{"id":321057,"date":"2024-03-05T15:54:42","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T20:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wnst.net\/?p=321057"},"modified":"2024-03-02T15:54:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T20:54:55","slug":"the-peter-principles-ch-10-syd-thrift-confederate-money-and-the-new-oriole-way-of-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baltimorepositive.com\/the-peter-principles-ch-10-syd-thrift-confederate-money-and-the-new-oriole-way-of-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"The Peter Principles (Ch. 10) \u2013 Syd Thrift, Confederate money and the new Oriole Way of 21st century"},"content":{"rendered":"

10. Syd Thrift, Confederate money and the new Oriole Way of 21st century
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Angelos feels the term general manager is obsolete and I agree with him. We\u2019re going to keep working to turn this thing around and we\u2019re all going to be working together.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Syd Thrift<\/strong><\/p>\n

Orioles Director of Player Personnel<\/strong><\/p>\n

January 2000<\/strong><\/p>\n

BY NOW ONE OF THE biggest problems Peter G. Angelos was discovering was his inability to lie or buy his way out of the dilemma of the very public and ongoing accountability of running a Major League Baseball team. By all accounts, those around him would say that he had very little natural interest in baseball at all before he bought the Baltimore Orioles. He was a boxer as a kid and a bookish, nerdy, difficult, know-it-all political aspirant who was least likely to get a player autograph or spend a free day at a lowly baseball game on 33rd<\/sup> Street as a kid.<\/p>\n

Mr. Angelos was far more interested in ruling the world than being a peasant local sports fan.<\/p>\n

Angelos was much more serious and interested in law, government, politics and pontificating for anyone who would deem him significant enough to listen to him drone on about his expertise in the world and his world view. Buying the baseball franchise bought him an audience to listen, and an initially fawning media that hung on his every word. Angelos was once called a \u201cwindbag\u201d by a rival politician during his City Hall-aspiring days and six years into his reign of terror with the sputtering Orioles, his many words and lack of success with people would lend some credence to that claim.<\/p>\n

Now, with an evolving track record and many knee-jerk executive decisions, his fingerprints were all over every aspect of the Orioles and the fan experience. His check and report card was coming due in the media. There was no way to avoid the humiliation and daily soap opera of despair that the team generated \u2013 on and off the field.<\/p>\n

Angelos wanted everything<\/em> his way.<\/p>\n

And, now, he had his wish.<\/p>\n

And he couldn\u2019t handle how miserably his strategy \u2013 if you could call it that \u2013 was failing. And how unpopular a guy who was wrecking baseball for lifelong Orioles fans could actually become and how quickly the \u201cMarylander of The Year\u201d accolades could be under siege from the fan base and a media that was simply reporting the bizarre nature of every unorthodox transaction, while watching competent baseball people come in the front door of The Warehouse and get pushed out the side door like yesterday\u2019s rubbish.<\/p>\n

The franchise was without a true leader, without a plan and without a clue. But the team still had a legion of disappointed and disillusioned fans. Tens of thousands of Orioles fans turned to the team on a daily basis as they\u2019d done with their parents and in some cases their parents\u2019 parents. Baseball in Baltimore felt like a birthright, like an appendage or a member of the family.<\/p>\n

For local fans, the franchise was a \u201cwe\u201d not a \u201cthem.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the lure and allure that drew Peter G. Angelos to the team to begin with \u2013 the significance <\/em>and royalty <\/em>of the Baltimore Orioles. It wasn\u2019t his love of a spring afternoon at a baseball stadium or a hot summer night in a pennant race. It wasn\u2019t because he loved a well-pitched game or keeping score with a No. 2 pencil. It wasn\u2019t because he had memories during his formative years with Brooks Robinson or Jim Palmer or even Jim Gentile and Gus Triandos. It wasn\u2019t because he entered debates about Eddie vs. Cal or Frank vs. Brooks.<\/p>\n

Angelos bought the team to be loved<\/em>. He certainly didn\u2019t need the money. He craved the power, <\/em>the status<\/em> it would bring. He sold the very concept that ONLY a local owner could make the franchise better and this paper-thin lie was now being exposed.<\/p>\n

Annually.<\/p>\n

The Orioles brought a cache that opened doors not just in Maryland but also to the President of The United States and all the way to a front row seat at a baseball game with a modern-day dictator, despot and murderer like Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n

For Angelos, it was the company<\/em> it would attract \u2013 the business and access he could obtain by showing the likes of Cal Ripken off in Annapolis when he wanted a bill passed or a judge or political activist to be impressed. And, yes, that happened all the time. That was the extra perk of being a MLB owner and becoming \u201cWashington\u2019s baseball team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angelos still had what mere money or even an election couldn\u2019t buy \u2013 he had the attention<\/em> of the city he loved. His decisions were even more important than the mayor\u2019s to the millions of fans of the baseball team.<\/p>\n

And all of a sudden, now looking for answers, Angelos was looking to avoid the media, avoid the spotlight and the transparency of being accountable to the fans, the media, the sponsors and the greater good of being downtown\u2019s most significant tenant and draw in the summer. Hotels, restaurants, bars \u2013 real industry<\/em> \u2013 depended on the Orioles being relevant, competitive, and, well\u2026loved<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It was becoming increasingly difficult for any fan with a brain to sustain their \u201clove\u201d for the franchise when the owner was involved in the daily tyranny and destruction of the team on the field. It was a soap opera of chaos on a seemingly daily basis and none of it made much sense to people who traditionally worked in Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

Once Angelos researched what the industry term \u201cgeneral manager\u201d indicated in the MLB circle, he decided to abolish the role and title with the Orioles. Instead, he promoted Syd Thrift to \u201cDirector of Player Personnel\u201d \u2013 just as Ken Rosenthal of The Sun<\/em> predicted he would five years earlier when Angelos went berserk with a three-page memo and personal attack on the newspaper columnist the day Thrift was hired by the owner.<\/p>\n

Now, Rosenthal was writing in The Sun<\/em> that, in effect, Angelos had finally selected a general manager he truly trusted: himself.<\/p>\n

Since Peter Angelos and his two sons effectively run things, and trusted baseball advisors like director of player personnel Syd Thrift, farm director Tom Treblehorn, and scouting director Tony DeMacio are already on hand, what\u2019s the real need for a GM?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Apparently, none. With the winter meetings just two weeks away, the Orioles will go to Anaheim \u2013 and into next season \u2013 with a committee, but no single person in the role of GM.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, Angelos will serve as his own GM, while relying on Thrift, Treblehorn and DeMacio for guidance, with input from his sons John and Lou.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Angelos feels the term general manager is obsolete and I agree with him,\u201d Thrift said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep working to turn this thing around and we\u2019re all going to be working together.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still without a manager, Angelos went into the marketplace looking for a big name and found no takers. Jim Leyland and Tony LaRussa turned him down. Don Baylor and Phil Garner also indicated they didn\u2019t want to work for Angelos.<\/p>\n

Instead of doing the hiring himself, he appointed a committee that included Angelos\u2019 son John, who was considered a team vice president, chief operating officer Joe Foss, Thrift and Treblehorn.<\/p>\n

Jim Riggleman, Sam Perlozzo, Marv Foley, Mike Hargrove, Rick Dempsey, Ken Griffey Sr., Hal McRae and Grady Little all interviewed with the mostly non-baseball personnel group in Baltimore. While the committee of baseball men pushed for Boston bench coach Grady Little to be hired as manager, Peter Angelos instead opted for the quiet Texan and former big leaguer, Hargrove.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 1, 1999, Mike Hargrove, fresh off of a 97-win season with the Cleveland Indians and fired just two weeks earlier after a power struggle with general manager John Hart, accepted an offer to become the next manager of the Orioles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes with an outstanding record,\u201d John Angelos said. \u201cBut when you get to know him and see what kind of person he is and see how he responds to questions, you really get a feeling of how well-grounded he is. . . . He was strong in so many different areas, and all five of the people in the interview process felt the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orioles, despite all of the warts, odor and persistent issues, somehow still managed to attract a two-time World Series manager who was bringing a chip on his shoulder from Cleveland, where he felt abandoned and underappreciated. He was so fond of his time with the Indians \u2013 as a player and wildly successful manager \u2013\u00a0that he openly sobbed when meeting the media on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know of any manager ever getting fired after winning 97 games,\u201d Hargrove told The Washington Post<\/em> a month later. \u201cBut then again, I don\u2019t know of any manager who was rumored to be fired as often as I was over the course of 8 1\/2 years. I don\u2019t hold grudges. But if I think about it, I get very angry about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Mr. Angelos I don\u2019t need<\/em> this job, I want<\/em> this job,\u201d Hargrove said at the Warehouse news conference when he took the job. \u201cI think this ball club is a lot closer than people believe. I looked at the commitment of ownership to bring a product to the field that would have a chance to win immediately. I looked at the fan support. And I looked at what sort of city or environment I would be bringing my family into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given his issues with his former boss John Hart, whom Hargrove always believed was trying to get him fired by the Jacobs family who owned the Indians, this wouldn\u2019t be Grover\u2019s first time at the rodeo with the wacky politics of baseball leadership. As a player, he was known as \u201cThe Human Rain Delay\u201d because of his fidgety, slow pace in getting in and out of the batter\u2019s box. Patience was a big part of his life view.<\/p>\n

But it was quite telling that when he was asked, transparently, at the initial news conference if he knew whom he was reporting to in a chain of command with the Orioles, he never really answered the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a decent idea of who I\u2019ll need to talk to,\u201d Hargrove said, without giving a specific name. \u201cEven on a GM-by-committee, there has to be a point man. I was given every indication that I would be involved in the decision-making process in everything we do. I came into this very open-minded [about Angelos]. Obviously, he has every right in the world to be involved in it, and I have no problem with that. But he has told me that every decision about the team\u2019s direction will be my decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the same refrain that Pat Gillick, Davey Johnson and Frank Wren were given by Angelos. All would later essentially call the Orioles owner a liar \u00ad\u00ad\u2013 or worse.<\/p>\n

As the new skipper, Hargrove inherited all of the same problems Ray Miller had contended with over the past two years and he\u2019d be subjected to doing it with a baseball think tank committee led by Syd Thrift, who was everything he was reported to be years earlier by Ken Rosenthal of The Sun<\/em>. Thrift had been Angelos\u2019 \u201cinsider\u201d on the baseball side for five years and had earned the trust of the owner with secret meetings, tattletales and clubhouse fodder.<\/p>\n

The clubhouse had long been characterized as a \u201cworking caste\u201d system by some and \u201cdysfunctional\u201d was the word the previous manager used on his way out. Cal Ripken and Brady Anderson, both who were coming to the end of their productivity as legitimate front-line MLB players, had it written into their contracts that they didn\u2019t have to travel with the team or stay at the team hotel on the road. In general, the Latin players hung with the Latin players, the golfers golfed and the fisherman fished on days off. The best player on the team, pitcher Mike Mussina, was coming into the final year of his contract but strangely was considered to be more than content to stay with the Orioles because he considered it his baseball home. Mussina loved the Orioles and remembered what it was like to win at Camden Yards.<\/p>\n

But Hargrove had an advantage that no other managerial candidate would have with the 2000 Orioles. He had a unique relationship with troubled outfielder Albert Belle, who was still under contract for four more years and $52 million. The Orioles hired the one manager who at least knew all of the bizarre idiosyncrasies of the game\u2019s most mercurial player and Angelos believed this was an \u201cX factor\u201d in his choice to hire Hargrove.<\/p>\n

There was definitely an allure to having a manager who could communicate with Belle at some fundamental level. Certainly, there was no one inside the Orioles organization who felt even remotely comfortable in rattling the cage of Belle, who most everyone seemed to ostracize and isolate because, quite frankly, his body language and schizophrenic behavior was more trouble than it was worth. He seemed to believe that the media really wanted<\/em> to talk to him. The truth? The fact that you could avoid him was a blessing <\/em>for most writers, television and radio reporters.<\/p>\n

No one wanted to deal with Albert Belle, let alone manage<\/em> him. But Hargrove had been there before and gotten the AL Champions T-shirt twice in the previous five years with No. 88.<\/p>\n

Hargrove was Belle\u2019s first manager in 1987 with the Indians\u2019 Class A team in Kinston, N.C., which was also Hargrove’s first managing job after a 12-year career in the big leagues with Texas, San Diego and Cleveland, where he was known for being a solid hitter for average and a decent fielder. Hargrove, who would take inordinate amounts of time at the plate between pitches \u2013 adjusting his sleeves, helmet, gloves, crotch \u2013 had his own idiosyncrasies. In 1991, Hargrove was promoted from first-base coach to manager of the Tribe, and Belle was a mercurial second-year player with enough hitting skills to go to the Hall of Fame but with the social skills of a man who wanted to be in the Hall of Shame. But together they led the Indians from a team that lost 105 games in 1991 to a team that won 100 in 1995.<\/p>\n

Mike Hargrove and Albert Belle had a lot of success together.<\/p>\n

Yet Hargrove told Dave Sheinin of The Washington Post<\/em> in December 1999 that he was \u201cnot unhappy\u201d when Belle left the Indians to go to the White Sox in 1997. As a matter of fact, many thought it was one reason that the Tribe made it to Game 7 of the World Series that year without Belle before losing to the Marlins. Losing Belle did nothing to hurt the Indians in 1997. And once again heading into 2000, Hargrove would need the best out of Belle but could he get No. 88 to perform?<\/p>\n

\u201cI never disliked Albert,\u201d Hargrove told the newspaper. \u201cI disliked some of the things he did. And I\u2019m sure there were things I did that he did not like. But before he left [Cleveland], I think we came to trust each other. My job with Albert is to give him every chance to be totally unencumbered mentally going into a game or into a season. The best thing you can do with Albert is try to call him into the office one-on-one maybe three, four, five times a year. I have learned not to talk publicly about anything he does. He believes strongly that things should stay in the clubhouse. I didn\u2019t understand that at one time. But I\u2019ve never known Albert to not be amenable to at least talking about something in a private setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the rest of Major League Baseball, it was no secret what was happening with the Orioles.<\/p>\n

The ownership wasn\u2019t good, stable or empowering for any human being not named Angelos \u2013 and that set the tone for all of the problems. You don\u2019t trade Pat Gillick for Syd Thrift and not feel it. If you were Cal Ripken, Mike Mussina and Brady Anderson \u2013 the core of the franchise \u2013 there\u2019s no way you couldn\u2019t feel and sense the dysfunction every single day from the minute you\u2019d show up for another spring training in a four-walled dump in Fort Lauderdale, which only existed because the son of the owner of the team liked the social activities in the region in February and March and his overlord father, who liked that it had an airport that landed private jets next door to a stadium that was almost as old as him. The distance between games in South Florida for the players on buses every other day was ridiculous. But the leer jets landed about 200 yards from home plate in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n

The sensible fans in the Orioles kingdom were catching on as well. So was the media, which was constantly vilified by Angelos as \u201cfake news\u201d via his fax machine.<\/p>\n

When the century turned and the 2000 season began, it was a scathing column by Tim Kurkjian, a former Orioles beat writer at The Sun<\/em> who graduated to television every night at ESPN and Baseball Tonight<\/em> but still wrote for ESPN Magazine, <\/em>who inked a cover story entitled: \u201cSopran O\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kurkjian wrote:<\/p>\n

The true snapshot of the 1999 Orioles comes only with the negative. Same nightly picture: Albert Belle sits alone at the postgame spread, bothering no one but acknowledging no one, his body language screaming, \u201cStay away, and no one will get hurt.\u201d His furious eyes focus on his usual meal: four yogurts, placed roughly four inches apart. What is he thinking? Perhaps about what’s most important to him \u2013 his four at-bats that night.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sad team portrait. The Orioles were once baseball\u2019s finest family, a perennial 90-win machine, the essence of stability. They were assembled from within. They were run frugally, yet wisely. People smiled when they passed you in the halls of Memorial Stadium. People were proud to work there.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mostly, the Orioles were fun. They were Frank Robinson in a ridiculous wig, presiding over the team\u2019s kangaroo court. They were Earl Weaver, all 5\u20197\u201d of him, cap on backward, stretching on tiptoes to get in the face of an umpire, then using his tiny feet to cover home plate with dirt during one of his signature beefs over a missed call.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They were Rick Dempsey slipping and sliding around the tarp-covered infield in his slapstick rain-delay routine, finishing his inside-the-parker with a great belly flop at home. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now the Orioles are baseball\u2019s answer to The Sopranos: a dysfunctional family of 78-win underachievers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the field of sports writing, this kind of column is called a \u201ctake down,\u201d as in take-to-the-mat in a wrestling match. Angelos certainly deserved the criticism \u2013 he loved the credit but always disappeared and was unavailable to be quoted when it came time for the blame \u00ad\u2013 and the losses, lies and embarrassments were mounting along with the purged personnel, who had no problem telling the true tales of The Warehouse upon their departures. But the obvious mafia references in the story, which loosely mocked the wildly popular HBO television series, The Sopranos<\/em>, a dysfunctional family of mean-spirited meddlers, really stung Angelos.<\/p>\n

The Orioles play in the best ballpark in America. (Okay, one of the best.) They have a tremendous fan base. They have a rich tradition. And they have seemingly unlimited funds. And yet, over the last five years, Oriole employees, from general managers to press box attendants, have been departing faster than Al Bumbry running out a triple. How can this be?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These days, the Orioles don\u2019t communicate well even with one another. Several times in recent years, minor league teams in the organization lost or gained players without notice from the parent club. Now when something goes wrong, the Orioles brass run and hide. Ray Miller, always accessible as a pitching coach, became sullen and withdrawn as manager. Angelos is constantly angry at the local media. The Orioles seem to operate in response to what columnist Ken Rosenthal writes \u2013 or doesn’t write \u2013 in <\/em>The (Baltimore) Sun.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angelos\u2019 intimidation of the local media had become blatantly absurd and his sending of faxes and memorandums to the press were almost laughable in intent, let alone the tone and personal attacks.<\/p>\n

What self-respecting adult behaved in this way publicly and expected public sympathy on this side of the debate?<\/p>\n

With the money and power gone to his head, and his inability to communicate to anyone outside of a courtroom without some kind of inherent threat, Angelos withdrew even further from the criticism and demanded that his employees march in lockstep with every decision while he hid in his law office tower like a coward during all of the losing.<\/p>\n

All the missives showed the pettiness and small-mindedness of a man who lived in paranoia. He hated everything and anyone he couldn\u2019t control. And he abused and intimidated everything that he did control. The firing of Frank Wren and inserting of Cal Ripken into the storyline by the owner of the team was morbidly over the line and shameless, even by Angelos\u2019 own low-brow standards.<\/p>\n

But for Kurkjian, the obvious target heading into the new season was Albert Belle. For all of Angelos\u2019 faults and the withered power of any management position within the Orioles with Syd Thrift and Mike Hargrove taking over for the previous victims of circumstance, it was Belle who would be the one who could hit the team out of fourth place in the AL East in 2000 and right all of the wrongs.<\/p>\n

Kurkjian continued:<\/p>\n

And then there is Albert Belle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The intelligent, the irrational, the irascible, the irritable Albert Belle. The best player on the team. The most negative force on the team. The signing of Belle to a five-year, $65M contract capped a decade of mistakes: trading Pete Harnisch, Curt Schilling and Steve Finley for Glenn Davis. Rejecting a Jeromy Burnitz-for-Bobby Bonilla offer. Signing Delino DeShields for three years and Mike Timlin for four. Not re-signing Roberto Alomar, Rafael Palmeiro, Davey Johnson or Pat Gillick. Ask who made the more recent gaffes and you get, \u201cI didn\u2019t do it. He did.\u201d But it was Angelos, who has had five managers and four general managers in seven years, who made the call on Belle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kurkjian took one final run at Angelos at the end of the story, trying to explain the mind of a billionaire who still knew very little about baseball, sports fans or much outside of his realm of the law and fighting with everyone on ideology and righteousness.<\/p>\n

Angelos runs the Orioles like a family restaurant. He says he\u2019s not as involved as people think, but he still slices the olives, greets the customers, questions the chef\u2019s preparation and constantly wonders if anyone is stealing behind his back. It\u2019s his nature; he can’t help himself. How many baseball owners get involved in media credentials and parking passes?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Angelos isn\u2019t a baseball man. He\u2019s a lawyer who has represented thousands of victims of asbestos poisoning, in a practice sufficiently lucrative to allow him to buy the Orioles in 1993. He is amazingly thorough, so much so that he doesn\u2019t always act with the speed that baseball demands. If there\u2019s a free agent out there, you sign him now or he\u2019ll be gone. Angelos sleeps only four or five hours a night, but there doesn\u2019t seem to be time to respond to competing demands from his legal practice and his ballclub. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Growing up, Angelos didn\u2019t play baseball; he boxed. Perhaps that explains the fearlessness that shows in everything he does. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Baltimore with a black running mate in 1967, campaigning in places where whites weren\u2019t welcome. Angelos is 5’6″, but he\u2019s quick to point to out that he wears a size-42 coat and weighs 180 pounds. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A philanthropist who quietly supports various Baltimore-area charities, Angelos can be quite charming \u2013 but these days, he\u2019s often angry. When he bought the club, he gave many members of the local media his home phone number and urged them to call, which they did. But when the team faltered and people got fired or quit, the press bashed him, and he became very defensive about any criticism. And he\u2019s especially angry about the heat that his sons have taken about their roles in the organization. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

John and Louis Angelos are bright guys. Both have law degrees. They\u2019re not malevolent. And they don\u2019t call the manager during a game to tell him what to do. John, who oversees daily operations, is a quick study, a highly inquisitive person who picks the brain of everyone from GM to trainer. But he and Louis <\/em><\/strong>grew up in baseball with a Rotisserie League mentality, looking only at stats in evaluating players. Judging baseball requires feel and instinct honed by experience and observation. Neither son has those credentials.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On the eve of the 2000 season, it was very clear that the Orioles weren\u2019t getting better. If anything, now two full seasons removed from the playoffs, what was left of that empire was in decay or close to departure.<\/p>\n

Jon Heyman of The Los Angeles Times<\/em> wrote in a 2000 spring preview:<\/p>\n

The Orioles are old and slow, and they are an annual disappointment. One Orioles official said on the eve of the season, \u201cWe stink.\u201d He said their only real strength was at DH. \u201cWe have four of those.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Orioles\u2019 baseball decisions are now made by G.M. Syd Thrift and Angelos\u2019 two sons, John and Louis. Mockingly, they are referred to as \u201cSyd and the kids.\u201d Thrift was so ill-prepared at the winter meetings that opposing general managers were shaking their heads. The kids are known better for their rotisserie playing, which might explain the real team.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Heyman itemized the 2000 team thusly:<\/p>\n

Young pitcher with promise Matt Riley was arrested for disorderly conduct after a run-in with a policeman during spring training. Right-hander Mike Timlin hasn\u2019t proved to be a closer. Mike Trombley, signed for $7.75 million over three years, hasn\u2019t been terrible, except for the nine homers in his 24 innings. Hargrove admits age is working against his team. \u201cWe’re not getting any younger, like a lot of teams aren\u2019t getting any younger,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want at some point to start getting younger players. But the older players we have like Ripken and (Will) Clark and (Mike) Bordick and (B.J.) Surhoff and Anderson are still good players. They\u2019re not done by any stretch of the imagination.\u201d That might be wishful thinking; Clark didn’t hit his first homer until the team\u2019s 60th game.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if the Orioles wanted to remake themselves now, it would be nearly impossible. Many of their players are so overpaid no one would take them. Their best players are flawed (Delino DeShields can hit but not field); free agents after the season (Bordick and catcher Charles Johnson); struggling (right-hander Scott Erickson, Clark); over 40 (DH Harold Baines, 41); have full no-trade clauses or 10-and-5 veto rights or both (Ripken, Belle, Anderson, righthander Mike Mussina); or limited no-trade clauses (Surhoff).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Camden Yards continues to sell out, but what the fans have seen three years running is a lot of bad baseball.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty more to come.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The words of Heyman, in retrospect, could be considered quite prophetic. The Orioles wouldn\u2019t reach the American League playoffs for 12 more years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Angelos was once called a \u201cwindbag\u201d by a rival politician during his City Hall-aspiring days and six years into his reign of terror with the sputtering Orioles, his many words and lack of success with people would lend some credence to that claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Angelos\u2019 intimidation of the local media had become 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