Ranked

The small but heavy package arrived in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and was delivered around lunchtime. Cam Cameron ripped open the package and gazed at his championship ring from Super Bowl XLVII, the one the Ravens went on to win after relieving him of his duties in December. The dazzling ring weighed 380 grams, was encrusted with 243 round-cut diamonds and crafted in 10-karat white gold with yellow highlights. Without a hint of resentment, the team's former offensive coordinator who was at times the most-scrutinized man in the Baltimore area, said he appreciated the gesture from the Ravens and their owner, Steve Bisciotti.

Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman might not be the biggest name in pitching in the major leagues right now, but his performance over the past two seasons ranks among the best. Since the beginning of the 2012 season, Tillman is 16-5 for a .762 winning percentage. That winning percentage is the fourth-best in all of baseball for players with at least 20 decisions. Tillman ranks behind only Cincinnati's Mat Latos (.833), Detroit's Max Scherzer (.781) and St. Louis's Lance Lynn (.765)

The Maryland men's team is ranked No. 1 by Soccer America for the first time in its history.The Terrapins (3-1) have won three straight games and beat Virginia, 1-0, on Sunday to record their first home victory over the Cavaliers since 1977. After losing to defending national champion Indiana to open its season, Maryland has outscored Butler, Marshall and Virginia by a combined 10-2 to jump from the No. 4 position and take over the top ranking from UCLA, which lost to Florida International on Friday.

Baltimore Sun reporter Jeff Barker and editor Matt Bracken weigh in on the three biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports. What do you make of former Terps quarterback Danny O'Brien leaving Wisconsin and looking for a new school? Jeff Barker: First, a global comment. The NCAA rule allowing many graduate students to play immediately after transferring has had a noteworthy effect on the game. It has generated a class of college “free agents,” of which former Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson is perhaps the best known.

McCormick & Co. Inc. was named yesterday by Fortune magazine as one of the nation's top 100 companies for which to work.The Sparks-based spice giant ranked 86th on the list that was headed by Southwest Airlines of Dallas. Other Maryland-based companies on the list include Marriott International Inc. of Bethesda, 27th, and Life Technologies Inc. of Gaithersburg, 42nd.For McCormick, this is the third time it has been ranked in the top 100 by the authors of the article, who published books with similar rankings in 1984 and 1993.

Competing with 81 public library systems of its size across the country, the Anne Arundel Public Library system has ranked fifth nationally and the highest of any public library system in the state, according to Hennen's American Public Library Ratings. The Anne Arundel system, which has 15 branches, competed nationally in a category of libraries that serve populations of 250,000 to 499,000 and was rated on 15 factors, including circulation, staffing and funding levels. "We're pleased that people from out of the area confirm what people here in the county feel - that we're giving good service," said Ronald S. Kozlowski, Anne Arundel's library administrator.

COLLEGE PARK -- What the Maryland Terrapins and forward Keith Booth did last week did not go unnoticed.The three victories boosted Maryland (7-0) to its best start in 21 years and to a place in this week's Top 25 polls. The numbers Booth put up against California, George Washington and Georgia Tech -- 26.3 points and 9.0 rebounds a game, along with a .581 shooting percentage -- made the 6-foot-6 senior from Baltimore the Atlantic Coast Conference's Player of the Week.It was the fourth straight year in which the Terrapins, ranked 25th in the Associated Press and USA Today/CNN polls, earned a Top 25 ranking.

COLLEGE PARK -- Even though Maryland's players are not publicly making much fuss about it, tonight's 7 o'clock game against Syracuse at Byrd Stadium could have a major impact on the Terps for the rest of the football season."

When Mount de Sales volleyball coach Kenny Mills saw his team ranked No. 2 in preseason, he was pleased but surprised. "I expected we might be ranked in the top 10, but I was not expecting No. 2," he said. "Instead of looking at it as pressure, we look at it as something we have to live up to." The players were just as surprised. "When they heard about it, they were shocked," Mills said. "The seniors, they're up for the challenge." The Sailors were 3-0 after defeating No. 6 Archbishop Spalding last night in four sets and primed for a run at the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference title.

Carroll government spent more per resident on administration than all but three other Maryland jurisdictions in fiscal 1991, according to a recently released financial report.The county spent $172 per resident on "general government" -- such offices as planning, personnel, finance, executive and judicial -- exceeding the state average of $133 and trailing only Calvert and Howard counties and Baltimore, according to "Local Government Finances In Maryland.""I would imagine high salaries at the top levels have something to do with it, and probably overall staffing," said County Commissioner Elmer C. Lippy.

Here is the fourth installment of an attempt at a premature poll for next season. The Top 20 will be broken up into four installments with Tuesday's post involving teams ranked from Nos. 5 to 1. Thursday featured Nos. 20 to 16 , Friday Nos. 15 to 11 , and Monday Nos. 10 to 6 . Wednesday will include three schools not mentioned in the poll that could make some waves. Unless there are confirmed reports about certain players planning to use fifth years of eligibility, this space will assume that seniors in 2013 will not return next year.

Last season, the Ravens got meaningful contributions from a few rookies, including second-round draft picks Courtney Upshaw and Kelechi Osemele. But where did they rank in terms of snaps played by first-year players? According to ESPN, the Ravens ranked 17th in the NFL with rookies accounting for 9.7 percent of their snaps . The Cleveland Browns, led by starting quarterback Brandon Weeden and top running back Trent Richardson, led the league in snaps by rookies. Their 17 rookies played 26.4 percent of Cleveland's snaps last season.

Nearly one in four jobs in the Baltimore area requires skills in science, technology, engineering and math, a concentration that ranks among the top 10 in the country and brings wealth to the region, according a report released Monday. The Baltimore area ranks No. 8 on a list of metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of jobs requiring high-level knowledge in STEM, the acronym by which the fields are known. The nearly 282,000 STEM jobs in the region in 2011 made up 23.1 percent of all jobs, according to the Brookings Institution report, "The Hidden Stem Economy.

The military's top uniformed leaders did themselves no favors in their testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee about sexual assaults in the military. Certainly, they were willing to give the problem lip service, but in refusing to back the substantial reforms many in the Senate have in mind, they demonstrated that they still take the problem lightly. How is that even possible? In case they missed it, the number of assaults taking place under their command has risen sharply - from about 19,000 in 2010 to about 26,000 last year.

Baltimore's park system has slipped from 15th to 21st in an expanded ranking of open space in the nation's 50 largest cities with relatively low funding cited as a continuing problem. The nonprofit Trust for Public Land gave Baltimore's 4,905 acres of parks the same overall grade Wednesday as it had last year -- three out of a possible five "park benches," or stars, in its ParkScore rating system. But the city lost ground in the rankings because the trust added 10 new cities to its review of  municipal parks, several of which topped Baltimore, including Minneapolis, which came in #1, Omaha, Neb. (#11)

WIMBLEDON, England -- Doug Flach blanched when an ATP official asked him to reach into a hat Sunday and draw his opening-round Wimbledon opponent."I'd never do that," Flach said then. "It's bad karma. If I do that, I'm going to draw [Andre] Agassi."And then Flach reached into the hat and pulled Agassi's name.Flach didn't blanch yesterday on Court Two, the court known as the graveyard for top seeds. Instead, he served 22 aces, returned Agassi's serve superbly and ousted the No. 3 seed, 2-6, 7-6 (7-1)

LOS ANGELES -- Southern Cal coach George Raveling was startled yesterday morning when he saw that his 25th-ranked Trojans were listed as 15 1/2 -point underdogs in their game against second-ranked UCLA at Pauley Pavilion."