You can count on Angelos for mistakes—and arrogance

Sporting News, The, Dec 11, 2000 by Ken Rosenthal

It's saddest for the fans, the 3 million strong who pack Camden Yards every season and make Baltimore as terrific a baseball town as Cleveland or St. Louis.

The fans remember what the Orioles once were. They're appalled at what the Orioles have become, and their loyalty is being tested as never before.

Under owner Peter Angelos, the Orioles have lost one of the game's top broadcasters (Jon Miller), one of the best managers (Davey Johnson) and the man who almost single-handedly transformed the franchise (Frank Robinson).

They've lost many of the game's brightest executives, from Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt to Padres president Larry Lucchino, Mariners general manager Pat Gillick to Rangers G.M. Doug Melvin.

And now they've lost Mike Mussina, their latter-day Jim Palmer.

When will it end? By now, the answer should be obvious: When Angelos, 71, no longer is owner.

His team is a laughingstock. His tenure is a flop. But he isn't likely to sell, not when the team's value is uncertain because of the threat of a competitor moving to northern Virginia--and not when his sons, John and Louis, are in position to assume control.

It wasn't long ago that every free agent wanted to play in Baltimore--Roberto Alomar, B.J. Surhoff and Randy Myers signed in 1996, Jimmy Key, Mike Bordick and Eric Davis in '97. Those days are gone.

Mussina couldn't wait to leave, signing a six-year, $88.5 million contract with the Orioles' biggest rival, the three-time defending world champion Yankees, a team that Angelos called "lucky."

Shortstop Jose Valentin took $5.9 million less than the Orioles offered to remain with the White Sox. And free-agent relievers Turk Wendell (Mets) and Jeff Nelson (Mariners) accepted better offers from better clubs.

Angelos remained defiant even after Mussina's departure, telling The (Baltimore) Sun, "Contrary to what some of our critics are saying, we know what we're doing."

His top baseball man, Syd Thrift, was in even greater denial, claiming, "We don't have to sell ourselves. Pitchers and players throughout both leagues are aware of what we have accomplished here and this owner's commitment to winning."

Thrift is right--everyone in the game is aware of the Orioles. It's difficult not to notice a team that has produced three straight sub-.500 campaigns with payrolls among the five highest in baseball, and gone through five managers and eight pitching coaches as Angelos enters his eighth season as owner.

The Orioles had no excuse for losing Mussina--they probably could have signed him to a five-year, $55 million extension in 1999, when former G.M. Frank Wren discussed the parameters of a deal with the pitcher's agent, Am Tellem.

But Angelos, one of the nation's leading labor attorneys, protracts most of his baseball negotiations, playing hardball with employees who can pursue better options.

Rafael Palmeiro, Angelos' greatest free-agent triumph, bolted after the owner refused even to discuss an extension. The Mussina negotiations followed a similar pattern, the only difference being that Angelos made several below-market offers.

Mussina had agreed to such a deal in his previous contract, incurring the wrath of the players' union. He wasn't going to undersell himself again to a team with such dim prospects. He wasn't going to lower the bar for his fellow union members once more.

This was the landscape in which Angelos was operating, but as usual, he had to be the smartest guy in the room.

He railed at Dodgers G.M. Kevin Malone-another former Orioles executive-for signing Kevin Brown to a seven-year, $105 million contract. He understood that Mussina wanted comparable money, but Angelos said that such contracts for pitchers were too big a risk.

That argument would not be without merit, if a) Angelos hadn't signed Albert Belle just two years before for $13 million per season, and b) the Orioles could be trusted to spend the money that they saved on Mussina wisely.

Angelos since has acknowledged his mistake in signing Belle, but Mussina was a homegrown product and model Oriole. He could have led the rebuilding effort, setting a positive example and giving the team a chance to win every fifth day.

But don't try to follow Orioles logic. After a while, it makes your head hurt.

Here's a team that amended a four-year, $29 million proposal to Aaron Sele last winter after claiming to discover weakness in the righthander's pitching shoulder. Sele signed with the Mariners and became a 17-game winner. But this offseason, the Orioles reportedly made a multiyear offer to a pitcher who definitely was hurt, reliever Tom Gordon.

Thrift, 71, exhibits one talent--staying in Angelos' good graces. Thrift is so out of touch one National League club refuses to even meet with the Orioles at baseball gatherings. "We're not going to do his homework for him," an official from that club says.

The Orioles would be better off with Melvin, Gillick or even Wren, who presided over a spectacular 1999 draft that helped re stock the team's slowly improving farm system. But after one season, Angelos fired Wren, now the Braves' assistant general manager.