After today’s announcement that Baltimore officials want a downtown arena big enough accommodate a professional franchise, the next obvious question is: Who could fill that order, and can Baltimore really support an NBA or NHL team?

It’s been 35 years since the Bullets headed down I-95 to play in the Washington area (where they became the Wizards in 1997) and Baltimore hasn’t even had a whiff of getting a pro basketball team since. Sure, the Seattle Sonics were available earlier this year, but Baltimore was never a legitimate contender to get them. (The Sonics’ new home, Oklahoma City, was announced this month).

And the idea of Baltimore supporting a professional hockey team, especially when the area’s handful of hockey fans can go to D.C. or Philadelphia to watch a game, seems even more unrealistic (see comments here).

Even the city’s professional baseball team has been struggling to draw crowds for the past few years as excitement over the new ballpark has faded and the reality of a mediocre ball club has set in. The Orioles are a perfect case in point: when teams do well, more people come to their games. A few weeks before the All-Star break, the team was playing above-.500 ball and Camden Yards was attracting more people than it had in recent years.

Today the team is 10.5 games out of first place in the American League East, sits three games below .500 and is 7-11 in the month of July. In the last four weeks, attendance at Oriole Park has dropped by an average of 2,000 per night.

So while a new franchise might draw sellout crowds the first few years, after the excitement wears off where will Baltimore stand? If the team isn’t any good, evidence so far points to all but the hardcore fans in this city being pretty indifferent about watching a lousy team in person. (The Ravens, of course, are the grand exception to that — despite a 5-11 season last year M&T Bank Stadium was packed for every game.)

And while it should be noted that an 18,500-seat arena might be easier to fill up than a ballpark that seats more than 48,000, do you think Baltimore could really support a professional hockey or basketball team?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

If you’re an “I Love Lucy” fan you probably won’t want to miss Saturday’s second annual “Great Grapes! Stomp-Off” contest to be held at the International Great Grapes! Wine, Arts & Food Festival at Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds.

The stomp-off is a qualifier for the Maryland Regional’s World Championship Grape Stomp, and the winning team will be determined by the amount of juice created from each barrel after five minutes of stomping. The winners will receive two plane tickets to compete at the World Championship Grape Stomp at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Note to would-be contestants: stomping grapes is not as easy as it looks. It’s tiring, dirty and it takes forever to do the job that — thankfully — machines these days accomplish much more efficiently. So before you head out to the fairgrounds, kick off your shoes and jump into the grape basin, I’d recommend checking out a few sites that show what not to do and give you some idea of what to expect.

But despite being out-of-date, this practice has lived on as one of the more recognizable images of the wine industry and grape stomping contests seem to go hand-in-hand (or should I say hand-in-foot?) with wine festivals. And the popularity of the activity seems to signify the growing wine industry in Maryland.

While some older winemakers have long had grape stomping contests as a part of their touristy caches, the activity in Maryland has been catching on in the last few years. And according to recent industry figures, sales are consistently increasing, and last year Maryland wineries sold more than 1 million bottles for the first time.

Do you think that the recent rise in the number of wine festivals and activities is a trend or a sign that Maryland wineries are gaining more of a foothold in the industry?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

A study on the changing newspaper industry released this week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that most papers today were cutting back significantly on not only the tangibles like staff and total pages, but that many were sacrificing international and national news for local and community news.

The Baltimore Sun and other major dailies announced such transformations this summer.

Not that covering more of where you live is a bad thing but is raises two questions with me. One, what’s going to happen to the little guys — those weekly or biweekly papers who used to be the sole champions of community coverage? Having interned for such a paper I know firsthand that those publications pride themselves on being the ones that parents scour to see their kid’s sports achievements in print or act as a platform for small town activists to voice their issues.

If the major dailies start horning in on the community coverage, what’s left for the smaller publications to call their own and justify their existence?

Another point of concern is this turning away from covering the global community. Being an American history buff, I of course have to point out the similarities between this notion and the isolationist 1920s when post-war fatigue and an increased focus on the material world were abruptly followed by the Great Depression in 1929 and World War II ten years later.

Now, I’m not trying to say that isolationism caused WWII, but in this day and age the world is much smaller and it helps to know what the guy on the other side of the pond thinks of you. Or at least have an idea of what they’re up to.

International news may not be as widely read as the sports section but it’s still a big part of what’s going on in our world today. Do you think it’s a newspaper’s duty to cover what’s going on in other countries, or to just print what’s popular with readers?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer  

An airline has lost my luggage only once. It was a family trip — parents, sister and me — and mine was the only bag to slip into the ether. Stupid fates.

I may have stumbled on a way to keep it from happening again. David Landsel, in a recent piece on Aviation.com, reveals that we have finally reached that pivotal point in the evolution of human civilization where it is cheaper to send your luggage through the mail than to entrust its safety to the airline bag jockeys.

My favorite part:

“You’re also far less likely to have your bag ‘mishandled’ — that’s the fun word the Department of Transportation uses — by your airline or the Transportation Security Administration. And if a shipper loses your bags, which is unlikely, at least it will apologize.”

In “Ship Heavy Baggage Instead of Checking It”, Landsel offers some tips on how to enter this brave new world of travel-via-FedEx. Check it out and let us know if you’ve ever tried the technique.

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist

After reading the Baltimore Sun article this morning about the City Council’s failure to pass a ban on plastic bags in grocery stores and retail chains, I had one question: Are those who want to replace plastic bags with paper barking up the wrong tree?  (Yes, that was an attempt at a pun.)

But seriously — those in support of the measure, voted down by the council 11-3, say they are concerned about the amount of garbage created by plastic bags and this is certainly a legitimate concern. But on the other hand, those against the bill said they did not think that tapping natural resources to make more paper bags would help the environment any more.

As it was so aptly put by City Councilwoman Rochelle “Rikki” Spector, “It takes trees to make paper bags.”

Is it, after all, not the material itself but our use of the material that needs to be put in check? I prefer plastic bags for their sturdiness — especially when holding products that tend to perspire in bags like milk or ice cream — and for their convenient handles. I also save them to reuse as garbage bags.

But I also throw away my share of plastic bags and could do more for the environment like save them for the bag recycling bins I see outside many grocery stores, or bring my own cloth shopping bag to the store to cut down on plastic bag use.

But, quite honestly, that requires a little more effort on everyone’s part and I don’t know that any amount of activism and raising awareness will be able to get every shopper to consistently change their habits.

What do you think? Should we keep pushing the paper because at least it’s a step in the right direction or should we “bag” that approach (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) and start addressing people’s shopping behavior?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

(picture taken by Assistant Legal Editor Christina Doran in downtown Baltimore)

The Washington Post led its business section today with a front-page story about the foreclosure crisis and how it affects gentrifying urban neighborhoods like Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill. The article centers on a debate in Congress over $4 billion in emergency aid to bail out homeowners such as those in the central Baltimore neighborhood, whose investments presumably would have changed the area for the better.

Baltimore Housing commissioner Paul Graziano is quoted criticizing the current presidential administration, saying, “They don’t understand the market dynamics here at all…We can let the market adjust and see the last seven or eight years of investment go down the tubes. Or we can intervene now to reclaim this inventory and protect these neighborhoods.” (more…)

When do you think you’ll die?

Will you be happy with the life you lived?

These aren’t my questions. They’re from John E. Girouard, the president of Capital Asset Management Group in Bethesda. He’s also the author of “The Ten Truths of Wealth Creation.”

Apparently, part of Girouard’s retirement planning and financial services work is getting clients to consider those questions people really don’t like to consider.

“‘I begin working with clients by asking them to write their full name and the age at which they guess they will die. Then I ask them to write down the five things they wish they had been known for, had accomplished, had achieved, or been doing in the year before they died.’

“Girouard says this exercise is often sobering, provoking people into converting secret fears into action so that the financial planning process can be geared toward making sure those five important things happen before they die.”

It’s off-putting, but I see the benefit in the process. How about you? Any mountains to climb or seas to cross before shuffling off?

(My current plan is immortality. It’s working so far.)

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist

The fist bump is slowly but surely making its way to the office.

I had my first fist bump experience in the office this past Thursday. Business Reporter Andy Rosen walked over to my desk with his usual smile and an outstretched arm. Before the conversation ensued, we “bumped”.

As a newcomer in the office, this was a bump of approval - or as Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon calls it, “a mode of acceptance.”

Whether you choose to “make it sparkle” after you connect (like ESPN’s Stuart Scott) or keep your hand steady as a rock — It’s here.

What started out as athletes–only is becoming more widespread. It was recently used (to the media’s delight) on the campaign trail between presidential hopeful Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (video below).

Some people aren’t gung-ho about it just yet. In the USA Today, Dr. Grace Keenan, medical director of Nova Medical and Urgent Care Center in Ashburn, Va., said:

I have not encountered a fist bump and would judge anyone who tried it as a total redneck. I hope that it never is seen as a replacement for a handshake in the business community.

Keenan may be getting ahead of herself, but what are your thoughts? Do you prefer the traditional handshake or are you eager to try something new?

RICHARD SIMON, Multimedia Reporter

If the Orioles lose this Sunday when they are scheduled to host the Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim, there will be nothing “sweet” about a 16th Sunday loss in a row for the O’s.

A few weeks ago I was chuckling when the team’s marketers came out with the “We win, you win” promotion where fans at Oriole Park would get free tickets to a future game if the Orioles snapped their Sunday losing streak — then at 12 games.

And last week I smiled when the team came out with a similar promotion (“We win, you win 2”) for Sunday’s game against the Detroit Tigers and thought, “well if at first you don’t succeed…”

But now in the wake of yet another Sunday loss, the team’s streak stands at 15 and they haven’t won a game on a Sunday since their first try in the season. Should the team’s marketers even bother this weekend with a Sunday promotion or is now the time to start looking away and start ignoring this latest curse to hit the American League East?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer 

Here’s something that might interest you, the dear and gentle readers of The Daily Record. While it’s true that most anything you could ever wish to know can be found in the pages of our fine daily, there is — on occasion — a topic of interest that falls just outside of our journalistic reach. It’s good to know that in such trying times, The Wall Street Journal is there to lend a hand.

That hand is about to become a tad more expensive. On July 28, the newsstand price for the paper will go from $1.50 to $2.

That’s likely no big deal to the readers of one of the world’s most prominent financial papers. Heck, it’s not even a big deal to lowly Web Specialists such as me. In my mind, the “big deal” about the price increase is what it might indicate about the paper’s changing money-making strategy. From Portfolio.com, via Editor & Publisher:

“Interestingly, the hike comes as the paper’s editors are being urged to think more about how they can use the front page to boost newsstand sales — not something that has traditionally been a major focus.”

I wonder about this. I have no clue what percentage of the Journal’s readers pick up their papers at newsstands and newspaper boxes, but I am curious how often an eye-catching front page inspires a passerby to make a purchase. Do big headlines and flashy artwork cause you to reach for your wallet?

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist