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World Champions 1983, 1970, 1966 American League Champions 1983, 1979, 1971, 1970, 1969, 1966 American League East Division Champions 2014, 1997, 1983, 1979, 1974, 1973, 1971, 1970, 1969 American League Wild Card 2012, 1996 Tuesday, December 23, 2014 Columns: The 10 biggest sports stories of 2014 The Sun 12/23 More thoughts on baseball in Cuba and Fred Ferreira's 'hysterical' incident The Sun 12/23 Orioles' Matt Wieters to have high school jersey retired Monday night The Sun 12/22 Trying to decide on the roster in December MASNsports.com 12/23 Q&A with Orioles pitching coach Dave Wallace MASNsports.com 12/23 Young pitcher could have shot at majors in 2015 CSN Baltimore 12/22 Five things on Orioles' holiday wish list CSN Baltimore 12/22 Will orioles' offensive approach change under new hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh? PressBoxOnline.com 12/22 Should Orioles hit the gas? After letting several options pass, silence isn't deadly Sporting News 12/22 Surprise: Orioles Hire a Rangers Coach NBCDFW.com 12/22 Smoak, Wieters Have Numbers Retired At Stratford Live5News.com 12/23 http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-sp-yir-sports-top-stories-20141222-story.html#page=3 The 10 biggest sports stories of 2014 By Childs Walker and Mike Klingaman / The Baltimore Sun December 23, 2014 Oh, Baltimore sports. If we're being honest, your bad news ran neck and neck with your good in 2014. Often eclipsed it, in fact. Sure, the Orioles produced their best season in a generation, winning the once-insurmountable American League East by 12 games and reaching their first American League Championship Series in 17 years. But the Ravens spent the NFL playoffs at home for the first time under coach John Harbaugh. The Maryland women's basketball team made the Final Four, but the men didn't make the NCAA tournament at all. Olympic hero Michael Phelps returned to competitive swimming after a 20-month retirement, but he ended up in an in-patient treatment program after he was charged with drunken driving. Looming over it all was Ray Rice, who put the Ravens at the center of a national conversation — often an ugly one — about how we deal with violence against women and whether the country's most popular sports league takes its social responsibilities seriously enough. When the year's enduring image is surveillance tape of a formerly beloved athlete punching his future wife, you're talking a complicated 12 months — at best. So here they are, the 10 biggest stories of an up-and-down year in our city's sports scene: 10. UFC comes to Baltimore, highlighting year of big events in the city Entering 2014, Baltimore had hosted mixed-martial-arts cards but never the sport's 800-pound gorilla, Ultimate Fighting Championship. So local fight fans rejoiced in early January when UFC announced that it would debut at Baltimore Arena with its April 26 pay-per-view event. MMA might seem a mere curiosity to older generations, but for many young fans, it's the world's pre-eminent combat sport. As such, arena general manager Frank Remesch predicted a quick sellout (he was correct) and compared the event's magnitude to a Bruce Springsteen concert. UFC brought plenty of star power for its Charm City unveiling, headlining the show with light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, one of the world's best fighters and the brother of former Ravens defensive lineman Arthur Jones. Jon Jones put his own twist on the evening, entering the arena with his version of Ray Lewis' "Squirrel" dance before he outdueled challenger Glover Teixeira over five rounds. The crowd of 13,500, which included Lewis and a number of Ravens, loved every minute. It was among a number of big events that were staged in the metro area in 2014, including the 115th Army-Navy game, the NCAA lacrosse Final Four, the Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball tournament and the International Crown women's golf tournament. "Baltimore came out today in a huge way," UFC spokesman Dave Sholler gushed. The event played out so well that UFC officials promised to come back soon, hon. 9. Maryland women's basketball reaches Final Four When Brenda Frese won the national championship with a young Maryland team in 2006, she surely never thought she'd need another eight years to get back to the biggest stage in women's college basketball. The title win signaled the Terps' rise to the upper echelon of the sport, where they remained in the ensuing years. But gifted team after gifted team fell a step or two short of the Final Four. Meanwhile, Frese became a different coach and a different person, one shaped by the birth of her twins and a leukemia diagnosis for her son Tyler. Against that backdrop, 2014 became a year of milestones. Six-year-old Tyler finished his cancer treatments with an excellent long-term prognosis. Alyssa Thomas cemented her status as the best player Frese ever had coached. And the Terps broke their eight-year drought, earning a trip to the Final Four in Nashville, Tenn., with a gut-churning win over Louisville and Frese's former assistant, Jeff Walz. The story didn't end the way Maryland wanted. Notre Dame smashed the Terps by 26 in the national semifinals. But Frese said she appreciated the accomplishment in a way she never could have as a young coach. She grasped how hard it was to get that far and how harsh life could be beyond the bounds of a basketball court. Frese's Terps weren't the only local team to appear in a Division I Final Four in 2014. Maryland's women's lacrosse team also reached the national semifinals, and UMBC's men's soccer team made a surprising run to its first Final Four. 8. McDonogh girls lacrosse breaks national win streak record Once upon a time, McDonogh's girls lacrosse team lost. That was more than 2,000 days ago. Ever since, the Eagles have been living a dream, winning 112 consecutive games, bagging five straight national championships and, this year, shattering the national record for the longest winning streak in history. That 32-year-old mark fell April 19 as McDonogh ripped North Harford, 15-8, for its 105th straight victory. The previous record of 104 games without a loss was set by Loch Raven between 1973 and 1982. More recently, Mount Hebron managed a 103-game skein that ended in 2007. Not ones to preen, the Eagles rolled on and captured their sixth Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship in as many years under coach Chris Robinson. So, The Streak lives — but for how long? Gone is attacker Megan Whittle (Maryland), whose 88 goals earned her All-Metro Player of the Year honors. Meanwhile, the bull's-eye on McDonogh's back gets bigger, particularly among the nationally ranked schools the Eagles have scheduled to start each of the past three seasons. "We've got to take everyone's best punch," said Robinson, a Loch Raven alumnus who once coached at Mount Hebron. "It's tough when everyone's got us circled on the schedule." 7. California Chrome flirts with Triple Crown but falls short He arrived at Pimlico Race Course on the wings of a populist dream — the star of an improbable tale featuring two regular-guy owners and a septuagenarian trainer who'd never saddled a starter on horse racing's biggest stage. California Chrome was a chestnut colt from the West who liked to pose for photos and seemed unruffled by all the fuss around him after he surged to a comfortable victory in the Kentucky Derby. That performance made believers of rival trainers, who had expressed initial skepticism over the horse's humble lineage and his small-time handler, Art Sherman. California Chrome came to Baltimore a heavy favorite in the Preakness. And his brash co-owner, Steve Coburn, made no bones about saying the colt would win the Triple Crown. Before a record announced crowd of 123,469, California Chrome lived up to the hype, brushing aside early rushes from several speedy challengers to win the Preakness and give himself a chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. With Chrome's quest came a debate about changing the Triple Crown. Coburn, in particular, portrayed rival owners and trainers as cowards for skipping the middle leg and gearing up for the Belmont Stakes. Sure enough, California Chrome could not find his usual acceleration at Belmont Park and fell to Tonalist, who hadn't run in Kentucky or Baltimore. An angry Coburn pitched a fit after the race, saying no horse could pull off the historic feat against wave after wave of fresh challengers. That debate will rage on. But for a few weeks at least, California Chrome had everyone believing. 6. Nelson Cruz becomes fan favorite in short stay at Camden Yards Nelson Cruz began the year in a limbo of his own making after he missed the Texas Rangers' 2013 playoff push because of a suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs. He anticipated lucrative free-agent offers, but they never materialized. And as spring training dawned, Cruz had to accept a cut-rate $8 million deal with the Orioles. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for him. The affable slugger fit easily into the upbeat Orioles clubhouse. And fans greeted him with loud chants of "Cruuuuz" on Opening Day. He quickly rewarded his new admirers with a barrage of home runs that helped keep the Orioles in the pennant race as they endured a rash of injuries to key players.