It’s amazing how dramatically the perception of someone can change — say for example, the owner of a professional baseball team.
Peter Angelos went from the overbearing majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles who was single handedly responsible for their 15 years of losing to the guy who hired the manager and GM that turned around the franchise. I’m not saying Angelos isn’t to blame for some of the O’s issues. There is enough evidence to indicate that he was gripping this team a bit tight in the past, but he seems to be saying all the right things now.
“As far as the local team here is concerned, we just want to tell them we will be back next year,” Angelos said follow the Orioles 3-1 loss to the Yankees in game five of the ALDS. “They better get ready for it.”
The O’s owner didn’t shy away from questions about the team’s long drought. “Especially for the Orioles, which we all know is an institution in Maryland. And for a long period of time, as you gentlemen and ladies have stressed frequently, there was a long, long arid period. I hope this will be the case this year, that we mean business, and in the future you can depend on this kind of a performance and hopefully much better.”
Angelos has already expressed interest in extending Buck Showalter’s contract and WBAL’s Brett Hollander mentioned last week that Lou Angelos mentioned working on a new contract for catcher Matt Wieters.
It should be a fun offseason. We’ll see just how serious ownership is about giving Buck some more bullets.
Certainly Peter Angelos has been a major contributor to the 14 losing seasons, no one can contest that. In 1996 and 1997 The Orioles fielded the most expensive team in baseball, yet still could not advance in the playoffs. The Orioles made a radical shift and decided to try to build from within and made some terrible personnel decisions which have cost them.
One the other hand, you have the Yankees, who 2-3 years ago decided to extend a 35 year old Alex Rodriguez who they aren’t even playing in the post season. But the Yankees can afford to do that.
MLB and Forbes both reported this year that the Orioles are in the bottom third of the league in revenue production. No, Peter is not struggling, he’s still making money, but the margins for error between a team like the Yankees and a team like the Orioles are miles apart.
Let’s hope they’ve finally assembled a front office that can make mostly good personnel decisions.
Angelos was neither singlehandly responsible for the last 14 years nor does he deserve all the credit for the success this year. There’s a fine medium between the two that gets overstated a lot in life.
Peter the Great has brought plenty of pain to the fans of Baltimore , not just a little pain , fourteen years of pain,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe he should try telling the truth , how about buying some bats , some top tier bats that will not choke,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,he grew some arms but now must buy a true number one and a few quality bats , let’s see if he does this , my guess is NO…………………he has plenty of MASN money that does not show up in those reports , he is not only not hurting, he is floating in money , I’m sure he can afford to add a few players who will not choke in the playoffs……………….