Baltimore Orioles chairman and CEO John Angelos said in a statement Monday that the team “will never leave” the city, days after his brother alleged in a lawsuit that a move to Tennessee was an option for the beleaguered club.
“I want to assure our Orioles players and coaches, our dedicated front office senior leadership team and staff, and our devoted fans, trusted partners, elected, civic, and non-profit leaders, and our entire community, that the Orioles will never leave,” John Angelos wrote.
His brother, Louis Angelos, filed a lawsuit in Maryland last week that seeks to restrain John Angelos and their mother, Georgia, from selling the team or the regional sports network MASN. Louis Angelos also asked the court to remove his brother and their ailing father, Peter, from the trust.
The lawsuit alleged John Angelos could “dictate whether the club remained in Baltimore under the present ownership, whether it changed hands, or whether it was stealthily loaded into moving vans.”
“John intends to maintain absolute control over the Orioles — to manage, to sell or, if he chooses, to move to Tennessee (where he has a home and where his wife’s [music] career is headquartered [in Nashville]) — without having to answer to anyone,” the lawsuit alleged.
Peter Angelos, was left “disabled” after an aortic valve failure in 2017, accoridng to the civil complaint. Angelos, 92, bought the Orioles for $173 million in 1993 — a year after Camden Yards opened.
The Orioles, currently valued at $1.4 billion, are in the midst of their sixth consecutive losing season. The team’s $45.5 million payroll is dead last in the MLB this season, about $2.4 million less than the Oakland A’s, another franchise exploring relocation.
John Angelos, in his statement, referenced the Camden Yards Sports Complex legislation passed by the Maryland legislature and signed by Gov. Larry Hogan in April. The initiative commits $1.2 billion in public funding, split between the Orioles and the Ravens.
“Maryland is committed to keeping our team in this great state, and I am equally committed to keeping the Orioles at the heart of our state,” John Angelos wrote. “As stewards of ‘The Ballpark That Forever Changed Baseball,’ we will continue to strengthen our community, generate another $10 billion in economic impact for the City of Baltimore and State of Maryland, and welcome another 70 million people to downtown Baltimore over the next 30 years and beyond. There is nothing uncertain about the future of the Baltimore Orioles.”
