ownership’s abandonment of the fan base and local business community.
I cared then. I care now.
Three years ago, I took my love of baseball on the road as I toured 30 Major League Baseball stadiums in 30 days for There Goes My Hero, leukemia patients and to swab for the bone marrow registry. I’m one of five people on earth who have ever done that. I’m proud of it.
I love baseball. It’s been a defining part of my life.
Over the next six weeks – as the team hits a crossroads and as I turn 50 on October 14th – I’ll be offering some honest letters to the “powers that be” at The Warehouse. Please make sure if you see any of them, you deliver the #DearOrioles letters for me. They deserve to know how I feel as I enter the second half of my life and the second quarter of a century of misery and second-class citizenship of being a Baltimore Orioles fan under this ownership.
These #DearOrioles notes are sincere. Sure, they’ll be a little snarky, a little anecdotal, a little personal, a little wistful and a front-row seat to how one beleaguered local kid from Dundalk grew up to love and be around a baseball team and an owner that has done everything possible to avoid the fans, the community and accountability. But they’ll be honest. They’ll be as humble I deserve to be after dedicating my life to this work and you’ll hear several of my personal horror tales with the Baltimore Orioles for the first time. You’ll probably learn a lot if you care to read and learn.
Like Paul Harvey said: “The rest of the story…”
8
It’s not about how I feel – that’s well worn. It’s about why I feel the way I feel.
The real story.
And why I don’t go. And why I don’t give them money.
But it’s one unencumbered media expert’s report card on where this franchise stands among many people in the community. You know who I’m talking about, right? All those people who have suddenly gone missing at Camden Yards and are disguised as empty seats?
My pal Bill Cole called it what it is: “The long-term consequences of long-term neglect.”
The fans feel a duty to not pay any attention. We’re not boycotting. That would take too much energy.
All of the oxygen is gone but what happens next – after Joe Flacco and Lamar Jackson start snapping footballs and Manny Machado is dealt off into a pennant race?
8This latest incarnation of the franchise is an absolute disaster. Much like the summer of 1988 out on 33rd Street, it’s a summer of baseball that is a living, breathing, daily disgrace that is so awful I almost can’t take my eyes off of it.
This #DearOrioles series is about what lies ahead. Certainly it appears there will be more embarrassment and plenty of losing over the steep hill they’ll need to climb to make the franchise respectable again – on and off the field.
It doesn’t have to be that way but, seriously, what vital sign does any sane person see that this ship is sailing in the right direction? Not even the embarrassing homers on their own MASN network – who will also be getting some individual report cards and letters from me before the end of the summer – paints a rosy picture anymore. When you’ve got the likes of Tom Davis and Rick Dempsey plum out of excuses, you know your toes are touching the bottom of the deepest gorge in the Chesapeake.
Recently, even Jim Hunter has acknowledged that Chris Davis might even be in the early throes of a rare slump.
“But of course he’ll snap out of it any day…”
I’ll be writing about the reality of having my press credential taken away. A lot of really crazy shit has happened very publicly – and even more nefarious and dishonest behavior on their part behind the scenes that I’ve never acknowledged until this #DearOrioles series.
It has all stemmed from my childhood love of baseball beginning with my “Aparicio” last name and my lifelong journalistic thirst for knowledge and demand for honesty and transparency from an organization that simply doesn’t have that as a part of its credo, history or intent under the greedy reign of Peter G. Angelos.
8The fans don’t matter. And we haven’t for a long time. He’ll even lock the doors and play baseball and tell you that you can’t come to the game. He did that once – sanctioned a Major League Baseball game and told the fans to stay home!!!
“Mr. Angelos owns the team. He’ll do as he wishes.”
I know this because Brady Anderson once made it very clear to me back when the Sports Legends Museum still existed and he invited me to leave Baltimore if I didn’t like it. Since he’s apparently in charge of the Orioles lately, he’ll be getting a #DearOrioles letter as well. It’ll begin with me asking him if he ever used steroids in the 1990s because that would be the first of many character and integrity questions because leadership all begins with honesty.
And that’s really where it should begin – with character, honesty, transparency and as my credentialed media pal and sometimes Angelos-compensated MASN roundtable host Mark Viviano recommended recently: “Sound, long-range decisions that are well communicated.”
Sounds nice when it’s written on Twitter, right? It’s much harder when you want to come back and hold them accountable to that standard while still getting a paycheck from them.
Just ask the boss…
I’ll be writing #DearOrioles letters to all of them in some order of significance throughout July as the Machado trade sweepstakes heat up, Adam Jones dangles and every part of the organization undergoes change or scrutiny as Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter see the end of the orange pasture. Even the national media suddenly seems interested in the Angelos palace intrigue and there’s plenty of that going on as well around every aspect of this well-anticipated train wreck in the coming months.
Baseball – the sport, the pace, Major League Baseball, kids playing it, millennials caring about it, etc. – has many inherent problems in general as I hit the half century mark of my life. My pal Bob Nightengale wrote an unflattering portrayal of the specific awfulness of this current brand of
