Angelos

Peter Angelos does not have to fight his legal battles alone. State and city legislators are helping him.They discussed and voted on several bills yesterday that would back up Angelos' stand against replacement players.The Maryland Senate passed two bills that would prevent games at Camden Yards this season unless 75 percent of the players were on major-league rosters last season and prohibit advertising at games that use replacement players. They passed 38-9 and 39-16, respectively.The bills were sponsored by Sen. John Pica, a Baltimore Democrat and an attorney in Angelos' law firm, at the request of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

For decades, the Orioles commanded a sweeping empire of fans - a territory larger than some European countries, stretching from southern Pennsylvania to North Carolina and including Washington, where the team operated a popular retail store. The club's games are still broadcast across most of the same region, but the Orioles now share much of it with the Washington Nationals, who are ensconced in a population-rich portion of what was once the Orioles' domain. The Nationals' arrival in 2005 created a complicated relationship in which the teams are at once neighbors, opponents on the field and, lately, bickering business partners when it comes to the regional television network they co-own but the Orioles control.

Peter G. Angelos, who met last week with the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, said he is optimistic about the city's chances of procuring a team and intends to have further contact with Rams officials.Angelos, the Orioles owner, flew to Los Angeles last Thursday. He met with Rams executive vice president John Shaw and had dinner at team owner Georgia Frontiere's Bel Air home."She's a very gracious lady, and I thought the evening produced a very clear conclusion that all parties were very compatible," Angelos said yesterday in his first public comment on the meeting.

The Orioles' team doctor, William H. Goldiner, tended to orange-clad ballplayers at the same time as he diagnosed thousands of blue-collar workers with asbestos-related illnesses whose cases were taken up by prominent lawyer and team owner Peter G. Angelos. Angelos' firm is seeking to revive thousands of dormant asbestos cases, but some of the underlying diagnoses are facing new scrutiny from defense lawyers. They say Goldiner's dual roles call the integrity of his work into question - a contention he says is "insulting and absolutely false.

Peter Angelos met for more than two hours yesterday with trustees trying to sell the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and reported "substantial progress" in his effort to buy the team and move it to Baltimore."

Some managers dare to be great.Davey Johnson should dare to be fired.Call a news conference. And call Peter Angelos' bluff."I was hired to restore the Orioles to their past glory, and we're on our way," Johnson could say."If Mr. Angelos feels I can't complete the job, then he should dismiss me. Otherwise, he should support my efforts for the 1997 season."Martyr or manager?Let Angelos decide.Johnny Oates wouldn't. Phil Regan couldn't. But Johnson needs to stand up for himself, or else he could end up the '90s version of Cal Ripken Sr. -- in trouble from Opening Day.Doesn't matter that the Orioles reached the postseason for the first time since 1983.

Los Angeles Rams suitor Peter Angelos is politely pressing the team for a decision on a possible move to Baltimore, and says he thinks one will be made before the end of the month."

A week after publicly questioning the team's direction and its offensive approach, Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis met with principal owner Peter Angelos Thursday afternoon to air those concerns. The meeting, which lasted about an hour and a half at a Little Italy restaurant, was requested by Markakis, who during his eight years in the organization hadn't had an extensive conversation with the owner. "I wanted to give him my input and tell him the things I thought we lacked and needed, and what we needed to change," said Markakis, 26, the team's highest-paid player and the second-longest-tenured member of the club behind injured second baseman Brian Roberts.

As the Orioles near the end of the most tumultuous season in their storied history, club major- ity owner Peter G. Angelos said he is looking to the future while contemplating how a promising season unraveled so completely. "It was very disappointing obviously and, in many senses a calamity of problems that were totally unexpected," Angelos said yesterday while publicly assessing the season for the first time. Angelos declined to call 2005 - which included 62 days in first place, a steroids controversy involving star first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, the drunken-driving charges against projected team ace Sidney Ponson and the firing of manager Lee Mazzilli - the franchise's worst season.

An investment group led by Orioles controlling partner Peter Angelos offered more than $200 million yesterday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the intention of moving the NFL franchise to Baltimore.Details of the offer were not immediately available, but a source familiar with the bid said it was worth more than the $200 million that Mr. Angelos offered last year before the team's owner died.In last year's offer, Mr. Angelos bid $200 million if the team could be moved to Baltimore and less if it could not and he was forced to base the team in outdated Tampa Stadium.

Joan D'Angelo, a homemaker and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra volunteer, died of complications from pneumonia March 15 at Bay Woods in Annapolis. She was 90. Born Joan Shumaker in Allentown, Pa., she attended school in Lancaster and was a 1941 graduate of Catonsville High School. She also attended the Bard Avon School in downtown Baltimore. In 1945, she married E. Gordon Leatherman, an insurance business owner. He died in 1995. She raised her family in a house at the corner of Malvern Avenue and Army Road in Ruxton.

During multiple face-to-face meetings this past week, Orioles manager Buck Showalter and team principal owner Peter G. Angelos established parameters for a multi-year contract extension that would keep the popular manager with the club beyond 2013. Although some specifics still need to be worked out, a deal is expected to be reached in January, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Showalter, who is splitting the winter between his homes in Dallas and Baltimore, was here last week to attend community and charity events and met with Angelos several times, including having lunch on Thursday in a Little Italy restaurant with Angelos and his son, Louis.

An effort to revive more than 13,000 lawsuits filed by people who contend they were sickened by absestos was met with sharp objections Monday by lawyers for potential defendants. Plaintiffs' attorneys said consolidating some of the lawsuits would help people who have seen their cases languish for years. But defense lawyers told a Baltimore judge that the proposal — which made a fortune for the Law Firm of Peter Angelos previously — was unworkable and unfair. Opponents criricized the Angelos fim's suggestion for these cases, for people with a range of cancers but not mesothelioma, which has been closely linked to asbestos exposure.

ASHBURN, Va. - DeAngelo Hall hurt his ankle enough that he had to use crutches to make an appearance on a Washington, D.C. radio show Tuesday. Still, the Washington Redskins cornerback vowed that he would not sit out Sunday's home contest against the Ravens. “I feel all right,” Hall said after Wednesday's practice at the team's training facilty. “And like I said, there's no way I'm not playing this game. So it's a non-story.” Hall's availability is significant for Washington, which lost the services of nickel back Cedric Griffin after he was suspended for four games Tuesday for violating the NFL's policy on performance-enhancing substances.

A Dundalk woman who died after she drove her car the wrong way onto the Baltimore Beltway, striking another vehicle and killing a 3-year-old last month, had alcohol and painkillers in her blood, a police spokesman said. Toxicology tests showed Victoria Lynn DeAngelo, 21, had a 0.18 blood alcohol content and presence of the painkiller Tramadol, said Maryland Transportation Authority Police spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Green, citing a report from the office of the chief medical examiner. DeAngelo and 3-year-old Lily Joseven Kelley of White Marsh died as a result of the Nov. 25 crash.

Alan Rifkin, outside counsel for the Orioles and owner Peter Angelos, said Monday that reports of a possible MASN sale are innacurate. "There has been no contact," he said. "There has been no offer. There has been no discussion of it. MASN is not for sale. " According to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, Fox and Comcast have had negotiations with Peter Angelos about acquiring his majority share of the television network and the rights to both Orioles and Nationals games.

In a land swap, lawyer and Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos is donating a 700-foot strip of Towson land to the state for the widening of the Baltimore Beltway's inner-loop York Road exit.In exchange, the state plans to deed to Mr. Angelos a smaller piece of land that would allow him to build an extra entrance from nearby West Road to the five-acre site he owns at the Beltway intersection. He already has access from York Road.No money was exchanged in the deal, Mr. Angelos and a state official said.

On the morning the Baltimore Orioles opened their brand-new ballpark at Camden Yards, Johnny Oates arrived and couldn't get into the place. A security guard said he needed identification. Those in search of a metaphor need look no further.In Peter Angelos' eyes, Oates was a faceless man, a baseball manager interchangeable with a dozen or more others. For such money as he was spending -- $173 million for the ballclub, $40 million for free agents last year -- the principal owner of the Orioles figured he was entitled to the best man money could buy, and Oates was just an ordinary guy in a crowd.

Over the past few weeks, the dinner conversation sometimes got a little overheated at Jack and Will D'Angelo's Reisterstown home. With Jack playing for Calvert Hall's football team and younger brother Will playing for Loyola's, there wasn't much to agree upon when talk turned to the Turkey Bowl coming up at M&T Bank Stadium on Thursday morning. For the 93rd time, Calvert Hall and Loyola will meet on Thanksgiving Day, but this will be the first time that Jack, a senior starting lineman, and Will, a sophomore reserve receiver, square off. Athletes since they were little, both brothers have strong competitive streaks and, of course, that comes out in everything from pick-up basketball games in the driveway to video games in the basement to conversations about the Turkey Bowl at the dinner table.