documented, and as Loverro pointed out – there’s only been one constant during that timeframe and all roads lead back to the person who runs the franchise.
That person is – and has been since 1993 – Peter G. Angelos.
Every organization is a reflection of its leader.
Angelos can buy off a lot of people – or intimidate them or try to banish them as he’s done with me. After 21 years as a credentialed media member, this is my 10th season without access to ask the king or any of his minions questions of any kind and Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette literally run me from at public events, as did their predecessor Andy MacPhail.
(By the way, if Buck Showalter is such a great guy, then why does he run from me when people like Mike Tomlin and Chuck Pagano fly in from Pittsburgh and Indianapolis to support my leukemia causes?)
But Angelos can’t – and shouldn’t – be permitted to run and hide like the coward that he is from the facts of an empty stadium that has been the talk of Major League Baseball this month.
This is an emperor has no clothes moment for Baltimore baseball and where it sits in September of 2016.
You think the Blue Jays fans didn’t notice last week? You think Yankees fans aren’t still watching this young team? You think the highlights from Camden Yards aren’t being seen around the sport and everyone isn’t saying: “Where are all of the Orioles fans?” You don’t think the Red Sox fans will take the place over again next week?
Before I left for Germany, I did two radio shows in Canada and Philadelphia where that “Where are the Orioles fans in Baltimore?” theme was the central topic and the reason they called to have me as a guest on their program. As always, I ran those interviews as part of our WNST.net & AM 1570 radio programming. You can hear them in the BuyAToyota Audio Vault as well.
It’s a national story. And even if the Orioles go to World Series – and they still could mash their way there – it’s pretty clear: Baltimore just isn’t that into the Orioles circa 2016. Hundreds of thousands of people have spoken with their wallets and time. And they’re clearly not opening up their piggy banks here in the September of an all-too-rare pennant race in Baltimore or making time to come out to the old ballpark for important things like scoreboard crab shell games and digitized condiment races.
The Orioles are in a position to win a World Series. And no one, save the visiting fans, are all that interested in coming to the games. And the only shell game now is where Angelos and his “good looking sons” are hiding and which bought-off media flunky they’ll consent to speak with about the issue of the disappearing fans of the Baltimore Orioles.
You know, a “real” journalist like Tom Davis or or Jim Hunter or Roch Kubatko will get to ask the questions.
In April, it’s the bad weather.
In May, the kids are still in school.
In June, we’re going to the beach.
In July, it’s too damned hot!
In August, it was the riots from 15 months ago.
In September, fans are waiting on playoff tickets and saving their money. (And watching the Ravens.)
And everyone is trying to find a reason other than the real reason: the team has been poorly run and incomprehensibly profitable in virtually every way for a quarter of a century while the “value” to the fans (a.k.a. the “customers”) has been constantly spiraling downward.
Angelos bought a team with $34 million dollars and its total value is nearly $3 billion of value.
He doesn’t “need” the fans or consent of any kind.
He has used you and me and everyone in a six-state radius as a private ATM – pulling money from your cable bill 12 months a year. Filling the stadium is irrelevant and inconvenient.
He’s personally pocketed nearly a billion dollars off of a local sports franchise that has for nearly a quarter of a century pissed in the eyes of the Baltimore community – I remember the decade when they denounced the use of “The B Word” – and watched the city go dormant for years, except when the Red Sox or Yankees would come into the city and increase the tax revenue for weekends when Camden Yards would buzz with Northeastern accents and families would leave millions of dollars behind for Angelos – and the local downtown.
When the local team sells and promotes the merchandise of the visiting team in order to turn a buck – and openly markets to the opposing fans and anyone in orange at Camden Yards has been shouted down by tens of …
