Angelos

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos took the rare step yesterday of going public with his team's finances, and he urged other major-league owners to follow suit."

Maybe Ray Miller doesn't realize it, but he should. The best friend he has in baseball during a 35-year career, including pitching, coaching and managing, is the last man he worked for -- the majority owner of the Orioles who defended him with iron-willed resistance and refused to submit to what became a near-constant public refrain: "Fire Miller."Now the Orioles, momentarily, are expected to make a change that is seemingly inevitable, although the club is still uncertain of what other moves are to follow.

LISTEN closely and maybe you'll hear it. It's coming from the B&O warehouse. Perhaps it's a hissing, like air leaking from a tire. Or a deflating pop, like that from a pinpricked balloon. Whatever the pitch, it's the sound of Lee Mazzilli's managerial tenure in Baltimore ending. The constant murmur surrounding the Rafael Palmeiro steroids fiasco may mask it right now, but it is there - getting louder than it has been all season. When the Orioles started off hot, when they held off the charging Boston Red Sox and taunted the suddenly vulnerable New York Yankees, everybody seemed to be talking about the job Mazzilli had done.

If Peter Angelos wants to fire Johnny Oates, he should get on with it. If not, he should shut up.It's difficult to know what to believe in the wake of a Washington Post report Monday that quoted a top club official as saying Angelos "won't let this go on forever."This?At the time of the report, the Orioles were on a pace to win 93 games. After yesterday's 6-3 victory, they're on a pace to win 98.If Angelos wants to make history, this is his chance: No owner has ever fired a manager with a .605 winning percentage in the middle of a season.

Baltimore attorney and Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who gained prominence by suing asbestos companies, is setting his sights on another big target: a once-corrupt chain of psychiatric hospitals.Mr. Angelos' firm is running newspaper ads soliciting complaints from former patients of nine psychiatric hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington area. The hospitals belonged to a huge California-based company that last year paid a record $379 million as part of a federal fraud investigation."Appropriate Psychiatric Treatment?"

NEW YORK -- This is how much the Orioles disgust their employers. The manager last night changed the lineup position of the player chasing Roger Maris' home run record, and the owner publicly criticized the player who last season became a national hero as baseball's all-time Iron Man.How bizarre is this team?It turned out to be a good night, perhaps the best of the season.Cal Ripken had no idea what Peter Angelos had said about him before the game, and it was a good thing. Ripken, batting third for only the third time this season, went 3-for-5 with three RBIs, including the tie-breaking single in the ninth inning of the Orioles' 7-4 victory over the New York Yankees.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer and Peter G. Angelos double-teamed the state legislature yesterday -- with the governor saying there is a "serious effort" to bring an unidentified NFL team to Baltimore and the Orioles owner declaring that he is personally negotiating with three teams."

This is for the fans who endured one lame pennant-race trade after another, from Keith Moreland to Craig Lefferts to Mike Pagliarulo, from Lonnie Smith to Dwight Smith.Last night, Peter Angelos said enough.Shortly after learning that the New York Yankees had acquired David Cone and Ruben Sierra, the Orioles' owner grabbed the proverbial gun out of general manager Roland Hemond's quivering hands and fired.He caved.He blinked.Who cares?The move was totally impulsive, and totally glorious, and it will go down as one of the great moments in Orioles history, even if Alex Ochoa turns into the next Roberto Clemente.

Let it be said with the strongest of conviction, supported by ongoing evidence, that no owner of a Baltimore sports franchise, going back over 100 years, has ever done for his city what Peter Angelos continues to contribute. It's a scenario that can't be challenged or refuted. He's holding two of Baltimore's most historic centerpieces of tradition: the Orioles, a sports team, and the venerable Marconi's restaurant, plus more business endeavors that no one else in the private sector has yet attempted.

The TV Repairman:A famous man in baseball once said, "These are uncertain times. We cannot be content to rest on yesterday's laurels. These are times when we must strengthen rather than let down those standards which have stood in such good stead in crises that are past. Baseball cannot be selfish, or irresponsible, or lax. Neither can the men who operate it."Lax, irresponsible, these are the traits along with others that lost baseball its television contract with not one but two networks.