For purposes of full disclosure, throughout the past decade I have gotten to know John Angelos. I like him. He is smart and cares passionately about the city of Baltimore. I’d consider him a friend, and I’d think he’d say the same about me.
For a long time, Angelos wanted to carve out a meaningful role in the sports and entertainment fields. Naturally, his idea always centered around his vision of what the Orioles mean to Baltimore.
Good luck with that when your father is Peter Angelos. So he sat by and probably stewed more than a little bit. But when his dad became very ill very fast, John saw his chance to do his thing and went for it. What’s that saying? “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
And by all accounts, John has done a pretty damn good job as steward of the Baltimore Orioles. The 54-year-old has made all the significant calls in running the ballclub since he seized the reins.
And I, for one, applaud John’s efforts. I know him well enough to know he doesn’t act alone. He has a leadership group he trusts in vice presidents Greg Bader, T.J. Brightman, Jennifer Grondahl and, of course, Mike Elias.
Since this is about John Angelos, I won’t spend much time comparing father and son, but it’s fair to say that when running a sports franchise the best thing an owner can do is hire good people and get out of their way — except when it comes to threading that needle of budgetary restraints.
Angelos gets an “A” in this regard. He hired Elias on the baseball side and in four agonizing seasons — mostly in the midst of a historic pandemic — all Elias has done is build one of the top two or three farm systems in baseball. Historical perspective: The Orioles probably hadn’t had even a top-five farm system since the early-to-mid ’70s
On top of it, while big league compensation was sheared to the bone — except for Chris Davis’ monster contract and Brady Anderson’s one big signing of Alex Cobb — Angelos gave the go-ahead to do what Dan Duquette would have traded an arm for. He allowed Elias to go full throttle in an effort to be relevant in the amateur international market.
Yes, the MASN dispute lingers. Remember, the MASN lawsuit was not started by Peter Angelos. All he was trying to do was ensure that MLB and the Nationals lived by the letter of the agreement that they both willingly signed off on after MLB placed the Expos in Washington following the 2004 season. The MASN deal was put in place after Bud Selig had infringed upon Orioles territory as defined by MLB guidelines.
The real purpose of MASN was to put in place for perpetuity an economic vehicle that would replace the revenues that the Orioles were surely going to lose with an MLB team coming within their territory — just 38 miles away, to be exact.
We can argue again about how Peter ran the baseball side of things, but the reality is that the Orioles had averaged more than 3 million fans per year in the 15 full seasons (excluding the strike-shortened 1994 season) prior to the Nationals taking root in Washington, D.C., in 2005. Orioles attendance has never again reached those heights.
John Angelos and the ballclub are tenaciously defending their right to keep all parties adhering to the letter of the agreement. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred would have a hard time forcing the Orioles’ hands on a MASN settlement when he has a much larger problem on his hands industry-wide regarding Diamond Sports Group.
In stepping out to talk to the media on Feb. 19 in Sarasota, Fla., it wasn’t a surprise that Angelos ultimately took a step back from something he said in the heat of the moment during a public argument with a reporter in January. Call it Angelos’ “Liftoff Moment” when he promised that reporter that he would show him and the other media members the Orioles’ books. C’mon, did anyone really think that an owner of a sports franchise would open his or her books?
Angelos has been taking some heat from some about his comments saying that as a small-to-medium-sized-market team, the Orioles want to model themselves after the Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians and Milwaukee Brewers. He also said that in time, the Orioles’ payroll wouldn’t be under the same constraints as it has been and could be significantly higher than those teams.
This topic of player compensation at some point gets back to fans starting to show up in larger numbers. I know that’s not an exact science. It’s just trying to see which comes first, the winning or the fans. And in the case of Baltimore and the willingness of fans to go downtown, all we hear is the news of crime and more crime.
That brings us to Angelos’ vision for what the Orioles can mean in terms of saving the city of Baltimore. So what if Angelos didn’t sign a five-year lease with the State? His point about what that lease would limit in terms of the imagination that he and Governor Moore may have as to how the Orioles can fuel another downtown renaissance has merit.
With all due respect to the Ravens and the importance of football in Baltimore, the Ravens inhabit our city nine to ten days per year. They are getting an equal amount of the $1.2 billion dollars the state has offered the two teams ($600 million each) for the purposes of updating and modernizing their stadiums, provided they sign long-term leases. Angelos and the Orioles have not signed their lease. They can’t access that money until they do.
So, it’s not as if Angelos and the Orioles don’t have skin in the game of determining in fairly short order what it is that will put pen to paper. Angelos shouldn’t be criticized for having imagination of what the Orioles can mean to our city 365 days a year.
I first met Peter Angelos’ sons John and Louis back in 1993 when their father first purchased the ballclub. Both John and Louis would be present whenever Peter had one of his early news conferences. They would sit behind their father, and I wondered what it must be like for them to sit there and have no real function.
When one or the other would come to the podium, I remember how nervous they were regarding how to refer to the owner, their father. Sometimes, they’d call him Mr. Angelos, and once in a great while “my father” or “my dad” would slip into their discourse.
I can’t tell you how the transition from Peter was supposed to go. Clearly, John took the reins shortly after his father fell ill. Clearly, Louis took exception to how that came to pass. It led to litigation that pitted Louis against John and their mother Georgia. It hasn’t been pretty, but both sides have agreed to drop their lawsuits and figure out a solution privately. That’s good enough for me.
From those old remembrances of John sitting behind his father, I flash forward to last Sunday, the 19th of February. I always impressed upon John the need for someone to be the front person of the club –someone the fans knew was invested in the club communicating with them.
So for me, I was happy to see and hear John step up and take that role.
Based on what he has done so far being in charge of the Orioles, when John says he’s not going anywhere, I am very good with that.
See Also: Glenn Clark: Here’s What Fascinated Me In Orioles CEO John Angelos’ Chat With The Media
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles