Gillick later addressed his relationship with Angelos in The Baltimore Sun: “We’ve had discussions, and we’ve had heated discussions. The only time we really had a major disagreement in policy was in July . . . He thought the baseball people were looking forward to ’97 and forgetting about ’96. I respect where he’s coming from. I understand where he’s coming from. Sometimes, it’s good to have his perspective. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us not agreeing on certain issues. I think that’s healthy.”
But it was on September 27, 1996 when Angelos would once again exert himself into the conversation in regard to a player’s actions on the field.
In Toronto, where he lived and played for two World Championship teams, Roberto Alomar got into a heated argument at the Skydome over a called third strike with veteran umpire John Hirschbeck and blatantly spit in his face after the words were exchanged. Hirschbeck was going through a rough time in his life with the death of a child from adrenoleukodystrophy (known as ALD) and another child had been diagnosed with the disease. Afterward, Alomar referenced this situation as a perhaps a reason that Hirschbeck was so confrontational and maintained that Hirschbeck used a gay slur in their conversation. Alomar said he spat at his face to respond to the lack of respect.
For Major League Baseball, this was an ugly episode that took months to untangle and the fact that Hirschbeck went after Alomar in the bowels of Skydome after the game and threatened to kill him made the situation worse. It was the lead story on ESPN and every news outlet and it sullied Alomar’s otherwise strong reputation in the game that would eventually lead him to Cooperstown. He was already well on track to a Hall of Fame career and this was a black eye for him and the sport as a whole. And with just two games left in the season and the Orioles having made a miraculous comeback to qualify for the playoffs, Alomar was widely made a villain by the national media.
The next weekend, Alomar hit a 10th inning, Game 4 home run in the American League Division Series to give the Orioles a dramatic 3-1 series win to advance to the AL Championship Series where they lost in five games to the New York Yankees.
Alomar rose to the occasion at Jacobs Field in the ALDS despite being showered by boos from the Cleveland fans, who hated everything about Baltimore in 1996. The Baltimore Ravens were just five games removed from being the Cleveland Browns and this series was quite hostile given the civic temperature in Northern Ohio.
Angelos spent the offseason investigating the spitting incident and commissioner Bud Selig suspended Alomar for the first five games of the season. But the Orioles owner made sure the public knew that he’d be paying his second baseman his full salary because he felt that Alomar had already been punished enough in the court of public opinion. As much as owner-player relations were strained during the 1994 strike, this dispute directly involved the usually silent third party of Major League Baseball: the umpires.
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The coziness of Selig’s ability to usurp the commissioner’s office had really placed the umpires in a bad spot when there were problems on the field.
But, once again, it was Angelos who came to Alomar’s defense publicly in The Sun and along with the player’s agent made a very public statement that Hirschbeck should apologize to Alomar for taunting him.
“If you take literally what he said to the kid, he accused him of having a sexual relationship with his mother,” Angelos told the paper. “Now, just because it’s used a lot, rarely does anyone make that statement to anyone in a confrontational manner. And in this case, it was.”
Angelos said Hirschbeck should be “man enough” to admit what he said to Alomar, calling his player’s reaction “unfortunate but understandable. If you say something to a 28-year-old athlete like that, you can understand that’s going to be the reaction. Probably Robbie wanted to take a poke at him, but he couldn’t reach him, and he did the next best thing. His reaction makes no sense unless you understand the context. If you look at the record, John Hirschbeck is a fine, upstanding individual and Robbie has been, too. There are those saying, ‘Let’s forget about it and move on.’ Yeah, but it’s forget in a fashion that is unacceptable to those who seek the truth and want to know exactly what happened. There is a gross injustice here.”
Richie Phillips, the umpires’ union general counsel and an umpire himself, went nuts. “Selig should say, ‘We have the finest umpires in the world, and we’re going to protect them and deter players from abusing them, especially physically.’ We had an agreement with the commissioner’s office not to engage in public rhetoric and the next thing we know, Angelos is saying he’ll pay Alomar even if he’s not compelled to. On top of all this, the straw that broke the camel’s back was Angelos saying John Hirschbeck should apologize to Alomar. Selig again did nothing, even though people in baseball urged him to act. A substantial fine should have been imposed on Angelos.”
Alomar and Hirschbeck made very public apologies to each other on April 22, 1997, standing at home plate where they shook hands at Camden Yards. They joined forces to raise awareness about ALD and to raise money for research and spent years publicly attempting to right the wrong and work together. “God put us maybe in this situation for something,” said Alomar in later years and always made a point to refer to Hirschbeck as “a friend.”
