Tears

Matt Williams boosted his home run total and the San Francisco Giants, but the team's more immediate concern is over the possible season-ending injury to rightfielder Willie McGee. McGee tore his left Achilles' tendon crashing into an outfield wall in last night's 3-2, 10th-inning victory over the host Pittsburgh Pirates and will be out indefinitely, perhaps for the season. McGee, a four-time All-Star hitting .282 with five homers and 23 RBI, will return to San Francisco today to be examined by the Giants orthopedist, Dr. Warren King.

One was an aspiring rapper, another a popular math whiz. In all, four teenage friends and three adults were killed in a blaze of gunfire in an abandoned West Philadelphia rowhouse. Police said George Porter, 18; Tyrone Long Jr., 18; Calvin "C.J. " Helton, 19; and Samuel Malik Harris, 15, were killed Thursday, along with a mother of two and a man known as a neighborhood helper. The seventh victim has not been identified. Friends and relatives said the four teenagers cut down by masked gunmen in an abandoned rowhouse in the 800 block of Lex Street were buddies.

Get ready to cry in your beer in style tonight with Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, Case's fellow Corn Sister Carolyn Mark and Bloodshot Records' Jon Rauhouse, who was last heard on the latest Pine Valley Cosmonauts album (7:30 and 10:30 p.m., Tin Angel, 20 S. 2nd St., 215-928-0978, www.tinangel.com, $15). The Statistics, the new band featuring Desaparecidos founder Denver Dalley, makes its Philadelphia debut at the Church with Rilo Kiley and M. Ward & Four More (7:30 tonight, 2125 Chestnut St., 215-6356, $8, all ages, www.r5 productions.

Though I was close enough to see individual eyelashes and count the beads of sweat on his brow, I didn't see any crying in David Appel's newest solo piece: The Cascade of Tears (Love Blind). It didn't surprise me, though, that Appel's dance, on opening night Thursday, had no blindness, message or narrative. Like free-wheeling jazz or abstract painting, Appel's work feeds on and develops from our associations. His methods require our engaged imaginations. Appel might repeat a pointing gesture the way a jazz saxophonist might unexpectedly restate a melody.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wept Friday as he recalled his late mother's end-of-life illnesses, a moment of poignancy in a notably negative Republican presidential Iowa caucus campaign. "I do policy much easier than I do personal," Gingrich told an audience of women as he tried to regain his composure. The tears flowed as the former speaker was responding to questions about his mother from a pollster and longtime political ally. Gingrich's emotional moment came as his rivals engaged in traditional campaign tactics, and as polls suggested large numbers of Iowa Republicans could change their minds before caucuses Tuesday night provide the first test of the 2012 campaign.

There was much sentiment, some tears, and many smiles at the party thrown Wednesday night by ABC at its Times Square Studios in New York to honor Barbara Walters on her retirement from 20/20 after 25 years. The evening included a brief lovefest for beleaguered CBS anchorman Dan Rather, with Walters telling him, "Know that you have the support of all of us here for your superb career. " The New York Post says Rather's eyes welled with tears. There were a number of bigwigs there, including CBS network chairman and Viacom copresident Leslie Moonves and CBS News president Andrew Heyward, and other dignitaries such as Geraldo Rivera, Donald Trump, Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ted Koppel and Martha Stewart.

I had tears in my eyes as I read the story of Stanley "Lee" Ramsey (The $2 million bullet.) Until we as a city, community and world fight against the scourge of violence, drugs, hatred and just general apathy towards our fellow man, this world will perish. I personally am against guns in any way, shape or form. I will pray for a miracle that one day Lee Ramsey will walk again and that Darryl Jackson who committed this horrific crime will allow God to come into his heart and relieve all of that hatred that caused this devastation in the first place.

On a remarkable opening day in baseball, Cincinnati fans called out "It's good to see you, Marge" and "We love you, Marge" to suspended Reds owner Marge Schott. Schott thanked the capacity crowd at Riverfront Stadium, where a fan unfurled a banner that read "Marge of Arc. " A security guard took it down by the third inning. Schott was suspended from baseball for one year for using racial and ethnic slurs. She watched the game against the Expos from a private box. Before the game, fans thrust baseball caps, schedules, newspapers and scraps of paper at her, which she signed with her name and that of Schottzie II, her St. Bernard dog. Adriane Redmond of Cincinnati asked Schott to sign her diary.

Large pieces of metal siding and insulation fell from the roof of Toronto's SkyDome onto the field yesterday, causing the Blue Jays to postpone their game against the Kansas City Royals. The retractable roof was being opened when two of the three panels collided, causing two large tears. "Some very big pieces of metal fell on to the field," Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey said. "We're very, very thankful there was no one on the field that could have got hurt. " The accident occurred at about 3:30 p.m. while some Royals players were taking extra batting practice.

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D., Colo.) salted her tears with a dash of wit yesterday, in a column she wrote for the Washington Post defending her outburst of crying last week during her announcement that she would not run for president. "Tears are legal at funerals but apparently not at the abrupt end of a Herculean political effort," she lamented. "This is unfortunate because tears signify compassion, not weakness. " But the woman who coined the term "Teflon presidency" managed to find some humor in her situation.