An Open Letter to Peter Angelos

April 26, 2008

Re: Great idea for settling the score

CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Mr. Angelos,

First of all, I would like to offer my hearty and sincere congratulations. Here we are approaching the dog-days of May, and the Balmer f-ing Orioles are in FIRST PLACE (I always go by the loss column, it's all-important, as they say). It looks like the Tejada and Eric Bedard trades seemed to have worked out magically, a fact made even more unbelievable given that they were executed duringthe single week you chose to take vacation this year. How are you sir? Still smoking? And the sons? Are they smoking as well? Perhaps you could have some smoking contests, schedules permitting? I'm sure there's a poorly ventilated attic in that warehouse somewhere where you could all hole up and see which of you can out-smoke the others. Hmmm? Just a thought.

Anyway, I wouldn't dream of taking up too much of your extremely precious time. Mr. MacPhail is probably in his office (does he have an office? I've always pictured you running more of a "cube" environment. Maybe I'll stop by on my next visit to crab-town, check it out.), just waiting on pins and needles for you to come in and ladle good advice all over him like the baseball front-office version of a sponge-bath. It's just that, well sir, I've been thinking about the Mitchell Report (MR) lately. Not reading it, mind you, just thinking about it. I would hate to ever risk jinxing its place among the great "largely unread" reports of all time (along with the Warren Report, the 9/11 Commission Report, and my treatise comparing and contrasting the coming of age processes of the protagonists of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Thomas Berger's "Little Big Man" - prepared during my sophomore year of high school). I've heard a lot of names that I believe are in the report, and realize that some have paid a price for their transgressions, but one thing still sticks in my craw - why isn't anyone getting any smaller? I know that there are now complex and evolving tests in place for anabolic steroids and that you may no longer have HGH shipped to your home address unless it's addressed to someone else, but something still seems amiss. Couldn't some of the MR's "science money" been allocated to weighing and measuring the players? Or perhaps looking at them and taking pictures that could be referred to at a later date?

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you in any way, shape or form for the steroid era or the MR. In fact I have concluded that the blame belongs to one man in particular - Bud Selig. That guy doesn't look like much of a "Bud" to me. Do you agree? I imagine that he may well have given himself that nick-name upon arriving in college, having settled on it just moments before meeting his frosh roommate for the first time. Here's the thing, the MR has allowed him to reallocate any blame-stink from himself to a handful of players who were, in no uncertain terms, encouraged by MLB to use steroids. I can't say I'm surprised he pulled it off. There is no one with more experience working through reputation-battering events than "Bud". The All-Star game tie? That year we didn't have a World Series? Did you see the time he tried to throw out the first pitch at a Brewers' game? JEEZ-US! He should have been banned from the sport just for THAT. Here's where you come in, Mr. Angelos. I know you hate Selig as much as I do. I mean a baseball team in Washington? What is that shit? Sure you squeezed $100 million out him, but didn't he ultimately win that round (after estate taxes, and assuming a 12% discount rate, that $100 million isn't going to seem like much in fifty or so years)?

So here's the plan. Let's give it a month, and if the Birds are still in the hunt, we proceed as such:

1. Sign Bonds - how much could he be asking for at this point? Just offer him a cut of concessions or parking, that way he'll have some extra motivation;
2. Sign Clemens - maybe a little more pricey, but hear me out here. The guy might be going to jail, so just put a "can't go to jail" clause in his contract (paying him nothing if he does). If he notices, threaten to tell everyone that he wouldn't sign because he's a liar and knows that he's going to jail. You're a lawyer, right? Make it happen;
3. Um, I don't know how to put this in an "open letter", but, I have a brother that lives in Baltimore, and those guys can have their <ahem> training materials sent to his house. We can work all that out later - no worries;
4. Whip the Yankees ($209M payroll) and the Red Sox ($135M) down the stretch, win the ALDS, ALCS and the World Series, thereby placing a big fat juicy asterisk after each.

So there you go. Screw Selig - it's one thing to have an asterisk after a player's name, but try explaining why a team, on your watch, was able to blatantly cheat their way to a championship - that's HIS asterisk (well, and yours too, in a way I suppose), stick your thumb in the eyes of both the Yankees and Sox (who the Eff do they think they are, anyway?) and bring home a nice World Championship trophy for your trouble.  

Think about it Pete. Think about it hard. You know where to find me.

Love,

Respectfully,

Brian