In the Oct. 3 edition of the Examiner, business columnist Dan Gainor wrote about the disconnect that has occurred between the Orioles and their fans, placing the blame squarely on ownership (“Owner turned great team into dreaded Angel-O?s”). Gainor?s compared the fall of the Orioles to the sinking of the Titanic. He wrote that Peter Angelos had become “the most hated man in Baltimore,” supplanting late Colts owner Robert Irsay.
Harsh? Perhaps, but not completely without foundation. In the minds of many longtime Oriole fans, he was preaching to the choir.
Anyway, two weeks after Gainor?s column, I read a letter in the Examiner headlined “Bashing Angelos reveals ignorance,” in which a reader from Perry Hall writes “Gainor and others … forgot that Angelos purchased the team when there was talk of moving to another location.”
Really? How does one forget that which never occurred?
Point of fact: There had been zero talk of the Orioles leaving Baltimore for more than a decade when Angelos? group bought the team in a court auction from Eli Jacobs. In the 1970s, there were rumors that billionaire Marvin Davis wanted to buy the team and move it to Denver, or that former Treasury Secretary William Simon wanted to buy the team and move it to D.C.
Attorney Edward Bennett Williams bought the club in 1979 ? when no one in Baltimore stepped forward to buy it ? and initially thought he?d move the team to RFK. Orioles? magic was born that season, and Williams opted to stay. Later, he and former Mayor William Donald Schaefer got the ball rolling on Oriole Park, though EBW wouldn?t live long enough to see it open. The two men ensured, however, that the ballclub would stay put, thanks to an ironclad lease.
That there was even a scintilla of a chance the Orioles would move once Oriole Park was built ranks right up there with the “Paul is dead” nonsense of the 1960s. Piffle. Balderdash. Call it what you will, but it?s pure bunk.
I?m at a loss to explain why the Orioles have never gone out of their way to disabuse fans of that fiction. Oh, they?ve never claimed that Angelos kept the team from moving, but they haven?t corrected anyone either. A few years back, the owner was quoted on the front page of the other paper in town saying that if he hadn?t bought the team, “they?d be in Ohio by now,” presumably a reference to Bill DeWitt Jr., one of the men he outbid for the club. DeWitt, now the chairman and managing general partner of the St. Louis Cardinals, has always laughed when anyone mentioned that quote to him. According to DeWitt, even if he had wanted to move the Orioles ? and he didn?t ? MLB would have never allowed it to happen, leaving the mid-Atlantic region with no team at all.
If this Perry Hall reader ? or anyone, for that matter ? can show me anything in the legitimate reportage of the 1990s that indicates an Orioles? move out of Baltimore was afoot, I?d love to see it. You can show me a unicorn at the same time.
Phil Wood has covered baseball in the Washington/Baltimore market for more than 30 years. You can reach him at [email protected].
