When the Orioles announced the hiring of general manager Mike Elias in November 2018, they ushered in a new era at Camden Yards, not only from a front office standpoint but also an ownership one.
Local attorney Peter G. Angelos, who purchased the team out of bankruptcy court in 1993, could not continue as the point man for the club after 25 years due to a debilitating health situation.
Advertisement
Introducing Elias in 2018 were Angelos’ two adult sons, John and Louis. John did most of the talking. Louis sat there on the stage, looking uncomfortable, and listened.
One of the things John Angelos declared that day was the Orioles’ partnership group would be more transparent in its dealings with the local media and, subsequently, the team’s fans. His father had shrunk from the public eye in the previous decade or so, and John felt he and Louis would be more visible in the community and more accessible to reporters.
It sounded great. But based on what has happened since, and what happened Monday — John Angelos not only refused to clearly answer a question about his family’s future with the team but also berated me because I asked about it on Martin Luther King Jr. Day — his “transparency” declaration fell hollow.
So, how's your day goin? https://t.co/0zKV0cYKWj
— Dan Connolly (@danconnolly2016) January 16, 2023
Frankly, the honeymoon abruptly ended that day in 2018 on the dais. The truth is John Angelos never had a real interest in answering questions from the media. Or interest in anyone who may question him at all. Throughout his tenure, he has ignored most interview requests. He almost never makes himself available, except for the rare TV or radio interview on his terms.
As for his brother, Louis?
Never much of a public figure, Louis hasn’t been available for comment since he sued his brother and mother in June, claiming they pushed him out of the organization and unlawfully seized assets after Peter Angelos became ill. He wants his and suggests it was taken from him while he was running the family’s law offices — something Louis Angelos claimed he did because his brother never passed the bar exam.
So, yeah, that all has happened since John Angelos last talked publicly.
Advertisement
Additionally, the Orioles’ suit with the Washington Nationals over MASN fees is ongoing, which may complicate both organizations’ ability to sell. Also, the Camden Yards’ lease expires at the end of this year and a one-time five-year extension must be picked up by Feb. 1. Plus, no one for sure knows the contract status of Elias, who, if he signed a five-year deal in 2018 — which seems reasonable — currently would be in his walk year. Only John Angelos and Elias can address that situation, and Elias, smartly, isn’t speaking about his own deal.
There is a lot to discuss — and pass to the fans — when an opportunity to speak with John Angelos arises.
So, fast forward to 11 a.m. Monday at Camden Yards.
Now the sole chairman and CEO of the Orioles, Angelos hosted a joint news conference with Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott to announce the club’s $5 million commitment to CollegeBound Foundation, a nonprofit that assists Baltimore City students with pursuing and completing college degrees.
The Orioles’ commitment basically matched the foundation’s annual operating budget — an impressive donation — and they chose to announce it on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I understand both the significance of the investment and the reason for the timing.
But this also needs to be understood:
Monday was the first time John Angelos made himself available to local reporters since February 2022 on a Zoom when the Paul McCartney concert at Camden Yards was announced.
Before that, the last time Angelos spoke to the Baltimore media as a group was in January 2019, when he announced the Billy Joel concert at Camden Yards.
Sensing a trend?
For those counting, that’s two face-to-face meetings with sports media members in four years.
Monday’s conference was billed as a “conversation about the long-term reinvestment in Baltimore igniting the next Baltimore renaissance.”
Advertisement
When an Orioles spokesperson was contacted Sunday afternoon about whether there would be time during Monday’s event to ask questions, the media was told yes; there’d be a Q&A with Angelos and the sports media members who cover the team. That was expected on the Orioles’ end. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been much sports media in attendance.
That’s how these things work. There was no ambush. No misguided insensitivity.
When Angelos opened the Q&A session Monday, the first query was about the stadium lease situation. Angelos showed some reluctance in answering but basically said that it will get done.
My question was second, and I asked about his family’s future with the organization, given everything that is swirling around it. He’s often said the Orioles won’t leave Baltimore, but he’s never said his family won’t sell the team. The question was, in part, also posed to the mayor, asking if he was concerned about engaging in joint projects alongside the Orioles with their ownership situation currently unsettled.
Angelos said he’d take the question first. He also said he’d answer it. Instead, he lectured.
“I’m going to take you a little bit to task on it, OK?” Angelos said. “With all due respect, that’s not an appropriate subject matter for this day.”
The response continued at length.
“It’s really not important at all in the grand scheme of things to people that are clear-thinking and who mean well and have a perspective to, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, while we’re talking about putting kids that don’t have a shot in hell of anything, because of where they were born, through college, to be talking about those kinds of things. So, I’m going to object to that question today, in this forum, before the mayor of Baltimore and all these people. Do we understand each other? Do you understand my complaint?”
Advertisement
Before I could answer the question, he snapped that he wasn’t finished yet. I was waiting for him to send me into the corner. Take away my lunch money.
But Angelos just kept going. Kept saying how inappropriate it was to talk about the business of baseball on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, it was Angelos who picked the date and asked the media to come.
“I think that your focus is completely out of touch and has no perspective whatsoever on what real-world people face,” Angelos railed.
Yes, John Angelos, the privileged son of an undeniably hard-working billionaire, called me “out of touch” about “what real-world people face.” It was also John Angelos who turned the attention of the day away from the nonprofit foundation by going on his rant, when a simple, “I’ll answer these questions after the official conference,” would have sufficed. We’re not media savages.
He also, in the strangest part of the oddest news conference I’ve ever attended, halted his diatribe momentarily to ask me, someone who has covered this club for 22 years, “Are you from here?”
I sarcastically wanted to go into Monday Night Football intro mode: “Dan Connolly, Calvert Hall College High School, Towson, Md., Class of ’87. Go Cards.”
But I didn’t want to hijack the conference. Being the story is not what we’re supposed to do as journalists. And I didn’t want to cross that line any more than I inadvertently had.
I also didn’t give full disclosure that, after growing up in Baltimore, a few miles north of Memorial Stadium, I settled in York, Pa., where I landed my first sportswriting gig. York is still deep-rooted Orioles’ territory and it is a lot closer to Baltimore City than say, Nashville, or Sarasota, Fla., or Saratoga Springs, N.Y. — three locations where John Angelos has lived almost exclusively in the last decade-plus, despite saying during Monday’s conference that he, “spent every day of my life living, not only in Maryland, not only in Baltimore but in Baltimore City.” Owning a place and living there is not the same thing.
Advertisement
But what does city of origin or previous destination or current residence have to do with why it’s inappropriate to ask a baseball question of a baseball owner in likely the lone chance we see him in 2023?
Just another moment in what was a Bizarro World morning.
One tremendous thing did come from the conference, however.
Angelos, at one point, declared himself “very transparent,” and invited me and other members of the media to meet him next week on the third floor of the warehouse and he will, “show you the financials of the Orioles. I’ll show you the governance of the Orioles. I’ll show you everything you want to know, and I’ll (answer) all your questions.”
That would be extraordinary. An extremely rare offer by a privately held sports franchise to open its books to the media. I’ve asked to see the Orioles’ financial records multiple times in the past decade and was denied. The same with other sports media members.
Such a revelation would bring light to the Orioles’ payroll decisions, to the ongoing stadium issues and to MASN’s operation as a regional sports network. If that information were revealed to us, it would be a watershed moment in Baltimore sports history. There’s not a sports journalist in this area who wouldn’t want to be present for that. Several of us have already asked for an appointment.
I’m not going to get my hopes up, though. This is the same guy who in 2018 vowed to be more visible and transparent with the local media. And we know how that has gone.
(Photo of John Angelos on Monday: Dan Connolly / The Athletic)