My brother used to say there were two seasons ? baseball and waiting. Now in Baltimore, we?re always waiting ? waiting for a competitive team, waiting for competence, waiting for Angelos to stop, well, being Angelos.
One of these days, when the bird flies off the team uniform out of embarrassment, we should change the name to the Baltimore Waiters.
In the meantime, let?s admit we?re lucky. We?re lucky Angelos owns only one team. And we?re lucky because we can compare how bad the O?s are with the Ravens.
For owners of Personal Seat Licenses, we do this every two years. We get a lovely letter telling how good the Ravens are and that “our average ticket price needs to be in the top half of the NFL?s 32 teams to stay competitive.”
In other words, fork over lots of cash. Club seats are going up $25; lower-level seats $20. Even the cheap upper-deck seats where I sit went up $10, or 20 percent, in two years. That?s a hefty price for a lopsided team with a sputtering offense.
The first time you read the letter, you don?t want to pay. It states that the “Ravens? 2006 season was dramatic, exciting and one that pushed our emotions to extremes.” No (expletive deleted) kidding. After we choked against Indy, most of us wished we?d die. (Let?s leave out what we wished for our fearless leader and offensive genius Brian Billick.)
But then calmer thoughts take hold. The Ravens are one of football?s premier teams. This is the same franchise that brought us a Super Bowl only a few years after it arrived. This is the same team that won the division, runs a good draft and is a positive force in the community. One need only look south to Washington to see how it could be different.
Or one could look to Camden Yards.
Racing, while we still have it in Maryland, has long been called the Sport of Kings. In Baltimore, baseball is the Sport of Jokers. Only business isn?t a joke, even when Peter Angelos runs it.
But his should be. The Ravens are trying to win a championship and the Orioles (Baltimore held hostage: 13 years, almost six months) need to get good just to be mediocre. The team?s top people recently admitted that a .500 season is the goal. Jim Duquette, vice president of baseball operations, said, “we have to prove ourselves, and that?s really been our goal all along,”
He went on to say “that our focus has got to be improving our play on the field before we can start looking at the big dogs in our division.” He might as well run up the white flag right now.
Oh, that?s right, he did.
I think I?ll call the Ravens right now. Do you think 20 percent is enough? Should I send more?
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow at the Media Research Center?s Business & Media Institute, a career journalist and media commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
