Ghiroli: Orioles’ unforced error with announcer Kevin Brown dims the team’s shine at the wrong time

He orioles reached 70 wins on Sunday. They are young, fun and possibly the best history in baseball. And yet Monday’s headlines weren’t about any of that. they were like first reported by Awful Announcementabout announcer Kevin Brown’s two-week absence from the MASN booth over comments on July 23 that the Orioles had won more games in 2023 at Tropicana Field than the previous two years combined.

A fact that was presented in the team’s game notes as follows: The Orioles have won three of the first five games at The Trop this season after winning three of the 21 games played in St. Petersburg between 2020 and 2022.

A fact that was accompanied by a graphic entitled “Trop-ical Disaster”, made by MASN, the chain owned by the team. Brown does not write game notes. He doesn’t do the graphics. But he bore the brunt of a seemingly benign statement of fact because he upset someone. That someone is John Angelos, say sources familiar with the matter, the only person with enough power so that no one dares to question the validity of everything he says and does, no matter how foolish it is.

It doesn’t matter that the Orioles have been terrible in recent years was no secret: They lost more than 100 games in the three full seasons from 2018-2021. Or that Angelos himself said in spring training that the team wanted to emulate the tampa bay rays and be competitive on a yearly basis with a small budget. No, the man who was once in a lawsuit with his own brother, Louis (who was resolved earlier this year) and promised the media this spring that open team books (He never did), apparently decided that this comment was unacceptable. This made him, the owner of a team with the 29th best payroll in the game, look cheap.

Angelos then sent his people out to deliver the message, being careful never to use the word “suspension” and making sure to combat the tsunami of bad press by having a senior team official tell various outlets: “We don’t comment on employment decisions, however, Kevin Brown will be back with us in the near future.”

The Orioles declined to comment. the athletic and a spokesman for John Angelos said there was “no suspension” but declined to answer follow-up questions on the record.

Who cares what they called it? We all know what it is.

It reeks of the same petty behavior that saw MASN part ways with a host of loyal broadcasters, including Gary Thorne and jim hunter. EITHER fire public address announcer Ryan Wagner hours before the team’s first home game in 2021. Angelos publicly chided sportswriter Dan Connollya friend and ex Athletic colleague, for asking baseball-related questions during a Martin Luther King Day press conference.

The nerve of him, of anyone associated with the decision to take Brown off the air, to take away what the Orioles are doing on the field. Especially now, on National Sea Serpent Day.

Brown, whose agent declined to comment for this story, has become a popular fixture on Orioles broadcasts. He is smart, intelligent and clearly loves his work. He’s been through the tough years for the team and, like anyone else, he must tell the excitement of this season through the lens of how far the team has come.

How embarrassing is it to lose to Tampa Bay, an organization you want to emulate, in previous years? But this is the same organization that has rules against mentioning certain former players on the air, that kicked Jon Miller out of town because he wasn’t homer enough decades ago when Peter Angelos managed the team. John is not Peter. And he’s done some good things, including hiring general manager Mike Elias and letting the baseball operations people do what they do best without getting in the way, which was often a problem for the older Angelos.

Brown is expected to return to the broadcast booth on August 11, sources with knowledge say. And if he does, it will be a welcome sight. But one has to wonder what kind of message this sends to anyone in the organization, that they can apparently be kicked out of their jobs without so much as an blink, and how Brown can go back and not care about everything he says and does. of context

For all the good the Orioles have done on the field, Monday was a reminder of the challenges they’ve had.

(Photo: Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)