Thirty-one years ago, Peter G. Angelos was his hometown’s hero — a tavern owner’s son who came of age in working-class Highlandtown, built a legal empire and used his fortune to purchase the Orioles.
By all accounts, Angelos cared less about the mechanics of baseball than he did about restoring local ownership for a cherished civic institution. He knew how deeply the Colts had wounded his city when they fled to Indianapolis, and he was not about to see the Orioles follow.
He spent freely and won plenty in his early years. The baseball world toasted the retro-majesty of Camden Yards and Cal Ripken Jr.’s march toward playing in 2,131 consecutive games.
Angelos could never have anticipated that, when news broke more than three decades later that his heirs had a deal to sell the Orioles to a group led by another Baltimore-grown billionaire, David Rubenstein, the city would greet the transaction for the team valued at $1.725 billion euphorically.
The story of the Angelos family’s legacy with the Orioles is a complicated one, blending civic pride with long stretches of abysmal baseball, sharp business decisions with baffling public relations missteps and a 2022 lawsuit that exposed personal rifts. The team won 101 games last year, lifted by sparkling young players carefully selected by the cutting-edge front office Peter Angelos’ son, John, hired. Yet fans cheered the family’s impending departure Tuesday evening, convinced the Orioles would never reach their full potential under Angelos stewardship.
“My immediate first thought was one of relief,” said Joe Foss, who as vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Orioles from 1993 to 2007 served as Peter Angelos’ top business lieutenant. “Peter’s wishes are in fact headed toward being honored. He bought the team with a passionate investment attitude toward Baltimore, the city that he loved, and personally invested heavily in players, even though many of them did not work out. He never intended to have his family be the longtime owners of the team.”
Andy MacPhail, the Orioles’ president of baseball operations from 2007 to 2011, said of Angelos, “I trusted him and that trust was well-placed, because he did exactly what he said he would do … and he had such an affection for the city of Baltimore.”
MacPhail was surprised to hear of the sale, less so that the news was greeted with applause. “I can’t comment on what happened when the baton was passed to John and [Angelos’ younger son] Louis and then just John,” he said. “Other than to say the performance on the field is hard to complain about. There are things you can wonder about. Generally, in a good year, you don’t want to put a fire hose on the party by saying we can’t spend any money. But … with a new owner, hope springs eternal. New owners generally want to make a splash, and they’ll do something to try to get the fan base behind them.”
The 94-year-old Angelos has been in failing health for six years and ceded operating control of the franchise to John Angelos in 2020. Foss said he cannot help but feel sadness that Peter Angelos’ genuine passion for the Orioles is lost on many who love the team.
“I had a unique seat to see the real Peter Angelos,” he said. “We would have hours and hours of conversations over the years about how important local ownership is, how proud he was to be in a financial situation to buy that asset for the city.”
The club had previously been owned by New York-based financier Eli Jacobs and Washington-based attorney Edward Bennett Williams.
“I do think it’s sad in some ways,” said Baltimore-based investment banker John Moag, who sparred with Angelos when he was chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority in the 1990s but shared an enjoyable lunch with the Orioles owner shortly before Angelos fell ill. “Fans are tough on their owners everywhere. Peter wasn’t really a baseball guy. His interest was in doing something for Baltimore. As a baseball owner, he told me at that lunch, ‘Yeah, I made some mistakes. I brought in some players I shouldn’t have.’ He was very introspective.”
It can be difficult to view Angelos through 1993 eyes, but there was genuine excitement in the air that August after the investment group he led purchased the Orioles with a $173 million bid at a U.S. bankruptcy court in New York. Memories of the Colts’ departure were fresh, and the introduction of a bold, local owner who would spend to win invigorated Baltimore baseball fans.
“Men and women say hello as he passes on the street, strangers approach to shake his hand, and at Jimmy’s Famous Crab House on Holabird Avenue, the reception was so overwhelming it was as if a celebrity had fallen into their midst,” Baltimore Sun columnist John Steadman wrote at the time.
The Orioles made the playoffs in 1996 and 1997. Camden Yards was packed almost every night. Angelos beamed as he hosted presidents, Supreme Court justices and Hollywood royalty.
“When he would walk into his suite by himself, he would look out at the full stadium, and you could see the pride coming out of his eyes and his heart,” Foss recalled.
The good old days did not last. Beloved announcer John Miller left after the 1996 season, saying the Orioles “don’t want me.” Manager Davey Johnson resigned shortly before he was named American League Manager of the Year for his efforts in 1997. Reports of Angelos meddling in baseball decisions became harsher and more frequent, even if some of his decisions proved correct. The Orioles began a run of losing seasons that lasted from 1998 through 2011 before returning to the playoffs three times between 2012 and 2016.
Angelos, the pugnacious negotiator whose tenacity resulted in billions of dollars worth of class-action settlements for those harmed by asbestos and tobacco, gave no quarter in his dealings with Major League Baseball leaders.
He staked out iconoclastic positions during the work stoppage that cut short the 1994 season, accusing fellow owners of financial suicide and refusing to consider a plan to use replacement players. Most other owners refused to speak with him for the next year, Foss remembered, though Angelos became a leading negotiator on future labor deals.
When the league wanted to move the Montreal Expos to Washington in 2005, Angelos, recognizing the damage a new neighbor would do to his regional fan base, carved out a majority share of the new Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which would broadcast both teams’ games. That arrangement led to more than a decade of bitter legal wrangling between the Orioles, the Nationals and the league over fair distribution of rights fees, with a partial settlement finally reached last summer. It also greatly increased the Angelos family’s net worth.
“Peter was out to protect his investment, but he had a fiduciary responsibility to protect the minority investors, and very importantly, he was intending to protect the revenue streams of the Orioles in order to compete in the American League East,” Foss said. “The people in Washington thought Peter was just being greedy. I completely disagree with that.”
The protracted MASN dispute, ultimately pushed by John Angelos in place of his father, led to a perception of icy relations between the Orioles and MLB. Baltimore, for example, has not hosted an All-Star Game since 1993, the team’s second season at Camden Yards. Only the Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland Athletics have waited longer (the Tampa Bay Rays have never hosted since beginning play in 1998).
Asked how the sale might change the tone of the Orioles’ relations with MLB leadership, Marty Conway, former vice president of marketing with the Orioles and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, said “ownership structures have changed” in recent years and “I think it would be positive going forward.”
Stephen F. Ross, the executive director of Penn State’s Center for the Study of Sports in Society and a student of the MASN case, said in an email that it’s “FAR too soon” to know if the change will lead to thawing between the club and league office.
Though many fans waved a gleeful goodbye to John Angelos when news of the sale to Rubenstein broke, others noted that he deserves credit for hiring one of the sharpest young general managers in the sport, Mike Elias, and for empowering Elias to rebuild the Orioles’ baseball operation from the ground up. That paid off last season with the team’s first AL East title since 2014.
“Despite some bumps in the road, I give credit to John Angelos for setting the Orioles up for long-term success in and for Baltimore,” Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Yes, he’ll certainly do well $$-wise in the end. But, ultimately, as far as pro sports owners go, John Angelos really will have done right by Baltimore in this transfer for the long haul.”
The “bumps” Ferguson alluded to included:
• The 2022 lawsuit John Angelos’s younger brother, Louis, filed against him and their mother, Georgia, over control of the Orioles and Peter Angelos’ other assets. The sides settled early last year.
• Stop and start negotiations with the state over a long-term lease at Camden Yards, trumpeted prematurely on the stadium’s video board the night the Orioles clinched their division but ultimately agreed to in December.
• The unexplained two-week disappearance of popular announcer Kevin Brown from MASN broadcasts last season, which Angelos later said should not have happened.
• A New York Times interview in August in which Angelos cast doubt on the Orioles’ ability to retain their young stars.
That last point created the most enduring consternation among fans, especially when the Orioles followed up the success of last season with a quiet offseason in which they have so far failed to add a star player.
Unsparing criticism of John Angelos — he will be a senior advisor to Rubenstein as the family retains a “major” stake in the team, a statement from the Orioles said — persisted Wednesday, when state treasurer Dereck Davis said “it’s deeply disappointing and troubling that you could look your state in the eye us and outright lie to us about your intentions” to sell the team.
Assessing John Angelos’ piece of the family legacy, Foss said: “He dragged the community into [the lease] negotiations. The people in Baltimore remember the Colts leaving after [Bob] Irsay said we’re not leaving. I believed John [when he promised the Orioles would stay], but nonetheless, that doubt was dragging fans through this again, and at a time when we had one of the best teams we’ve ever had. To John’s credit, he’s given Mike Elias and his staff the flexibility to move forward. What he didn’t give them was cash that John either didn’t have or didn’t intend to spend on additional players.”
Fans are now greeting Rubenstein, a Baltimore City College graduate turned billionaire private equity investor, with the same hope and enthusiasm they once showered on John Angelos’ father.
Baltimore Sun reporter Hayes Gardner contributed to this article.