Peter G. Angelos, a Baltimore lawyer who won hundreds of millions of dollars for workers injured by exposure to asbestos, then became wider known to the public as the combative chief owner of the Baltimore Orioles for three decades, died March 23 at 94.In the baseball world, Mr. Angelos was seen as a hands-on boss: controlling, feisty, demanding and prone to second-guessing the on-field decisions of his top lieutenants.
Among other things, the lawsuit supplied the money to buy the Orioles at auction from New York venture capitalist Eli Jacobs, who had declared bankruptcy. Mr. Angelos paid the major share, $40 million. His partners included well-known people with Maryland ties, including novelistWhen Mr. Angelos took control of the Orioles in 1993, the team had a new ballpark that was the envy of baseball, plus a loyal regional fan base.
Years later, as the newly minted chief owner of the Orioles, Mr. Angelos would tell reporters that he inherited his work ethic from his father. “He never took a vacation,” Mr. Angelos said. “What do I do? I do what my old man did. I work.” Alone among the owners, Mr. Angelos would have none of it. He refused to call them replacements, describing them as “pickup teams.” He would not field such players wearing the Orioles uniform.
“There is a soap opera in progress at Camden Yards, and it’s starring Peter G. Angelos, the Asbestos Avenger,” Post sports columnist Tony Kornhheiser wrote in 1996. “Since Peter G. blew into Birdland scores of employees have gone flying out the warehouse windows. He has dumped managers and ousted GMs; other suits have quit rather than work for him.”In Mr. Angelos’s first decade as the owner of the Orioles, the team had five general managers.
Rubenstein’s group, which included former Orioles star Ripken, reportedly bought a 40 percent share of the franchise at that time, with an agreement to purchase the balance of the club after Mr. Angelos’s death. The sale price of $1.725 billion was 10 times what Mr. Angelos and his investors had paid three decades earlier.