A Requiem to a Protest - 9/21/06
The thoughts for this article got sparked by a fellow blogger, Aaron Brazell at Suicidefan.com about the Rumors of Cal Ripken possibly having the ownership of the Baltimore Orioles transferred from Peter Angelos.
Listen to the mp3 file here: http://www.suicidefan.com/wp-content/podcasts/SUICIDE60-Episode4.mp3
Listen to the mp3 file here: http://www.suicidefan.com/wp-content/podcasts/SUICIDE60-Episode4.mp3
That podcast got me thinking again about the protest this year at Camden Yards.
On September the 21st of this year, the protest was an unprecedented event in the history of Baltimore sports. The numbers vary, but anywhere from 1,000 to about 2,000 fans left their seats, walked the lower bowl and left the Oriole Park at Camden Yards to the amazement of the remaining fans in the park and the national media.
The protest was enacted and spear-headed by Nestor Aparicio, proprietor of WNST, a radio station in the Baltimore area, and nephew to Orioles’ and White Sox legendary infielder, Luis Aparicio. Well, because I live outside of the immediate Baltimore area, I cannot get the station, so I found out about the event through a friend of mine who I often see at games. To be quite honest, I was not familiar with Nestor Aparicio, much less his network. Basically, the whole thing started with a petition on the radio’s website, then the whole thing grew and spread through the radio and word of mouth.
The premise of the protest was for the fans to walk out at 5:08pm, 5 o’clock, the hour in honor of Orioles third baseman who wore number 5, Brooks Robinson and the :08 for Cal Ripken who wore the number 8.
At first, I was very skeptical about this protest, and thought it was a self-serving on part of Nestor and just a way to amp up ratings for his radio network. However, after looking at his website and parts of his story online, he, no doubt had a passion for the Orioles and Baltimore sports in general. That being said, I can only give him respect and the guts to have pulled of this task and gotten the attention of the media.
I have been to Camden Yards several hundred times since it's opening and sadly it is a far different world than what it was in it's heyday in the 90's. I long for the street to be buzzing and fans dominating with the Black and Orange again. Whatever Nestor's motive was, the good things is least he got the plight of all of us Oriole fans out there in the public domain.
So out of curiosity, I went to the game that day. I had tickets with a friend of mine behind home plate and I planned to take an afternoon off work and soak in the events. From where we sat, we could hear the fans chanting various things and to my delight I heard chants of “Let’s Go O’s”, and old-time Orioles such as Elrod Hendricks, Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson and former announcer John Miller. The fans who were part of the protest sat in the upper deck in left field. For a few moments, you saw lively fans and enthusasism that almost harked back to the days of Oriole Magic and Wild Bill Hagy leading the Orioles chant.
The angst of the fans in the upper deck was heard as chants of “Sell the Team”, “Free the Birds”, “Pete Must Go” and various things were heard. The crowd up there was no doubt lively and boisterous in comparison to fans in the lower deck (which incidentally was probably one third to 40% Detroit Tiger fans).
Soon enough that day at 5:08, the fans left the upper deck and that area was soon rendered quiet.
However, the show didn’t end and it soon spread the lower deck. A multitude of fans soon walked the lower corridor of the park and were flanked by cops, as well as watched by ushers and Orioles officials. The crowd that day was not large at all, as I’d say it was less than 10,000 people, but the group of fans who protested made their point expressed – loud and clear.
For about a period of 20 to 30 minutes, you saw an endless line of people in black mostly, shouting “Free the Birds”, “Sell the Team”, and held signs up with those same messages.
In my eyes, it was inspiring and those fans held the same sentiments that many fans had kept to themselves.
In the end, Nestor got his mission accomplished. I thought this all blow over and just be a snippet on the news. However, the protest was covered in almost some fashion in every major sporting news outlet nationally and in all the papers in the Mid-Atlantic region. It even made ESPN's SportsCenter and a few of the radio shows, but mostly mocking the protest.
On September the 21st of this year, the protest was an unprecedented event in the history of Baltimore sports. The numbers vary, but anywhere from 1,000 to about 2,000 fans left their seats, walked the lower bowl and left the Oriole Park at Camden Yards to the amazement of the remaining fans in the park and the national media.
The protest was enacted and spear-headed by Nestor Aparicio, proprietor of WNST, a radio station in the Baltimore area, and nephew to Orioles’ and White Sox legendary infielder, Luis Aparicio. Well, because I live outside of the immediate Baltimore area, I cannot get the station, so I found out about the event through a friend of mine who I often see at games. To be quite honest, I was not familiar with Nestor Aparicio, much less his network. Basically, the whole thing started with a petition on the radio’s website, then the whole thing grew and spread through the radio and word of mouth.
The premise of the protest was for the fans to walk out at 5:08pm, 5 o’clock, the hour in honor of Orioles third baseman who wore number 5, Brooks Robinson and the :08 for Cal Ripken who wore the number 8.
At first, I was very skeptical about this protest, and thought it was a self-serving on part of Nestor and just a way to amp up ratings for his radio network. However, after looking at his website and parts of his story online, he, no doubt had a passion for the Orioles and Baltimore sports in general. That being said, I can only give him respect and the guts to have pulled of this task and gotten the attention of the media.
I have been to Camden Yards several hundred times since it's opening and sadly it is a far different world than what it was in it's heyday in the 90's. I long for the street to be buzzing and fans dominating with the Black and Orange again. Whatever Nestor's motive was, the good things is least he got the plight of all of us Oriole fans out there in the public domain.
So out of curiosity, I went to the game that day. I had tickets with a friend of mine behind home plate and I planned to take an afternoon off work and soak in the events. From where we sat, we could hear the fans chanting various things and to my delight I heard chants of “Let’s Go O’s”, and old-time Orioles such as Elrod Hendricks, Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson and former announcer John Miller. The fans who were part of the protest sat in the upper deck in left field. For a few moments, you saw lively fans and enthusasism that almost harked back to the days of Oriole Magic and Wild Bill Hagy leading the Orioles chant.
The angst of the fans in the upper deck was heard as chants of “Sell the Team”, “Free the Birds”, “Pete Must Go” and various things were heard. The crowd up there was no doubt lively and boisterous in comparison to fans in the lower deck (which incidentally was probably one third to 40% Detroit Tiger fans).
Soon enough that day at 5:08, the fans left the upper deck and that area was soon rendered quiet.
However, the show didn’t end and it soon spread the lower deck. A multitude of fans soon walked the lower corridor of the park and were flanked by cops, as well as watched by ushers and Orioles officials. The crowd that day was not large at all, as I’d say it was less than 10,000 people, but the group of fans who protested made their point expressed – loud and clear.
For about a period of 20 to 30 minutes, you saw an endless line of people in black mostly, shouting “Free the Birds”, “Sell the Team”, and held signs up with those same messages.
In my eyes, it was inspiring and those fans held the same sentiments that many fans had kept to themselves.
In the end, Nestor got his mission accomplished. I thought this all blow over and just be a snippet on the news. However, the protest was covered in almost some fashion in every major sporting news outlet nationally and in all the papers in the Mid-Atlantic region. It even made ESPN's SportsCenter and a few of the radio shows, but mostly mocking the protest.
However, the protest did do it's intended purpose. It didn't get the team sold, but Nestor and the result of it struck the cord of Peter Angelos. I figured Mr. Angelos would just ignore the event and just let it pass, but Peter reacted.
He asserted in an article to Press Box, an Online and Print Magazine before the protest: “[Those who complain] don't know the ins and outs of what's going on. They have their own lives to lead, their own problems to deal with. And they are not going to become acquainted with what our economics are, and you can't expect them to.”
He also says this about Nestor, “What you can expect, though, that those that comment -- putting aside the fellow you mentioned, who you know is not even worthy of getting into that (chuckles), it really makes no sense to respond to him -- the responsible people, who know baseball and who are baseball fans -- the writers like you -- if they want to criticize, they better look at the economics. They owe it to the public to explain to whoever is interested that the problem is disparity in revenues.”
While he may or may not be right, wins and losses and the team's reputation matter to people and the fan base here is not happy. In the end, Nestor did get under his skin and his work in the end did get the city to talk about the team, how the Orioles got to this point and where the team could improve. In light of the rumors of Cal and investment group possibly buying the team, will Peter sell anytime soon? Probably not. I will say though, the anger of the fans towards the ineptitude and incompetence of the Orioles is growing, so any public showing our displeasure is a big step to letting the front office know our feelings. Maybe something down the road will happen for the team to improve and perhaps close the talent disparity between us and the Red Sox and Orioles.
In essence, the protest echoed what the fans want, a winning team, or just one that’s competitive. After 9 years of losing, mired in fourth place and being criticized throughout baseball, that day was a symbol that fans want a change for the better and perhaps want the team in the hands of someone who cares and could possibly restore the team to the glory days of the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s.
The protest sure let those feelings be known, and in the end, nothing much might have changed, but for a few days after that game, the events of that day were indeed the talk of Baltimore and the sports world.
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