Biggest Disappointment
The 2025 Baltimore Orioles
In a season that should’ve continued momentum from the 2023 and 2024 seasons, where they had playoff performances, the Orioles fell flat on their faces. The team never replaced starting pitcher Corbin Burnes, who left in free agency; had mediocre signings in the offseason like Tyler O’Neill, Gary Sánchez, and Charlie Morton; dealt with multiple injuries; and fired their manager Brandon Hyde during an embarrassing stretch of losses and uninspired baseball. Players that many thought were ready to take the next step forward took two steps back (Adley Rutschman, anyone?) and hope was essentially lost by the summer. The arrivals of Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers at the end of the season did reignite excitement within the fanbase, but it was too little too late.
The Hometown Heroes
Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese
From collegiate national champion to a WNBA All-Star and now an icon, Angel Reese has continued to make Baltimore proud. After announcing that she would declare for the WNBA draft in a Vogue fashion shoot and profile in 2024, Reese took the league by storm, setting a single-season rebounds record in her rookie season. But she has also made big moves off the court, partnering with numerous brands including McDonald’s, Juicy Couture, and Reese’s Pieces. She also has a sold-out sneaker line with Reebok and became the first pro athlete to walk in a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Reese’s legacy is just beginning, and she always remembers to represent her hometown in the process.
Carmelo Anthony at the Enoch Pratt Library
In October, the Enoch Pratt Library and basketball legend Carmelo Anthony launched “House of Melo: Where Tomorrows Are Promised.” The free exhibit, which is housed at the Central Library, is a retrospective of Anthony’s Baltimore beginnings and his sports superstardom. It was curated by writer D. Watkins and creative director Khalilah Beavers and allows visitors to sample Anthony’s favorite music, see the clothes he’s worn at different stages of his career, and see photos of him as a child. They’ve also got special Melo-themed library cards. Organizers said they hope it keeps young people in Baltimore interested and engaged with the library.
Best Orioles Moment
No no-hitter
In a lost and disappointing season, there were still some glimmers of that old Orioles Magic at Camden Yards in 2025.
On September 6, the future World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers were cruising. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Dodgers up 3-0, Jackson Holliday knocked a two-run homer to deny a no-hitter to pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who had been nearly flawless up until that point.
Emmanuel Rivera finished off the delirious, delicious comeback with a two-run walk-off single, reminding us of that great old baseball adage: it ain’t over til it’s over.
Unsung Heroes
James Mosher League
There is a long and rich history of Black baseball in Baltimore. At the beginning of the 20th century, Joe Gans, a championship boxer from East Baltimore, was frustrated with the opportunities provided to Black ballplayers in the six-team Negro League, so he used his own money to promote and manage Black baseball teams around the city to help players gain experience and opportunities. Gans’ legacy lives on in James Mosher Baseball, a Black youth baseball organization which was founded in 1960 and in which the likes of former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, the late Congressman Elijah Cummings, and Marvin “Doc” Cheatham all stepped up to the plate to take a turn at-bat.
In an era where big money is changing every sport and rich families hire private coaches to help their kids excel — and where the wealth gap ensures that those rich families will likely be white — the Mosher league is as important as ever, giving young, Black ballplayers the chance to shine and develop their skills. “They’re able to play teams from out-of-state, they’re able to travel to go out-of-state to play different Black leagues,” while also playing against all of the teams in Baltimore City and County, said Avery Buckson, the father of one of the team’s players, Kendall Montgomery-Buckson, who threw the first pitch at an Orioles game this summer. While hundreds have stepped to the mound for a ceremonial first pitch, only Montgomery-Buckson got to throw one to baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. on a day celebrating the 30 years since the season he played his record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game.
Given the O’s performance last season, maybe we should all start following Mosher League games if we want to see some good baseball.
Sam Brand
Sam Brand is the son of an artist and an organizer/professor, and that combination comes through in the legendary coach’s approach to basketball. It was Brand who brought the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute from an academic powerhouse with a barely noticeable basketball program to multiple state championships. He then started coaching for Team Melo, the AAU basketball program founded by Carmelo Anthony, one of the greatest players to come from Baltimore City. But it is with his new nonprofit, Sanctuary Collective, where he hopes to have the greatest impact and perhaps save the game of basketball from all of the big money that has invaded it.
Located in the red-brick Gothic-Revival church building at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Street, the Sanctuary Collective provides high-level training to players of all ages in Baltimore City on a donation basis. For Brand, it is about much more than basketball. “If our kids want to be basketball players, then let’s teach them what it really means,” Brand told the Beat this summer. “Let’s teach them that getting an education is part of that process, that learning how to play a role within a group and support the mission of the group over oneself is a part of that process, learning how to deal with conflict… These are all things that help you as a professional leader, as a productive citizen later.”
That’s the kind of pep-talk the city can use.
Rec centers and their employees
Talking to old heads about the city almost always leads, at some point, to a call to “bring back the recs.”
“Back in the day we had rec centers all over the city,” said Herman Harried, the head basketball coach and athletic director at Lake Clifton High School and a consistent presence at Cecil Kirk Recreation Center. “Every neighborhood had a rec that kids could walk to, unlike today. And those places were sacred.”
The city’s first rec center opened in 1911, and in 1947, Black luminaries such as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald came together to fund the opening of the Chick Webb Memorial Recreation Center, the first rec open to Black residents. By the 1980s, there were 130 recs in the city. Now, there are only 43. But as part of Mayor Brandon Scott’s “Rec Rollout” initiative that launched in 2022, the city is trying to bring rec centers back, cutting ribbons and breaking ground on new construction and renovation projects at seven pools, 25 playgrounds, and seven rec centers.
Bringing back the rec isn’t a panacea for all the city’s ills, but a healthy ecosystem of recreation centers can make a tremendous impact in the lives of our kids.
Baltimore on the National Stage
Derik Queen’s game-winning shot
Seattle, Washington. March 23, 2025. March Madness. The Maryland Terrapins men’s basketball team was down 71-70 against Colorado State with 3.7 seconds left for a shot at the school’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 2016. During the timeout prior to the game’s closing sequence, head coach Kevin Willard asked his team a simple question, “Who wants the ball?”
Derik Queen, the outstanding, unflappable, precocious freshman from Baltimore answered promptly and unequivocally: “I want the motherfucking ball.”
He proceeded to catch the inbounds pass at the top of the key, dribble left, pull up off the wrong foot in the paint and bank in a leaning buzzer beater. In the immediate aftermath, the sideline reporter asked Queen where he got the confidence to take and make the game-winning shot.
His reply: “I’m from Baltimore, that’s why.”
Best Performance
Lamar Jackson
Every week, “Lamarvelous” Jackson makes us believe that our eyes have the capacity to lie. Last year he put together the greatest individual season an NFL signal caller has ever had.
No quarterback has ever done what Jackson did last season in throwing for over 4,000 yards, rushing for over 900, and throwing 41 touchdown passes with only four interceptions. And if Mark Andrews doesn’t drop a perfect pass in the end zone with 1:33 left in the fourth quarter of the AFC Divisional Round game, we might still be sitting in the afterglow of another Ravens Super Bowl victory.
Despite the team’s early season struggles this year, Jackson is always worth the price of admission.
Last Best Place For Young People to Hang Out For Free
Skatepark of Baltimore
Kids, like the rest of us, spend too much time online, looking at screens. One reason is because everything else has gotten so damned expensive, especially for kids whose incomes are even more limited than those of journalists. Basically, anywhere they go, they either have to pay money or get harassed by police or the Fox 45 film crews always waiting to stoke fear of Black children among their suburban audience. But, after ten years on the scene, the Skatepark of Baltimore in Hampden is still, blessedly and beautifully free, both in terms of cost and the lack of heavy-handed oversight (pads are recommended, for instance, but not required). It’s a place where kids — and adults — can be kids and shred the bowl or the street course without worrying about how much money it costs. And you don’t even have to have gear. A lot of times, kids won’t even skate, but just hang out with their four-wheeled friends, giving the park a communal, sort of Venice Beach feel. “Skateboarding is not crime” was an old-school street skating slogan, and at Baltimore Skatepark, it also doesn’t cost a dime.
In Memoriam
Baltimore Ravens super-fan Wes Henson
Reeta Hubbard: I had the opportunity to meet Wes Henson, aka Captain Dee-Fense, in 2008 in Miami for the Ravens/Dolphins game. His stature was big, but his smile and personality was bigger. Over the years, Captain Dee-Fense and I would run into each other at numerous games (his section was next to my parents’ section), away games, including Super Bowl 47, and at numerous events around Baltimore City. Henson, a former military vet, had a heart of gold. He was always entrenched in the community, always looking to help, and always a bright light through the good and bad times of the Ravens, or even of Baltimore. To say he will be missed is an understatement. There will never be another Captain Dee-Fense. I’m just glad we had one.