Babe Ruth

So many monuments were erected to honor figures in politics, government, religious and military life that Baltimore became known as the "Monumental City." It was the first to erect a statue to George Washington, the father of our country. And then there were similar but more modest creations for Sam Smith, Martin Luther, Edgar Allan Poe and even Simon Bolivar.With Christopher Columbus, we got carried away. Three such statues pay him tribute. After all, it's justified. He discovered the place.

Pro baseball may be down and out, but the sport continues to grow at the youth level.Howard Babe Ruth League, Inc., the first sanctioned Babe Ruth League in Howard County, will conduct its inaugural registrations on Jan. 18 and 25 in the cafeteria at Centennial High School.This season, it hopes to offer players one practice and three games per week in four age groups (11-12, 13, 14-15 and 16-18).Open registration also will be conducted from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Jan. 28 at the Mall in Columbia.

At the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum and Baseball Center, you can see the score card from Babe Ruth's first professional game, and uniforms worn by the Baltimore Orioles at the last game at Memorial Stadium. There's memorabilia from the Baltimore Elite Giants, the great Negro League team of the 1930s and '40s and, for 19th century baseball buffs, score cards with magic names of McGraw, Keeler and Jennings.Baseball celebrates the past, but Michael Gibbons, the museum's executive director, wants the present and the future to be considered as well.

A one-of-a-kind baseball signed by some of the game's all-time greats, mysteriously stolen from its secure perch at the Babe Ruth Museum, was recovered yesterday under equally baffling circumstances reminiscent of a whodunit.An anonymous tipster called museum officials yesterday about 1:30 p.m. and told them where they could find the "Matchless Ball," which was signed by 22 members of the 1934 American League All Star team, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx.Thirty minutes later, they were holding the baseball, which had been left in a brown paper bag. Officials would not disclose the exact location because of a police investigation.

After baseball fans spend Sunday afternoon saying goodbye to Memorial Stadium, they can spend Sunday evening with another of Baltimore's contributions to our national pastime -- Babe Ruth.NBC is saying goodbye to baseball's regular season -- and to male viewers for a while, to cater to non-baseball fans for the rest of the month while post-season play dominates CBS' prime time -- with "Babe Ruth," which will air Sunday night at 9 o'clock on Channel 2 (WMAR).This is a movie for baseball fans, not for movie fans.

John Heim, the coordinator of the Babe Ruth Museum's centennial celebration, spoke with The Sun's Jamison Hensley about the weekend salute to Babe Ruth from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, which ends the yearlong salute to Ruth's 100th birthday.What will the weekend include?There will be a card show for the three days, a memorabilia show at the [Fifth Regiment] Armory and a gala on Sept. 30.Who came up with the idea of a year-ending celebration?The card show was my idea and originally planned from the start.

Westminster's age 13 and 15 Babe Ruth teams have only a few more days to savor last week's three-game sweeps over Finksburg and North Carroll that netted them district championships.This weekend, it's on to Frederick for the state Babe Ruth championships.They will be joined there by Westminster's age 14 squad, which was automatically granted a state berth because Finksburg and North Carroll didn't field teams in that age bracket.Matt Tozer and Ray Shipley, who coached the age 13 and 15 Ruth teams, respectively, expect tough sledding.

FREDERICK -- It was hard to surpass the performance of Carroll County's Trey Schackelford yesterday at the Babe Ruth state tournament for 16-to-18-year-olds.But not impossible.Schackelford's efforts on the mound were impressive, but so were those of Prince George's North pitcher J. R. Proctor as he one-hit Carroll to knock the team out of the tournament, 2-1, in nine innings at Harry Grove Stadium."We are a tough team," said Schackelford, who finished the regular season 5-0. "We didn't give up, but we were a little flat with the bats."

WHILE YOU'RE enjoying your comfortable, low-risk lifestyle, with your childproof aspirin bottles and your reduced-fat Cheez-Its, some brave divers are preparing to plunge into the dark, frigid waters of New England in a quest for a legendary object -- an object that, if found, could have a profound effect upon all humanity. Or at least Red Sox fans. That's right. These brave divers are looking for what could be the single most important submerged legendary artifact (freshwater division)

When Alex. Brown & Sons, Baltimore's venerable investment house, went shopping for a star to showcase in a recent advertising campaign, it figured to limit the search to people with credentials in the world of high finance.Louis Rukeyser.Ross Perot.Maybe even Eli Jacobs.But after much brainstorming, Alex. Brown officials came up with a surprising choice: Babe Ruth.Not that Ruth ever so much as balanced his checkbook. But he did possess a quality the company was seeking, namely, a mammoth reputation as a home run hitter that overshadowed his early success as a left-handed pitcher.