or threats to press conferences – I bring simple questions, aligned with simple facts and respectful queries that should be answered by a legitimate sports franchise that allegedly serves the community.
At least that’s what we were told when the citizens were footing the bill to build stadiums for billionaires.
You can throw the Ravens into the accountability mix after a stinker of a season. But, rest assured, owner Steve Bisciotti will sit in front of the media in the coming weeks and give a state of the organization to show respect to the people who pay the bills and make him wealthier.
I’ve been paying attention.
This is my 25th year of doing sports radio and media for a living in Baltimore. I’ve been doing the math all along but I’ve been getting persistent questions about adding it all up.
So, in the midst of my wife fighting for her life around the clock at Johns Hopkins in her second dreadful battle with leukemia, I have done the math.
It will be presented in a long format because there’s a lot of information and history to digest.
There are no “Clif’s Notes” for this presentation. It’s chess, not checkers. I don’t do microwave sports media content.
And why go through all of this trouble to interpret this information for Baltimore sports fans? Well, it has been the heart and soul of my business to understand and interpret Baltimore sports news, information and results. Honesty, it’s all I’ve ever known and my calling on the planet. I’ve been a fan of the Baltimore Orioles since 1972. I’ve been a member of the Baltimore media since 1984 – and independent of “corporate” media since 1991 when I started doing sports radio.
I wrote a book about my love of baseball and the Orioles in 2006 when I did the “Free The Birds” rally, which I still take great pride in because it brought sensible, thoughtful fans together in a one-time plea for change.
In the aftermath, my career and my journalistic credibility were hung at sundown by the lanyard on my press credential. I defy you to find one negative link to any local media regarding Peter G. Angelos or the Baltimore media since 2007 when I was treated like a member of the Chinese media corps.
(Well, there was this little “insignificant” piece that somehow the folks on TV Hill never seemed to follow up on…) Just in case you’ve forgotten the lowest moment that no one ever talks about anymore.
It’s like the suicide of Mike Flanagan never happened. Except, well, it did.
I haven’t forgotten.
Time hasn’t dimmed the agony or the pain and sorrow.
Angelos has not been heard from much publicly since that era, when it’s now very clear he was lying to everyone in the shrinking …