Sometime in the past 30 years, Ben McDonald lost track of the piece of paper, but the message Cal Ripken Jr. inscribed on it has stayed with him.
McDonald, 51, is the only player the Orioles have selected with the first overall pick of the Major League Baseball draft. That will change Monday, when they’ll likely choose from a talented crop of position players — including Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman, Texas high school shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and California first baseman Andrew Vaughn — to make the draft’s first selection for the first time since taking McDonald, a right-hander out of LSU, in 1989.