Fandom, Rebuilding and Derek Jeter

I have a friend who’s an eye doctor (a guy with a few years on me) we talk time to time talk about baseball.

He describes himself as an Orioles fan who feels that since Peter Angelos has “ruined the Orioles”, he won’t give him a money nor attend games at Camden Yards. I’ve tried to get him to attend a game with me – even with a free ticket.

His answer has always been a very polite, ‘no’.

His reasoning is that Angelos has ruined the product in Baltimore, there are no marquee names, and frankly the team has not been good for a long time. The guy wants to see someone like Paul Konerko at first, Adrian Beltre at third, a Cliff Lee on the mound, or even John Garland. Or Victor Martinez or and Adam Dunn at the DH spot.

However, he follows the games on MASN and pretty much reads all the papers, blogs and listens to sports talk radio to get the news. Plus, he really likes Buck Showalter (almost to the point of a ‘man crush’).

Whether he’s a real fan or not, I’ll let you all determine that.

I see the man once a month and the latest conversation – amongst other things – about the Orioles came down to Andy MacPhail.

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