Top 10

Boxing's greatestThe top 10 boxers of the century as selected by a panel of experts for the Associated Press (listed in order of voting).No. 1. -- Sugar Ray Robinson: Welterweight and five-time middleweight champion, 175-19-6, 109 KO's. 1940-65. 24.Remaining top 10: Muhammad Ali, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, Jack Dempsey, Roberto Duran, Benny Leonard, Billy Conn, Harry Greb.Voting panel: Angelo Dundee, Hall of Fame trainer; Lou Duva, longtime promoter, manager and trainer; Eddie Futch, Hall of Fame trainer; Gil Clancy, Hall of Fame trainer; Don Chargin, longtime promoter.

RECENTLY, on this page, columnist Ronald Brownstein gave his Top 10 list of the most effective American political one-liners of the century, mainly from presidents and politicians. All men.Please allow me to add to the record with my own Top 10 list of great one-liners by women in U.S. history, not just this century.Note that since holding public office is a recent career step for the fairer sex, this list comprises people from various walks of life. Two were wise political helpmates; two were dauntless suffragettes; another was a world-famous anthropologist.

Hockey's greatestThe top 10 hockey players of the century as selected by a panel of experts for the Associated Press (listed in order of voting).No. 1 -- Wayne Gretzky: Retired after 20 years as the NHL's career scoring champion with 61 records, including most goals (894) and points (2,857). Simply the biggest star in the game's history.Remaining Top 10: Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Maurice Richard, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Hull, Doug Harvey, Jean Beliveau, Terry Sawchuk, Ray Bourque, Mark Messier.

With the new year approaching, it's a good time for Americans to grade themselves on health. The chart below compares the top 10 causes of death among Americans in 1997, the most recent information available, to that of several years ago. First, the good news:Thanks to experts figuring out an effective "cocktail" of medicines, HIV has fallen off the list of top 10 causes of death, after being there for six years. In 1996 it was No. 8; in 1997, it dropped to No. 14."It's been pretty well-reported that because of these protease inhibitors used in combination with other medicines, we've found that we are able to slow the progression of AIDS in the body," says Lisa Scotti, a registered nurse at Moore Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Team officials are encouraged about recent Nielsen television ratings that show Ravens games were consistently one of the top 10 overall programs during the past three months and that seven of their games were among the top 10 regular-season sports programs watched in the Baltimore area in 1998.Although Nielsen ratings showed the Ravens were third from last in the ratings of the 30 teams that play in the NFL, Lisa Bercu, Ravens director of broadcasting, said that Baltimore does not have a large market of TV watchers, but a significant number of those who turned on their sets in the 12 previous weeks were watching Ravens games.

Maybe the folks at what used to be V-103 knew something when they ceded Baltimore's urban radio market to their downtown rivals at 92-Q.WERQ-FM (92.3) has vaulted back to the top of Baltimore's radio heap, according to Arbitron ratings released last week for April-June 1997. And it did so in spectacular fashion, besting its closest competitor (WBAL-AM) by 2.5 share points, or roughly 9,000 listeners.WXYV, which had been battling 92-Q for the urban market, threw in the towel late last month, switching formats from Urban Contemporary to Contemporary Hit Radio, a '90s version of Top 40. The station did not make the top-10 list this go-round, the first time that's happened in recent memory.

POTOMAC -- John Daly has missed the cut in five of his past eight starts and hasn't come close to a Top 10 finish this year, but you wouldn't know it from the crowd that followed him around the Tournament Players Club at Avenel yesterday, or the minicams that trailed him afterward.Here for the Kemper Open, which begins today, Daly took a shortcut to the interview area. He bounded into the dining room, through the early lunch crowd, then snaked his way past the stunned kitchen staff and down a flight of stairs, where he recounted again the titanic struggle he's undergone with his personal life.

For the second time in as many seasons, a Glenelg Country School's girls team has won an Association of Independent Schools B Division regular-season championship.A 46-33 win over Lutheran Thursday gave the Dragons basketball team a 5-0 record in the league and clinched the top seed for the tournament. Overall, the Dragons are 11-3.This follows a remarkable fall season for the field hockey team, which finished 11-3-1 and took second in the B Division tournament.It is no coincidence that both teams have the same leaders, Robin Zimmerly, who scored 19 against Lutheran, and Allison Hoke.

WASHINGTON -- The great first volley doesn't have the sting it once had. The high-kicking serve that set up put-away volleys hasn't been as reliable.For Stefan Edberg, 29, these are the problems he has faced as his world ranking has dropped to No. 16.But Edberg, who has earned more than $18 million in prize money, is not ready to put away the rackets for good."

The Chesapeake Bay Hurricanes traveled more than 1,100 miles looking for a national girls basketball title, but they had to look less than 100 miles from home to find the team that would spoil that dream.The Virginia Vogues ended the Hurricanes' title hopes with a 51-38 win at the 12-and-under Amateur Athletic Union national tournament last week at the Pontchartrain Center near New Orleans. While the Vogues went on to win the title, the Hurricanes finished ninth."We were disappointed just because we were fourth last year, but we weren't real down, because we still did pretty good," said Crystal Driessen, who represented Howard County on the team along with LaToya Hines, Terri Daniels and Thandi Howell.

Last week I was on vacation, so I published a Top 10 master list on my blog of earlier posts with information on where to get great seafood. You can go to baltimoresun.com/diningatlarge to view the actual posts. Here's the list: 1 Top 10 Best Crab Cakes 2 Top 10 Best Seafood Restaurants 3 Top 10 Crab Houses 4 Top 10 Places to Eat on the Water 5 Where's the Shrimp [Salad]? 6 Top 10 Places to Get Soft-Shell Crabs 7 Top 10 Places for Fish and Chips 8 Top 10 Places to Get Raw Oysters 9 Bar Food: The Best Steamed Shellfish 10 Top 10 Crab Cakes With a Twist Readers talk back Thanks for the aggregation!

It's not too late to dine green. Last week's Top 10 Tuesday on Dining@Large was Top 10 Restaurants to Celebrate Earth Day. Here's my list in alphabetical order: 1 Dogwood Cafe in Hampden. Owners Bridget and Galen Sampson are known for their eco-consciousness and good deeds - and the food is good. 2 Elevation Burger in Harbor East. The all-natural, organic version of fast food, plus veggie burgers if you insist. 3 Feast@4East in Mount Vernon. A very personal dining experience, emphasizing local ingredients.

Bucky kindly sent me a list of the Dining@Large entries that have gotten the most comments. There's a weird kind of fascination to it. Some are posts you would expect to get a lot of discussion, like Best Crab Houses. Others just blew me away, like the fact that RANCH DRESSING is in the No. 1 position. Now that's strange: 1 10/24/08 - I (Heart) Ranch Dressing (165 comments) 2 7/10/08 - Sandwich Musings (150), about what people like on their sandwiches 3 5/28/08 - Beef Fat Again Already (143)

Eric DeCosta makes picking in the top 10 of the NFL draft sound so easy. "We just rate the players," the Ravens' director of college scouting said. "When you're looking at the top 10 players, they're so good. Just like when you're driving down a neighborhood, you see a million-dollar home versus a $300,000 home, and you know which is the million-dollar home." NFL draft Saturday and next Sunday, New York TV: Saturday: 3 p.m.-11 p.m. [NFL Network]; 3 p.m.-8 p.m. [ESPN]; 8 p.m.-11 p.m. [ESPN2]

An 18-year-old senior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute placed in the top 10 of the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition yesterday. Emma Call's project - "Self-Assembling Three-Dimensional Microcontainers for Cell Encapsulation - placed 10th and won her a $20,000 college scholarship at an awards gala last night in Washington. She is enrolled in the Ingenuity Project, an accelerated math and science program for public school students in the city. Call, who lives in Mount Washington, said she applied micro-engineering techniques to create tiny metallic containers no larger than a speck of dust for use in medical applications.

Dulaney rallied from a shaky performance in last weekend's Baltimore County championship meet to pull off a sweep in yesterday's Class 4A North Region races. No. 4 Dulaney had an impressive seven runners finish in the top 10, and the Lions had 21 points, easily beating No. 2 C.M. Wright (43) in the girls' race. The unranked Dulaney boys had a tougher time, getting two top 10 finishers and ending with 53 points, just ahead of Sherwood (55) and No. 8 C.M. Wright (78). Class 3A East -- The top-ranked Severna Park girls and the No. 2 Wilde Lake boys had little trouble winning the team titles at Centennial.

Mervo had a dominant afternoon and pulled off a sweep at yesterday's Baltimore City Cross Country championship at Herring Run Park. The Mustangs' boys had four runners in the top 10, including victor Leon Williams (17:02), who beat teammate Issac Richardson by seven seconds. Mervo needed the strong performance to finish with 26 points - edging Digital Harbor (34). Digital Harbor placed five runners in the top 10 but couldn't catch the Mustangs. Milo Berry was the top Digital Harbor finisher; he took third place overall.

Before the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament bracket was unveiled Sunday night, the coaches at Towson and Loyola figured there were two at-large spots remaining in the 16-team field, and they thought their chances of making it were slim, at best. And once the names Notre Dame and Harvard appeared early in the televised announcement, Tony Seaman and Charley Toomey knew their respective teams were toast. But that didn't stop them from shaking their heads and wondering, why them over both of us?

Miami -- As usual, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson managed to avoid being in the same place for most of the PGA Tour's West Coast swing. Except for the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, which Woods won and in which Mickelson finished tied for eighth, the PGA Tour's biggest draws haven't been together in 2006. That will change today when Woods and Mickelson are part of a field that includes nine of the world's top 10-ranked players in the Ford Championship at Doral. What happened here between the two in the final round last year still reverberates, with hopes of it being reprised come Sunday.

When it comes to the receivers on the Ravens' draft wish list - Southern California's Mike Williams and Oklahoma's Mark Clayton - there are a couple of catches. Williams, considered one of the few playmakers in the draft, has not played a game in 15 months. Clayton, who might be the most polished wide-out in this year's class, lacks ideal size at 5 feet 10. Despite those concerns, both could upgrade a perennial weak position for the Ravens, who added Derrick Mason in free agency but probably need more help.