Peter Angelos’ baseball legacy is complicated. But the Orioles remaining in Baltimore is part of it. | ANALYSIS

SARASOTA, Fla. — Peter Angelos loved Baltimore. And he loved baseball.

Those who knew Angelos — the fierce man, the legal titan, the controversial owner — held differing opinions about him. But they had no doubts about his unwavering belief in his hometown or his deep passion for the game.

Angelos, the Orioles’ longtime owner, died Saturday after years of failing health. He was 94.

His legacy as an attorney is ironclad. He defended the common man and woman against greedy corporations and won. He was a true self-made billionaire whose wealth derived from doing good in a world that’s increasingly filled with rich people who were born on second base and reached home by taking advantage of others.

His legacy as an owner, however, is more complicated.

When the Orioles were this year sold to an ownership group led by private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, the fact that the Angelos family would no longer be in control of the ballclub was met with thunderous applause by a fan base that had soured on anyone with the last name Angelos — starting with the patriarch and ending with his son John.

It’s not hard to understand why.

After early on-field success, the Orioles suffered through 14 straight losing seasons. Angelos meddled too much in baseball operations. He committed several off-field mistakes — none as ignominious as the ego-driven firing of broadcaster Jon Miller.

But none of that should be the most significant part of Angelos’ baseball legacy.

He bought the team when there were fears about a new owner moving the Orioles out of Baltimore — before the scars of the Colts’ move in the middle of the night had healed — and his tenure officially ends on the heels of a new Baltimorean, one who is also committed to keeping the team in Charm City, taking over control of the club.

The Orioles aren’t going anywhere, and Angelos might be a major reason.

“I do feel like Peter brought security that the team was staying put,” part-owner and former tennis star Pam Shriver said. “You can criticize any number of things, but after what happened with the Colts, that was an extremely important thing to happen for Baltimore — that the Orioles wouldn’t be going anywhere.”

Angelos, who grew up in East Baltimore, so badly wanted to own the Orioles that he vastly overpaid for them. The $173 million it cost to purchase the club in a bankruptcy court auction was over $100 million more than Eli Jacobs, the New York-based venture capitalist who was struggling financially, paid for the team just four years earlier. It was nearly $70 million more than the previous high for an MLB team.

It’s unclear what Jeffrey Loria, a New York-based art dealer who was bidding against Angelos’ ownership group, would’ve done with the ballclub had he won. Camden Yards debuted a year earlier with consistent sold-out crowds and a 30-year lease — making a move to another city unlikely. But Baltimore fans were terrified about losing another team and viewed an out-of-town owner as more likely to move the club. In some ways, as evidenced by fan sentiment throughout the Orioles’ lease saga last year, that paranoia hasn’t gone away.

“There was so much uncertainty,” said Ben McDonald, a pitcher for the Orioles from 1989 to 1995. “When the rumors started happening years ago, there was some concern about where the Orioles would end up and where we would go.”

After he won the auction, Angelos called it a “premium” that was worth paying because it meant that Baltimore’s baseball team would finally be owned by one of the city’s own. He was asked about his ability to make money after overpaying for the club, and his response was evidence of what endeared him to fans in the early days.

“That’s not the primary concern,” Angelos said, according to The New York Times. “The primary concern is putting the best club on the field.”

Perhaps his most important act as owner came in his first season at the helm. In August 1994, MLB’s players went on strike, and the labor stoppage wasn’t resolved until April 1995. He bucked his fellow owners and refused to sign replacement players or support a salary cap — further evidence of his pro-labor beliefs.

The issue for Angelos was despite his intentions to put a competitive product on the field — which is more than some owners nowadays — he largely wasn’t able to. If the sale is approved by MLB’s owners ahead of opening day Thursday, that would end a 30-season run with the Angelos family running the team. In that time, the Orioles failed to win a World Series, made the playoffs just six times and were one of the majors’ worst teams with 20 losing seasons.

Despite a run of success from 2012 to 2016 with Buck Showalter as manager, the Orioles fell back into the cellar at the end of Angelos’ run as the club’s control person. His sons hired general manager Mike Elias in 2018, and John Angelos officially took over in 2020 once Peter became incapacitated.

“He did care about the team. When you go through as many losing seasons as the Orioles did before we started winning again, it’s tough,” said former Orioles first baseman Chris Davis, whose $161 million contract given by Angelos was first cheered and later bemoaned. “As the owner, you’re going to take that on the chin because everyone feels like you’re the one in control. But Peter really did care about the team. It really rejuvenated him and excited him to see the team winning again from 2012 to 2016 — to see the great postseason run in 2014.”

Despite persistent public relations snafus and an unwillingness to spend on payroll, John Angelos has seemingly left Elias and company to their own devices — not interfering the way his father often did — and the results on the field have been stark. The Orioles won 101 games last year and seem primed for more playoff games at Camden Yards, which will remain the home of the Orioles for at least 15 years, and potentially up to 30, thanks to the recent lease agreement.

“He kept the team here,” Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said. “Yeah, there were ups and downs and, what, 14 straight losing years and all that, maybe he interfered or whatever. If I’m David Rubenstein, I have to say thank you for keeping the team here and leaving me a team that has the chance of being very good.”

As the Orioles are approaching another ownership change, it might become easy to shoehorn Angelos’ legacy into a neat narrative that he was an ineffective owner whose teams were largely bad. That, of course, isn’t really up for debate. But there’s more to this silly game than who wins and loses after nine innings.

Angelos knew that the Orioles aren’t just a baseball team. They’re Baltimore’s baseball team, and they should be only Baltimore’s baseball team.