Friday, June 24, 2022

Bye Bye Birds

 

It made me sad.  The Angelos family is fighting over control of the Baltimore Orioles.  There is speculation one family member wants to move the team to Tennessee.  There is also speculation the team will be sold, and the new owners might want to make a move as well.  The lease at Oriole Park has only one year left.

I used to be very fond of Baltimore.  I'd visit once or twice a year.  I was there on 9/11, and I went back the next year.  The city held too many bad memories, and I never went back.  On top of that, the place where I stayed became very shabby, and the Inner Harbor area went downhill.

Having said that, It would be a real tragedy if the Orioles left.  The city got screwed out of the Colts, when the Irsay family moved the team in the middle of the night in 1984.  In fairness, the city and the state of Maryland were dragging their feet on a new stadium.  Still, it shouldn't have happened.

What happens if the Orioles leave?  Beside falling tears, there is a chance the city would get an expansion team.  I'm sure the Washington Nationals would try to block that.  Baseball should be contracting, not expanding anyway.  There are far too many cities that don't support their teams, and some owners don't seem to be interested in winning.  Television money keeps them going.  Baltimore would never accept the Nationals as its team.  When the Colts left, the TV networks fed Washington Redskins games in to the Baltimore market.  It didn't work.  Baltimoreans wanted a team of their own and the Cleveland Browns moved in to town to become the Ravens in 1996.

It will be interesting to see how this movie ends.