April 28, 1788: Maryland ratifies the Constitution, and gains Statehood.
April 28, 2017, 229 years later: The Yankees begin a 3-game series against Maryland's Major League Baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles.
Top 10 Athletes from Maryland
Honorable Mention to Kevin Durant of Seat Pleasant, Prince George's County. He's the best the State has now, but he's still got a ways to go to catch Hall-of-Famers and all-time legends.
DeMatha Catholic High School in the D.C. suburb of Hyattsville has produced a lot of great athletes, but a lot of them are from the District, and thus can't be counted here. This includes basketball star Adrian Dantley and track Olympic Gold Medalist Derek Mills. Basketball star Danny Ferry grew up in Hyattsville, but wasn't good enough in the pros to crack this Top 10. Nor was Steve Farr from La Plata, Maryland, or Brett Cecil of Dunkirk, both pitchers who went to DeMatha. Nor were the football-playing brothers Brian and Byron Westbrook of Fort Washington.
10. Frank Baker of Trappe, on the Eastern Shore. Playing in the Dead Ball Era, he hit just 96 home runs. It was 2 particular home runs that he hit for the Philadelphia Athletics against the New York Giants in the 1911 World Series that earned him the nickname "Home Run" Baker.
He batted .307 lifetime. He starred with Connie Mack's "$100,000 Infield" on the A's, then became one of the first big stars signed by Jacob Ruppert after he began to build the Yankees into a champion. He won Pennants in 1910, '11, '13, '14, '21 and '22; and World Series in 1910, '11 and '13. (He retired before the Yankees could win their 1st Series in '23.) Baseball Hall of Fame.
9. Joe Gans of Baltimore. Nat Fleischer, long the boss of The Ring magazine, "the Bible of Boxing," called him the greatest lightweight boxer ever. He was Lightweight Champion of the World from 1902 to 1908. (He wasn't quite the 1st black champions in any weight class: George Dixon won the Bantamweight title in 1890, and was either that or Featherweight Champion, on and off, until 1900.)
Not counting draws, "no contests" and "no decisions," his fight record was 145-10. He was nicknamed the Old Master. Unfortunately, this nickname was only half-right: He never got to be old. He lost his title because he was beginning to suffer from tuberculosis, which killed him in 1910, when he was only 35. International Boxing Hall of Fame. (Dixon, also in the Hall, had died from the effects of drinking in 1908, only 37.)
8. Leon Day of Baltimore. One of the stars of the Negro Leagues in the years before, and immediately after, Jackie Robinson changed everything, he pitched the Newark Eagles to a Pennant in 1946 and the Baltimore Elite Giants to one in 1949. Baseball Hall of Fame.
7. Sugar Ray Leonard of Palmer Park, Prince George's County. Olympic Gold Medalist in 1976. Welterweight Champion of the World 1979-82, Middleweight Champion briefly in 1987, Super Middleweight Champion 1988-90. International Boxing Hall of Fame. Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year for 1981.
6. Robert "Lefty" Grove of Lonaconing, in the Western Panhandle. Won 300 games as a pitcher. Perhaps the key figure, outside of manager-general manager Connie Mack himself, in the Philadelphia Athletics' dynasty of 1929-31. Baseball Hall of Fame. Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
5. Jimmie Foxx of Sudlersville, on the Eastern Shore. Only the 2nd man to hit 500 home runs, his 534 was 2nd-most all-time until 1966. Like Grove, starred on the A's dynasty. Also like Grove, was purchased by the Boston Red Sox, and had a few more good years there.
Baseball Hall of Fame. The Oakland edition of the Athletics hangs banners honoring their World Series wins in Philadelphia, but they don't retire numbers from that period, so Foxx' 3 and Grove's 10 remain in the team's circulation.
4. Al Kaline of Baltimore. An 18-time All-Star for the Detroit Tigers, he collected his 3,000th career hit against the Orioles, at Memorial Stadium in his hometown, in 1974. Won the 1968 World Series. Number 6 retired. Baseball Hall of Fame. The most popular athlete in Detroit history -- ahead of Ty Cobb, Doak Walker, Barry Sanders, Isiah Thomas, Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman.
3. Cal Ripken of Aberdeen. It's interesting that Maryland has produced the most popular athletes in the histories of 3 metropolitan areas: New York, Detroit, and Baltimore itself. Like Kaline, Ripken is a member of the 3,000 Hit Club; unlike Kaline, he didn't get his 3,000th in Baltimore. (He got it in Minneapolis.)
He won the World Series and the American League Most Valuable Player award in 1983, won another MVP in 1991, and is best known for his record of 2,632 consecutive games played. Number 8 retired. Baseball Hall of Fame. Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Sports Illustrated
Sportsman of the Year for 1995.
2. Michael Phelps of Towson, Baltimore County. The greatest swimmer of all time, he won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them Gold, 13 of those in individual events. Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year for 2008.
The International Swimming Hall of Fame is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He has not yet been retired long enough to be eligible for it. But he'll get in. He's the Babe Ruth of swimming.
1. George Herman "Babe" Ruth of Baltimore. Baseball Hall of Fame. Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Number 3 retired by the Yankees. 10 Pennants. 7 World Championships. 714 home runs. A one-man revolution. In 1999, The Sporting News released its list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. Editor John Rawlings admitted to Bob Costas in the accompanying TV special that the debate was always about who would fit in slots 2 through 100, that Number 1 was never in question.
