I think you misremember even Oriole history let alone baseball history. I have heard Palmer and Dempsey going on and on about the fans in a "we" mentality. Dempsey even brought up the fans as another player basically. Dempsey would go out and wave at Wild Bill and get him to get the crowd pumped so that the players could feed off it. I think this era of Orioles players thought of the fans as "we"
And its silly to bring up money. No one is going to give away any money.