle on Fort Hill the day before…

Dodgers win; Yanks done, but so is IT

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s always sad (depressing, actually) once the final out of the final game of the baseball season is in the books, even when it sets off a deserved World Series celebration. For even when our team wins it all, while we are justifiably thrilled and delighted, it doesn’t take long…

Against the wind

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Fresh off a 31-26 victory over Arizona and after being named Big 12 Coach of the Week, West Virginia University head football coach Neal Brown fired his defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley, who had been a member of Brown’s coaching staff at Troy and at WVU for a decade. It is…

Homecoming: It’s pretty cool

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s Homecoming Week and the decorations have gone up just as they did 50 years ago, and just as they had for the previous 38 years – just at a different time and for a far different circumstance. This Saturday’s football game at Greenway Avenue Stadium will be the 103rd…

Fernandomania will live forever

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports   So the World Series starts tonight with the New York Yankees facing the Los Angeles Dodgers for the first time since 1981 when the Dodgers won the title in six games. That was the third meeting in the Fall Classic in five seasons between the teams, as the Yankees…

Terps show that, yes, it can happen here

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports   It was far from being a select Southern Cal team that Maryland beat in its Homecoming game Saturday night, but read the first part of that sentence again — Maryland beat Southern Cal. That the USC football team, even with famous band and famous fight song in tow, is…