MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports There are times when you least expect it to, when you least want it to, that baseball will remind you of how strong a hold it has on you — and has for your entire life. Frank Howard, the great and enormous Washington Senators slugger, died on Monday at age…
Homecoming remains our very best day MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Certainly I saw Fort Hill as the favorite coming in, but I believed it would be a better game than it ended up being; but the Sentinels clearly had other thoughts on the matter. Fort Hill was a machine in its 47-21 Homecoming triumph…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports For 82 years, the schools sat 2.7 miles apart in the heart of Cumberland, Maryland — Allegany High School on the west side of town, and Fort Hill High School on the south side of town. Their students grow up together, they go to church together and they go to…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Hard to believe it’s been 49 years since Maryland caught up with the rest of the country and began to have state football playoffs. Naturally, most people here were against it because this is Allegany County and in Allegany County, as the great Bill Zapf used to say, “We’re against…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Particularly during Allegany-Fort Hill week, anybody who experienced the great Jim Daum misses him. And you didn’t just know Jim Daum, who died 12 years ago at the age of 59, you experienced him; and you loved him, because he loved you and he loved everybody else whose path he…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The passing of Mark Manges last month naturally brought back a flood of memories. You’ll have that, of course, when it comes to a two-sport All-American and one-time subject of the cover of Sports Illustrated. But everything about Mark, in or out of athletics, evokes giant memories because it seemed…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It must be difficult for Washington Nationals fans to watch Bryce Harper own baseball, not to mention Trea Turner playing like his old self as they both try to lead the Philadelphia Phillies back to the World Series. Throw in the matter of Juan Soto still approaching his prime with…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports We talked last week about the end of the baseball season, at least for your particular team; and sure enough, all day on Wednesday we read and listened to the goodbyes for now from nearly everybody associated with the Baltimore Orioles. It’s sad to say goodbye when you’re not even…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Chronologically speaking, it was Step No. 4 in the five-step disaster that will forever be remembered as the State of Maryland’s Most Miserable Sports Weekend: Landover (that’s Maryland) Commanders lose to the lowly Chicago Bears on Thursday night. Maryland Terps absorb first loss of the season at Ohio State after…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports And just like that, the Baltimore Orioles face win or go home this evening when they take on the surging Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas. Certainly the Orioles, who haven’t been swept in a series in nearly two years, have dropped the first two games of various series this season,…
