But face-to-face conversations? Angelos talks with his players about as often as Karl Rove and Barack Obama play pickup ball together.
In fact, there are only two players on the 40-man roster who had even met the owner before this week. Melvin Mora talked with him when he negotiated his last contract. And Roberts met Angelos two years ago after agreeing to his first extension.
"I'd like to see him come around more often," Trembley said, "and he told me that he would."
The manager showed Angelos around the clubhouse Monday, pointing out improvements in the training room and the X-ray room. "We had a nice conversation," Trembley said. "I'm hoping this homestand to hit him up for breakfast.
"He told me he'd pay," the manager quipped.
You might not think players would care, and admittedly I was surprised they cared so much, but it's about more than cultivating a warm workplace. To them, it's not as much a matter of identifying the guy who runs things as it is identifying with him, perhaps.
I like to believe most players aren't simply cashing paychecks, that they want to know whom they're representing and for whom they're playing, in the stands and in the owner's box.
"To see the owner, the guy who signs your check at the end of the day, it's good to see, to know his face," Adam Jones said. "Even if he comes once a month, three more times all year, just the opportunity to see him, it goes a long way in my mind."
Jones said meeting Angelos provided a jolt of adrenaline that carried into Monday's game. The center fielder went 3-for-3 and scored three runs in the season opener, which means Angelos might want to move his office to the service level of Camden Yards, right near the whirlpool, maybe.
OK, maybe Angelos doesn't deserve all the credit for hanging 10 runs on the Yankees (though we'll still heap responsibility on him for 10-plus years of franchise futility). But whatever makes the players in the clubhouse more comfortable should be embraced, particularly guys like Jones and Markakis, young players who should be a part of Baltimore's sports fabric for years to come.
If they say they want fresh apples every morning, ask them: red or green? If they want new music, put Sammy Sosa's old boom box on the curb. And if they want to know their owner better, then Angelos should visit his team more often. Sometimes that relationship carries some weight down the road. (See Steve Bisciotti and Ray Lewis.)
"I think it was good for the guys to see him," Roberts said. "Some people have never talked to him, never seen him. It was probably really good for them."
For Markakis, the presumed subject of the owner's devout man crush, the long-awaited introduction was short but meaningful.
"Hopefully, we'll see him some more around here," Markakis said.
