The Orioles will “never leave” the city of Baltimore.
So says team chairman and CEO John Angelos, who made this declaration Monday in a strongly worded statement that comes in the midst of a family legal battle.
Thursday, Louis Angelos filed a lawsuit alleging his brother John was trying to seize control of the team and would relocate the franchise to Tennessee, where the CEO lives with his wife, Margaret Valentine, a singer-songwriter who owns a Nashville-based entertainment company.
But John Angelos disputed his brother’s accusation, saying that the Orioles will stay put “as long as Fort McHenry is standing watch over Inner Harbor.”
“My mother was born and raised in Northeast Baltimore,” he said of Georgia Angelos, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. “… and has worked with my father their entire lives to help the city, including by restoring the club to local ownership and preventing its relocation. For them, as for me, the Orioles will forever play at Oriole Park, and at no time ever have we contemplated anything different.”
In the statement, John Angelos noted that the Maryland General Assembly recently passed a bill allocating $1.2 billion into reinvesting and reimagining the Camden Yards Sports Complex, which includes Oriole Park, and that commitment strengthened his resolve to keep the Orioles in Maryland.
“There is nothing uncertain about the future of the Baltimore Orioles,” Angelos said. “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. From 33rd Street to Camden Yards, the Birds of Baltimore, the iconic team of Brooks, Earl, Jim, Frank, Cal, and Eddie, will forever remain in the only city that our family and our partnership group has called, or will ever call, home — the finest city and birthplace of our national anthem of which we are enduringly proud and to which we are forever committed.”