In 2020, John Angelos took over the Baltimore Orioles from his father, Peter Angelos. Many Orioles fans despised Angelos’s father for either being cheap or not knowing how to spend money properly on the team.
In the short time Angelos has been at the helm, he hasn’t developed much of a better reputation. If anything, after suspending Baltimore’s play-by-play broadcaster for simply pointing out recent team history on a graphic, Angelos is already putting himself in rare awful company.
And this isn’t the first time.
Let’s take a look back at other instances where Angelos needlessly embarrassed the Orioles rather than simply helping build the best possible team for fans.
1
Parted ways with long-time broadcasters Gary Thorne and Jim Hunter in 2020
Thorne was the TV voice of the Orioles for the better part of 13 seasons, while Hunter had been a voice of the team for almost a quarter-century. And just like that, in 2020, both were gone.
2
Fired the former public address announcer for tweets
In 2021, the Orioles fired Ryan Wagner, their public address announcer for a decade, over extremely anodyne tweets. His firing was so sudden that he was still doing Orioles the press the morning of!
More from Awful Announcing:
“So what did Wagner do that was so fireable? According to The Athletic, Wagner’s Twitter account was the culprit. But when inspecting the feed for offending tweets, it’s not that easy to find that many that seem out of bounds. His final tweet as an employee of the Orioles was all about how excited he was to be back in the “best ballpark in baseball” with fans.”
3
Argued with reporter about team's future in Baltimore on MLK Day
It’d be one thing if a reporter had said something outright offensive, but Angelos simply shot down a fair question about the team’s current stadium lease earlier this year by deflecting with “not on MLK Day.”
“You can find any garden-variety, high-value sports team or involvement, you’re always going to have some controversy, but I’ve been very outspoken, I’m very transparent. In fact, I would invite you and all your colleagues—next week, not on Martin Luther King Day—you can come back in this building, you can meet me in this office.”
4
Suspended announcer for reading a graphic that pointed out team's past struggles
This is the most recent Angelos transgression and is easily the most petty. Kevin Brown appears to be a talented announcer Orioles fans adore — along with broadcasters around the league — and Baltimore leadership suspended him for reading a prepared graphic about how bad the team used to be.
It’s unconscionable but perfectly in line with Angelos’ terrible decision-making.
