The Bird Tapes Interview: Peter Angelos (Part 1)

He wasn't going to talk to me for my book on Orioles history. Then he changed his mind and we spoke for two hours. Here's a rare chance to hear the late owner's version of a tumultuous time.

When Peter Angelos agreed to let me interview him for my book on Orioles history in the early fall of 2000, I had already conducted nearly 100 interviews with former players and executives. The manuscript was finished and in an editor’s hands, scheduled for publication in the spring of 2001.

I was done.

For well over a year, as I’d gone around the country amassing interviews, I’d sought to get Angelos to speak to me. A successful Baltimore attorney, he’d owned the Orioles since 1993 and was constantly making news. Quite a few former players and executives had referenced him, sometimes positively, sometimes disparagingly. I badly wanted to grant him equal time, include his side of various events in the book, but he’d repeatedly turned me down.

I knew why. I was a sports columnist at the Baltimore Sun in those days. He didn’t like my paper’s coverage of his baseball team, and as he told me when I finally did interview him, he didn’t appreciate some of the columns I’d written.

To get his views into the book as best as I could, I’d interviewed Joe Foss, the team’s chief operating officer, hoping he could provide Angelos’ thinking on the departures of manager Davey Johnson, broadcaster Jon Miller and GM Pat Gillick — all major headline-makers in the late ‘90s — as well as his views on various other highs and lows of his years as the owner. Foss did just what I wanted. I’d submitted the manuscript with his comments essentially representing Angelos.

Like I said, I was done.

Then my phone rang with the news that Angelos was accepting my interview request after all.

No one ever told me why, but my long-held suspicion is Foss came away from our interview and reiterated to Angelos that my book was separate from my newspaper duties, and that I’d interviewed pretty much anyone who’d ever done anything in Orioles history, leaving his potential absence from the project especially glaring.

Anyway, for whatever reason, he changed his mind. We set a date for lunch at a restaurant in Little Italy. When I explained the situation to the editor handling my book, he agreed to let me take back the manuscript and work in Angelos’ comments once I had them, grasping how critical to the project those comments were.

When Angelos and I met for lunch, we shook hands, sat down and I put my tape recorder on the table. It rolled for the next two hours as we moved from subject to subject. It was as if his oft-stated displeasure with reporters didn’t exist. He relished recounting his dramatic purchase of the team in a New York bankruptcy court in 1993. He eloquently explained his side of the controversies in the news and defended himself against the charge of meddling, another huge issue then.

I was appreciative of his willingness to participate in the project and delighted with the outcome. His comments made my book whole, I thought.

I also was delighted when I re-listened to the interview recently in preparation for making it available to paid Bird Tapes subscribers starting today. (Part 1 is below, Part 2 arrives next week.) It had been many years since we spoke, and frankly, I’d forgotten how things went. Put simply, our conversation was a hoot. Angelos, who died earlier this year at age 94, was alternately feisty, fun, combative and genial, and always entertaining. Somewhat surprisingly, at least to me, we got along well, to the point that I could challenge him about churning through so many managers and GMs in his first years of ownership — another huge issue in those days. He fought me on the charge, but did so good-naturedly.

My suspicion is whatever you thought about Angelos before, you’ll likely feel differently in some respect after hearing this interview.

Not only is it one of the rarest gems in the Bird Tapes archive, owing to the fact that Angelos so seldom granted interviews, it’s also … I’ll say it again … quite a hoot.

Recalling his purchase of the team in bankruptcy court, when he was determined for the Orioles to have local ownership and his main competition was a New York art dealer, he said of the art dealer, Jeffrey Loria, “He had no more chance of buying the team than he did of buying the planet Mars.”

Recalling his decision to overrule Gillick, who wanted to trade stars Bobby Bonilla and David Wells for prospects at the trade deadline in 1996, he said, “Business arguments trumped baseball arguments ... I told him not to take it personally” (The Orioles were five games out in the wild card race at the time, and Camden Yards was full for every game. Angelos balked at giving up on a season with so many fans having already purchased tickets to games. The Orioles wound up surging and making the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.)

When I asked how he could have let Johnson walk away on the very day he was named American League Manager of the Year for 1997, Angelos explained his thinking - quite effectively, I thought — but conceded that it was a blow to the franchise.

“I’ve made mistakes,” he lamented.

Discussing whether Gillick had given just a halfhearted effort in 1998, during the final year of his contract as GM, because of Angelos’ perceived interference in Gillick’s baseball operation. Angelos gave his side and thundered, “You draw your own conclusions. I’ve drawn mine.”

Listening to the interview is tantamount to stepping into a time-travel portal. You’re back in the first years of Camden Yards. The ballpark is full every night. The Ravens have arrived, bringing pro football back, but they aren’t a winning organization yet. What happens to the baseball team dominates Baltimore’s sports landscape. Angelos is throwing money around, signing free agents and trying to bring a winner to town. He’s also making baseball decisions, as evidenced by the negated trades involving Wells and Bonilla — a no-no in the eyes of purists who see warning signs when someone other than a franchise’s baseball-side executives are making baseball decisions.

It was a tumultuous time.

With Johnson as manager and Gillick as GM, the Orioles made the playoffs in 1996 and 1997. But things were growing increasingly complicated. All-Star second baseman Roberto Alomar had spit on an umpire in a game in Toronto, turning him into an international villain. Johnson fined him but directed that the payment go to a charity his wife was involved in, angering Angelos. Meanwhile, Angelos believed Gillick effectively lost his heart for the job after Angelos overruled the Wells and Bonilla deals at the deadline in 1996.

By the time of our interview in the fall of 2000, the environment was changing. It was as if dark clouds were rolling in. The Orioles were nearing the end of their third straight losing season. Mike Hargrove was in his first year as the manager, having replaced Ray Miller, who’d replaced Johnson, who’d replaced Phil Regan, who’d replaced Johnny Oates. (Got that?) Syd Thrift was running the baseball operation, having replaced Frank Wren, who’d replaced Gillick, who’d replaced Roland Hemond. All of those changes had occurred since Angelos became the owner.

You can listen to us argue about whether it’s too much change. Angelos was still bristling with bravado in 2000, confident that his vision would produce a winner.

“We’re on our way to getting where we to have to go,” he told me. “I think our record is essentially good. We started with very little. I’ve spent a lot of money trying to bring the city a winner .Our minor leagues have improved considerably.”

But the Orioles kept losing after our interview. The streak of three straight losing seasons would grow to 14 straight before GM Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter turned things around in 2012. And of course, in the end, the Orioles never made it to a World Series under the Angelos family’s ownership. David Rubenstein bought the team in 2024.

A paid subscription gives you access to this rare interview, which will continue with Part 2 next week. (Click here to upgrade to a paid subscription.)