Peter Angelos

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Peter G. Angelos (born July 4, 1929 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American trial lawyer and the current owner of the Baltimore Orioles, a baseball team in the American League East Division. His official titles with the club are Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. He led a group of investors that purchased the team in 1993 for $173 million from Eli Jacobs.

[edit] Background

Angelos is a graduate of Eastern College of Commerce and Law and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he was class valedictorian. He began work as a criminal defense lawyer following graduation. For most of his legal career Angelos made a living as a lawyer representing Baltimore labor unions and their members in his own private practice, which he founded in 1961. Beginning in the 1980s, Angelos refashioned his firm from criminal law to civil class action suits. In 1982, his wealth and law firm expanded exponentially when he represented a large number of plaintiffs in asbestos litigation and won. He reportedly made over $100 million on this single case. Angelos was also enormously successful in representing the state of Maryland as lead attorney in a suit against Phillip Morris and suing Wyeth, the makers of the diet pill fen-phen. It was after this that he became a major player in the Baltimore community. Angelos's law firm currently has offices in Baltimore, Philadelphia, several cities in western Maryland including Cumberland, Maryland , and Dover, Delaware.

Angelos has always had his heart in politics. A life long Democrat, he held a seat on Baltimore City Council from 1959 to 1963. Angelos ran for mayor of Baltimore in 1964 as an independent, but lost with less than 10% of the vote. Three times in the 1960s he unsuccessfully challenged Republican incumbents in the Maryland Legislature. He recently has become involved in politics again, publicly supporting Republican gubernatorial incumbent Bob Ehrlich and criticizing 2006 Democratic candidate, now governor, Martin J. O'Malley. However, it is speculated that Angelos's support for the Republican is more a business move than a political move, because O'Malley encouraged the move of the Montreal Expos to Washington, DC, a move which threatened the Orioles monopoly on the Baltimore-Washington market.

Angelos has been instrumental in the creation of many local museums and attractions. He has recently engaged in prolonged discussions with Cal Ripken, Jr. about selling the Orioles to the former shortstop and other financial backers.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Nationals and Free the Birds Controversy

Angelos opposed the relocation of the Washington Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) to Washington D.C. due to concerns about a reduced share of fan revenue affecting the ability of the Orioles to compete with the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Major League Baseball first compensated Angelos by establishing a minimum sales price floor for the Orioles. Later, MLB gave Angelos a majority (90 percent) interest in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, paying him $75 million for a 10 percent stake in the new regional sports network, that would broadcast both Orioles and Nationals games.

The United Workers Association, an organization of clean-up workers at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, claim that in 2004 Angelos promised, and then revoked his promise, to pay the difference of what would be required to raise cleaners' wages to that of Baltimore City's official living wage. Since 2004, Angelos has been the primary focus of the United Workers Association's Living Wages at Camden Yards Campaign.

On September 21st, 2006, 1,000 or more Orioles fans protested at Camden Yards against Angelos and the way in which he has run the Orioles in what became known as the 'Free the Birds' demonstration.[1]