This is the part in story where it all gets kinda fuzzy, these last 13 years.

And because I absolutely promised myself that I wasn't going to get too negative about Peter Angelos in this series -- we all have our reasons for wanting to participate in The Rally on Sept. 21, but I don't feel the need to itemize and analyze everything AGAIN, after spending year after year on the radio dissecting all the whys and wherefores -- I'm going to temper the tone of this chapter a bit, but there are PLENTY of reasons for the "disconnect" between the Orioles and our community.

And that's what I believe it is, a "disconnect," because people don't WANT to stay away from the ballpark and they don't WANT to stay away from the Orioles or baseball because this community LOVES baseball.

I can break the bad things into a couple of categories but I think I can sum it all up in one simple statement, with a gargantuan underlying current:

"The Ravens came to town!"

I'll just call it "The Ravens Effect."

I'm sure this will be a controversial blanket statement in many ways, but I believe it's at the heart of the problems with the Orioles and their perception in this community.

Basically, everything the Modells heard and took to heart in what they were hearing from this community from the minute they got here in early 1996, somehow, the Angelos group lost or misinterpreted in translation.

Or resented. Or fought. Or just plain ignored.

Peter Angelos ALWAYS wanted to be the owner of the Baltimore NFL franchise -- ALWAYS! He was upset when the Browns came, he "shined" Art Modell (and perhaps more importantly, Art's wife, former Hollywood actress Pat Modell) at a function early on and, as Richard Dawson might have said: "The feud was on!"

But, knowing the Modells as I do, I always thought they believed it very sad and strange, the way they were treated by the Orioles and the Angelos ownership group.

The Modells loved baseball, they loved community, they clearly saw themselves as the "outsiders" who just wanted peace, especially in light of the incredibly envious situation the Orioles were in. Truth be told: the Ravens were ALWAYS playing from WAAAAY behind in the beginning, in every single way imaginable -- from fans to revenue to television to radio to media coverage to sponsorship money to stadium money to image to just flat-out, old-fashioned tradition.

The Ravens would never be the Colts, and the mere notion of a carpet bagging owner doing the same thing to Cleveland that was done to our community 12 years earlier was bothersome to everyone it seemed (other than me and then-governor Parris Glendenning). And maybe John Moag also had no conscience about it because his job wouldn't allow it.

But that was IT.

There's no nice way to put it: the Ravens were considered the scum of the earth by everyone outside of Baltimore when they pulled into Owings Mills in early 1996. And the Orioles absolutely held the keys to everyone's heart and soul in this city and throughout the state. The Orioles, it seemed, could do no wrong.

So what did the Modells and the Ravens do?

They kept their heads down, their noses up and their ears open and quickly figured out what people in Baltimore wanted and gave it to them -- or at least tried like hell!

Beginning with Davil Modell's emphatic decision to put a "B" on the helmet (he always told me "That 'B' represents this city!") instead of an "R," the Ravens' people (many of whom were FORMER O's front office employees, who were lost in the purge once Larry Lucchino's group was forced out and Angelos' group took over) saw every minute detail the Orioles had ignored and tried to capitalize on it.

The Ravens have given people here a choice -- and a very good one -- and the Orioles just haven't caught on, and certainly this family and ownership group never had to actually BUILD the franchise and they never planned for life in a two-sport city. They just paid top dollar at an auction in 1993 and INHERITED the best baseball franchise money could buy with the game's biggest star and the world's most beautiful stadium with one of the most storied traditions in American sports over the second half of the century.

They inherited a team that people flocked to support in spite of an 0-21 start five years earlier. They inherited a team whose memories and history could make thousands of people openly sob in the aisles of a closing stadium in 1991.

BUT, they never had to BUILD any of this. It was all there -- baseball in a box -- just open and operate!

All they needed to do was maintain the status quo, reinforce "The Oriole Way" and pay tribute to and attention to all that was Orioles baseball as this community knew it.

But the Angelos ownership group did things "differently" from the very beginning.

"Just open the gates and the watch the fans come in. Open the wallet and the players will come. Raise the ticket prices and they'll all pay it. Fire the team's beloved broadcaster and they'll understand. Embarrass the manager who just won the division for you. Embarrass the general manager you just hired -- a man who had just won two championships and five division titles in just nine years, in Toronto, of all places."

And -- what I believe is the worst public relations move any sports owner can make -- the Angelos ownership group went out of its way to go to war with the media and, like the gang from Scooby Doo, quickly inherited the tag "meddlesome."
And most of the media's opinions were formed when former employees -- many of whom earned the right to be respected and believed through their years of service -- would tell their media friends the truth about what was happening, and the people who were still in the organization would stonewall and point fingers at the media for the problems, real or perceived.

In the age of high-tech media and in the age of fan enlightenment, it's a modern-day stew for disaster to go to war with the media, especially when a second team like the Ravens, who understood how to "play the game," was on the other side of town showing not only the media, but the fans, sponsors, customers and community at large, how a quality sports franchise should operate.

Look, the Modells had been in the sports business for almost 45 years when they arrived here. And as a few Ravens' employees who made the journey from Lake Erie will attest, THEIR family made enough stupid mistakes in Ohio that cost them their name and reputation (if not their home…the Modells couldn't even go back to visit their decade-long friends from Cleveland after the move!) and they wanted to learn from all of the things they did wrong there and make a fresh start and earn a fresh reputation in Baltimore.

You gotta give the Modells credit for not making the same mistakes twice.
Most everyone in the know with the purple birds would tell you that EVERYTHING philosophically for the Modell family and that the franchise changed from the minute they came to Baltimore. In Cleveland, THEY were the top dog, and took all good and bad that came with that and the expectations. Here, they'd have to work their asses off to compete with the immense Orioles' tradition, fan base, revenue streams and reputation.

The cards were GREATLY, GREATLY stacked against the Ravens EVER winning the hearts of this city with what the Orioles had going in 1995, not only on the field but with the world's most revered stadium and all of its revenue streams.

Honestly, I could be here for another month just documenting all of the crazy things I've seen and heard and been privy to knowing about the way the Angelos family and it's employees have done business with this franchise over the past 13 years.

Even if what I say doesn't matter, the results on the field and in the stands speak for themselves.

Not to sound crass or like a "know it all" but it's MY JOB to know what goes on over there. I take it VERY SERIOUSLY, how this ballclub performs not only ON the field, but OFF. And as much as the team has gone to war with my radio station and the media in general, there are still several people inside The Warehouse who bleed me information about what's really going on. If we can see how screwed up it is from the outside, imagine what it's like to work there and see the customers stay away in large numbers?

And my interest isn't limited to just being a media dork. It's also because I'm a passionate fan, which was what led me into the sports media business in the first place.

And, for better or worse, my business and livelihood depend on baseball, really -- or at least it did until the Ravens came to Baltimore and caught on and won and won people over.

So, I DO have a fiduciary interest in how the Orioles do and what the interest level in their product is, no question.

BUT, as you've seen over the past three weeks, it's a little more -- shall we say -- "personal" for me, because unlike most of the sports writers you read or the sportscasters you hear, I've ALWAYS cared about the Orioles and I've always cared about this community and this city.

Baltimore is a not a steppingstone for me, it's my HOME and probably always will be!
And the Orioles are MY TEAM and have ALWAYS BEEN my team! And they're YOUR TEAM, too!

And when I see what a disaster everything from their spring training facility is like to the way they conduct business with sponsors, rightsholders, local media entities like WNST, vendors, competitors and just about everyone I know -- it kinda kills you a little on the inside every day, especially when you want to be honest with an audience that (like me) always wanted to see the good in the Orioles because as a fan you want to worship at their alter and enjoy your "entertainment" time and money and being a part of something that you shared with your father and your friends a quarter of a century ago.

And especially when you realize how easy it is to be nice to people and make them feel good about being a customer. Especially when all they WANT to do is give you love AND money, which is all this radio station and all of its employees have EVER wanted for the BALTIMORE Orioles!

Hey, the Ravens aren't always perfect -- for my tastes, they've had way to many days in court over their 11 years here between murders, guns, drugs, stabbings, altercations, DWI's, etc. but those might their ONLY transgressions over the past decade, save for a couple of lousy years on the field. And that's not a small thing, in my mind, having players who are thugs or are perceived as thugs. That's not a great message either!

To their credit, the Ravens have always tackled those embarrassments and challenges head on, without issuing "no comments" or stonewalling or belittling the people like me who are really just trying to do our jobs and be the eyes and the ears and the conscience of THEIR customers.

From the front office that brings in talent, to the media relations department, to the community relations department, to how the sponsors and suite owners are treated -- from how the manager is perceived in the community to how their star players have grown in the organization -- from the draft day parties to the World Championship trophy celebration and parade at City Hall -- the Ravens have come into this city, and quicker than anyone could have possibly imagined in 1996, created an identity, a history, a passion and an understanding of what kind of a special little town we have here on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and in the land of pleasant living.

And more than doing all of the "little" things right and playing the media and fan game with savvy (along with extra-large doses of Brian Billick -- some good, some bad), they have always done one more thing:

 They've been nice!

Somehow everything in The Warehouse has always had the chilly feel of an attorney or a business transaction, like the place is run without a conscience and only answers to one law.

Having media relations people lie to the press or stonewall them. Having baseball people constantly getting overruled (and, clearly, those stories are going to surface at some point, especially when employees get frustrated by having their hands cuffed and their decision-making ability reduced when the pivotal moments come). Pissing off agents and baseball people throughout the league to the point where no one feels good or confident about dealing with the Orioles. Having a virtually non-existent community relations initiative. Having the worst media reputation in the league. And, probably the biggest sin, when the owner doesn't take accountability nor does he make himself accessible to the fans -- not through the website, not through the media, not even through a team-sponsored event where real fans can reach out, shake a hand, ask a question and get an answer.

And when the guy in charge tells the media and the fans to effectively "BUZZ OFF," well then, it becomes easy for everyone from the team president to the players to the clubhouse manager to the shoeshine guy to the ushers to behave the same way.

It's 2006, there's competition for everyone's dollar and the nicest and most service-oriented people tend to win in the long run from what I've seen of the world. People want to feel good and appreciated when they spend their time and money.

The law, it seems, has no conscience. It is what it says it is in the book.

But, people in the real world have feelings and choices. The law leaves little room for interpretation; but being a baseball fan, as Seinfeld once said, is all about the laundry. It involves feelings and comfort and passion and connection and deep-seated memories that don't really make a lot of sense if you analyze it too much.

Nothing about sports and our interest makes a lot of sense if you start to analyze it to long. When you really consider all of the time, money, passion and soul we put into spending money with someone else's business so a bunch of young men can become millionaires, it can make you feel more than a little bit silly.

But we WANT those feeling as fans and we don't want to be given reasons to make sense of it or analyze it.

But the Orioles have clearly made us reconsider sports and our attachment to it over the past decade.

And most everywhere I go, for years now, people have been coming up to me with horror stories about something the Orioles have done to frustrate, alienate or anger them.

Whether it's on the field or off the field, rumors or truths, facts or fiction -- the Orioles needed to handle these challenges with better solutions than they've offered.

For folks that don't believe this just consider the Red Sox and the Yankees.

Back in 1992 when I made my first trip to both parks -- and I did the trip the same week --- the Yankees and Red Sox were still complete joker franchises. Steinbrenner's wrath from 15 years earlier STILL had a lasting effect on all things pinstripes a decade later and the Red Sox were in a state of collapse in the aftermath of coming close a few times in the late 1980's.

When teams like the Orioles and the Blue Jays and the Indians were taking flight with new stadiums and new revenue streams, Boston and New York needed to improve EVERYTHING about the way they did business and treated their loyal customers and fans so that they could compete, make money and, ultimately, win.

They moved spring training homes, they found ways to use their money more wisely in player development and free agency, they made better business arrangements to take advantage of what strengths they had in the way of tradition, aging stadiums, huge markets with fans all over the country if not the world.

After wasting those resources and frustrating their fans and communities, those two franchises made philosophical and fundamental changes in how they did everything and the results speak for themselves.

Some would infer that baseball success is cyclical, but that was before teams could routinely have a payroll that's $150 million more than another team. When it was just a player or two, sometimes an injury or a hotshot young player could make the difference (we've seen some examples of that with Minnesota or Oakland over the past decade). But when it gets to be an ocean of financial differences and an unbalanced schedule in the AL East, then it's just insurmountable.

And when fans feel like the team can't compete and they have years of history to compare the current situation to, they stay away -- in droves.

And that's where Baltimore baseball fans are, but we know that it didn't have to be this way.

The Orioles had EVERYTHING that Boston and New York DIDN'T have in 1994.

But this Angelos ownership has squandered it all so very miserably.

Look, it hasn't been all bad -- it's just been all bad lately and it looks like there's very little hope of that changing unless the team is sold, because I think (and again I remember Bob Irsay's woes very well) that this community has basically fired the owner.

And -- whether it's his "fault" or not -- he's the only one who hasn't realized the reality of it or accepted some modicum of responsibility for it.

And the problems are far beyond what you and I might think. Once the agents and the baseball insiders "blackball" the franchise (or at least stop considering Baltimore as a potential home during free agency), once it's become a Siberia for the best current players or even top draft picks, once it's gained a reputation as a bad place to be for WHATEVER reason, it's over.

It just is!

And for Peter Angelos -- at least for the foreseeable future -- it looks like it's over unless there is a monumental change of philosophy coming in his mellowing old age.

But we haven't seen any sign of that yet, and perhaps The Rally next Thursday will at the very least provide a long-overdue "wake up" call.

Again, this Rally is not designed to insult anyone or stir up ill feelings as much as it a chance for the fans to have a united voice to speak their peace. And we ARE expecting this to be a peaceful, joyous protest.

The thousands of people who will come are coming because they LOVE the Orioles, not because they hate the team. And the idea is to HELP Adam Loewen and Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts, not to belittle them.

As it stands, the Orioles only have once chance of being any good -- several young arms and young bats coming up through the system and performing like the second-coming of Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson. The team must breed several phenoms to even think about approaching the largess that the Red Sox and Yankees have with their now-insurmountable financial means.

The only way they could catch both the Yankees and the Red Sox now is if those teams begin using Angelos' philosophies on running a baseball team over the past decade.

Stranger things have happened, right, especially when you consider Steinbrenner's lurid history?

And I don't want to paint it ALL as bad times. There have been some fun events during my years at Camden Yards as a media member and a diehard Orioles' fan.

There was the 1992 Media Game, when broadcast took on print. I can't imagine any circumstance where the Orioles would actually invite the media to do something fun and convivial now, but it did happen only once that I'm aware of and Eli Jacobs owned the team then. Peter Schmuck struck me out when umpire Frank Robinson (who umped from behind the mound) rang me up on a low, outside pitch that I thought was "Ball Four!"

There were plenty of ultra-good guys on the team over the years: Jack Voigt, Ben McDonald (most of the 1992 and 1993 teams, actually), Alan Mills, Gary Matthews Jr., Tim Hulett, Jerry Hairston, Larry Bigbie, Mike Timlin, Gregg Zaun, Jeff Manto, Ray Miller, Brad Pennington, Chris Hoiles, Sam Perlozzo and, of course, the best of them all: Elrod Hendricks.

I could write an entire book on Elrod and the kind of man he was and what he stood for and what he wanted the Orioles to stand for. And the legend of having no teammates show up for his funeral last December is very much public record. ("The Moon" - Ellie was the best of the best; "The Moon" - A sad goodbye to Elrod and a somber hello to 2006)

But there was NO ONE -- and I mean NO ONE -- who did more for this city who ever wore an Orioles uniform than No. 44. And the team's treatment of him -- and the players on the team's treatment of him -- is and will always be disgraceful.

And of course, speaking of disgraceful there were the "other" guys who I never figured out --why millionaires playing a boys' game could be so sour, so bitter, so mean-spirited, so self-absorbed and so anti-fan on a consistent basis?

I can't tell you how many times I heard the fans referred to as "flies" over the years, which, because I'm a fan, would also give me a pause to pass judgment on how players could accept the millions of dollars they've made and not acknowledge that it's the "flies" who enabled them the financial means to live quite comfortably for the rest of their lives.

And all because, like me as a little boy in Dundalk, they loved baseball, too! The difference is they were LIVING the dream that you and I didn't have the physical ability to make a reality.

The guys like Albert Belle, Rafael Palmeiro, Scott Erickson, Sammy Sosa, Sidney Ponson and B.J. Surhoff were -- to my knowledge -- never, ever "pulled up" by management for being gruff, non-existent, distant and/or abrasive with the fans or the media.

But, again, what can you expect when the team's policy from ownership on down is to treat the media and the fans with the evil eye or with the paranoia of withholding all information, education or passion for and about the game?

But, as many of the photos that have accompanied ALL of these stories online will attest, I've had some very good times, too. I've lived a dream, even if some elements of it have taken on a nightmarish quality.

Look at the pictures that accompany these chapters: I'm smiling in almost every one of them and I really want to use The Rally to focus on the good times I've had around the Orioles in spite of how their some of their players and most of their ownership and front office has treated me -- and most everyone else I know -- over the years.

But like the Colts in the mid 1980's, they're simply GONE from my life right now, and have been since May 2004.

And I KNOW that I won't go back unless the team is sold.

And, based on what I've seen while I've watched this situation slide over the past decade -- I honestly don't expect this ownership group to ever change the way its goes about things.

I've watched about as much Orioles baseball in the past 28 months as I did of the Indianapolis Colts in 1985, which isn't much. And it doesn't appear that I'm missing a whole lot.

And as for my "squirting incident" -- despite many urban myths and legends and internet rumors, it's really ancient history to me at this point -- if they didn't see how wrong they were then and how mean they were to me and to many others with incidents over the years, then what other choice did any of us have but to stay away.

Brook Robinson isn't around. Cal Ripken isn't around. Jon Miller never looked back. Frank Robinson has been gone for more than a decade. If those guys aren't significant, what shot do you and I have, right?

Even though I wanted to be loyal and understanding and patient, enough gets to be enough.

Everyone wants to feel appreciated and respected, especially when you know in your heart that you have the best of intentions and only want good things for the team, the players and the city.

And on the flipside, even if I were say, like Jim Hunter and on their payroll or making excuses for them or kissing their ass or whatever, would it honestly bring YOU back into the fold of being a season ticket holder or a regular ballpark visitor?

If they wrote me a check -- like they do to virtually every media outlet in this city from WBAL to WJZ to Sinclair Broadcasting to The Sun to The Examiner to Baltimore Magazine -- then they would have bought me off too, and would that have really helped their circumstance greatly anyway?

I can only speak for myself as to why I, personally, stay away.

But those thousands of empty seats tell me that I'm one of MANY, MANY people who feel similarly. And, again, everyone has a different reason but for most it comes down to the ownership group.

The media should be ashamed for letting this slide and get to this point without reporting on it. But now that they're finally here and the facts are becoming more public, good for them!

Maybe they just needed some gentle guidance that they actually work FOR the community and its interests, not for the richest man in the state.

The pictures I've put on the web to accompany this story are my mementos of all of the good times I had being a media member and being given the responsibility of being one of your ears and eyes and voice in Birdland.

Just so you know how I really feel: when it's all said and done and I'm on my deathbed the assholes I've endured probably won't matter or affect me nearly as much as the nice people I've met during this journey.

And there have been SO many nice people that I've met around the ballpark.

So, I'll just dedicate this segment to those guys who went out of their way and did cool stuff for me or made my life easier when I was living my ultimate childhood dream: to be chasing the BALTIMORE Orioles around the country with a press pass and having an audience to report back who was living the dream and pulling for the team to do well along with me.