During a yearlong genuflection to its 50th anniversary, Sports Illustrated is featuring a different state each week. One of the categories for each is “Enemy of the State,” with George Steinbrenner and Steve Spurrier vying for the most jurisdictions where they are disliked.
The District isn’t included, but we certainly would have no trouble picking our No.1 bad guy. Does anybody want to hear a good word about Peter Angelos? Then find yourself another column.
Should we hate Peter Angelos? No, because that’s far too strong an emotion to be used in relation to sports. Even in the sizzling heat of true athletic fandom, it’s important to remember that these are merely games other people play.
But is it OK if we dislike Peter Angelos intensely, even gag at the mention of his name? Sure because he’s the bozo who is keeping major league baseball out of the Washington area.
For some reason, King Peter thinks the District and environs belong to him and the Orioles. For some reason, commissioner Bud Selig listens to him. That’s why it might be another 33 years before we have a team to call our own.
Preposterous? Of course. Can we do anything about it? Probably not — nor can Bill Collins, Fred Malek, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. Our fate appears sealed. We have two principal choices — become Orioles fans or ignore baseball from this day forward and pursue more rewarding sports like, say, water polo.
No, scratch that. Water polo reminds us of the Polo Grounds, which reminds us of how a team can be swiped from under our noses, which reminds us of …
Calvin Griffith.
Bob Short.
Now Peter Angelos. (And how’s that for an unholy trinity?)
Rather than swiping a team from under our noses, Angelos has maneuvered tirelessly to prevent one from coming here by sobbing crocodile tears about how that would destroy his club. It isn’t enough for Angelos that the Orioles sold out Camden Yards for a decade or so, even when he and his minions were putting terrible teams on the field. It isn’t enough that Maryland taxpayers built the most gorgeous ballpark in the Western world for his team. It isn’t enough that some fans have to pay half a week’s salary to watch some of his overpaid jocks amble through their paces. It isn’t enough that he drove off some of the game’s most knowledgeable people — from executives to managers to broadcasters — because they wouldn’t kiss his, er, ring.
Having done his best to wreck baseball in Baltimore (and it remains to be seen whether Messrs. Beattie, Flanagan and Mazzilli can restore it), Angelos is determined to destroy it in Washington, too. With apologies to Chuck Dickens, let’s call it “A Wail of Two Cities.”
To heck with suburban sprawl and silly Census Bureau terminology: Washington and Baltimore are not the same — never have been, never will be. They don’t like us, and we don’t like them. It’s ridiculous to take one baseball team and portray it as properly representing 8million people.
Suppose the Redskins didn’t exist — truly a horrible thought, especially since the advent of Gibbs II — would we all become Ravens fans? Only a Raven maniac could think such a thing.
The Orioles belong to Baltimore, not Washington, though I suspect a lot of fans in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have converted out of sheer desperation. Angelos has done everything possible to identify the Orioles as a regional franchise: removing the word “Baltimore” from uniforms and logos, opening merchandise stores and selling tickets in D.C., staging offseason “Fan Fests.” But I’m sorry, Pete, you’re not fooling anybody.
A regional franchise? The nation’s capital as a baseball adjunct to Charm City? What is this, Duluth or someplace?
The funny thing is, a team in D.C. probably wouldn’t hurt the Orioles that much. All those surveys showing that 10 or 15 or 25 percent of the O’s attendance comes from the Washington area are just a bunch of numbers. A lot of baseball men feel that having two teams in the same region — one in each league — can help both because overall interest in the sport takes a jump.
When the Dodgers and Giants fled Noo Yawk City for the West Coast in 1958, some people expected the Yankees to become richer and fatter than ever. Instead their attendance dropped 68,000 that season — and this is when the pinstripers were winning pennants every year.
Until Angelos sells the Orioles and an honestly impartial commissioner replaces Selig, we’re not going to see a team in Washington. All indications are that baseball will keep the pathetic Expos in limbo for two more years until it can raise the contraction issue once more, and who cares what we want or deserve.
If that’s the way it has to be, we can live with it — after all, we’ve done so since 1972. But let’s expose this “regional franchise” business for what it is: another power grab by a man who has made a career of them.
No, I don’t hate Peter Angelos, but don’t push me.
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