If you left a pair of three-year olds in the middle of a room with a bowl full of finger paints and told them to have at it, they could hardly make more of a mess than Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles CEO John Angelos have with negotiations for a new Camden Yards lease.
The stage was set Friday for an announcement that the two sides had hammered out an actual flesh-and-blood agreement that would bind the Birds to Baltimore for the next 30 years. By day’s end, Moore had to put the deal on hold as State Senate President Bill Ferguson threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings with questions, if not flat out objections, about key parts of the lease.
And so, with now less than three weeks before the end of the Orioles’ original contract with the state for use of arguably the best ballpark in America, we seem to be back at square one with no firm commitment from the team to stay.
Surely you remember the October night the team clinched an American League East title for the first time in nine years when Angelos and Moore partied from a sky suite like it was 1979, when the club was regularly winning titles.
The video board flashed a message to the sellout crowd that the team, Moore and the Maryland Stadium Authority had quote agreed to a deal that will keep the Orioles in Baltimore and at Camden Yards for at least the next 30 years unquote.
Come to find out that what we were all sold that night was verbal apple sauce. What the parties actually agreed to was a memorandum of understanding, a kind of oral agreement to agree, which sounded nice, but not at all binding.
In a statement Friday, Ferguson, whose district includes Oriole Park, said he had issues with the notion that the long term occupancy of the stadium would be contingent on granting the Orioles a 99-year ground lease to develop the land around the park.
That mind-numbing concession comes in addition to the idea that the Orioles will get the use of $600 million in state bonds to refurbish Camden Yards once Angelos signs any lease. Ferguson is also said to have been troubled by a supposed provision that would have allowed the club to abandon the lease in 10 years, not 30.
Any lease would have to be approved by the stadium authority and the state Board of Public Works, where one seat is held by Moore, and the other two by state Comptroller Brooke Lierman and state Treasurer Derrick Davis, who is selected by the legislature.
It is stunning, but not surprising that Angelos, who has pledged to keep the Orioles here as long as Fort McHenry overlooks the city, would think he could extract such unbelievable concessions.
Likewise, it’s amazing that Moore would not have run this by Ferguson or House Speaker Adrienne Jones or other key legislators to see if this turkey would fly.
The governor and Angelos have a couple of weeks to clean up the mess they’ve made. Orioles fans and the people of Maryland deserve no less.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and Twitter at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.
