I come here not to particularly urge that a baseball owner/executive be idolized but it's worth noting what the Chief Operating Office of the Baltimore Orioles John Angelos said following protests on Sunday by thousands outraged by the killing of Freddie Gray.
The protestors reached Camden Yards during a game between the Orioles and the Red Sox. The fans were initially told not to leave the stadium.
Here is what John Angelos said in a series of Twitter postings:
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
One of the things that I have not see mentioned as a bit of context. John Angelos is the son of Peter Angelos, the principal owner of the Orioles. Peter, who made his fortune as a labor lawyer (representing people in discrimination cases) was
the only owner who refused to field scabs during the 1994-95 players strike:
“It’s clear that he had a different attitude from a number of the other owners on whether the course they’d embarked upon was wise,” understates Don Fehr, the MLBPA head at the time.
It wasn’t just that Cal Ripken Jr.'s sacred streak would end, as cynics sniped. You’d taken labor’s side against management all your life. Never had a corporate client, you like to brag.
“Peter hates corporate America,” says a former associate who spent much of his adulthood working for your firm. “You hear him say it all the time. ‘Those no-good motherf-----s.’ This is a guy who wore short-sleeve shirts to work with a tie. He had his office in a blue-collar section of Baltimore. He was a peasant. A peasant who got rich. A peasant who got rich and bought a baseball team.”[emphasis added]
So, the son learned something at home.
So, as long as they aren't playing my team, I'll wish this guy well.
