While I’m not an O’s fan, I do find this to be awesome..
Fans Lament Decline and Fall of the Orioles
Some day the Baltimore Orioles will be remembered as the American League version of the Cincinnati Reds. How’s that?
The Reds were the last team to win the National League West championship before the Atlanta Braves began their unparalleled run of 14 consecutive division titles. The Orioles were the last team to win the American League East title before the Yankees began their ongoing streak of nine straight first-place finishes.
The Orioles in first place? The memory fades, it was so long ago.
The Orioles have faded, too. Since they finished first in 1997, their standing has fallen, their payroll has dropped and their attendance has plummeted. Their fans, who used to cram Camden Yards, long for the good old days, and many of them took to the streets around the park yesterday to deliver their message to Peter Angelos, the owner.
“There are so many complaints,” said Nestor Aparicio, organizer of the protest and owner of the sports talk-radio station WNST. “The community feels helpless, betrayed. We’re on 14 hours a day, and the other day I said, ‘Let’s talk about last night’s Orioles game,’ and we didn’t get a single phone call.”
When Angelos spoke on the telephone yesterday, at about the time the protesters were gathering at bars on two sides of Camden Yards, he did not seem fazed by the demonstration. He rejected its legitimacy, saying, without mentioning his name, that Aparicio was running it to enhance his talk show.
“This fellow, who has been going on for a number of years in a thoroughly irresponsible way, has a call-in show, I think,” Angelos said.
Aparicio, who said he is a distant cousin of the Orioles Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio, said, “This is not a publicity stunt for the radio station.”
Stunt or not, The Associated Press reported that nearly 1,000 fans walked out of the park en masse during the fourth inning of yesterday’s game against Detroit. Aparicio estimated the number at 2,500.
In better days, at the start of the Camden Yards era, the Orioles drew more than 3 million fans for nine full seasons in a row, reaching 3.7 million in the 1997 championship season. In the last four years of that economically robust period, the Orioles finished in fourth place, and by the fourth fourth-place finish, attendance was barely above 3 million.
This season the attendance is headed for the lowest total (less than 2.2 million) since 1988, the season in which the Orioles lost their first 21 games. The Orioles won the A.L. East title in 1997 with a $64 million payroll, second in the major leagues to the Yankees’ $67 million. The Orioles’ payroll remained second to the Yankees the next two years, but then began plummeting — in successive seasons to 5th, 12th, 14th, 15th and 21st in 2004.
They began this season with a $72 million payroll, according to commissioner’s office compilations, up from $51 million in 2004.
“We’re doing the best we can with a $75 million payroll,” Angelos said. “It’s tough to deal with teams that have double the payroll or triple. We expect to be increasing that payroll to compete.”
How much of an increase?
“In order to be competitive in the American League East,” the owner said, “you have to spend $100 million at a minimum, unless you push the right buttons and have the insight that Billy Beane and Terry Ryan have.”
Angelos, who doesn’t care for the title general manager, referred to the general managers of the Oakland Athletics and the Minnesota Twins, who are among the best in the business, putting together low-payroll teams that perennially contend.
General managers have not lasted long during Angelos’s 13-year ownership. He has either fired them or alienated them. Most often he has made their lives difficult by imposing a stifling oversight.
His reputation is such that he is even reported to do things he may not be responsible for. One person with knowledge of a recent deal said Angelos prevented a July 30 trade that would have sent shortstop Miguel Tejada to Houston for a package of players, including pitcher Roy Oswalt, whom they were then supposed to send elsewhere, most likely the Mets.
Angelos said yesterday the Orioles didn’t want to trade Tejada for a player, Oswalt, who could be a free agent after this season, but he didn’t acknowledge killing the trade. The general manager of another team said it was not Angelos’s move that killed the deal.
But Angelos does have a reputation among agents for turning off free agents. Player agents, who did not want to be identified so they wouldn’t hurt future negotiations, said Angelos’s low-ball offers annoy players, who then look for jobs elsewhere. Those same agents said that with the owner looking over their shoulders, his general managers are unable to pursue free agents aggressively.
Angelos also doesn’t like to pay draft choices large bonuses, forcing the Orioles to select lower-rated, less expensive amateurs.
Like many other teams, the Orioles planned to build a program in the Dominican Republic, but it has been on hold for years because Angelos has been reluctant to spend the necessary funds.
Speaking generally of player signings or moves, Angelos said: “I don’t stop anything. We have discussions, what it’s going to cost, what it’s going to look like and what the prospects are for it to be a successful trade. If the consensus is there, we’ll do it.”
One positive development has been the absence of Angelos’s sons, John and Lou, from the team’s operation. Earlier in Angelos’s ownership, the sons, especially John, were involved and not productively.
And Angelos sees signs of improvement, most notably with the team’s young pitchers, headed by Erik Bedard. “I think we have the makings of a first-class pitching staff,” he said. “We have four young pitchers who are doing well. If their talent and commitment hold true, I think in a year or two they’ll be one of the best pitching staffs in the American League.”
The fans can’t wait.
NY Times
It’s that time again.. once every four years that those of us in the States pay attention to soccer football. What’s unfortunate is that stupid vuvuzela makes watching games like you have a ginormous hangover for the entire 90 min. If rugby was smart enough to ban them in South Africa, why can’t the football gods?
Okay, so I’m slightly biased because I’m part Italian, but seriously.. Count me in!
Posted by dpnation 
dpnation: Lawsuit free since 2004!
