Paul Mancano of The Baltimore Banner won first place in the Division B explanatory category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
Mancano’s winning entry not only asked the question of why no player has homered long enough to hit the iconic B&O Warehouse beyond right field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards since the ballpark opened in 1992; Mancano dove into the physics of what it might take to get there.
APSE contest winners will be honored at the 2026 APSE Summer Conference banquet July 18 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. Registration for the conference is open; you can register right here.
Mancano will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 55 entries in the Division B explanatory category. Contest chair Perryn Keys and APSE officers Paul Barrett, Erik Hall and Tony Maluso prepared the entries.
Contest results: Digital, print and podcasts | Writing and photography
Judges convened in late February, in person at the APSE Winter Conference in Las Vegas and remotely around the nation, to select the top entrants. The committee determined 10 finalists, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. The final 10 were given to a second judging group in late February and March, ranking the entries from Nos. 1 to 10 in the same fashion.
The final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The top 10 are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses, along with links to the winning entries.
The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
1. Paul Mancano, The Baltimore Banner (3)
2. Chris Carlson and Mike Waters, Advance Media New York (Syracuse) (1)
3. Jesse Newell, The Kansas City Star (1)
4. Noah White, The Buffalo News
5. Kevin Reynolds, The Salt Lake Tribune
6. Gregg Doyel, IndyStar
7. Jon Blau, The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.)
8. Eli Hoff, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1)
9. Danny Webster, Las Vegas Review-Journal
10. David Eckert, Austin American-Statesman
