My Ramblings - More Oriole Discontent & Reflections

The other day, I found myself on the Baltimore City Paper website and found an article written by Russ Smith. Well, the author is not at all pleased with the Orioles’ offseason and upon reading the article, I agree 100% with what he says.

I wrote back to him and complimented him on his work, and my agreement with what he said. In turn, I got a friendly letter that conveyed his thoughts not only as a writer, but a fan of the team.

If you take out the time to read the article, you no doubt feel his frustration. I feel the same way, and the vast majority of fans do as well. Oriole Park, except when the Yankees or Red Sox are not in town, does not even routinely fill to half of the stadium’s capacity.

I don’t know if anyone from the Orioles’ organization reads this blog or the other blogs and forums out there, but fans don’t find the team relevant anymore.

Anyhow, the article is a little dated, but no matter when it was written, it underscores the frustration that he and many Orioles fans have with the team under the watch of Peter Angelos.

The only thing that caught my attention was the team signing Barry Bonds, which was not going to happen, but it underscores a point – in which, the team needs to make an effort to sign an impact player or a marquee agent, while not spending a much energy on second or third tier players. In addition, the Orioles seem afraid to make moves to make the team better, either because of alienating fans, or attachment to particular people

Russ Smith believes the Orioles are running on the cheap, as evidenced by the lack of effort towards trying to bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and other big name free agents that will doom Baltimore to a second division team. As well, the way the Orioles are run right now, it will keep big name players from coming here because of the perception that the team is dysfunctional and does not care to field a competitive product.

In the end, Baltimore is a beautiful city with a lot of history, good people, the harbor and a crown jewel of a ballpark. I usher Russ’s sentiments and hope one day that the Orioles will be respected and longer the laughing stock of the sport.

I do think the team will be better, but not good enough to wake up the fans and get them back into the park. Simply, the Orioles need to do more to pacify the fans and get the team competitive again.

At the end of the article, I found this quote telling: “At the end of this year's season, Brian Roberts told Zrebiec, "I don't know how much more losing we can take around here without making progress. I think this off-season is very important."

Sadly, Roberts and other may be gone if things don’t get better, no matter how much he says they say that how great of a city Baltimore is. Fans already feel the same way.

However, as a life long fan, I believe there may be better days ahead for us.