What, if anything - would it take for your to forgive Peter Angelos

[wickedwitch]

He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina. He ran off Mussina.

Hall of Fame caliber pitchers aren't that common. Chasing the only one we've had in quite some time will need a WS victory to make up for it.

And that, like the Davey Johnson issue, didn't happen as a result of him wanting to win. Times when he made genuine mistakes are a whole lot easier to forgive than the times his ego got in the way or he was being cheap.

[Boy Howdy]

Honestly, I have very mixed emotions about Peter Angelos.

I like and respect a lot of the things he's done and stands for, including his refusal to field a scab team when MLB players were on strike in spring training 1995 and pulling off the games against Cuba despite plenty of opposition.

On the other hand, the way Davey Johnson departed --and later Pat Gillick-- remains a sore point with me. Those two men are on my short list of brightest baseball minds I've ever observed. I had a letter to the editor published in The Washington Post predicting the Orioles would regret Davey's ouster, but I had no idea that I'd still be waiting for another winning season for 11 years and counting.

All in all, Peter Angelos is OK with me. I disagree with plenty of his decisions, but I think his heart's in the right place so I hope he gets to experience an Orioles World Series championship.

[BaltimoreFan]

Save the Preakness, to begin with. I realize that he may not be able to do it alone, but get your filfthy rich family involved.

[carolinaoriole]

Peter is a prideful man so I don't expect an apology anytime soon for the mess he has made of our beloved O's. And it is not very likely that that he would issue one anyway. But short of selling the team and moving with his sons to Canada - is there anything that he could do for you to forgive him?

I ask this because we have seen several perhaps backhanded steps that he has taken over the past year to repair his image in Baltimore and to improve the team. Baltimore is back on the road jersey, he acknowledges and even embraces the Ravens, he has hired a competent GM and seems to have given him freedom to make important decisions, he has pumped money into the farm system and international scouting and now he is offering to save the Preakness.

No apology required he controls the team

[rolliefingers]

As I said in the Preakness thread, anyone that thinks the Orioles, if they wanted, couldn't find their way out of their lease is fooling themselves. Just looking at sports over the past couple years should tell us that.

I can't believe people are actually arguing this point.

Say it with me: Brand. New. Ballpark.

[rolliefingers]

And to answer the question:

Keep doing what he appears to be doing now - FINALLY - which is write the checks and stay the hell out of the way.

I wanted to say "win a WS" but that's kind of a steep task. All I ask, and this goes for pretty much anyone, is that when you make mistakes, you learn from them and change your behavior. To his credit, Angelos seems to have finally done that.

I honestly never thought I'd say or type that sentence, but here I am.

[Belkast]

I think Angelos cares about winning. His problem was he was deadset on thinking he knew how to go about it, his way.

I can't argue here.

[df1570]

This is an interesting topic and one that I have talked about a lot on my show over the years.

Could - and would? - Baltimore ever forgive Peter Angelos for the almost-systematic way he went about dismantling a once pride franchise?

I think he's on his way to earning that forgiveness.

The two most recent examples of Peter "getting it" were the hiring of Andy MacPhail and the road jersey change to "Baltimore".

After years of meddling and hiring people with the necessary experience to run the team - only to be intruded upon by Peter and his support staff - Peter finally got with the program and bought into this concept: With a few notable exceptions, owners do NOT make good personnel people, quasi-GM's, etc. Owners are there to own.

In fact, Peter Angelos doesn't really OWN the Orioles. In 1992, he bought the right to make a profit off of the team. The city and the (diminishing) fan base OWN the team. Peter just owns the right to make money off it, just like Bisciotti owns the right to make money off of the Ravens. They're both civic enterprises, mainly, and if the fans stop going to the games, there is no more Orioles (or Ravens).

Once Peter figured out that there IS someone out there smarter than him - a tough belief for an attorney - he handed the team over to MacPhail and things have started to improve...even if the '09 rotation will more closely resemble something from The Bad News Bears.

As for the uniform change to "BALTIMORE" on the front, this, again, was another example of the team thinking they were right when every piece of logic or reason pointed otherwise. For a while there, even though they knew the right thing to do was make the change, they didn't...if for no other reason than they didn't want the fans to get their way. It was, then, and still would be, backwards thinking - considering that the fans keep the team afloat.

Putting "BALTIMORE" on the front of the road jersey isn't going to win them any more games in '09.

But understanding how important the fans are might help them win games someday down the road if people start going back to the ballpark and they play a meaningful game in September where 44,000 people show up in orange to cheer for the O's.

Everyone says, "when the team wins, the fans will come back."

No, no, no.

"The team won't win again UNTIL the fans come back."

I think the Orioles are starting to get it. It took a while, but they have finally caved in and surrendered to the fans and the city of Baltimore.

For that, I think it's fair to applaud Angelos. For years, he DIDN'T get it. Now, he apparently DOES get it. It's not too late, even though these 11+ years have been hard to digest.

He still has some bush league staffers getting a check from him every two weeks but that's another story for another day.

[GotNitro]

Although I do not like the facts that there were the fallouts with Moose and Davey J, unless he has intentionally fielded a losing team and did not want the O's to succeed, there is no reason for him to apologize to the fans. I do not think this was the case at all. He spent money, it just came back to bite him many times. As far as the meddling, who here would buy a baseball team and then want nothing to do with it? I don't think anybody. We all have our ideas as to what the O's should do, we talk about them here every day. He had his ideas just like we have ours, with the difference being he was in a position to make his ideas reality as the owner of the team. They just didn't work out. Many of ours probably wouldn't have worked out either. Hindsight is 20-20. No need for an apology at all.

[GotNitro]

This is an interesting topic and one that I have talked about a lot on my show over the years.

Could - and would? - Baltimore ever forgive Peter Angelos for the almost-systematic way he went about dismantling a once pride franchise?

I think he's on his way to earning that forgiveness.

The two most recent examples of Peter "getting it" were the hiring of Andy MacPhail and the road jersey change to "Baltimore".

After years of meddling and hiring people with the necessary experience to run the team - only to be intruded upon by Peter and his support staff - Peter finally got with the program and bought into this concept: With a few notable exceptions, owners do NOT make good personnel people, quasi-GM's, etc. Owners are there to own.

In fact, Peter Angelos doesn't really OWN the Orioles. In 1992, he bought the right to make a profit off of the team. The city and the (diminishing) fan base OWN the team. Peter just owns the right to make money off it, just like Bisciotti owns the right to make money off of the Ravens. They're both civic enterprises, mainly, and if the fans stop going to the games, there is no more Orioles (or Ravens).

Once Peter figured out that there IS someone out there smarter than him - a tough belief for an attorney - he handed the team over to MacPhail and things have started to improve...even if the '09 rotation will more closely resemble something from The Bad News Bears.

As for the uniform change to "BALTIMORE" on the front, this, again, was another example of the team thinking they were right when every piece of logic or reason pointed otherwise. For a while there, even though they knew the right thing to do was make the change, they didn't...if for no other reason than they didn't want the fans to get their way. It was, then, and still would be, backwards thinking - considering that the fans keep the team afloat.

Putting "BALTIMORE" on the front of the road jersey isn't going to win them any more games in '09.

But understanding how important the fans are might help them win games someday down the road if people start going back to the ballpark and they play a meaningful game in September where 44,000 people show up in orange to cheer for the O's.

Everyone says, "when the team wins, the fans will come back."

No, no, no.

"The team won't win again UNTIL the fans come back."

I think the Orioles are starting to get it. It took a while, but they have finally caved in and surrendered to the fans and the city of Baltimore.

For that, I think it's fair to applaud Angelos. For years, he DIDN'T get it. Now, he apparently DOES get it. It's not too late, even though these 11+ years have been hard to digest.

He still has some bush league staffers getting a check from him every two weeks but that's another story for another day.

You get blasted here alot, and I usually disagree with you, but you have made some good points on this one. Nice post.

[wildcard]

PA hired Gillick and Johnson. That was a good move by PA.

PA fired Gillick and Johnson and the team has not been as good since. That is bad on PA's part.

If PA had done it right the O's would have been right there with Boston over the last 10 year. Gillick turned the Phillies around.

10 years of bad decisions until he hired MacPhail. That is the majority of his time as an owner.

That does not mean he is a bad person, or a bad lawyer. He could be a great person who has just made very bad decisions about his ball club. That simply means he has been a bad owner.

The thing I give PA credit for is putting the structure in place to be able to make the Orioles a viable team even if their market was decreased by the Nationals moving to DC. The way he got it structured with MASN and the league it appears that if he can ever put a winning team on the field, this franchise could be awesome.

[Mad Mark]

You all are getting too hung up on "1993". Last time I checked, a team doesn't have to be moved immediately upon purchase; they can leave whenever all of the legal and financial issues are worked out.

My focus on "1993" is based on that being the last time the team was on the market. The celebration was about the return of "local ownership" not some (real, or grounded, anyway) fear that the Orioles were gonna board the next batch of Mayflower vans out of town.

[Mad Mark]

Could - and would? - Baltimore ever forgive Peter Angelos for the almost-systematic way he went about dismantling a once pride franchise?

...

The two most recent examples of Peter "getting it" were the hiring of Andy MacPhail and the road jersey change to "Baltimore"...

As for the uniform change to "BALTIMORE" on the front, this, again, was another example of the team thinking they were right when every piece of logic or reason pointed otherwise. For a while there, even though they knew the right thing to do was make the change, they didn't...if for no other reason than they didn't want the fans to get their way. It was, then, and still would be, backwards thinking - considering that the fans keep the team afloat.I think the Orioles are starting to get it. It took a while, but they have finally caved in and surrendered to the fans and the city of Baltimore...

For that, I think it's fair to applaud Angelos. For years, he DIDN'T get it. Now, he apparently DOES get it. It's not too late, even though these 11+ years have been hard to digest.

He still has some bush league staffers getting a check from him every two weeks but that's another story for another day.

Oh, my...where to begin. Apologies for shortening your post, but there was no need to quote the parts that made (relative) sense, and that I'm not going to address below

I do acknowledge your apparent acceptance of the fact that some good stuff has happened recently, however grudging it may be...and yet...you just can't let it go, can you?

You act as if there was this enormous mob of villagers (led by you and Nestor, of course) DEMANDING "Baltimore" be put back on the ROAD JERSEYS (because everyone sees those in person so often) or else the team was guilty of staring every piece of logic or reason in the face and doing the contrary.

I'm a uniform collector, and a longtime Orioles fan. Even for me, this was a minor issue. (I feared that if they made the road uniform change, they'd screw it up, and I was pretty much right...although they've mostly corrected their original mistakes.) My contention was that there should be--in addition to the "Baltimore" road jersey, a "Baltimore" alternate jersey--to be worn on Opening Day of whatever year it was introduced, just to shut people up about this.

Now I realize that Peter Angelos was the sinister force behind this horrible decision to take Baltimore off the roadies 20 years before he bought the club, and for that he should be hung from the highest yardarm, but if you really...really think that YOU AND THE FANS forced this decision on him, all I can say is: I want some of what you're smoking, son.

And as to your final sentence? That's not another story for another day. That's your banner headline for every day. Way to keep the petty personal grievances out of one of your posts...for once.

[wickedwitch]

For those of you who believe he had the Orioles' best intentions at heart, could you please explain the Davey Johnson issue. Do you think that Angelos truly believed that that the team would be better off without him?

[BaltimoreTerp]

I can't believe people are actually arguing this point.

Say it with me: Brand. New. Ballpark.

Why do people keep arguing points that aren't being argued?

Say it with ME: It's not the ballpark, it's the lease. If a team wants to get out of the lease, they will. Whether they want to or not is not and has never been the argument.