Virtual Postcard from Maryland: The Mascot of the Frederick Keys

Maryland is home to the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore, the grave of Peley, the Little Rascals' dog in the D.C. 'bur b of Silver Spring, and a statue of Testudo the Terrapin who has left the ACC for the Big Ten (editorial comment: BOO!) in College Park.

But, our choice for this virtual postcard is of Keyote, a coyote, which is curious because we imagine there aren't many coyotes in Maryland, who is the mascot of the Frederick Keys in Frederick, a medium-sized city about 45 miles west of Washington, D.C.

The Frederick Keys split a double-header at home with our hometown team the Salem Red Sox, from Salem, Va., in Carolina League play; here is the complete scoreboard from Wednesday night's games. The home team is marked with an (*).

*Frederick 3 Salem 1 (game one)

Salem 5 *Frederick 4 (game two)

Potomac 3 *Wilmington (Del.) 0 (game one)

Potomac 3 Wilmington 0 (game two)

Lynchburg 6 *Carolina 2

*Myrtle Beach 16 Winston-Salem 5

http://www.visitfrederick.org

http://www.roadsideamerica.com

Happy Graduation, Grads! Here is a List of Commencement Speakers

Here is a list of commencement speakers who gave commencement addresses at various public and private colleges and universities across the United States over the course of the last three weekends.

After CEOs, both active and former politicians were the most sought after speakers. Most schools went with governors from their own state, but Liberty University, the arch-conservative Christian college founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, once again sought a Republican speaker as Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) arrived in Lynchburg, Va., fairly far from his home base of Baton Rouge, La.

Here are the speakers:

1) Gov. Terry MacAuliffe (D-Va., pictured top). Virginia Tech. Blacksburg, Va.

2) Susan Wojiciccki, CEO of Youtube. Johns Hopkins U. Baltimore, Md.

3) Peyton Manning, quarterback of the Denver Broncos. UVA. Charlottesville, Va.

4) Dr. Atul Dawenda, UNC. Chapel Hill, NC.

5) Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-Md, pict. center). Univ. of Maryland. College Park, Md.

6) Katie Couric. American University. Washington, DC.

7) Vice President Joe Biden. Univ. of South Carolina. Columbia, SC.

8) Gen. Martin Dempsey. Duke University. Durham, NC

9) Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La., pict. bottom). Liberty University. Lynchburg, Va.

10) Gov. Mike Beebe (D-Ark). Univ. of Arkansas. Fayetville, Ark.

11) David Ferriero. Archivist. NC State. Raleigh, NC.

12) Anne Holton. Sen. Tim Kaine's wife. Radford Univeristy. Radford, Va.

13) Jill Abrahamson, former executive editor of "New York Times." Wake Forest. Winston-Salem, NC.

14) Mary Barrra. CEO of General Motors. Univ. of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Mich.

15) Thomas H. Kean, former governor of New Jersey. Rutgers U. (He was a replacement for Condi Rice)

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Terps, Tar Heels and Wolfpack Get Ready for Last EAGL Meet

The EAGL Conference, a gymnastics-only conference, will be holding its final championship meet at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC, on Saturday. The conference consists of Maryland, UNC, Rutgers, North Carolina State, George Washington University, Pittsburgh, Towson (correct us if we are wrong on that) and the University of New Hampshire.

West Virginia, which had won the most EAGL championships, left for the Big 12 Conference. There will be an ACC Gymnastics Conference for gymnastics next year, from what we've heard through the grapevine, but ACC and EAGL-member school Maryland is leaving for the Big 10 as is current EAGL and Big East-member Rutgers. So, this will mean that only UNC, North Carolina State and Pitt, which will join the ACC next year, will be the three schools in this conference.

Confused?! Yes, so are we.

Editorializing about college sports aside, let's look at the EAGL gymnasts who won conference honors in the last regular season week for college gymnastics.

Stephanie Giameo, a sophomore from Roselle Park, NJ, (pictured on top) from the University of Maryland, won the EAGL gymnast of the week this year for the second time. Giameo scored a 39.1 in the all-around during a road meet at West Virginia, which also featured EAGL rival Rutgers.

On Sunday, Giameo's Terps headed just south of College Park, Md., to Washington, DC, where they won a four-school meet over host George Washington, Towson and Brown. In that meet, Giameo scored a 39.25 in the all-around.

Over the weekend, UNC senior Elizabeth Durkac of Yorktown, Va., who has won four EAGL Gymnast of the Week honors, helped her Tar Heels win a home meet over visiting Penn. The Heels scored a 194.075 in the meet.(Ramese, the UNC mascot is pictured in the center).

The 'Heels will once again face their main conference rivals North Carolina State during the EAGLs on Saturday. UNC edged out N.C. State when the two schools last meet during a home meet on Feb. 22.

The Wolfpack were also at home over the weekend, but they faced the challenged of hosting two SEC powers: The first meet was against the LSU Tigers on Friday, followed by a visit from Georgia, which has won the most NCAA titles in women's gymnastics.

Though the Pack did not pull off a major upset in either home meet despite an impressive outing against the GymDawgs , Rachel Fincham, a senior from Gambrills, Md., (pictured bottom) earned EAGL Specialist of the Week honors. Fincham scored a 98.5 on beam and a 9.8 on bars against LSU. She then scored a 9.9 on bars and a 9.7 on beam versus Georgia.

Fincham's teammate Britti Watkins, a freshman from Albany, NY, whose solid scores included a 9.9 on vault against LSU,  was named EAGL Newcomer of the Week.

http://www.umterps.com

http://www.collegegymfans.com

http://www.goheels.com

http://www.gopack.com

Things We Learned from Wikipedia This Week- How Many Titles DC United Has Won

We continue our examination of soccer clubs around the world by going to our own backyard today and focusing on the Major League Soccer team DC United(well, I do live outside the DC Metro area, but it is the closest MLS team to North Carolina).

I've decided to change the format of this entry series, by presenting information in the form of a trivia question, like one you might see on mentalfloss.com about who was on the cover of the classic Beatles record "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club" (Fred Astaire was on the cover?!).

So, here is the question: DC United has won more MLS titles than any other team in the league; how many titles have they won?

Is the answer:

A) 3

B) 4

C) 5

D) 6

DC United hosts the New England Revolution on July 20, which will be college night, so if you go to Georgetown, George Mason University or the University of Maryland, you can take in a soccer game for $15.

Talon the Eagle is the team's mascot; Josh Wolff is new captain for United. And, the team that started with the league in 1995 features a player from Zimbabwe named Joseph Ngwenya, 30.


SIDEBAR: Yes, assuredly 9,000 other bloggers are mentioning that Japan beat the United States team in a penalty shoot-out to win the 2011 Women's World Cup in Frankfurt, Germany.

The official score of the game is 2-2. On the American side, Alex Morgan and Abby Wombach contributed the two goals. For Japan, which trailed much of the game, the goals came from Aya Miyama and Homore Sawa, who also got the tournament's golden boot.

We will miss U.S. goalie Hope Solo, 30, but hopefully she will make it back for the next World Cup.

Incidentally, psychologists say those who win bronze medals tend to be happier than those who win silver since the silver-medal winners are likely to think about the gold they could have gotten. So, perhaps, it bears mentioning that Sweden won the third place game over France by a 2-1 score.

Top Ten List of the Week- My Favorite College Football Teams

Admitedly, it is perhaps a bit too early for this Top Ten list, but the ESPN show "SportsNation," which I usually enjoy (who doesn't love watching clips of a sheep jumping up and down on a bed) said that my Virginia Tech Hokies (actually, I went to school at nearby Radford University in Radford, Va.) were 'over-rated.'

This leads us to this list today which is of our Top Ten favorite teams to follow in college football:

1. Virginia Tech Hokies- We start the season with a game against Boise State. At least, the Hokies don't have to travel all the way to Idaho for the game since that would make for a very long Greyhound bus ride for the fans from Blacksburg, Va.

2. UNC Tarheels- Perhaps, I've lived in The Tarheel State too long but I'm starting to like the Smurfs (I call the Tarheels that because they are also in blue and white). I was caught in an awkward moment when the 'Heels actually beat the Hokies in football in Blacksburg last year. But, the Hokies turned around and beat the boys the boys from Chapel Hill in men's basketball.

3. University of Michigan- My late father Mehmet Gokbudak went to school in Ann Arbor a very, very long time ago (he graduated with the class of 1949) but we still love the Big Blue who were alas pretty dismal in football last year.

4. West Virginia University- This choice is made easier by the fact that the Mountaineers no longer play Virginia Tech in football unless they were to meet in a bowl game.

5. University of Florida- I just love alligators (for those in Uzbekistan, the team's nickname is the Gators), but it's best to see them in a zoo.

6. Colorado University- We just love Boulder!

7. North Carolina State- The ACC rules!

8. UCLA- We like the women's gymnastics team that won the NCAA's this year more, but if we have to root for someone in the PAC-10 it's da Bruins.

9.University of Georgia- We love Athens, Ga.!

10. Univeristy of Maryland- Love the team's mascot (an adorable turtle). Don't tell my friends in Blacksburg or Chapel Hill, but I personally think it's the best mascot in the ACC!

SIDEBAR: Since everything is closed on Sundays in Graham, NC, (not really where I'm at) except the Waffle House, the fundamentalist Southern Baptist Church and the local friendly neighborhood crackhouse, we will have to post our entry on 50 Beers of the World on Monday, a day which no religion in the world has proclaimed for a Sabbath (to our knowledge!).

SIDEBAR TWO: We learned from "Mental Floss" magazine that llama meat is a delicacy in Bolivia. According to the periodical, the meat is often eaten dried, salted or (yuck!) fried in oil which makes for a 'tasty treat' known as 'ch'arki.'

Things We Learned on Twitter This Afternoon....

I suppose this is a sign of the times as even my life is getting so hectic that our blog entries from now until mid-May are likely to be considerly shorter than those I have posted within the last few months.

Today, through "The Baltimore Sun" newspaper's Twitter page we learned that College Park, Md., home of the University of Maryland Terps, is the nation's hot spot today as they check in at 95 degrees.

One has to feel for the student athletes at UMD on the men's and women's lacrosse teams as this would seemingly be one of the worst conditions to practice in!

UNC Tarheels Caught in Snowmageddon

It's been a long time since we used four images in one entry! But, the third major storm to hit the mid-Atlantic region, which has been called 'Snowmaggedon' by none other than President Barack Obama, has dumped 26.5 inches of snow in Baltimore, Md.,12.5 inches in Staunton, Va., ( a city in the Shenandoah Valley) and 10.5 inches in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., some four hours south of Washington, DC.

The storm reached as far south as Mount Airy, NC, the real-life Mayberry where Andy Griffith hails from, which reported at least three inches of snow there.

Coincidentally, this was the weekend when both the University of North Carolina's women's gymnastics team and the Tarheels' men's basketball team, coming off a heart-breaking loss to Virginia Tech by a 74-70 margin in Blacksburg, Va., (which also got plenty of snow) were both headed to College Park, Md., to compete in their respective sports with the University of Maryland Terps.

The gym meet, scheduled for Friday night, was postponed, but the UNC basketball team's plane successfully arrived at BWI Airport yesterday afternoon. So, the ACC has decided to go ahead with the UNC-UMD basketball game at 2 p.m. tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon.

One DC-area tweeter said that there were 1,100 car crashes in the metro area plus there were 155,000 residents without power. The Fruit of the Spirit Baptist Church in northeast DC had a roof collapse due to the snow. NPR reported that a snowball fight arranged through a Facebook group met in Dupont Circle where hundreds of people actually showed up to hurl snow at each other.

The BBC reported that empty-shelved grocery stores in suburban communities like Arlington, Va., and Bethesda, MD., made residents think what it must have been like during food shortages in the former USSR!

But, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouir) in a rare non-political tweet said she was able to buy onions at a DC area grocery store today, which effectively made her day.

Another prominent Democratic politician House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in attendance during Georgetown University's home game with Villanova, which the host Hoyas won 103-90.

A tweet from a Hoyas Twitter page complimented the Georgetown fans who made it to the game at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, DC:

"A terrific effort by the Georgetown students getting here. Some drove, some walked to the Rosslyn Metro station and some just walked."

But, the most startling story I came across on Twitter was that of the UNC Men's basketball team. The defending NCAA champions have had a very harsh year as it is. They are now 2-5 in the ACC and in serious jeopardy of not making the NCAA tournament in March. Assuredly, they probably wish Ty Lawson, now a rookie with the surging Denver Nuggets in the NBA, could rejoin the team in time for the ACC tournament in Greensboro, NC.

This weekend though, the 'Heels problems were off the court. According to the Twitter page http://twitter.com/unc_Bball, the team's entrance to their hotel in Beltsville, Md., was blocked in. Then, the team was holed up in their hotel room wondering just how much snow would fall.

They would then cancel their scheduled team practice at 11 a.m. today, even though the hotel is only five miles away from College Park. The 'Heels got the cooperation from University of Maryland officials so the game could met its scheduled 2 p.m. tip-off on Sunday afternoon.

The good news is that the team was finally able to dig their team bus out from the snow a short while ago, and they will hold a practice this afternoon, some five hours later than they had initially hoped.

Assuredly, their fans back in Chapel Hill, NC, will be hoping that the team can improve its play on the court in spite of all the distractions.

But, there is one game that will not be played in the DC area. The Washington Wizards have called off their home game with the Atlanta Hawks tonight. It's the NBA's first postponement since Decemeber of 2006.

SIDEBAR: Of course, since Washington, DC, is first and fore-most a political zip code, one has to wonder if the Sunday talk shows will be affected. I, for one, would love to see the likes of Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), both of whom I follow on Twitter, defend the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays and lesbians serving in the military on tv as they have done in Congress. The measure initiated by President Bill Clinton in the first term of his office is considered to be a political failure today. To me, nothing is more ironic than watching members of one political party defend a policy failure developed by their rival political party. If that is not funnier than the "Cathy" strip in the Sunday comics page, I don't know what is!

UPDATE: In spite of everything they endured, the Tarheels lost to the Terps by a 92-71 margin in College Park, Md., on Sunday afternoon!