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Peter Angelos has won.

JTrea81

By JTrea81
in Orioles Talk

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JTrea81 Hangout Grand Counsel

JTrea81

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Posted

At some point, the team and then the fanbase lost that urgency to win.

We had it back in the 1990s and I remember having it in the early 2000s as well. There were a few people clamoring for a rebuild, but in general it was all about winning now.

The free agents however started to not pan out, and suddenly more voices started clamoring for a rebuild and Peter Angelos was trashed for wanting to spend in free agency instead of rebuild - that he didn't cede power to a GM that would actually rebuild the franchise and have complete control.

Enter Andy MacPhail.

Eventually the win now mentality lessened, and it became more of a "we'll win later" mentality, or the famous "we're not one player away." There was some sort of master plan that had to come to fruition to win, or conditions put on how the team had to win. Winning for the sake of winning was no longer important.

Statements like "we can't cripple the franchise" were quite ironic considering the team has been in 4th or 5th place for years. It was already crippled by the lack of inaction.

The team's bottom line and financial health suddenly became more important to some fans than the actual potential of winning the WS, as if they actually were owning the team instead of being fans that gave their money in the hopes of watching a winning product.

Instead of watching the standings, it was all about "the cavalry" and who was going to come up from the minors. It didn't matter if the Orioles won or lost as long as the homegrown players showed some progress, no matter how small.

So when and why did we suddenly lose that appetitite for winning? When did following a specific plan become more important than the result?

Wins and losses are supposed to matter, yet the urgency to win that we once had seems to be gone.

Instead we are searching for feel good stories with the team and organization and just have accepted the fact that this team will never invest in the talent needed to win.

It seems in the long history of the animosity between fans and Peter Angelos, that he's finally won. He's finally crushed that urgency to win. He's crushed the Oriole fans' spirit, and he did it all through the guise of rebuilding under Andy MacPhail. He gave us what many were clamoring for and now he'll never build the team back up again and the fans don't seem to have that urgency to build it back up again for the fear of the team becoming financially unstable or that we weren't following a plan.

It seems fans now care more about the business side of the team than the standings.

Peter Angelos has finally got his revenge.

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