Thirty years on...

[Mad Mark]

We have been quite fixated on the failures of last 10 seasons of Orioles baseball (and rightly so). I believe that fixation has caused us to miss the true extent of the problem, namely that the farm system has been rotting from below for closer to 30 years.
The Orioles drafted Cal Ripken in the second round of the 1978 amateur draft. This summer will mark the 30th anniversary of that signing. I believe it’s a baseball axiom that farm system should produce one quality, major-league ready player each season. Since Cal arrived in 1981, that would mean that the Orioles farm system should have produced, lets say, 26 quality position players through today. A very cursory reckoning on my part can come up with maybe six names.
That’s a pretty colossal failure, and a damning indictment of four owners, countless front office personnel, and thousands of players.
It’s also an indication of how much work Andy MacPhail has in front of him. Not only does he have to break the losing tradition this team has forged at the major league level, he has to completely rebuild the foundation of the organization at the same time. It’s like pouring a new foundation for your home—while you’re living in it!
I hope he’s the right man for the job. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sure not getting any younger…

[DrLev]

We had a thread last week touch on this, though the argument's still valid and open for discussion. I don't remember who started it. Basically, the OP asserted that the O's downfall began in the early 1980's with reduced focus on the farm system (under the two owners prior to Angelos), a problem that has persisted essentially up until last year (though its effects will be felt for a few years still). It's a good thread, though I don't have the time to find it right now. Basically, I think you're right.

[GlennGulliver]

Excellent point. Even in our mid-90s renaissance, we were short on homegrown talent. (We had the highest payroll in baseball, however.)

The problems with the O's developing major league ready talent indeed stretches back 30 years. Maybe we've produced 10 players in that time who could be considered above-average hitters or pitchers over, say, a five year stretch? Whatever the count is, it's pretty abysmal.

Maybe because we fans are more savvy and able to communicate in ways we weren't able to in say, the mid-80s, this seems like a recent problem. But it runs very deep. Here's hoping we've turned over a new leaf.

[Mad Mark]

We had a thread last week touch on this, though the argument's still valid and open for discussion. I don't remember who started it. Basically, the OP asserted that the O's downfall began in the early 1980's with reduced focus on the farm system (under the two owners prior to Angelos), a problem that has persisted essentially up until last year (though its effects will be felt for a few years still). It's a good thread, though I don't have the time to find it right now. Basically, I think you're right.

I missed that one. The reason I started this one was that I had made this point in NMS's thread about what it would take to make us forget the last 10 years, and it kind of got rolled past.

[Mad Mark]

Excellent point. Even in our mid-90s renaissance, we were short on homegrown talent. (We had the highest payroll in baseball, however.)
The problems with the O's developing major league ready talent indeed stretches back 30 years. Maybe we've produced 10 players in that time who could be considered above-average hitters or pitchers over, say, a five year stretch? Whatever the count is, it's pretty abysmal.

Maybe because we fans are more savvy and able to communicate in ways we weren't able to in say, the mid-80s, this seems like a recent problem. But it runs very deep. Here's hoping we've turned over a new leaf.

Ah, the Orioles' 1998 payroll...every Yankee$ fans' defense against the charge that they buy their champion$hips...
That was the only season the Orioles payroll was #1 in baseball, IIRC--though we were top 10 during most of the mid-90s--but the rest of your point is valid.

[bobmc]

We have been quite fixated on the failures of last 10 seasons of Orioles baseball (and rightly so). I believe that fixation has caused us to miss the true extent of the problem, namely that the farm system has been rotting from below for closer to 30 years.
The Orioles drafted Cal Ripken in the second round of the 1978 amateur draft. This summer will mark the 30th anniversary of that signing. I believe it’s a baseball axiom that farm system should produce one quality, major-league ready player each season. Since Cal arrived in 1981, that would mean that the Orioles farm system should have produced, lets say, 26 quality position players through today. A very cursory reckoning on my part can come up with maybe six names.
That’s a pretty colossal failure, and a damning indictment of four owners, countless front office personnel, and thousands of players.
It’s also an indication of how much work Andy MacPhail has in front of him. Not only does he have to break the losing tradition this team has forged at the major league level, he has to completely rebuild the foundation of the organization at the same time. It’s like pouring a new foundation for your home—while you’re living in it!
I hope he’s the right man for the job. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sure not getting any younger…

I'm heading south next week and and going past St. Augustine (http://www.fountainofyouthflorida.com/) and plan to see if there's any chance to reverse the process. ;)

I'm interested in seeing how AMac starts acquiring young position players to the fold. He has a bunch of pitching and implied in his Bedard news conference that he's going to flip some for fielders. I may be old (but not yet mold) but I am excited. Unfortunately, the game plays out so slow - er - deliberately that I hope I'm here to see the final results.

[NewMarketSean]

I still don't see how people can say "30 years" when the O's made the WS in '79 and then won it in '83. They were also in the playoffs in 1980. Any slide would have to start with the first losing season which would have been 1986. Screw what was going on in the MiL, because if a team can keep winning at the MLB level with a poor MiL system, I'll take it.

Also, the run from 1992 to 1997 wasn't that bad and resulted in a cumulative 494-410 record.

So yes, overall, the last 25 years have sucked, but there have been times when the team wasn't a disaster.

What sets the pre-1998 suckfest apart from the last ten years is the hope that at any given time, the team could become good again. They sucked in 1991 but were good in 1992. They sucked in 1995 but were good in 1996. These last 10 years have offered little hope, and it's almost as if the owner has purposefully run the team into the ground to benefit his own agenda.

Wait a minute, he did.

[bobmc]

I still don't see how people can say "30 years" when the O's made the WS in '79 and then won it in '83. They were also in the playoffs in 1980. Any slide would have to start with the first losing season which would have been 1986. Screw what was going on in the MiL, because if a team can keep winning at the MLB level with a poor MiL system, I'll take it.

Also, the run from 1992 to 1997 wasn't that bad and resulted in a cumulative 494-410 record.

So yes, overall, the last 25 years have sucked, but there have been times when the team wasn't a disaster.

Clap clap clap! I'm down with the new, improved NMS! :002_scool:

[GlennGulliver]

I still don't see how people can say "30 years" when the O's made the WS in '79 and then won it in '83. They were also in the playoffs in 1980. Any slide would have to start with the first losing season which would have been 1986. Screw what was going on in the MiL, because if a team can keep winning at the MLB level with a poor MiL system, I'll take it.

Also, the run from 1992 to 1997 wasn't that bad and resulted in a cumulative 494-410 record.

So yes, overall, the last 25 years have sucked, but there have been times when the team wasn't a disaster.

No one is saying the team hasn't ever been good in the past 30 years - the point is that in the last 30 years the team stopped producing homegrown talent, even when it was winning.

[Woody Held]

Yeah , gone are the days when you had a Don Baylor waiting 2 or 3 extra years in the minors because there was no room for him on the major league roster.

[Dipper9]

I agree with Mark. This losing has beena long time in the making. That said, the mid 90's we had top free agents WANTING to come to Baltimore. Then it all stopped. To me, the real moment that this franchise went from a place that players wanted to come, to a place where careers come to die, was when we allowed Mussina to walk away to the MFY! That was the day that will live in infamy to me.

[BillySmith]

Ripken, Roberts, Finley, Mussina, Bod****er, Olsen, McDonald, Bedard, Benitez, and I'm running out of names.

Lesser names: Harris, Ray, Delucci, Towers, Maine, Hairston, Werth, Goodwin, Pickering, Dempsey's nephew, Cabrera, Bauer, Fontenot, Gutierrez, Alexander, Milacki, Billy Ripken, Sugar Bear?, Hammonds, Bigbie.

Anyone throw out a few more major leaguers who started with us since Ripken?

I hope there is more than this, because this a pathetic list.

[NewMarketSean]

For as bad as the system was for the last 30 years, we've still managed to produce a HoF SS (Ripken), two ace pitchers (Mussina, Bedard), another solid SP (Bod****er), a closer (Olson) an AS 2B (Roberts) and a slew of decent players (Finley, Harnisch, McDonald, Hammonds, Segui, Rhodes, Benitez, Markakis)

Granted, that's 14 players in a 30 year span.

[Dipper9]

Ripken, Roberts, Finley, Mussina, Bod****er, Olsen, McDonald, Bedard, Benitez, and I'm running out of names.

Lesser names: Harris, Ray, Delucci, Towers, Maine, Hairston, Werth, Goodwin, Pickering, Dempsey's nephew, Cabrera, Bauer, Fontenot, Gutierrez, Alexander, Milacki, Billy Ripken, Sugar Bear?, Hammonds, Bigbie.

Anyone throw out a few more major leaguers who started with us since Ripken?

I hope there is more than this, because this a pathetic list.

Schilling has had a pretty good career. ;)

[bobmc]

Schilling has had a pretty good career. ;)

Schilling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Schilling) began his professional career as a prospect in the Boston farm system, but was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in 1988 for Mike Bodd icker. His major league debut was with the Orioles (1988-1990). He probably does not qualify as an Oriole product, imho.

[BillySmith]

So the all-farm team, since Ripken, would look something like this:


2B Roberts
CF Finley
RF Markakis
SS Ripken
1B Segui
LF Hammonds
DH Pickering
3B Rayford
C Dempsey's nephew

Starters: Mussina, Bedard, Bod****er, Harnisch, McDonald
Pen: Olsen, Ray, Rhodes, Benitez, Milacki, Maine, Bauer

That's pretty bad for 30 years of work. The pitching staff isn't too bad, and the top of the order is very nice. But overall, this spells futility.

[crstrobel]

Schilling has had a pretty good career. ;)

He and Brady were products of the Red Sox system

[bobmc]

So the all-farm team, since Ripken, would look something like this:


2B Roberts
CF Finley
RF Markakis
SS Ripken
1B Segui
LF Hammonds
DH Pickering
3B Rayford
C Dempsey's nephew

Starters: Mussina, Bedard, Bodd icker, Harnisch, McDonald
Pen: Olsen, Ray, Rhodes, Benitez, Milacki, Maine, Bauer

That's pretty bad for 30 years of work. The pitching staff isn't too bad, and the top of the order is very nice. But overall, this spells futility.

I "pompously" fixed that for ya! :002_stongue:

[BillySmith]

I "pompously" fixed that for ya! :002_stongue:

Ha, ha. I hear ya.

[Mad Mark]

I still don't see how people can say "30 years" when the O's made the WS in '79 and then won it in '83. They were also in the playoffs in 1980. Any slide would have to start with the first losing season which would have been 1986. Screw what was going on in the MiL, because if a team can keep winning at the MLB level with a poor MiL system, I'll take it.

Also, the run from 1992 to 1997 wasn't that bad and resulted in a cumulative 494-410 record.

So yes, overall, the last 25 years have sucked, but there have been times when the team wasn't a disaster.

What sets the pre-1998 suckfest apart from the last ten years is the hope that at any given time, the team could become good again. They sucked in 1991 but were good in 1992. They sucked in 1995 but were good in 1996. These last 10 years have offered little hope, and it's almost as if the owner has purposefully run the team into the ground to benefit his own agenda.

Wait a minute, he did.

Going back to my house analogy: you can have one that looks quite fine on the first and second floors, and still have a rotten foundation that's about to cause the whole thing to cave in. That's my impression of the post-1978 Orioles organization.

[Mad Mark]

So the all-farm team, since Ripken, would look something like this:


2B Roberts, B Ripken
CF Finley
RF Markakis
SS Ripken
1B Segui
LF Hammonds
DH Pickering
3B Rayford
C Dempsey's nephew

Starters: Mussina, Bedard, Bod****er, Harnisch, McDonald
Pen: Olsen, Ray, Rhodes, Benitez, Milacki, Maine, Bauer

That's pretty bad for 30 years of work. The pitching staff isn't too bad, and the top of the order is very nice. But overall, this spells futility.

Even with my addition of Bill Ripken @ 2B, that's one pathetic list. If we have to reach all the way to Segui, Hammonds, Pickering, Rayford and Zaun simply to fill a list of home-grown position players, we're a sorrowful bunch.
Also note that only three (I believe) of those players are still in the game, only two are currently Orioles, and only Markakis is likely to spend most of his career here.

[RShack]

We had a thread last week touch on this, though the argument's still valid and open for discussion. I don't remember who started it. Basically, the OP asserted that the O's downfall began in the early 1980's with reduced focus on the farm system (under the two owners prior to Angelos), a problem that has persisted essentially up until last year (though its effects will be felt for a few years still). It's a good thread, though I don't have the time to find it right now. Basically, I think you're right.
I think the most recent thread is this one: http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59377

I know I've mentioned it several times in the past, and a couple other's have too. All this "10 years" stuff is just people being fooled by PA trying to pull a Steinbrenner, which does nothing to fix the problem. The problem started when Hoffberger sold the team to EBW in '79. Others think EBW was a fine owner, but I don't. I say he's the guy who bought *THE* best franchise in baseball and destroyed it. The subsequent owners failed to fix it, but they didn't break it, it was already broken.

[DrungoHazewood]

For as bad as the system was for the last 30 years, we've still managed to produce a HoF SS (Ripken), two ace pitchers (Mussina, Bedard), another solid SP (Bod****er), a closer (Olson) an AS 2B (Roberts) and a slew of decent players (Finley, Harnisch, McDonald, Hammonds, Segui, Rhodes, Benitez, Markakis)

Granted, that's 14 players in a 30 year span.

I think that's well short of a self-sustaining organization, even if they didn't trade half those players. They probably need to do at least twice that well to compete in the AL East with a $50M-$100M payroll disparity.

[Maverick2143]

So the all-farm team, since Ripken, would look something like this:


2B Roberts
CF Finley
RF Markakis
SS Ripken
1B Segui
LF Hammonds
DH Pickering
3B Rayford
C Dempsey's nephew

Starters: Mussina, Bedard, Bod****er, Harnisch, McDonald
Pen: Olsen, Ray, Rhodes, Benitez, Milacki, Maine, Bauer

That's pretty bad for 30 years of work. The pitching staff isn't too bad, and the top of the order is very nice. But overall, this spells futility.

Wow 30 years and that is what the O's produced at 3 critical power positions. The development of power hitters has been awful. Actually, other than Ripken have we developed a 30 HR hitter in the last 30 years?

[DrungoHazewood]

I think the most recent thread is this one: http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59377

I know I've mentioned it several times in the past, and a couple other's have too. All this "10 years" stuff is just people being fooled by PA trying to pull a Steinbrenner, which does nothing to fix the problem. The problem started when Hoffberger sold the team to EBW in '79. Others think EBW was a fine owner, but I don't. I say he's the guy who bought *THE* best franchise in baseball and destroyed it. The subsequent owners failed to fix it, but they didn't break it, it was already broken.

The '83 Champs weren't a young team, and when Lowenstein, Singleton, McGregor, etc went into full-fledged decline there was nothing at all to replace them. The roots of the problem go back to the late 70s. By '84 the team was already eerily similar to the 2000-2007 team. Little coming from the farm, and just enough payroll to sign declining, mediocre free agents to fill the gaps.

[TonySoprano]

Despite having Hank Peters, Orioles GM 1975-1987; and managers, Earl Weaver, manager 1968-1982, 1985-1986, Cal Ripken, Sr, manager, 1987-1988, and Frank Robinson (all of whom were extremely well versed in the "Orioles way"); Edward Bennett Williams, owner 1980-1988 still managed to "destroy" *THE* best franchise in baseball? Furthermore, he so completely "destroyed" *THE* best franchise in such a way that nearly twenty years after he succumbed to cancer, and under the fourteen-year-plus stewardship of Peter G. Angelos, that it could not possibly be rebuilt again? Williams is the real villain, and Peter Angelos is the guy who, *aw shucks*, just couldn't fix it.

[mefogus]

The '83 Champs weren't a young team, and when Lowenstein, Singleton, McGregor, etc went into full-fledged decline there was nothing at all to replace them. The roots of the problem go back to the late 70s. By '84 the team was already eerily similar to the 2000-2007 team. Little coming from the farm, and just enough payroll to sign declining, mediocre free agents to fill the gaps.

Would you say that there was an uptick in youth potential in the 88-90 timeframe? It's arguable, but there is some merit there. Assuming that it is, where did we go wrong again? Glenn Davis?

-m

[TonySoprano]

The '83 Champs weren't a young team, and when Lowenstein, Singleton, McGregor, etc went into full-fledged decline there was nothing at all to replace them. The roots of the problem go back to the late 70s. By '84 the team was already eerily similar to the 2000-2007 team. Little coming from the farm, and just enough payroll to sign declining, mediocre free agents to fill the gaps.The late 70s as in before Williams' time.

Here is the 1983 team (minimum 200 at bats, 50 IP)
Singleton - acquired in trade, 1974
Dempsey - acquired in trade, 1976
McGregor - acquired in trade, 1976
T. Martinez - acquired in trade, 1976
Roenicke - acquired in trade, 1977
Ford - acquired in trade, 1982
Hernandez - acquired in trade, 1982
Gulliver - acquired in trade, 1982
Cruz - acquired in trade, 1983
Bumbry - drafted, 1968
Flanagan - drafted, 1973
Murray - drafted 1973
Dauer - drafted 1974
Shelby - drafted, 1977
Ripken - drafted, 1978
Bod****er - drafted, 1978
Davis - drafted, 1979
Ramirez - drafted, 1979
Young - drafted, 1980
Palmer - free agent, 1963
D. Martinez free agent, 1973
Stewart - free agent, 1975
Stoddard - free agent, 1977
Morogiello - free agent, 1982
Rodriguez - free agent, 1983
Landrum - free agent, 1988
Lowenstein - waiver claim, 1978

In the entire six years leading up to that championship, the farm system produced Shelby, Ripken, Bod****er, Davis, Ramirez, and Young

[RShack]

Tony, if we're gonna all be repeating ourselves from the other thread, I will too...


This whole "argument" is a red herring. Do you not believe in the free market system?
No, I am not saying that the fact that EBW destroyed THE best franchise in baseball means that we should become Socialists. But neither do I think that a guy's ability to destroy a great organization and still make a profit makes him a good guy. Nor am I saying Jacobs and PA were not bad owners. They were. Why do you keep bringing them up to defend EBW? Since EBW was dead by the time the other guys got the team, I don't understand what they have to do with how EBW ruined the franchise.

If you just look at what he did, you're fighting a losing battle. Look at this way: If you're counting on the organization to develop players and maintain a winning culture, it's not an instant thing. Unless you're pulling a Steinbrenner and buying stars who you didn't grow, it takes a while. Can we agree about that? So, how long should we say it takes for the dried-up pipeline to cause problems? The O's signed Cal in '78, and his big ROY year was '82. So, that's a diff of 4 years. I guess we could argue for a little more or a little less, but using Cal seems like a very Oriole thing to do, so let's just say it takes 4 years, OK?

Since EBW was responsible for the 80-88 seasons, that means the effects of the system will be visible on the ML club from 84-92 (unless we had a Steinbrenner in there, which we didn't.) I just looked up the O's winning percentage for those years. They work out to an average winning percentage of .468. For 162 games, that's 76 wins. If we back up and look at the 8 years previous to that, it was .580, which translates to 94 wins. That means that during the years of "the EBW effect", the O's went from *averaging* 94 wins per year, all the way down to 76 wins per year. Now, I know you like to think that Jacobs and PA are way worse than EBW, but they're not. If you take all the O's seasons after the EBW effect, then the winning percentage is .476, which is 77 wins over a 162 game season.

So, to review:
EBW was in charge for about 8 years.
In the 8 years prior to EBW's destruction of the Orioles organization trickling up to the ML club, the O's had an average winning pct of .580, or 94 wins per year.
During the years that EBW's effects show up, the franchise sunk to an average winning pct. of .468, or 76 wins.
In all the years after that time period combined, the franchise had an average winning pct. of .476, or 77 wins.

Face it, Tony, EBW is the guy who screwed the pooch and destroyed the franchise. The 2 guys since have just continued the level of crapitude that EBW established.



Your bias is showing. If EBW is destined for hell, in your book, it's a real good thing Angelos knows a thing or two about asbestos.
Jacobs and PA have zilch to do with EBW. He's they guy who put the O's in the toilet.
What is your allegiance to EBW? I don't get it. Was he your cousin or something?



Class dismissed.
Just one more thought: You keep wanting to give EBW credit for working out a deal with Schaeffer to put the new stadium in the City. Um, how hard do you think it was to convince Willie Don Schaeffer to put it in the City? Don't you think that was approximately as hard as convincing the Pope that it's good to be Catholic?

[Mad Mark]

OK...I want to push this thread back towards its original intent: to get a fix on when the Orioles farm system (as opposed to the ML club) went into the tailspin MacPhail is currently trying to pull it out of.
Among the owners, there's plenty of blame to go around...can we lay that part of the discussion to rest?
Also, I'd like to take this thing in another direction: say we agree on the (approximately) 30-year period in the developmental wilderness. How long (starting from last July) does it take the Orioles to get out? How long before the system is producing a position player a year? And how many pitchers a year should it be producing?

[TinCup]

The subsequent owners failed to fix it, but they didn't break it, it was already broken.

Can something that is broken, be broken even further through continued negligence or mishandling??????

[DrungoHazewood]

Would you say that there was an uptick in youth potential in the 88-90 timeframe? It's arguable, but there is some merit there. Assuming that it is, where did we go wrong again? Glenn Davis?

-m

Some uptick, sure. Finley, Milacki, Harnisch, McDonald, Olson, Worthington, Billy Ripken, Ballard... that's a pretty good core to come up with in a couple years. But Worthington and Ripken were pretty close to defense-only players, and Ballard and Milacki were soft-tossers who benefited from having three centerfielders behind them most nights. The real core was Finley, who developed beyond anyone's wildest expectations, McDonald who was a #1 overal pick, Harnisch and Olson. I'm not sure that's a great track record. Better than the rest of the 80-2000-whatever time frame, but probably what needs to happen most years to really sustain a winning team.

Schilling, Anderson, Devereaux, Bautista, Milligan, Tettleton all came from elsewhere.

And yes, then they traded a lot of that youth for Glenn Davis without the farm picking up enough slack.

[RShack]

OK...I want to push this thread back towards its original intent: to get a fix on when the Orioles farm system (as opposed to the ML club) went into the tailspin MacPhail is currently trying to pull it out of.
Among the owners, there's plenty of blame to go around...
That's a fact, Jack.



Also, I'd like to take this thing in another direction: say we agree on the (approximately) 30-year period in the developmental wilderness. How long (starting from last July) does it take the Orioles to get out? How long before the system is producing a position player a year? And how many pitchers a year should it be producing?
IMO, the clock started ticking, not this past July, but from when Flanny took over the top job from Beattie. I think Flanny understood perfectly well that he had to start growing players. I think the low-end of the farm-system talent shows an uptick because of the direction Flanny set, once he wasn't #2 to Beattie. My hunch is that Flanny either didn't know how, or else didn't have the leeway, to fix the actual MiL system that the young talent is going into, but he did realize that getting good young talent is one key. My hunch is that, before it's all done, fair-minded people will be appreciating Flanny more than they do now. However, I think it will be AM, not Flanny, who will deserve credit for fixing the system and not just the supply of raw-materials.

As for how long, good question. Beats me, I'm just guessing. I think AM will do it faster than his daddy, simply because he's got the Oriole Way blueprint to go by, whereas his daddy had to invent it. IMO, last year we had a 6-Player Team. I'm hoping we can have an 8-Player Team this year, a 10-Player Team by 2009, and a 12-Player Team by 2010. That will let us have a decent shot at the WC. To have a good shot at the WS takes a 13-14 Player Team, and that'll prolly take a year or two longer than 2010 unless we get lucky and/or unless AM is a genius.

[SilentJames]

Tony, if we're gonna all be repeating ourselves from the other thread, I will too...


No, I am not saying that the fact that EBW destroyed THE best franchise in baseball means that we should become Socialists. But neither do I think that a guy's ability to destroy a great organization and still make a profit makes him a good guy. Nor am I saying Jacobs and PA were not bad owners. They were. Why do you keep bringing them up to defend EBW? Since EBW was dead by the time the other guys got the team, I don't understand what they have to do with how EBW ruined the franchise.

If you just look at what he did, you're fighting a losing battle. Look at this way: If you're counting on the organization to develop players and maintain a winning culture, it's not an instant thing. Unless you're pulling a Steinbrenner and buying stars who you didn't grow, it takes a while. Can we agree about that? So, how long should we say it takes for the dried-up pipeline to cause problems? The O's signed Cal in '78, and his big ROY year was '82. So, that's a diff of 4 years. I guess we could argue for a little more or a little less, but using Cal seems like a very Oriole thing to do, so let's just say it takes 4 years, OK?

Since EBW was responsible for the 80-88 seasons, that means the effects of the system will be visible on the ML club from 84-92 (unless we had a Steinbrenner in there, which we didn't.) I just looked up the O's winning percentage for those years. They work out to an average winning percentage of .468. For 162 games, that's 76 wins. If we back up and look at the 8 years previous to that, it was .580, which translates to 94 wins. That means that during the years of "the EBW effect", the O's went from *averaging* 94 wins per year, all the way down to 76 wins per year. Now, I know you like to think that Jacobs and PA are way worse than EBW, but they're not. If you take all the O's seasons after the EBW effect, then the winning percentage is .476, which is 77 wins over a 162 game season.

So, to review:
EBW was in charge for about 8 years.
In the 8 years prior to EBW's destruction of the Orioles organization trickling up to the ML club, the O's had an average winning pct of .580, or 94 wins per year.
During the years that EBW's effects show up, the franchise sunk to an average winning pct. of .468, or 76 wins.
In all the years after that time period combined, the franchise had an average winning pct. of .476, or 77 wins.

Face it, Tony, EBW is the guy who screwed the pooch and destroyed the franchise. The 2 guys since have just continued the level of crapitude that EBW established.


Jacobs and PA have zilch to do with EBW. He's they guy who put the O's in the toilet.
What is your allegiance to EBW? I don't get it. Was he your cousin or something?


Just one more thought: You keep wanting to give EBW credit for working out a deal with Schaeffer to put the new stadium in the City. Um, how hard do you think it was to convince Willie Don Schaeffer to put it in the City? Don't you think that was approximately as hard as convincing the Pope that it's good to be Catholic?

God this is such a good post. Willie Don had to put the team in the city. EBW was a DC boy and wanted to move the team out of the city. Not to DC, but between DC and Baltimore.

GO LINTHICUM ORIOLES!

[BaltimoreTerp]

God this is such a good post. Willie Don had to put the team in the city. EBW was a DC boy and wanted to move the team out of the city. Not to DC, but between DC and Baltimore.

GO LINTHICUM ORIOLES!

The real "Mid-Atlantics", to bring in stuff from another thread.

[TonySoprano]

Tony, if we're gonna all be repeating ourselves from the other thread, I will too...Go back to your opening post here. It was redundant to what you had already written.

So to review (and be redundant myself):

*Hank Peters, General Manager 1975-1987
*Earl Weaver, Cal Sr, Frank Robinson, all managers

* Notables in the farm system pipeline six years prior to EBW -Ripken, Jr, Bod****er, Davis. Period.

Face it, if the "pooch was screwed" the DNA tests show it was before Williams' time. Specifically, I'd have Hank Peters submitted for DNA testing.

Hoffberger stayed out of the way of his general manager, to which former GM Frank Cashen said, "Hank was spoiled. I mean Jerry was about the best owner there was as far as staying out of the way." However, it wasn't until after the 1983 season that EBW began to assert himself as owner.

In Hank Peters own words:

"And in this one meeting Ed says to me, "I can't let you run things any longer the way we've been doing. I've got to have the final word."
"I told Ed, "we're getting old. You're going to have to go through a transitional period where maybe we don't win. We have to rebuild. And he said, "bull." Now you have to appreciate this man was ill with cancer and he knows more about his health than I do. And I guess his years are numbered he didn't want to go through a transitional period."Reference - John Eisenberg, " From 33rd Street to Camden Yards"


Note to Silent James - In the end, the team stayed in Baltimore thanks to Edward Bennett Williams and his vision that a new ballpark was needed. Would Schaeffer have built one on his own? I really doubt it.

Williams was the one that marketed the team to the Washington area, to the press, to the politicans, and to the business big wigs. For the first time in *THE* best franchise history, under his watch, attendance at Memorial Stadium exceeded 2 million. But don't take my word for it, this is what former GM Frank Cashen has to say:

"I say this unequivocally: the guy who turned the attendance around was Ed Bennett Williams. When the Senators left, sports fans in Washington really disliked Baltimore. Ed Williams made it socially acceptable to come to Baltimore to see a ball game. And how he did it - he probably did it unwittingly - he started bringing over Supreme Court justices and judges and congressmen, and that got publicity, and then the people started coming. He's the guy that changed the whole thing around as far as drawing people. I give him all the credit for that." Reference - John Eisenberg, " From 33rd Street to Camden Yards"

EBW's record:
*Camden Yards
* Increased attendance at Memorial Stadium
*Reliance (in the case of Peters, over-reliance) on key players in the Orioles Way - Weaver, Ripken, Sr. Robinson, Peters.

[NewMarketSean]

The subsequent owners failed to fix it, but they didn't break it, it was already broken.

I agree, but it still seems like you are trying to steer blame away from Angelos.

The O's were in-deed broken when Angelos took the team over, but he had more resources (new stadium, better TV deals, improved attendance) to improve the organization. He didn't. Plus, he was a Baltimore guy who loved the city, the team, and the fans.

It all looked good from the start.

It's like bringing in Donald Trump to fix an ailing company. And when he fails to do it, it looks even worse than before. IMO, what happened with the O's before Angelos became owner really doesn't matter. Within 5 years he should have improved things. He did, kind of.

But then it went bad.

So Angelos is to blame more than EBW, IMO for those reasons.

[TinCup]

Can something that is broken, be broken even further through continued negligence or mishandling??????

Sometimes one must answer their own question, and I say yes, something broken can be rendered even worse off, i.e., broken even more.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Go back to your opening post here. It was redundant to what you had already written.

So to review (and be redundant myself):

*Hank Peters, General Manager 1975-1987
*Earl Weaver, Cal Sr, Frank Robinson, all managers

* Notables in the farm system pipeline six years prior to EBW -Ripken, Jr, Bod****er, Davis. Period.

Face it, if the "pooch was screwed" the DNA tests show it was before Williams' time. Specifically, I'd have Hank Peters submitted for DNA testing.

Hoffberger stayed out of the way of his general manager, to which former GM Frank Cashen said, "Hank was spoiled. I mean Jerry was about the best owner there was as far as staying out of the way." However, it wasn't until after the 1983 season that EBW began to assert himself as owner.

In Hank Peters own words:
Reference - John Eisenberg, " From 33rd Street to Camden Yards"


Note to Silent James - In the end, the team stayed in Baltimore thanks to Edward Bennett Williams and his vision that a new ballpark was needed. Would Schaeffer have built one on his own? I really doubt it.

Williams was the one that marketed the team to the Washington area, to the press, to the politicans, and to the business big wigs. For the first time in *THE* best franchise history, under his watch, attendance at Memorial Stadium exceeded 2 million. But don't take my word for it, this is what former GM Frank Cashen has to say:
Reference - John Eisenberg, " From 33rd Street to Camden Yards"

EBW's record:
*Camden Yards
* Increased attendance at Memorial Stadium
*Reliance (in the case of Peters, over-reliance) on key players in the Orioles Way - Weaver, Ripken, Sr. Robinson, Peters.

Williams held the city hostage after the Colts left, mostly because Schaffer had his pride wounded and didn't want it further damaged. He used the support from DC as a weapon to suggest that the team should move closer to the District as a true regional team (Angelos has nothing on him in that regard).

[BaltimoreTerp]

Sometimes one must answer their own question, and I say yes, something broken can be rendered even worse off, i.e., broken even more.

I'd argue more that it was broken and then those who followed either failed to care enough (Jacobs) or didn't figure out the right way to fix it (Angelos), at least until recent years.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I agree, but it still seems like you are trying to steer blame away from Angelos.

The O's were in-deed broken when Angelos took the team over, but he had more resources (new stadium, better TV deals, improved attendance) to improve the organization. He didn't. Plus, he was a Baltimore guy who loved the city, the team, and the fans.

It all looked good from the start.

It's like bringing in Donald Trump to fix an ailing company. And when he fails to do it, it looks even worse than before. IMO, what happened with the O's before Angelos became owner really doesn't matter. Within 5 years he should have improved things. He did, kind of.

But then it went bad.

So Angelos is to blame more than EBW, IMO for those reasons.

The question is, did he break the team further, or just fail to succeed in fixing it? They are two seperate outcomes.

If something is wrong with my car and I try to fix it (knowing nothing about them), I can try a hundred different ways and fail to fix the problem without having it broken further. That doesn't mean I am at fault for the problem, just that I don't know enough to fix it.

The problem with Angelos comes with knowing what to do when there is a problem. With a car, you hire a qualified mechanic. With a baseball franchise you hire someone you trust to run it for you. It appears that is what is happening now with MacPhail.

[NewMarketSean]

The question is, did he break the team further, or just fail to succeed in fixing it? They are two seperate outcomes.

If something is wrong with my car and I try to fix it (knowing nothing about them), I can try a hundred different ways and fail to fix the problem without having it broken further. That doesn't mean I am at fault for the problem, just that I don't know enough to fix it.

The problem with Angelos comes with knowing what to do when there is a problem. With a car, you hire a qualified mechanic. With a baseball franchise you hire someone you trust to run it for you. It appears that is what is happening now with MacPhail.

It's open for interpretation. But if you know nothing about cars, and you are overriding the people you hire to fix your car, then you are making the problem even worse, regardless of what condition the car was in.

Basically, Angelos took the team when it was at it's highest value, with plenty of resources and came just short of destroying it. Pretty much any one inside of the Beltway could have done a better job with what he had at his disposal and the people he had around him.

There is a tragic feel to what Angelos has done. He was supposed to be the savior.

[RShack]

Hoffberger stayed out of the way of his general manager, to which former GM Frank Cashen said, "Hank was spoiled. I mean Jerry was about the best owner there was as far as staying out of the way."
Exactly.
The only good thing on Hank Peter's entire resume is the years when the farm system was still showing the effects of Jerry Hoffberger's ownership.
After Hoffberger, it took some time for the subsequent carnage to ruin the big-league club.
Except for the Hoffberger years, and the guys who trickled up from them (like Cal), Hank Peters' resume is terrible.

What's your point? For some reason, you keep insisting that EBW is not responsible for what happened on his watch.
Why? He was the owner, so he's the guy responsible.

You can't have one rule for PA and a different rule for everybody else just because you wanna make excuses for EBW. If you wanna blame PA for what he did (which is fine, he deserves it), then you can't let EBW off the hook for what he did. And what he did was take a team that averaged 94 W's per season and turned it in to one that averaged 76 W's per season.



In Hank Peters own words:

"And in this one meeting Ed says to me, "I can't let you run things any longer the way we've been doing. I've got to have the final word."


"I told Ed, "we're getting old. You're going to have to go through a transitional period where maybe we don't win. We have to rebuild. And he said, "bull." Now you have to appreciate this man was ill with cancer and he knows more about his health than I do. And I guess his years are numbered he didn't want to go through a transitional period."
Reference - John Eisenberg, " From 33rd Street to Camden Yards"
Great. So the Big Excuse for destroying the best franchise in baseball is that EBW had cancer.

Who cares? Lots of people get sick and die. My Mom got cancer and died. She didn't destroy anything. She arranged things so Dad would be as-OK-as-possible, and there was no mess to clean up after her. She inspired us by how she did it. She knew she was dying, so she made things *better*, not worse.

Being sick doesn't justify destroying the best franchise in baseball. That was just one terrible owner being as selfish as he could possibly be. He didn't give two hoots about the future of the franchise. He just wanted to meddle until he died. He set the precedent for meddling by Oriole owners. Before him, Oriole owners didn't meddle and screw things up.

EBW didn't have to build a single thing about the farm system. It was *already built*. The Baltimore Orioles organization was the one that everybody else was trying to copy. The only thing EBW had to do was not screw it up. He screwed it up. If you just look at the team's record, and adjust for how long it takes for ignoring the farm system to screw up the big-league club, the record is clear as day: EBW is the guy who *ruined* the Baltimore Orioles.

[BaltimoreTerp]

It's open for interpretation. But if you know nothing about cars, and you are overriding the people you hire to fix your car, then you are making the problem even worse, regardless of what condition the car was in.

Basically, Angelos took the team when it was at it's highest value, with plenty of resources and came just short of destroying it. Pretty much any one inside of the Beltway could have done a better job with what he had at his disposal and the people he had around him.

There is a tragic feel to what Angelos has done. He was supposed to be the savior.

I'm surprised no writer has figured that out and turned it into one hell of a newspaper or magazine story.

Angelos would be a great tragic hero (saving the source of civic pride, shows a major tragic flaw that manifests itself at the height of success, he's even Greek!), and there is a clearly defined introduction, rising action, high point, and fall.

Man, I've taken too many English classes :D

[mefogus]

Some uptick, sure. Finley, Milacki, Harnisch, McDonald, Olson, Worthington, Billy Ripken, Ballard... that's a pretty good core to come up with in a couple years.

...

Schilling, Anderson, Devereaux, Bautista, Milligan, Tettleton all came from elsewhere.

I do not disagree that the 88-90 time frame, while solid relative to the 25+ years surrounding it, was still quite weak. However, given that the system had all of the above players, it is almost incomprehensible that nothing could be built on it. Even looking ahead to the two playoff years, the majority of these players were long gone and had been used as leverage to create anything of value. So really, given the system at the beginning of the 1990 season, it is a tremendous failure of the team to have turned that into nothing. Looking back at it in this light really makes that whole 1989 season into more of a fluke than I could have ever imagined.

-m

[RShack]

I'd argue more that it was broken and then those who followed either failed to care enough (Jacobs) or didn't figure out the right way to fix it (Angelos), at least until recent years.
With Jacobs, it's kinda hard to tell about how much he cared. All we know for sure is that he was too broke to do anything. AFAIK, the only good thing about him is that he pushed to make OPACY old-timey and quirky. They had to get special exemptions from MLB to make OPACY the way they did. RF is the way it is because of what Jacobs remembered from Ebbetts field. Other than that, he was bad about fixing anything. But was it not caring or just being broke? I don't know how to tell. I don't know if anybody does.

[Mad Mark]

I agree, but it still seems like you are trying to steer blame away from Angelos.

The O's were in-deed broken when Angelos took the team over, but he had more resources (new stadium, better TV deals, improved attendance) to improve the organization. He didn't. Plus, he was a Baltimore guy who loved the city, the team, and the fans.

It all looked good from the start.

It's like bringing in Donald Trump to fix an ailing company. And when he fails to do it, it looks even worse than before. IMO, what happened with the O's before Angelos became owner really doesn't matter. Within 5 years he should have improved things. He did, kind of.

But then it went bad.

So Angelos is to blame more than EBW, IMO for those reasons.

Sean:
The major flaw in your argument is that it concentrates on the Major League team, while ignoring what was going on in the Minors. Angelos might have gotten away with a free-agency based strategy--for a while, anyway--if Steinbrenner's "lifetime ban from baseball" had lasted for more than half an hour. As it was, Gene Michael was able to put together the Yankee$ class of 1996 (Jeter, et al), Jeffrey Mayer stole the 1996 ALCS, and all of a sudden, the endle$$ $tream of ca$h that runs through the Bronx was five times as deep and no one, not Peter Angelos, not Elvis, not Jesus, no one was ever going to be able to out-spend the Yankee$ ever again.

Again, I'll return to the house metaphor: EBW planned for and Eli Jacobs built a really nice addition (Camden Yards) to the Orioles casa, but failed to do anything about a basement that was flooding, and eating away at the house's foundation.

[TonySoprano]

Exactly.
The only good thing on Hank Peter's entire resume is the years when the farm system was still showing the effects of Jerry Hoffberger's ownership.
After Hoffberger, it took some time for the subsequent carnage to ruin the big-league club.
Except for the Hoffberger years, and the guys who trickled up from them (like Cal), Hank Peters' resume is terrible. Peters' resume' started five years before Williams took over as owner. I have already noted that Williams' mistake was over-reliance on Peters. The buck does stop on Williams' desk, but it has Peters' fingerprints all over it. However, in EBW's defense, Peters was kept after five years under Hoffberger, and Williams may have wanted to continue what had appeared was working (e.g. A.L. Championship in 1979).



EBW didn't have to build a single thing about the farm system. It was *already built*. I have already noted, twice, that the pipeline from the farm system that he inherited wasn't nearly as rich as you want to argue. But then, what really is your argument? Explain to me how the farm system was *already built* when in your own words you also conversely say "Hank Peters' resume is terrible." Those two things aren't contradictory?

Peters had full reign over who to draft and not to draft. You want to make the case that Peters did O.K. in that department under Hoffberger and only converted to a failure upon Williams' arrival, despite the fact that Williams was a hands-off owner for the first four years, as had been Hoffberger. It's a damn lucky thing for Peters that Cal,Sr. had a son who turned into a hall of famer, because if it wasn't for Senior, Peters may never have drafted Cal Jr.

[Mad Mark]

Why did Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (now FedEx Field) get built in Largo, instead of the RFK parking lots? Because JKC was dying, and didn't have time to eff around with the corrupt banana republic that is the District of Columbia, and he was getting NIMBY'd to distraction in Northern Virginia and Silver Spring.
Why did Edward Bennett Williams go free-agent crazy, trying to buy a win at the Major League level, while ignoring enormous problems at the Minor League level? Because he was dying, and wanted his legacy to be a World Series trophy. Hell of a lot more visible than an epitaph that reads "he fixed what most of you didn't know was broken."

[66-70-83-??]

Williams held the city hostage after the Colts left, mostly because Schaffer had his pride wounded and didn't want it further damaged. He used the support from DC as a weapon to suggest that the team should move closer to the District as a true regional team (Angelos has nothing on him in that regard).


EBW never threatened to move the Orioles to DC. He did fight for a new stadium and would only sign short-term leases at Memorial.

EBW was a Marylander. He wasn't looking to be public enemy #1. There was no way he was going to move the team from Baltimore to DC. DC had already lost two baseball teams. It wasnt ripe for a third one. Besides, MLB would have blocked such a move.

That would be like Warren Buffet buying the Cards and moving them to Omaha. Balto was a much better baseball town than DC.

If not for EBW, there would be no OPACY and probably no baseball in Baltimore. If the Orioles didnt get OPACY it is quite possible that the team would have been sold and moved by a new owner.

[Mad Mark]

So, is it now the groups' consensus that the rot set in before 1978? Or does that still work as a point where we can say the ship began to go off course?

[TonySoprano]

So, is it now the groups' consensus that the rot set in before 1978? Or does that still work as a point where we can say the ship began to go off course?Speaking for myself, not the group, what got broken, started during the last few years of Hoffberger's watch, with Peters steering the ship.

[RShack]

You want to make the case that Peters did O.K. in that department under Hoffberger and only converted to a failure upon Williams' arrival, despite the fact that Williams was a hands-off owner for the first four years, as had been Hoffberger. It's a damn lucky thing for Peters that Cal,Sr. had a son who turned into a hall of famer, because if it wasn't for Senior, Peters may never have drafted Cal Jr.
I want to simply acknowledge that the record clearly shows that the Baltimore Orioles got ruined under the ownership of EBW. I don't know why you insist on making excuses for the guy. He's the owner who bought THE BEST franchise in baseball and left us with a thoroughly crappy organization, and he's the guy who set the precedent of meddling owners. Before him, the Orioles never had one, ever. Before EBW the Orioles owners undertook their ownership as a civic responsibility (plus, they wanted to sell beer). They took the eternally-crappy St. Louis Browns and turned it into THE BEST organization in baseball. That continued until EBW decided to screw things up. The things quoted in your posts *show* that he decided to meddle, that he didn't want to do things the right way.

If you want to pin it on Peters, then you're saying it's *not* the owner's fault for what happened on his watch. Plus, you're saying that it took 9 years after Peters for the organization to suck, and you're also trying to shift the blame from EBW to Hoffberger, who *everybody* (including the record books) say was a great owner. I don't believe any of those things, and I don't understand why you keep trying to argue that EBW was not a terrible owner. He was a terrible owner. He took THE BEST franchise in baseball and he ruined it.

Somehow you're in love with the guy and I don't know why. You try to make it sound like he had to *convince* Willie Don Schaeffer to keep the team in the City. That's crazy. Schaeffer was *married* to the City, and would have done *anything* to keep them in the City. But somehow you try to spin it like EBW had to talk him into it. You keep trying to make up excuses to let EBW off the hook for the crappy job he did as owner. When I ask you why, you say you're tired of the little jokes about it. So, here's my last little joke: Is it because you have a Mafia handle and EBW was a Mafia lawyer? If not, then why oh why do you keep trying to shift the blame elsewhere? First you wanna blame it on cancer. Now, you wanna blame it on Hoffberger, who everybody-but-you says was a perfectly great owner. Good luck with that.

Face it, EBW sucked as an owner. Then he died. From the standpoint of the Baltimore Orioles, the only good news in that story is that he's dead.

[66-70-83-??]

I want to simply acknowledge that the record clearly shows that the Baltimore Orioles got ruined under the ownership of EBW. I don't know why you insist on making excuses for the guy. He's the owner who bought THE BEST franchise in baseball and left us with a thoroughly crappy organization, and he's the guy who set the precedent of meddling owners. Before him, the Orioles never had one, ever. Before EBW the Orioles owners undertook their ownership as a civic responsibility (plus, they wanted to sell beer). They took the eternally-crappy St. Louis Browns and turned it into THE BEST organization in baseball. That continued until EBW decided to screw things up. The things quoted in your posts *show* that he decided to meddle, that he didn't want to do things the right way.

If you want to pin it on Peters, then you're saying it's *not* the owner's fault for what happened on his watch. Plus, you're saying that it took 9 years after Peters for the organization to suck, and you're also trying to shift the blame from EBW to Hoffberger, who *everybody* (including the record books) say was a great owner. I don't believe any of those things, and I don't understand why you keep trying to argue that EBW was not a terrible owner. He was a terrible owner. He took THE BEST franchise in baseball and he ruined it.

Somehow you're in love with the guy and I don't know why. You try to make it sound like he had to *convince* Willie Don Schaeffer to keep the team in the City. That's crazy. Schaeffer was *married* to the City, and would have done *anything* to keep them in the City. But somehow you try to spin it like EBW had to talk him into it. You keep trying to make up excuses to let EBW off the hook for the crappy job he did as owner. When I ask you why, you say you're tired of the little jokes about it. So, here's my last little joke: Is it because you have a Mafia handle and EBW was a Mafia lawyer? If not, then why oh why do you keep trying to shift the blame elsewhere? First you wanna blame it on cancer. Now, you wanna blame it on Hoffberger, who everybody-but-you says was a perfectly great owner. Good luck with that.

Face it, EBW sucked as an owner. Then he died. From the standpoint of the Baltimore Orioles, the only good news in that story is that he's dead.

There are a couple of other little things that likely wouldn't have happened if not for EBW owning the Orioles: ;)

OPACY gets built.

Orioles still play home games in Baltimore.

[TonySoprano]

Shack, instead of asking questions, how about answering some of mine that I have already asked first?

How did Peters become a lousy GM under Williams' watch but was just fine for five years under Hoffberger?


"If you want to pin it on Peters, then you're saying it's *not* the owner's fault for what happened on his watch." Quite clearly, more than once, I have already conceded that Williams mistake was hanging on to Hoffberger's GM for as long as he did. I know Hoffberger's a legend here, and rightfully so. However, that doesn't mean he was infallible, specifically in the case of Hank Peters.

What I know is there are people in the Baltimore area have a raging hard-on against anything from D.C. Williams was from the D.C. area (as I was) so by definition he must be a bad guy, facts be damned, case dismissed. It has nothing at all to do with this mafia red herring that you continue to leave rotting at my door. (Get some new material will you please?)

Williams was a lousy owner even though he got plans for a new ballpark started, increased attendance, and expanded Baltimore's market into the D.C. area. However, Williams was from D.C., so he must be burning in hell right now.

[RShack]

Shack, instead of asking questions, how about answering some of mine that I have already asked first?

How did Peters become a lousy GM under Williams' watch but was just fine for five years under Hoffberger?
Because he went from working for an owner who emphasized the right priorities to working for one who emphasized the wrong priorities.

That's how it is with borderline guys: they can do OK under good leadership and crappy under bad leadership. You could say the same thing about John Lowenstein.



What I know is there are people in the Baltimore area have a raging hard-on against anything from D.C. Williams was from the D.C. area (as I was) so by definition he must be a bad guy, facts be damned, case dismissed.
I don't care where he's from. Doesn't matter where he's from. Being from DC has nothing to do with it as far as I'm concerned.

AFAIK, the only difference his DC-ties made was that he wanted to put the new ballpark outside the City on the DC side... until Schaeffer told him he'd get the whole thing paid for as long as it was in the City.

I don't know why you give EBW credit for attendance getting better. What did he do that was so special to improve attendance? AFAIK, that happened mainly because Irsay ruined the Colts and then snuck them out of town in the middle of the night, so the O's were the only team left and everybody rallied around the O's. What's that got to do with EBW?

[TonySoprano]

Because he went from working for an owner who emphasized the right priorities to working for one who emphasized the wrong priorities. I'm not buying that one bit. Peters, by his own admission, did not have Williams intervene until after the 1983 season.


AFAIK, the only difference his DC-ties made was that he wanted to put the new ballpark outside the City on the DC side... until Schaeffer told him he'd get the whole thing paid for as long as it was in the City. The big point that you keep dismissing is that there wouldn't have been a new stadium at all if it was up to Schaeffer. It took Williams to get the ball rolling.


I don't know why you give EBW credit for attendance getting better. Not only do I give him credit but so does Frank Cashen (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1223074&postcount=36), who may just know more about the subject than you or me;)

[SteveA]

I want to simply acknowledge that the record clearly shows that the Baltimore Orioles got ruined under the ownership of EBW. I don't know why you insist on making excuses for the guy. He's the owner who bought THE BEST franchise in baseball and left us with a thoroughly crappy organization, and he's the guy who set the precedent of meddling owners. Before him, the Orioles never had one, ever. Before EBW the Orioles owners undertook their ownership as a civic responsibility (plus, they wanted to sell beer). They took the eternally-crappy St. Louis Browns and turned it into THE BEST organization in baseball. That continued until EBW decided to screw things up. The things quoted in your posts *show* that he decided to meddle, that he didn't want to do things the right way.

If you want to pin it on Peters, then you're saying it's *not* the owner's fault for what happened on his watch. Plus, you're saying that it took 9 years after Peters for the organization to suck, and you're also trying to shift the blame from EBW to Hoffberger, who *everybody* (including the record books) say was a great owner. I don't believe any of those things, and I don't understand why you keep trying to argue that EBW was not a terrible owner. He was a terrible owner. He took THE BEST franchise in baseball and he ruined it.

Somehow you're in love with the guy and I don't know why. You try to make it sound like he had to *convince* Willie Don Schaeffer to keep the team in the City. That's crazy. Schaeffer was *married* to the City, and would have done *anything* to keep them in the City. But somehow you try to spin it like EBW had to talk him into it. You keep trying to make up excuses to let EBW off the hook for the crappy job he did as owner. When I ask you why, you say you're tired of the little jokes about it. So, here's my last little joke: Is it because you have a Mafia handle and EBW was a Mafia lawyer? If not, then why oh why do you keep trying to shift the blame elsewhere? First you wanna blame it on cancer. Now, you wanna blame it on Hoffberger, who everybody-but-you says was a perfectly great owner. Good luck with that.

Face it, EBW sucked as an owner. Then he died. From the standpoint of the Baltimore Orioles, the only good news in that story is that he's dead.

All well and good. But no franchise is unfixable. A new owner hires his own people and they are TOTALLY responsible for the state of the franchise 7 or 8 years later. In previous iterations of this argument, you have tried to blame EBW for the current state of this franchise. And that is just not the case. Every player ever drafted under his regime has lretired from baseball. Every key baseball position in the organization has been refilled multiple times since he left; the only employees left from his time are in positions that have little impact on the team put on the field (ushers, vendors, ticket people, etc).

Every player in our organization was drafted or acquired by someone that Peter Angelos hired. Every one. So NO OWNER BUT ANGELOS is responsible for our bad farm system. Yes, it first went bad under EBW. No argument there. But the fact that it was bad in 1987 has NO EFFECT on it being bad now.

Other posts in this thread made the comparison to a car. EBW broke the car and Angelos hasn't fixed it. That isn't a good analogy because by its nature, with personnel moving through it, a farm system will completely replenish itself after 6 or 7 years. An organization will pretty much completely replenish itself in a decade or 12 years; maybe there will be one Ripken who stays in an organization for more than a dozen years, but they are rare. So it's not like a car, that will stay broke if you don't fix it. A farm system is constantly replenished by players each year, and old ones get pushed out, so certainly after a decade, if a system is bad it is ONLY because of the owner who has owned the team for the past 12+ years. The fact that EBW was the first person to ruin the farm system is completely irrelevant to the situation we are in today.

[RShack]

I'm not buying that one bit. Peters, by his own admission, did not have Williams intervene until after the 1983 season.
Yep, "by his own admission", Peters was more than happy to take credit for the '83 WS team and only blame EBW for what happened after that.

So, then, we're in agreement that destroying the franchise was EBW's fault, we're only disagreeing about the year. Right? Or are you still saying it's Hoffberger's fault?


The big point that you keep dismissing is that there wouldn't have been a new stadium at all if it was up to Schaeffer. It took Williams to get the ball rolling.
If by "get the ball rolling" you mean blackmailing the City by threatening to move to team out of town, to get the team closer to DC, then you are absolutely correct. That's one thing Hoffberger never did: He never blackmailed the City and threatened to move the team unless he got a new stadium for free. Silly Hoffberger, he should've been an extortionist like EBW was. Put it all on the taxpayer's dime, it was a very cost-effective move.

However, IIRC, the fans didn't want a new stadium downtown. The fans liked watching ballgames at Memorial Stadium just fine. What the fans wanted was some more restrooms at Memorial Stadium. IIRC, the fans teared-up when the days at Memorial Stadium came to and end. The fans didn't demand a new stadium, but we got one because of EBW's extortion threats. Now, I agree completely that OPACY turned out great. That was due to a combination of things: EBW's blackmail, Schaeffer's skill at finding the money to buy his "loyalty" with a free new stadium, and Jacob's insistence on making it old-timey and quirky. It turned out great. Schaeffer provided the money, Jacobs provided the vision, and EBW provided the extortion. In that sense, it was a very team effort.

As for the attendance, please tell me what EBW did that was so brilliant. I don't know because I wasn't there. All I know is what friends and family told me, and what they said was the Irsay ruined the Colts and then stole them, and every rotten thing he did helped people switch allegience from the Colts to the Orioles. In the end, the Orioles were all that people had left, so they turned their allegiance to the Orioles. But, evidently, that's all wrong. Evidently it had very little to do with that, right? Evidently, it was just a coincidence that that's when it happened. Evidently, all credit goes to EBW, right? So, exactly what did EBW to increase attendence? If it wasn't about people shifting their passion from the Colts to the Orioles, what was it? And how did EBW do it? By what masterstroke did he turn a football-town into a baseball-town?

[TonySoprano]

So, then, we're in agreement that destroying the franchise was EBW's fault, we're only disagreeing about the year. Right? Or are you still saying it's Hoffberger's fault?I've consistently said it was Peters' fault. Hoffberger had him for five years, Williams for seven, both made a mistake.

[TonySoprano]

Silly Hoffberger, he should've been an extortionist like EBW was. Put it all on the taxpayer's dime, it was a very cost-effective move.Oriole Park was built with Maryland State Lottery money.

As for the attendance, please tell me what EBW did that was so brilliant. I don't know because I wasn't there. All I know is what friends and family told me, and what they said was the Irsay ruined the Colts and then stole them, and every rotten thing he did helped people switch allegience from the Colts to the Orioles. In the end, the Orioles

As everyone in the area is painfully aware, the Colts left in the middle of the night in March 1984.

Attendance
1977 - 1,195,769
1978 - 1,051,724
1979 - 1,681,009
1980 - 1,797,438
1981 - 1,024, 247 (Strike shortened, 105 game split season)
1982 - 1,613,031
1983 - 2,042,071 (Colts still here)
1984 - 2,045,784
1985 - 2,132,387

Then again, I suppose your family and friends also know better than Frank Cashen.:rolleyes:

[RShack]

I've consistently said it was Peters' fault. Hoffberger had him for five years, Williams for seven, both made a mistake.
You're happy to slam owners as long as it's PA. But when it comes to previous owners, they're not responsible? It's just the guys who work for them? Unless the owner is PA, they've got teflon and aren't responsible for what happens on their watch? It's all their employees' fault? OK, I see...

So, that leaves just 2 questions:

Except for using extortion to get a new stadium, what did EBW do that was good?

And if it wasn't about the Colts, exactly how did EBW turn a football-town into a baseball-town?

[66-70-83-??]

You're happy to slam owners as long as it's PA. But when it comes to previous owners, they're not responsible? It's just the guys who work for them? Unless the owner is PA, they've got teflon and aren't responsible for what happens on their watch? It's all their employees' fault? OK, I see...

So, that leaves just 2 questions:

Except for using extortion to get a new stadium, what did EBW do that was good?

And if it wasn't about the Colts, exactly how did EBW turn a football-town into a baseball-town?

Extortion ?

What is with the irrational hatred for EBW?

In Eisenbergs book on the O's Frank Cashen, Joe Hamper and Larry Lucchino all give credit to EBW for the attendence increase (courting the DC crowd- bringing Supreme Court Justices, Politicians, etc.. and the subsequent publicity), getting OPACY built, and ultimately keeping the team in Baltimore.

[TonySoprano]

Have you not read anything I have written up to this point? Seriously.
You're happy to slam owners as long as it's PA. But when it comes to previous owners, they're not responsible?Answer: Here (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1223144&postcount=48) and here (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1223333&postcount=55) , and for the third time here (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1223464&postcount=60)


And if it wasn't about the Colts, exactly how did EBW turn a football-town into a baseball-town?Answer : here (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1223074&postcount=36)

Honestly, my reason to debate with someone whose hardened preconceived notion is that Williams should be burning in hell (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1217686&postcount=25) is that it may have been more of an academic exercise for the rest of the board, because I'm convinced no counter-argument could sway you.

[66-70-83-??]

Oriole Park was built with Maryland State Lottery money.

As everyone in the area is painfully aware, the Colts left in the middle of the night in March 1984.

Attendance
1977 - 1,195,769
1978 - 1,051,724
1979 - 1,681,009
1980 - 1,797,438
1981 - 1,024, 247 (Strike shortened, 105 game split season)
1982 - 1,613,031
1983 - 2,042,071 (Colts still here)
1984 - 2,045,784
1985 - 2,132,387

Then again, I suppose your family and friends also know better than Frank Cashen.:rolleyes:

Not only was OPACY and M&T Stadium built with Lottery Money- but dedicated scratch-off instant Lottery tickets. The tickets were clearly marked as to what the funds were supporting.

So, if you were against funding the stadium you simply did not purchase one of the scratch-off games that were dedicated to the stadium.

[SteveA]

Not only was OPACY and M&T Stadium built with Lottery Money- but dedicated scratch-off instant Lottery tickets. The tickets were clearly marked as to what the funds were supporting.

So, if you were against funding the stadium you simply did not purchase one of the scratch-off games that were dedicated to the stadium.

Weren't there also some bonds issued for it?

[BaltimoreTerp]

Weren't there also some bonds issued for it?

That's what the lottery paid for.

[BaltimoreTerp]

http://www.amazon.com/Ballpark-Camden-Yards-Building-American/dp/0684800489/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203657689&sr=8-1

Highly-recommended reading.

[RShack]

Honestly, my reason to debate with someone whose hardened preconceived notion is that Williams should be burning in hell (http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1217686&postcount=25) is that it may have been more of an academic exercise for the rest of the board, because I'm convinced no counter-argument could sway you.
Are you really telling me that the main reason O's attendance went up is not because of passion shifting from the Colts to the O's, but instead is because EBW got Supreme Court guys and Congressman to come up from DC? Like I said, I wasn't there and I only know what friends and family told me... and AFAIK, the upswing in O's attendance pretty much tracks the deterioration of the Colts under Irsay... I was going on what people in Baltimore told me...

Now, I knew that more people came from DC after the Senators left... and that cranked up a lot when OPACY opened... but this is the very first time I've heard somebody ignore the Colts-factor and instead credit it to Supreme Court justices and Congressmen leading the charge...

Just curious, is that what most folks believe? That it wasn't about a football-town becoming a baseball-town, but instead was Congressmen and Justices somehow making it OK for DC folks to come to O's games? Is that really what happened? Because if it is, I've got friends and family who I need to correct about this...

[RShack]

As everyone in the area is painfully aware, the Colts left in the middle of the night in March 1984.

Attendance
1977 - 1,195,769
1978 - 1,051,724
1979 - 1,681,009
1980 - 1,797,438
1981 - 1,024, 247 (Strike shortened, 105 game split season)
1982 - 1,613,031
1983 - 2,042,071 (Colts still here)
1984 - 2,045,784
1985 - 2,132,387

Then again, I suppose your family and friends also know better than Frank Cashen.:rolleyes:
Oh good grief... I never said it happened all-the-sudden when the Colts left. I said that everybody I know told me that it tracked the deterioration of the Colts under Irsay, which was a very multiple-year process. When they moved, that was just the last straw, it wasn't the *beginning* of it, that was just the *end* of it.

What do those attendance figures show you? They show me that attendance for GOOD teams was about the same from 79 thru 82. Obviously, EBW had nothing to do with attendance in '79, and it stayed about the same until '83. So, you think that EBW did some magic trick that all-the-sudden changed attendance in '83? Is that what you think?

That baseball season followed the ONLY SEASON EVER that the Baltimore Colts failed to win even 1 measly game! The Colts finished dead last in offense (28th out of 28 teams) and 26th out of 28 on defense! You don't think everybody was disgusted with what Irsay had done to the Colts after that? You think everybody hates PA, well that's nothing compared to what everybody thought of Irsay by then. Plus, a strike cut that NFL season about in half. You don't think people preferred to go watch the O's win the pennant instead? Colts' attendance went in the crapper and O's attendance went way up. You think these things are just unrelated coincidences, and O's attendance suddenly went way up from one season to the next because EBW brought some Supreme Court Justices to O's games?

Why would you think that? Because you found a quote from Frank Cashen? Do you think this is even logical?

[66-70-83-??]

Are you really telling me that the main reason O's attendance went up is not because of passion shifting from the Colts to the O's, but instead is because EBW got Supreme Court guys and Congressman to come up from DC? Like I said, I wasn't there and I only know what friends and family told me... and AFAIK, the upswing in O's attendance pretty much tracks the deterioration of the Colts under Irsay... I was going on what people in Baltimore told me...

Now, I knew that more people came from DC after the Senators left... and that cranked up a lot when OPACY opened... but this is the very first time I've heard somebody ignore the Colts-factor and instead credit it to Supreme Court justices and Congressmen leading the charge...

Just curious, is that what most folks believe? That it wasn't about a football-town becoming a baseball-town, but instead was Congressmen and Justices somehow making it OK for DC folks to come to O's games? Is that really what happened? Because if it is, I've got friends and family who I need to correct about this...


EBW was the first Oriole owner to successfully market to the former Senator fanbase in DC.

EBW,getting publicity for bringing high profile friends (Supreme Court Judges, Congressmen, etc) certainly helped those marketing efforts.

I imagine that they (Orioles Execs in PR and Marketing) knew who and where their fans where coming from.

Sure, there were probably some Colt fans who gave the Orioles the time of day as Irsay was running the Colts into the ground. BUt, the throngs of Wash DC area fans must have made a big difference or else Hamper and Cashen wouldn't have gone out of their way to credit EBW.

*Hamper says that Hoffberger actually did try to court Washington fans but failed.

*- source: Eisenbergs book

[TonySoprano]

EBW,getting publicity for bringing high profile friends (Supreme Court Judges, Congressmen, etc) certainly helped those marketing efforts.That's the key. Having lived in that area, I can tell you after the Senators left, there wasn't much Orioles news in the papers, only Redskins, and then Bullets and Capitals. Williams changed that. It certainly didn't hurt either that one of Williams' closest friends was Ben Bradlee, executive editor for the Washington Post newspaper.

[66-70-83-??]

Oh good grief... I never said it happened all-the-sudden when the Colts left. I said that everybody I know told me that it tracked the deterioration of the Colts under Irsay, which was a very multiple-year process. When they moved, that was just the last straw, it wasn't the *beginning* of it, that was just the *end* of it.

What do those attendance figures show you? They show me that attendance for GOOD teams was about the same from 79 thru 82. Obviously, EBW had nothing to do with attendance in '79, and it stayed about the same until '83. So, you think that EBW did some magic trick that all-the-sudden changed attendance in '83? Is that what you think?

That baseball season followed the ONLY SEASON EVER that the Baltimore Colts failed to win even 1 measly game! The Colts finished dead last in offense (28th out of 28 teams) and 26th out of 28 on defense! You don't think everybody was disgusted with what Irsay had done to the Colts after that? You think everybody hates PA, well that's nothing compared to what everybody thought of Irsay by then. Plus, a strike cut that NFL season about in half. You don't think people preferred to go watch the O's win the pennant instead? Colts' attendance went in the crapper and O's attendance went way up. You think these things are just unrelated coincidences, and O's attendance suddenly went way up from one season to the next because EBW brought some Supreme Court Justices to O's games?

Why would you think that? Because you found a quote from Frank Cashen? Do you think this is even logical?

Yes.

I can't speak for TonySoprano, but I have found quotes supporting what EBW did to raise attendance and other postive things for the Orioles.

Not just from Frank Cashen, but also Larry Lucchino and Joe Hamper (who worked for the Orioles from 1954 to 1991, starting in accounting and working his way to CFO).

The quotes are in the book 33rd St to Camden Yards. It was written in 2001. The interviews were conducted in the year or so prior. EBW died many years earlier. Why would these guys credit EBW if they didn't have good reasons?

Why should we discredit these guys with inside knowledge?

[RShack]

Sure, there were probably some Colt fans who gave the Orioles the time of day as Irsay was running the Colts into the ground. BUt, the throngs of Wash DC area fans must have made a big difference or else Hamper and Cashen wouldn't have gone out of their way to credit EBW.
And that all-the-sudden happend in '83, like somebody flipped a switch? It wasn't because the Colts were the WORST TEAM in the NFL the year before and didn't win even 1 single game. It was because EBW flipped a switch and made a huge diff in one year, is that what you're telling me?

[RShack]

Yes.

I can't speak for TonySoprano, but I have found quotes supporting what EBW did to raise attendance and other postive things for the Orioles.

Not just from Frank Cashen, but also Larry Lucchino and Joe Hamper (who worked for the Orioles from 1954 to 1991, starting in accounting and working his way to CFO).

The quotes are in the book 33rd St to Camden Yards. It was written in 2001. The interviews were conducted in the year or so prior. Why would these guys credit EBW if they didn't have good reasons?

Why should we discredit these guys with inside knowledge?
OK, so please explain to me how attendance was constant from Hoffberger's last year through '82, and then all-the-sudden it zoomed way up in '83. Explain that. How did EBW suddenly flip a switch and do that? There was virtually zero change in attendance for his first 3 years, and then he created a huge upswing all-the-sudden in '83. How did he do that? And why did he wait 3 years before he flipped that switch?

You're telling me that he did it all-the-sudden after 3 years, and it was just a *coincidence* that it happened immediately after the Colts failed to win even a single game and were the worst team in the NFL. Right. So, if that's a coincidence, then just explain how EBW flipped the switch. I just want an explanation that's not loony, that's all.

[TonySoprano]

Why should we discredit these guys with inside knowledge?Why indeed? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?;)

Did the Colts even draw 400K fans total per season in the 1980s? That was the increase from 1982-1983. But obviously the entire Colts faithful left en masse to Orioles games, no increase in attendance from the D.C. area could suffice. :rolleyes:

[RShack]

All well and good. But no franchise is unfixable. A new owner hires his own people and they are TOTALLY responsible for the state of the franchise 7 or 8 years later. In previous iterations of this argument, you have tried to blame EBW for the current state of this franchise. And that is just not the case.
I have never said any such thing. Ever. I completely agree that PA is 100% responsible for the current mess. I have *never* said anything else.

The only thing I disagree with is the oft-repeated BS about how "PA ruined a once-proud franchise". He didn't. EBW did that. But EBW has nothing to do with the current mess. The current mess is entirely PA's fault, and I've never said anything other than that.

[66-70-83-??]

OK, so please explain to me how attendance was constant from Hoffberger's last year through '82, and then all-the-sudden it zoomed way up in '83. Explain that. How did EBW suddenly flip a switch and do that? There was virtually zero change in attendance for his first 3 years, and then he created a huge upswing all-the-sudden in '83. How did he do that? And why did he wait 3 years before he flipped that switch?

You're telling me that he did it all-the-sudden after 3 years, and it was just a *coincidence* that it happened immediately after the Colts failed to win even a single game and were the worst team in the NFL. Right. So, if that's a coincidence, then just explain how EBW flipped the switch. I just want an explanation that's not loony, that's all.


EBW bought the team in August 1979.

1979 was a good season. Orioles Magic was born. Bill Hagy (and section 34) were "in". The attendance figure that year was 1.6 million which was by far more (> 400K) than any other attendance figure while Hoffberger owned the team.

1980 saw an increase. 1981 was a strike year. Maybe 1982 was down because of fan apathy over the strike? Maybe it took his marketing strategy a few years to bear fruit? That would be two reasonable explanations.

I don't know. All I know is that others that were much closer to the team were giving him credit for bring the DC crowds into Memorial.

The team averaged roughly 2 mill per season under EBW ownership. Under Hoffberger it was closer to 1 mill.

I have no reason to disagree with Cashen, Lucchino, Hamper, and Eisenbergs own opinions in the book about EBW.

[RShack]

That's what the lottery paid for.
But it boils down to the same thing. Lots of states have lotteries. The money from the lottery is just a way to get around raising taxes, but it still boils down to the same thing. Lottery money gets used lots of places to pay for schools and such. If lottery money wasn't going to pay for stadiums, then it could get spent on other things that taxes are spent on.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against the fact that the gov't paid for OPACY. To me, that's about the same as building roads or rapid transit: it's for the Greater Good, even if lots of people don't make use of them. I'm not dissing the idea of using lotteries for that. That's not the point. The point is that the whole reason they built the stadium is because EBW was threatening to move the team if they didn't give him a stadium for free, that's all. It's not like he was some big civic-minded hero. He figured out how to get a free stadium at the expense of somebody else, that's all. It's what modern ego-driven owners do. Nothing special about him in that regard. Just like when he told the GM he didn't want to do what's best for the franchise, he wanted to meddle. Same thing.

[RShack]

The team averaged roughly 2 mill per season under EBW ownership. Under Hoffberger it was closer to 1 mill.
I agree that Baltimore did not support the O's that well during the great years under Hoffberger. Attendance shot up right at the end of Hoffberger's era. That had nothing to do with EBW because it was before EBW. It had to do with baseball attendance in general. And it also had to do with Baltimore sports fans shifting their passion from the Colts to the O's. You gotta remember that Irsay screwed things up for a *long* time before he stole the team and left. (For example, it was back in 72?/73? when he traded Johnny Unitas to the Chargers.) Irsay's effect did not begin when he moved the Colts to Indy.

Whatever the upward trend in attendance was about, it was before EBW got the team. Over the first 3 years of EBW ownership, it stayed about the same. Not exactly the same, but about the same. This same phenomena had always happened. For most teams, including the O's, attendance went up and down some from year to year, and sometimes for no apparent reason. The point was that attendance was about the same from the end of Hoffberger through the 1st three years of EBW. Then, it changed very dramatically all-the-sudden in '83. These are just facts. There's no arguing about them. I just don't see how these facts add-up with the "EBW fixed attendance" story. It just doesn't add up in a way that explains what actually happened.



I have no reason to disagree with Cashen, Lucchino, Hamper, and Eisenbergs own opinions in the book about EBW.
I have no doubt that EBW did things to help with the team's visibility in DC. Of course he did: he was a DC guy, he was very connected there, of course he would do that. That's fine, nothing against it. But that story does not explain the facts. Eisenberg can write whatever love-fest book he wants, but that does not explain the facts.

To explain the facts, you need some way to explain why attendance was at one fairly stable plateau that spanned from Hoffberger through the first 3 years of EBW, and then very suddenly and very abruptly jumped to a new higher plateau in '83 where it stayed for several years. It was not a gradual improvement thing, it was like somebody flipped a switch. Just because Frank Cashen said something, that doesn't mean that EBW came up the BW-Parkway with some Congressmen in the Spring of '83, and somehow metro-DC suddenly came tagging along like they were following the Pied Piper and, boom, attendance suddenly got fixed.

The EBW-helping-attendance story just does not explain that. It just doesn't add up with the facts. The Colts thing does. The Colts thing is also consistent with eyewitness reports from the time it actually happened. If there is some alternate story that explains how the eyewitness reports were wrong, and how it was really because EBW suddenly flipped a switch in '83, I am happy to believe such a story provided that it actually makes some kind of plausible sense. It's just that nobody has provided any such explanation yet.

[Frobby]

I have never said any such thing. Ever. I completely agree that PA is 100% responsible for the current mess. I have *never* said anything else.

The only thing I disagree with is the oft-repeated BS about how "PA ruined a once-proud franchise". He didn't. EBW did that. But EBW has nothing to do with the current mess. The current mess is entirely PA's fault, and I've never said anything other than that.

EBW may have made some bad decisions that had some bad long-term consequences for the team, but it was a lot more understandable than what PA has done. Under EBW's ownership, the O's won a World Series and another pennant, won 100 games another time, and had what, 6 winning seasons in a row? So in that scenario, it is at least somewhat understandable if the guy thought (mistakenly) that he knew what he was doing, and made some decisions that were bad in the longer run. PA, meanwhile has been making bad decisions and interfering with management year after year, even in the face of a decade of losing.

Name me some specific decisions made by EBW that ruined the Orioles. We could give you a list of specific things Angelos has done that is as long as your arm.

So I'm not here to defend EBW, but while he might arguably be in the bottom third of all owners, PA is in the bottom 5%.

[RShack]

EBW may have made some bad decisions that had some bad long-term consequences for the team, but it was a lot more understandable than what PA has done. Under EBW's ownership, the O's won a World Series and another pennant, won 100 games another time, and had what, 6 winning seasons in a row? So in that scenario, it is at least somewhat understandable if the guy thought (mistakenly) that he knew what he was doing, and made some decisions that were bad in the longer run. PA, meanwhile has been making bad decisions and interfering with management year after year, even in the face of a decade of losing.

Name me some specific decisions made by EBW that ruined the Orioles. We could give you a list of specific things Angelos has done that is as long as your arm.
I think the right way to look at this is in terms of phases. The rules of doing it right have been changing since AM's Daddy was building the killer franchise. There's been a handful of phases, and we gotta talk about those phases for it to make sense. But that would be a long post and everybody gets all snippy when I make long posts, so I won't. I'll just stick to the conclusion of it:

EBW was in charge for 8 years. The teams won early on, but those teams were not his fault. He did not build the '83 team. He did nearly-nothing to the good for the franchise, baseball-wise, and he did important things to the bad. By the time he was done being owner, the entire organization sucked. To me, that's a grade of F. Doesn't matter how many headlines he did or didn't get about being a crappy owner, it's still a big fat F for the actual organization. Whether you wanna give him points for getting a new stadium out of the gov't, that's up to you.

PA's overall tenure has been more deplorable. But if we go by his overall tenure, we can't really say yet because it's not over. AM just might save his bacon. All we know is what it's been like so far, so we're looking at a partial story. The partial story is incredibly bad. He's had the time and the money and the opportunity to fix the very things that EBW broke. But he didn't. That's bad, and there's no excuse for it. That's also a grade of F, and it's a much larger F because of the much longer tenure.

If we go by comparable tenure, then we might compare EBW's 8 years with PA's first 8 years. That would be '94-2002. The first half of that, things got better until the team went wire-to-wire in '97. Then the house of cards came apart, and the next 4 years were downhill. So, it was a peak, then a valley. He got 2 post-seasons in there, and the 2nd time had the best team in the league. If the best teams won, that WS should have been the O's vs the Braves. So, he did something that was very successful for a bit. Not only did he have 2 post-seasons to EBW's 1, but PA's 2 post-seasons were actually his fault. Whatever credit you get for post-seasons, PA earned his while EBW did not earn his. When PA's success binge came apart, he just got stuck in a 4th-place funk. So, the 1st 4 years were good, and the second 4 years were bad. For those 8 years in total, is PA's grade any worse than EBW's grade of F? I'd say it's less-bad. Neither guy fixed anything, but PA got more success out of not-fixing it, and he actually did it himself, whereas EBW's only success was just something he just inherited from Hoffberger.

The main thing wrong with PA is that his 4th-place funk has lasted insanely long. I could understand it if he had a short-period of 4th-place funk after his Steinbrenner dream fell apart. I could see how it could take a little bit to get his head around a different approach. But he didn't. That's the huge problem. You can sorta understand the 1st 8-years. You might not agree with it, but you can at least understand it. It's the years since his first 8-years that have been completely inexcusable. There's no way to understand it, except to call him a dense knucklehead. He's been Steinbrenner minus the successful parts.

There's no way to compare his inexcusable record after those 1st 8-years to EBW because EBW didn't have those years to compare to. All he had was 8. We have no idea how bad he might have been. Maybe EBW would have woken up and done something right for once, we just don't know. We don't completely know that about PA either, just yet. So far, it's been beyond dismal. Just like EBW, the only bright spots you can find are on the non-baseball side of things. Whether AM can save his bacon on the baseball-side of things remains to be seen.



So I'm not here to defend EBW, but while he might arguably be in the bottom third of all owners, PA is in the bottom 5%.
I think EBW is lower than that, but your basic point is right if we're comparing EBW's 8 years to all of PA's years-to-date. I think you get a different answer if you compare 8-years to 8-years. We may or may not get a different answer by the time PA is done.

[TonySoprano]

To explain the facts, you need some way to explain why attendance was at one fairly stable plateau that spanned from Hoffberger through the first 3 years of EBW, and then very suddenly and very abruptly jumped to a new higher plateau in '83 where it stayed for several years. It was not a gradual improvement thing, it was like somebody flipped a switch. Just because Frank Cashen said something, that doesn't mean that EBW came up the BW-Parkway with some Congressmen in the Spring of '83, and somehow metro-DC suddenly came tagging along like they were following the Pied Piper and, boom, attendance suddenly got fixed.

The EBW-helping-attendance story just does not explain that. It just doesn't add up with the facts. The Colts thing does. The Colts thing is also consistent with eyewitness reports from the time it actually happened. If there is some alternate story that explains how the eyewitness reports were wrong, and how it was really because EBW suddenly flipped a switch in '83, I am happy to believe such a story provided that it actually makes some kind of plausible sense. It's just that nobody has provided any such explanation yet.Sheer numbers alone tell you that the jump in attendance was much more than fans just switching from football to baseball. If there was this light switch that was flipped on, it was publicity for the Orioles in the D.C. area which hadn't been there before. That explanation has been given to you, over and over but you choose to ignore it.
EBW bought the team in August 1979.

1979 was a good season. Orioles Magic was born. Bill Hagy (and section 34) were "in". The attendance figure that year was 1.6 million which was by far more (> 400K) than any other attendance figure while Hoffberger owned the team.

1980 saw an increase. 1981 was a strike year. Maybe 1982 was down because of fan apathy over the strike? Maybe it took his marketing strategy a few years to bear fruit? That would be two reasonable explanations.I agree that this had some impact on 1982. The 1981`season lost close to 40% of its games and was split into two seasons.

[TonySoprano]

Name me some specific decisions made by EBW that ruined the Orioles. Good luck getting an answer to that.

[SteveA]

Sheer numbers alone tell you that the jump in attendance was much more than fans just switching from football to baseball. If there was this light switch that was flipped on, it was publicity for the Orioles in the D.C. area which hadn't been there before. That explanation has been given to you, over and over but you choose to ignore it.I agree that this had some impact on 1982. The 1981`season lost close to 40% of its games and was split into two seasons.

There were a lot of contributing factors to the attendance jump. Yes, the decline of the Colts was part of it. And marketing to Washington (not just by EBW) was part of it. In 1979 they added a Washington station to the radio network for the first time (at the start of the season, so Hoffberger was still owner). Channel 20 in DC began picking up games around that time too. The first attempt at a regional sports network, something called Super TV, was started in 1981 I think. It was an over the air broadcast (because only a small % of people had cable back then) but you had to buy a descrambler to watch the games. Under EBW, the Orioles opened a fan store in DC.

So those factors (Colts decline and departure, EBW, marketing to Washington) DID contribute to the jump in attendance....but they don't tell the whole story. The aggressive marketing of the team by WFBR radio in 1979, where all the deejays during the day would play Oriole highlights set to music, was far more than the previous flagship station (WBAL) had done. In addition, attendance was shooting up all around baseball. Free agency was just beginning and salary costs were rising, and the owners had to market better, and they did. The saturation coverage of the O's by WFBR, and the marketing in Washington, were two things that were done here. Other thinsgs were being done in other cities. You can't just look at the surge inthe Orioles' attendance without relating it to the growth of the game overall during the same time period.

I'm not even sure what you guys (Tony and Shack) are arguing about? Is one of you trying to say EBW marketing to Washington had no effect, while the other is trying to say the it is the sole cause for attendance going up? As usual, the world isn't black and white, the truth is usually found in shades of gray. It had some effect, but certainly there were many other factors.

[SteveA]

Name me some specific decisions made by EBW that ruined the Orioles. We could give you a list of specific things Angelos has done that is as long as your arm.


He basically did something very similar to what the Orioles did in the early 2000s. The team had a great nucleus from 1979-1983, but that nucleus got old. In 1983 or shortly thereafter, Bumbry, SIngleton, Lowenstein, Roenicke, Belanger, Dauer, Dempsey, McGregor, Palmer, Tippy, Stanhouse, Stoddard, Flanagan, Stewart, Stone -- ALL either retired or started significant age-related decline. DeCinces would have had more left but he had been traded. Dennis Martinez was battling alcoholism. So our nucleus was down to Eddie, Cal, and Bod****er, essentially. Yeah, a 20 game winner and 2 HoFers but still not enough to build around. Storm Davis didn't quite live up to his promise. Our farm system was producing nothing (Ken Dixon, Ken Gearhart, Larry Sheets, Mike Young, Eric Bell, etc).

So EBW went out and signed veteran free agents. Lacy, Lynn, Aase, Juan Beniquez. Some still had some productivity left but they were certainly on the downside of the age curve. Just like in the 2000s, the attempt to patch up a team that had too small a nucleus of good talent and not enough coming through the pipeline, failed miserably.

[TonySoprano]

I'm not even sure what you guys (Tony and Shack) are arguing about? Is one of you trying to say EBW marketing to Washington had no effect, while the other is trying to say the it is the sole cause for attendance going up? As usual, the world isn't black and white, the truth is usually found in shades of gray. It had some effect, but certainly there were many other factors.I'm saying the D.C. angle is much larger than the Colts one based on the numbers.

[RShack]

I'm not even sure what you guys (Tony and Shack) are arguing about? Is one of you trying to say EBW marketing to Washington had no effect, while the other is trying to say the it is the sole cause for attendance going up?

I don't blame you, I'm not sure either. Everybody agrees that PA has been a terrible owner. The only disagreement that I'm aware of is that when people say "PA destroyed a once proud franchise", they're saying something that's just not true. There's plenty of bad stuff to say about PA, we don't need to make up additional bad stuff that's phony. What happens is that I just point out that EBW is the guy who put the franchise in the toilet, that's all. Next thing you know, we have a big argument about how EBW wasn't such a bad guy, and people start giving the man credit for fixing attendance (when it's not that simple) and for creating OPACY (when it's not that simple). That's exactly like saying that PA is a good guy because of MASN and the Gnats deal.

I have no doubt that EBW continued Hoffberger's effort to market the team in DC. I just don't believe the sudden and dramatic upswing in attendance in '83 is primarily due to EBW, just like I don't think the '83 ring is due to him either. AFAIK, that's what the disagreement is about: Everybody says that PA sucks as an owner, and everybody is right about that. The problem comes up when some of us point out that EBW was the very first O's owner to suck and do real damage to the organization. For reasons I cannot fathom, some people wanna make excuses for EBW left and right. But, nomatter how you cut it, when he bought the franchise it was the best one in baseball, and when he was done with it, that great organization had been completely destroyed. Every owner who had 8 years has more good stuff to show for those first 8 years than EBW. That includes PA, which tells you how bad EBW really was. The real test is whether you leave something better than you found it. EBW sure didn't, he left it way, way worse than he found it. That says nothing about how bad PA had been, it's just an Actual Fact all by itself.

[TonySoprano]

Logically, by definition, it's not possible to get any lower than "total destruction." Having said that, IMO, the reputation of the franchise today is much lower than it was in the 1980s. Therefore, if it was "totally destroyed" back then, what possible absolute term could apply to the team in the 2000s?

The mantra that the franchise was completely destroyed is nonsensical hyperbole. It wasn't destroyed then nor has it been destroyed today. That's my big objection to this nonsense.

Williams didn't meddle from practically the get-go, like Angelos did. Williams kept what he inherited from Hoffberger, Weaver, and unfortunately, Hoffberger's GM, Peters.

The Orioles had a winning record in the strike-shortened 1994 season and still Angelos saw fit to replace Johnny Oates with...Phil Regan, and that sure turned out well. :rolleyes: Angelos got smart and hired Davey Johnson, only to drive him out of town.

Williams did not direct who his manager hired as his coaching staff, unlike Angelos.

Williams did not go into the draft room at the last minute and tell his staff who to draft, unlike Angelos.

Williams would have had the same number of postseason appearances as Angelos had the wild card been in effect in his time.

What has Angelos done for team attendance? Prior to Angelos, in 1993, the total at Camden Yards was 3,644,965. The absolute highest attendance got under Angelos was 3,711,132 - a whopping 1.8% increase over 1993. Attendance then went on a steady downhill slope from 1998-2003, to rebound in 2004 and 2005, only to fall off the cliff again to the worst figures in the history of Camden Yards the last two years. A total of 672,996 more fans attended in 2006-07 combined than the park drew in 1993 alone. 2007 attendance was 40.6% lower than in 1993. OPACY was the goose with the golden eggs until Angelos cooked it.

[RShack]

The real test is whether you leave something better than you found it. EBW sure didn't, he left it way, way worse than he found it. That says nothing about how bad PA had been, it's just an Actual Fact all by itself.
Tony, the quote above is my bottom line. PA is one topic, EBW is another.

If you wanna invent lame excuses for EBW by bringing up what PA did after EBW was dead, you can do that... as you have been for several pages now. You can spin it any way you want to. None of your excuses and spin change the basic fact: EBW is the guy who bought the best franchise in all of baseball, and turned it into a bad franchise with a bad organization. PA had nothing to do with that. EBW did it years before PA was involved in any way.

[TonySoprano]

Are you no longer saying it was "completely destroyed," as you have for several pages now?

What came through the pipeline, of significance, in the five years prior to Williams? Ripken, Bod****er and who? Should I make the excuse that Williams *aw shucks* just didn't fix what had been broken?

[RShack]

Are you no longer saying it was "completely destroyed," as you have for several pages now?
The great advantage that the Baltimore Orioles had because of their great organization and history of great success was completely destroyed during EBW's tenure.

They drafted a couple P's who turned out good. So what? According to your "logic", that means PA fixed the system because we got Erik and BRob. Even the worst franchise in baseball signs a good player now and then. That doesn't prove anything. I don't see you defending PA's tenure because we got Erik and BRob (nor would I expect anybody to do that). Same exact thing.

[Frobby]

He basically did something very similar to what the Orioles did in the early 2000s. The team had a great nucleus from 1979-1983, but that nucleus got old. In 1983 or shortly thereafter, Bumbry, SIngleton, Lowenstein, Roenicke, Belanger, Dauer, Dempsey, McGregor, Palmer, Tippy, Stanhouse, Stoddard, Flanagan, Stewart, Stone -- ALL either retired or started significant age-related decline. DeCinces would have had more left but he had been traded. Dennis Martinez was battling alcoholism. So our nucleus was down to Eddie, Cal, and Bod****er, essentially. Yeah, a 20 game winner and 2 HoFers but still not enough to build around. Storm Davis didn't quite live up to his promise. Our farm system was producing nothing (Ken Dixon, Ken Gearhart, Larry Sheets, Mike Young, Eric Bell, etc).

So EBW went out and signed veteran free agents. Lacy, Lynn, Aase, Juan Beniquez. Some still had some productivity left but they were certainly on the downside of the age curve. Just like in the 2000s, the attempt to patch up a team that had too small a nucleus of good talent and not enough coming through the pipeline, failed miserably.

My question is, what trades did the GM want to make that EBW vetoed? What free agents was the GM forced to sign because EBW decided the Orioles had to have them? What players weren't retained because EBW refused to open his wallet? What hirings and firings of front office personnel or managers were done by EBW?

There are so many decisions that Angelos had a direct hand in that were just idiotic - firing Oates, hiring Regan, non-renewing Jon Miller, alienating Gillick, firing Johnson (essentially), firing Wren, hiring Thryft and leaving him in way too long, alienating star players with his negotiating tactics, and on and on and on. I don't think we have nearly as many specifics we can pin directly on EBW.

[TonySoprano]

The great advantage that the Baltimore Orioles had because of their great organization and history of great success was completely destroyed during EBW's tenure.It was not completely destroyed but we agree that it suffered by the continued employment of Hoffberger's GM.

[RShack]

My question is, what trades did the GM want to make that EBW vetoed? What free agents was the GM forced to sign because EBW decided the Orioles had to have them? What players weren't retained because EBW refused to open his wallet? What hirings and firings of front office personnel or managers were done by EBW?
I think we have little-to-no information about the specific ways that EBW influenced things, decision by decision. Did he micromanage decisions, or simply set a direction that led the O's into the crapper? Don't know, don't care. How he put them in the crapper is footnote stuff. The important legacy is that he started with the best franchise in baseball and it got ruined on his watch. The details of exactly how he did that don't interest me that much.

There's a big difference between judging an owner based on how the franchise evolved (devolved) during his tenure vs. judging an owner based on whatever "inside tidbits" we happen to know. Results matter, tidbits not so much. Basing it on tidbits is a PR-thing, not a baseball-thing. If we want to make the issue a PR-issue instead of an actual baseball issue, then I completely agree nobody holds a candle to PA's crapitude.

I just don't understand what PA has to do with EBW. EBW screwed things up way before Oriole fandom heard of PA.

[TonySoprano]

Draft picks signed by Hank Peters

1987 - Pete Harnisch, Anthony Telford, Chuck Ricci, Jack Voigt, Steve Finley, David Segui,

1986 - Blaine Beatty, Gordon Dillard

1985 - Craig Worthington, Brian Dubois, Jeff Ballard, Pete Stanicek

1984 - John Hoover, Jeff Tackett, Mike Raczka,

1983 - Bill Fulton, Mark Leiter, Bob Milacki

1982 - Dave Otto, John Habyan, Ken Gerhart, Eric Bell, Bill Ripken, Jim Traber

1981 - Tony Arnold, Jeff Schaefer

1980 - Mike Young, Al Pardo, Ken Dixon, Carl Nichols, Mark Brown

1979 - Bob Melvin, Allan Ramirez, Storm Davis, Bill Swaggerty

1978 - Cal Ripken, Larry Sheets , Mike Boddi-cker

1977 - Drungo Hazewood, Mark Smith

1976 - Dallas Williams, Jim Smith

1975 - Dave Ford, Steve Lake, Jeff Rineer, Darryl Cias

[eddie83]

The Orioles in my opinion were at their peak in popularity when Angelos took over.

Camden Yards was 2 years old and crowned the best ballpark in baseball.

Cal Ripken Jr the hometown hero was in the middle of his streak.

No NFL team existed in Baltimore.

A competitive team in 1992 and 1993 that averaged 87 wins and was in contention in September both years.

All those factors lead to a team that ranked second in attendance in 1992 and 1993, before Angelos took over. Angelos spent money on players like Palmeiro, Surhoff and Alomar that hepled us reach the playoffs twice. Yes, we got an NFL team, Cal had to retire sometime and the allure of Camden Yards would diminish over time, but that doesn't excuse the ineptitude that we have seen. How anyone can blame an owner that has been dead for almost 20 years and was dead for almost 6 years before Angelos started is beyond me. Two franchises that didn't even exist when EBW died, in Florida and Arizona have combined for 3 World Series titles. Both franchises were completely blown up with different Front Offices and Owners and got back to the playoffs. We can't even have a competitive team into the month of June.

When it came time for Angelos to stand on his own feet and not piggyback what he inherited he has failed miserably. If he didn't know the importance of hiring quality people to run the baseball operations department and how important a minor league system is then he had no business buying the franchise. This will be Angelos' 15th season as an owner and I hope I am wrong but another losing one it looks like. If we have a losing season that would be 12 of 15 years, which is 80%. At some point in time you have to look in the mirror. I had no problem with Angelos fighting for his rights when DC got a team but he didn't have to alienate so many DC area fans in the process.

All any owner can ask for is a strong fanbase and good stadium situation. We have both plus only one other pro team in town and a great history and tradition. Everything is and has been in place to win just not the right people running or owning the team. Baltimore is a goldmine franchise and EBW didn't damage that.

[RShack]

The Orioles in my opinion were at their peak in popularity when Angelos took over.
IMO, baseball is about being successful at the Baseball Contest, not at some Popularity Contest. For example, when the O's had those killer teams in '69-'71, their popularity at the gate was 5th, 6th, and 3rd in the league. What's important? The gate? Or being the best franchise in baseball?

But, OK, I'll play along anyway. Let's pretend that popularity is what's important. If you go by that, then:
The O's were at their peak in '97 when they drew 3.7 million fans. That was best in the entire league, and 2nd-best in MLB. That was a PA year, and that was PA's team. It was also about 1.5 times as many fans as came to OPACY in PA's first year. His first year they drew about the same as they did in their last year on 33rd St, when it was a 5th place team. So, their popularity went up by almost 50% because of what PA did in his first few years.
Meanwhile, under EBW, their attendance peaked at 2.1 million in '85. That was 6th in the league, which is the exact same ranking they had in Hoffberger's last year. Baseball attendance went up across the board in MLB between '79 and EBW's peak attendance in '85. While EBW's marketing wizardy did improve his *peak* attendance over Hoffberger by 27%, that kept the O's in 6th place in the league, just like they were before.
So, EBW increase attendance by 27%, but kept the team in 6th place, attendance-wise...
While PA increased attendance by 46% and made the O's the most popular team in the whole league.
Not that I think that proves anything, I'm just trying to play along with you, that's all.

[BaltimoreTerp]

IMO, baseball is about being successful at the Baseball Contest, not at some Popularity Contest. For example, when the O's had those killer teams in '69-'71, their popularity at the gate was 5th, 6th, and 3rd in the league. What's important? The gate? Or being the best franchise in baseball?

But, OK, I'll play along anyway. Let's pretend that popularity is what's important. If you go by that, then:
The O's were at their peak in '97 when they drew 3.7 million fans. That was best in the entire league, and 2nd-best in MLB. That was a PA year, and that was PA's team. It was also about 1.5 times as many fans as came to OPACY in PA's first year. His first year they drew about the same as they did in their last year on 33rd St, when it was a 5th place team. So, their popularity went up by almost 50% because of what PA did in his first few years.
Meanwhile, under EBW, their attendance peaked at 2.1 million in '85. That was 6th in the league, which is the exact same ranking they had in Hoffberger's last year. Baseball attendance went up across the board in MLB between '79 and EBW's peak attendance in '85. While EBW's marketing wizardy did improve his *peak* attendance over Hoffberger by 27%, that kept the O's in 6th place in the league, just like they were before.
So, EBW increase attendance by 27%, but kept the team in 6th place, attendance-wise...
While PA increased attendance by 46% and made the O's the most popular team in the whole league for the very first time.
Not that I think that proves anything, I'm just trying to play along with you, that's all.

You might want to look at "PA's first year" again, because there is a slight detail you are missing there...:)

[RShack]

You might want to look at "PA's first year" again, because there is a slight detail you are missing there...:)
OK.

What did I do wrong? Whatever year somebody buys the team, I'm figuring the following season is their first year. I've been doing that nomatter who we're talking about, just because it takes a new guy some time to do anything much. I thought PA bought the team in '93, so I was using '94 as the first year that counts. Did I get it wrong?

EDIT: Ooops. Strike. Brain damage. Sorry. So, the percentage-increase I gave for PA was worthless because of the strike. My bad.

It remains true that under PA the O's rose to 1st in attendance (from 2nd), whereas EBW's peak attendance kept the O's at 6th-place in the league, just like in Hoffberger's last year. Prior to Hoffberger's last year, the O's finished 10th in attendance for a few years. Whatever we might say the cause was of the improved rankings of O's attendance, it jumped up just prior to EBW. Throughout EBW's tenure as owner (80-88), the O's rank in AL attendance went 6-8-8-5-5-6-6-9-10. That doesn't seem like progress to me. The raw numbers were up some, but that was true across all of baseball, not just in Baltimore.

[TonySoprano]

When comparing attendance with the previous season, only once in the last seven years (2004) has Baltimore done better than the average team in either the MLB or the league. 2006 really stands out as a year when Baltimore fared very poorly in the comparison.

Attendance
Baltimore vs (MLB*)
2001 - 6.50% (+0.09%)
2002 - 15.37% (-6.45%)
2003 - 9.29% (-0.13%)
2004 +10.55% (+7.19%)
2005 - 4.54% (+2.14%)
2006 - 21.90% (+2.82%)
2007 + 0.53% (+4.51%)
2001-2007 -42.96% (+10.16%)

Attendance
Baltimore vs (AL*)
2001 -6.50% (+0.60%)
2002 - 15.37% (-5.47%)
2003 - 9.29% (+0.76%)
2004 + 10.55% (+5.23%)
2005 - 4.54% (+1.31%)
2006 - 21.90% (+5.71%)
2007 + 0.53% (+2.90%)
2001-2007 -42.96% (+10.37%)

*not including Baltimore

Note - I would have gone back further, but the league-wide data through 2000 was all that was readily available.

[RShack]

So, is it now the groups' consensus that the rot set in before 1978? Or does that still work as a point where we can say the ship began to go off course?
There's actually a very interesting bunch of phenomena concerning your questions. I'd answer it this way:
The "rot" most definitely began with EBW. He was the first terrible owner in the history of the franchise, and we haven't had a good one since.
.
The decline from the glory years is due to more than just rotten owners. Beginning in the last year of Lee MacPhail's tenure, the rules of success started changing and kept changing. Each change made it harder and harder to be a killer franchise. So, the end of complete Oriole dominance isn't anybody's fault, it's just how things changed. It's impossible to build franchises the way AM's Daddy built the Oriole to be the best one in baseball for 30 years.
So, it's really two things: crappy owners and an ever-more-difficult problem. Both things are true. The problem in discussing it is that there's been a handful of different phases, and each phase meant something, and talking about that doesn't fit in the length of post that anybody wants to read.

Maybe we can take it in pieces. Here's the first two phases:
The 1st Phase was when AM's daddy built a killer organization. It started a little before Lee MacPhail, with Paul Richards signing good young talent (like Brooks). But all Richards knew how to do was sign kids and think about crazy trades all the time. He didn't know how to build a system, he just thought about wheeling-and-dealing. After a while, the owners got fed up with that junk because they were business men who wanted their franchise to work right. So they kicked Richards out as GM, kept him as manager (because he was actually pretty good at that part, he just *thought* he knew how to be a GM), and replaced Richards as GM with AM's Daddy. Lee MacPhail did even better at signing guys, plus he built an actual system that developed players. Because of those 2 things, he built the best franchise in baseball, bar none. They had the best farm system and the best ML team. According to my 15-Player Team theory, by the time Lee MacPhail's work matured in '69-'71, they were off the charts. They were 16- or 17-Player Teams. I don't think we'll ever see teams like that again from anybody.
.
The 2nd Phase started near the end of when AM's Daddy was constructing baseball's best franchise. It happened when MLB invented the Amateur Draft in the mid-60's. Before then, the whole U.S. was like the D.R.: you could sign any amateur you wanted. No effort at parity, let the best team win. The Amateur Draft was a great equalizer. It meant that the O's couldn't just do a better job of signing-and-developing guys. Because they could no longer just sign whoever they wanted. The Amateur Draft was a very anti-Oriole thing. It was not intended that way (it was intended just to save owners money by preventing them from competing for kid-talent) but it worked out to be an anti-Oriole thing by accident. It lessened one of the O's advantages: finding and signing guys other teams didn't.
.
The killer O's teams were populated by guys who the O's signed in the 1st Phase, before the Amateur Draft existed. From '59 through '63, here are some guys Lee MacPhail signed before the Amateur Draft put limits on who you could sign: Boog Powell, Dave McNally, Andy Etchebarren, Eddie Watt, Davey Johnson, Mark Belanger, Wally Bunker, and Jim Palmer. Any of those names ring a bell? Those guys lasted through the killer teams. But the Draft dried things up some, because the O's had to start going through the Draft like everybody else. The Draft made them take turns and share. That's why it's a different phase. The 2nd Phase didn't make itself known until well after it happened. It wasn't until after the killer teams that you could notice. The O's were still good. But it was harder now. The great '71 team was the last gasp of the pre-draft era. The 70's was when the 2nd Phase became visible at the ML level, but it really began with the draft in the mid-60's. It just took a handful of years for the effects of it to trickle up to the ML club.
The O's stayed good in the 70's and early-80's, but they weren't as dominant because the Amateur Draft made them take turns and share. Scouting still mattered, but it mattered because of the Amateur Draft. Different rules. Because of the Amateur Draft, everybody had a more-equal shot. So the talent supply wasn't as strong. It couldn't be. In '62 they signed the middle infield for multiple WS: Davey Johnson and Mark Belanger. In '63, they signed 2 of the 3 guys who started games in the '66 WS: Jim Palmer and Wally Bunker. You just can't do stuff like that anymore (except in Latin America) because the owners rigged things by creating the Amateur Draft. So, because the owners didn't want to compete against each other for signing talent, doing things the right way and outsmarting everybody else got a lot harder for the O's to do. But the O's still made good use of the talent they got because of The Oriole Way: they developed their guys properly.

And then FA happened. I don't think FA was just one phase either. I think it spanned about 3 phases so far. Each one made it harder to do the right thing. Not impossible, but harder. Too bad that it got even harder right about the time when our streak of good owners was ending and a new streak of terrible owners started.

[RShack]

This has been moved to where O's threads go to die. Oh well...

[RShack]

Draft picks signed by Hank Peters

1987 - Pete Harnisch, Anthony Telford, Chuck Ricci, Jack Voigt, Steve Finley, David Segui,

1986 - Blaine Beatty, Gordon Dillard

1985 - Craig Worthington, Brian Dubois, Jeff Ballard, Pete Stanicek

1984 - John Hoover, Jeff Tackett, Mike Raczka,

1983 - Bill Fulton, Mark Leiter, Bob Milacki

1982 - Dave Otto, John Habyan, Ken Gerhart, Eric Bell, Bill Ripken, Jim Traber

1981 - Tony Arnold, Jeff Schaefer

1980 - Mike Young, Al Pardo, Ken Dixon, Carl Nichols, Mark Brown

1979 - Bob Melvin, Allan Ramirez, Storm Davis, Bill Swaggerty

1978 - Cal Ripken, Larry Sheets , Mike Boddi-cker

1977 - Drungo Hazewood, Mark Smith

1976 - Dallas Williams, Jim Smith

1975 - Dave Ford, Steve Lake, Jeff Rineer, Darryl Cias
I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove here, but I'll play along.
If you're saying Hank Peters was no great shakes, I agree.
I already said that he had his best GM years under Hoffberger, and your list just proved it.

What criteria do you want to use?
I figure that a decent return on a draft pick is getting 3 or more good ML years out of him.
Maybe your criteria is different, but that's mine. Using that, here's what your list boils down to:
Under Hoffberger for 5 drafts:
Cal: HOF and Forever Oriole.
Larry Sheets: 3 good years, 1 of which was great.
Mike Boddicker: Several good years, including 3rd in ROY, 4th in Cy Young, led the league in ERA, won 20, All-Star, then traded for Brady and Schilling
Storm Davis: Gave us 5 years, 4 of which were good. Then we traded him when he was just 24.
.
Under EBW for 8 drafts:
Billy Ripken: 1 good year, a few mediocre years, and 1 famous baseball card.
Bob Milacki: 1 good year.
Craig Worthington: semi-good rookie year, then nothing.
Jeff Ballard: a couple mediocre years and 1 good year.
Pete Harnisch: 2 mediocre years then we traded him to Houston, turned out to be a league-average semi-innings-eater.
Steve Finley: Turned out to be a very good player, but we traded him before he did squat.
David Segui: a long and mediocre career, with *all* his good years after we traded him, then we paid out the wazoo for him at the very end.
.
Comparison:
Under Hoffberger: 4 guys in 5 years.
If you want 1 guy per year, then the O's were just 1 guy shy under Hank Peters despite 3 crappy drafts.
Under EBW: 1 good guy (Finley), 2 mediocre guys with long careers (Harnisch and Segui), and 4 nobodies over 8 years. If we count Finley and the mediocre guys, that's 3 guys in 8 years.
If you want 1 guy per year, then under EBW he was *worse-than-half* of that.
Hank Peters's record under EBW was way worse than it was than under Hoffberger. Under EBW, the very same guy did a much crappier job.
All of which is just more evidence than things went downhill fast during the years that EBW was destroying the tradition of Baltimore Orioles' success.