Peter Angelos, former majority proprietor of the Baltimore Orioles, died on Saturday, March 23.
Earlier than he was a nightmare sports activities proprietor, Peter Angelos was a dream sports activities proprietor. His buy of the Baltimore Orioles in 1993 was nothing wanting an act of liberation for the town and its followers. It got here a decade after the 1983 World Sequence, the ultimate championship within the Orioles’ generation-long reign because the best-run franchise within the sport. Within the years in between, the staff had fallen on the sector to an 0-21 begin in 1988, risen once more to almost win the division the next yr, and slumped once more. Off the sector, possession had handed from the just-out-of-town arms of Washington DC nice Edward Bennett Williams to the utterly out-of-town arms of New York financier Eli Jacobs, whose plans and targets for the staff appeared arbitrary and mysterious, to the purpose the place he misplaced management of the franchise on account of chapter.
At that low level, to the rescue was Peter Angelos, one hundred pc Baltimorean and certifiably rich. Even his fortune was higher than different individuals’s: an enormous pile of hundreds of thousands that was thought-about the lawyer’s share of the billion-dollar mountain he gained for employees whose lungs had been destroyed by asbestos. He was the little man who had made it proper by preventing for the little man. Now he was going to make use of that cash to show his hometown Orioles into perennial contenders once more.
And it labored! The Orioles, who had been stressed and hesitant in the course of the free agent period, went out and signed Rafael Palmeiro. Additionally Sid Fernandez and Chris Sabo, however spending dangerous cash is a part of spending cash. The sellout crowds that had come to the brand new, era-defining stadium in 1992 simply stored coming. When the homeowners pulled the plug on the 1994 season, the Orioles have been in second place.
When the opposite homeowners made plans to open the 1995 season with alternative gamers, Angelos declined. Working a scabies staff went towards his rules as an employment lawyer; it could additionally finish Cal Ripken Jr.’s streak of consecutive video games. have ruined. It appeared that right here was an proprietor who understood that he was the steward of a public belief.
Nothing was too good for the viewers. The lockout ended, with no scab video games performed, and the Orioles signed Kevin Brown and Jesse Orosco. They made midseason trades to land the heavy contracts of Scott Erickson and Bobby Bonilla. When the outcome was a mediocre 71-73 season, the pockets solely opened additional: Roberto Alomar, BJ Surhoff, Randy Myers and David Wells, with Davey Johnson to handle all of them – Orioles legend at second base Davey Johnson, world champion Mets supervisor Davey Johnson, the right embodiment of a return to old style successful with new means. They claimed the American League wild card spot, defeated a strong Cleveland staff and…
Good.
Within the aftermath, one unusual and ominous occasion occurred: Jon Miller, the staff’s beloved radio announcer – a celebrity on the peak of his occupation – was left with no contract provide for the upcoming season. Because the offseason dragged on and different alternatives turned scarce, he accepted a suggestion to turn out to be the voice of the staff he championed as a toddler, the San Francisco Giants. Angelos then revealed that Miller had deliberate to go residence to California all alongside, and had by no means needed to stick with the Orioles. (Miller would maintain his residence in Maryland for years after taking the West Coast job.)
Nonetheless, the staff went on to accumulate Jimmy Key from the World Champion Yankees and add Eric Davis and win the division wire-to-wire in 1997, earlier than Cleveland returned the favor the yr earlier than and ended the season within the ALCS ruined. on an eleventh inning homer to interrupt a scoreless tie. A troublesome street to journey, however after two play-offs in a row, with huge gamers in a sold-out stadium, who could not be just a little philosophical about all of it?
Peter Angelos, it turned out, could not be philosophical about it. He compelled Johnson to resign as supervisor, ostensibly not as a result of he got here up quick within the playoffs, however after a public feud over the truth that Johnson had fined Alomar $10,500 for skipping an exhibition sport and had taken the cash donated to his personal spouse’s charity. In case you squinted, this might have been about ethics and rules and even labor rights; What it felt like, although, was that the proprietor was tailoring his huge supervisor.
What’s extra, it even felt like a pointless churn. “I have been within the league for eight years and that is my fifth or sixth supervisor,” homegrown ace Mike Mussina instructed the press. “It is troublesome when there are such a lot of modifications.” In Johnson’s place, Angelos promoted Ray Miller, a confirmed success as a pitching coach who had failed as soon as earlier than as a Main League supervisor. The staff went 79-83; basic supervisor Pat Gillick resigned; Alomar left for Cleveland, the place he was changed by Delino DeShields; Palmeiro went to Texas and traded locations with Will Clark, a yr older than Palmeiro, and nearly $4 million cheaper with their new contracts.
Not that Angelos was reluctant to spend cash – not but – or afraid to make a giant gesture. To fill the brand new holes within the lineup, he signed Albert Belle, and that spring despatched the staff on a diplomatic mission to play observe baseball in Havana. Fidel Castro appeared on the sector. I used to be within the touring press corps and one of many Cubans requested me if the Orioles have been a high staff. I pictured the beet-red, balding Clark, sitting at a restaurant desk earlier within the journey, wanting like a middle-aged farmer. I instructed the Cuban that that is likely to be the case, however I wasn’t certain.
There weren’t. They went 78-84. Angelos fired his one-season basic supervisor, Frank Wren, and did not precisely change him by giving Syd Thrift, the longtime govt who had been in command of the minor leagues, the title of vice chairman of baseball operations. The chaos seeped into the construction of the organizational chart. Ray Miller made means for Mike Hargrove. Belle’s hip began to interrupt down.
Albert Belle’s hip was nobody’s fault (he was nonetheless hitting .282/.342/.474 on one leg in 2000), however the press and Belle despised one another, and so it turned a morality story. Peter Angelos, the capricious and tyrannical proprietor, had wasted cash on a foul individual and was punished for it.
In the meantime, Mussina — 31 years previous, with a 147-81 document, the middle of Baltimore’s rotation since age 22 — was nearing the tip of his contract. He reportedly felt comfy in Baltimore; he loved being a three-hour drive from his residence in Montoursville, Penn. Extremely, Angelos discovered a technique to flip this into an influence battle, and particularly in a repeat of the Jon Miller episode. The Orioles dangled their ace and postponed a brand new contract till the New York Yankees supplied one in every of their very own, promising the self-described small-town boy that Montoursville was additionally a brief drive from the lights of the massive metropolis. When the Yankees gained, Angelos tried accountable Mussina for his departure. Nobody even pretended to imagine him.
In lower than a decade, Peter Angelos had constructed a winner after which utterly destroyed it. No self-respecting star needed to play for his Orioles. “It is like having Accomplice cash; it is no use,” Thrift would famously say on the winter conferences; In the meantime, the minor leagues, Thrift’s duty earlier than taking up your complete group, have been nearly unbelievably empty of expertise. Customer numbers fell from a excessive of three.7 million in 1997 to beneath 2 million and continued. Cal Ripken Jr. retired. The names on the jerseys stored altering; the names and job titles within the entrance workplace have been always altering; the staff continued to lose.
There could be fourteen consecutive shedding seasons earlier than the staff turned it round, beneath Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter, after which crashed once more, launching a multi-year program of compelled cheapness and deliberate badness. As depressing as that was, it could not precisely be blamed on Peter Angelos, who died on March 23 on the age of 94. Someplace alongside the way in which he had slipped into dementia and was utterly debilitated as his household fought one another in courtroom. for management over the staff.
That grim remaining act steered a brand new interpretation of what got here earlier than; maybe there was extra to the petty and harmful feuds, the impulsive selections, than only a character flaw. But Peter Angelos was all the time a preventing soul. He made his fortune and fame by being unruly and egocentric sufficient to suppose he may tackle huge companies and win. It was by no means constructed to fade into the background of others’ success. In sports activities possession, as in something, the targets of a person rich individual can typically, for some time, align with the general public curiosity. However in the long run they all the time do it for themselves. That is why they’re wealthy.
Correction (1:04 PM ET): An earlier model of this text incorrectly said that the Orioles claimed the American League’s first-ever wild card berth in 1996; the wild card debuted final yr, 1995, going to the Yankees.