Bethesda Big Train Summer College Baseball

301.983.1006
faninfo@bigtrain.org
P. O. Box 30306
Bethesda, MD 20824

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Walter Johnson


Rated the fourth best player in the history of the game by The Sporting News, Walter Johnson was the game's greatest hurler. With his astonishing fastball, baseball's Big Train compiled a record of 417 wins against 279 losses in 21 seasons with the Washington Senators. He struck out 3,508 batters. Johnson lived in Bethesda near the high school that bears his name before moving to a farm in Germantown. After his baseball career, he served as an elected member of the Board of Commissioners of Montgomery County.

Shirley Povich


Shirley Povich covered baseball - his true passion - from Walter Johnson to Cal Ripken in a career at The Washington Post that spanned 75 years. The prolific and profound Povich covered the Washington Senator's lone World Championship in 1924 and wrote his final column the day before his death at 92.

Clark Griffith


Clark Griffith was an imaginative player, manager and owner. As a player, he topped the 20-victory mark six years in a row for the White Stockings, while helping Christy Mathewson invent the screwball. In 1901, as a player-manager, he led Chicago's American League club to a pennant. As an owner, his administrative and scouting philosophies revolutionized baseball. He initiated the use of a "speed gun" to time pitches and juggled pitching rotations to ensure his biggest gate attractions would appear on weekends.

Cal Ripken, Sr.


Continued the tradition of the Oriole Way which now has become the Ripken Way. He served 37 years as a player, coach and manager within the Baltimore Orioles organization. "Ripken Sr. had a face so formidably stern, a respect for discipline and authority so deep and standards so high you'd think that no one would ever have a soft feeling or a gentle word for him. Yet everyone did." -Tom Boswell