[Baltimore Sun] Angelos family deserves our thanks, not cheap shots | READER COMMENTARY
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I was disappointed, but not surprised, that The Baltimore Sun and reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer couldn’t resist taking one more shot at John Angelos (“Orioles reset: David Rubenstein has a low bar to clear following John Angelos. The expectations should be higher.” April 1).
Under the guise of talking about the Orioles’ new control person, David Rubinstein, The Sun’s Orioles beat writer trotted out the same old chestnuts about Angelos and his supposed failures as the prior owner. In particular, his “lack of spending and handling of Camden Yards lease negotiations,” among other sins.
Meyer doesn’t seem to recognize that Baltimore is, indeed, a small market baseball town. We just are. And the baseball team needs to be owned and managed as such.
When the Orioles moved to town in the early 1950s, the city’s population was pushing a million people. Now, 70 years later, Baltimore is half that. Granted, there is a larger metropolitan area from which the team can draw support. But the city itself is half what it was when the team first arrived. Moreover, Baltimore has had decades of poverty and one-party government, which has presided over a hollowing out of a once-vibrant business base; a deterioration of public schools; a long-term problem with crime and a decline in the general quality of metropolitan life.
As a lifelong Marylander who loves Baltimore, I wish this weren’t true. But it is.
Against this backdrop, Angelos and his family, including his late father, deserve credit for being loyal to the city during the entire period of their ownership. Like a lot of businesses in town, they could have chosen otherwise. But they didn’t. They stayed loyal and true to Baltimore. And when the time came to sell, as the elder Peter Angelos was coming to the end of his journey, John Angelos and his family remained true to the city. Yes, they negotiated hard for a favorable new lease for Oriole Park at Camden Yards. That was their prerogative as team owners. Indeed, it was their necessity.
But when it came to finding a buyer and new owner, they sold to someone who appears as committed to Baltimore as they have been. That’s a big deal. Because it didn’t have to be.
As for the so-called “lack of spending,” the Orioles tried that, and it didn’t work. And it won’t work long-term for a club like the Orioles that competes in a division with large payroll teams like New York and Boston, as well as a club in Toronto which can draw on an entire nation for support. Any Baltimore team that tried the big contract approach such as was done with Chris Davis would’ve concluded that a different, better way had to be found.
And to Angelos’ credit, the Orioles have found that better way. Under the leadership the Angelos family brought in to run team operations, the Orioles are now leaning into their status as a small market club. They’re now doing the things that small market teams must do to be competitive, and stay competitive, with teams that have extravagant payrolls.
I’m sure the Orioles will be spending more in the future. But I’d venture their spending will more likely be of the Corbin Burnes variety. That is, spending the talent that’s available across the organization, including within a rich minor league system, to bring in the additional pieces which are needed by the major league club.
So, as John Angelos, his late father and the rest of the Angelos family leave the scene, they don’t deserve the “one last kick in the pants” that Meyer has administered. Instead, they deserve our thanks for their loyal stewardship of the ball club over many years — and our best wishes for the next chapter.
— P. Johnsen, Pasadena
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