Peter G. Angelos (born July 4, 1929) is a trial lawyer and the current owner of the Baltimore Orioles, a baseball team in the American League East Division. He led a group of investors that purchased the team in 1993 for $173 million.

He 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 interest in the Mid-Atlantic 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.

Angelos is widely despised by many fans, who contest that Angelos is more concerned with making a profit by way of the Orioles instead of spending money to make the team competitive. Others note that under his ownership the Orioles visited the postseason in 1996 and 1997 for the first time since 1983, spending more on free agents than prior ownership.

He is a graduate of Eastern College and the University of Baltimore Law School, where he was class valedictorian. For most of his legal career Angelos made a very comfortable living as a trial attorney in his own firm. In 1992, his wealth and law firm expanded exponentially when he represented a large number of plaintiffs in asbestos litigation and won. It was after this that he became a major player in the Baltimore community.

Angelos ran for mayor of Baltimore in 1964 but lost with less than 10% of the vote. He recently has become involved in politics again, publicly supporting Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich and criticizing 2006 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin J. O'Malley. Some have suspected that Angelos' criticism towards O'Malley stems from the fact that O'Malley publicly supported the existence of the Nationals, thus appearing as a threat to Angelos' continued monopolization of the Baltimore-Washington baseball market and his collection of funds from various revenue streams. As a part of this monopolization, Baltimore area fans are not even able to watch the Orioles on the INHDnetwork that provides Orioles games ocassionally in the highest standards in HDTV available.

External links

• Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos website
• Molly Rath, The Last Tycoon: Love Him or Hate Him, Peter Angelos Holds the Key to Downtown's Future, Baltimore City Paper, August 16, 2000
• Maury Brown, Angelos Must Go, The Hardball Times, January 23, 2006

Living people | 1929 births | Greek-Americans | Baseball executives | University of Baltimore alumni | Baltimore Orioles | American lawyers