Spending many of my formative years in B'more, I got to experience their NY hatred first hand - especially when it comes to baseball and the Yankees. After Oriole Park at Camden Yards was built and Peter Angelos' ownership group came to town, there was a slight glimmer of promise that the franchise would continue on the path as a top contender in the AL East. With a full, new park, deep pockets, and an already good franchise it seemed to make sense that the O's would remain in contention for years to come.
I remember being at Oriole Park for game 5 of the ALCS, watching then rookie Andy Pettitte pitch brilliantly as the offense was powered by Jim Leyritz, Cecil Fielder, and Darryl Strawberry to vault the Yankees to the World Series, their first in 15 years.
That was the beginning of the end for the O's as the franchise has seen a series of poor (at best) managerial decisions that have been orchestrated by Peter Angelos. The knock, from O's fans, was that Steinbrenner was a meddling owner that just spent money and could not run a team. The winds of change came in the 90's during the Boss' suspension from MLB and the baseball minds were brought in to right the wrongs and turn things around.
The argument then shifted to, "The Yankees just buy everyone and they are dumb and stupid and we hate them for spending the money they have oh and it sucks when their fans fill our stadium because our own fans can't." The most ridiculous part of this argument is that Oriole Park was beyond full for every game during the stadium's infancy and the O's owner refused to put the money back into the product. Stars faded and young players left town and Angelos, et al, did not do anything to keep the roster stacked with talent.
Fast forward to today and the stadium is not even close to half full or half empty or more importantly half interested. Money is generally wasted on a lackluster crop of free agents and player development is neglected. The shame is, there is a lot of young talent in the system and there have been a handful of players developed in recent years (Reimold, Markakis, Wieters to name a few). The key is not just cultivating talent but also knowing when to dump young players to re-load - sell high (Erik Bedard) and reap the benefit of said deals.
You say, where is he going with this? Simple, I woke up this morning and found this story and it bothered me. Angelos has always been about himself. He knows nothing about running a franchise but can write an encyclopedia about how to ruin one. While I doubt he'll been suspended for any particular reason, it's even more doubtful that he'll step away and let his baseball people run the show. Having a local legend like Ripken wanting to be involved with the organization is only a good thing. Not allowing him to do so is just more proof that Angelos is out of touch with what will work to turn things around in MD.
1 comment:
they are still in it, technically speaking
Post a Comment