Orioles owner Peter Angelos dies at 94

Peter George Angelos, longtime Orioles owner, Baltimore political activist and one of the most successful class-action attorneys in U.S. history, died Saturday, according to the Orioles. The Baltimore resident was 94.

The team issued a statement Saturday afternoon that said Angelos “passed away quietly.” It did not give a location.

His death came as his family prepared to sell the team to David Rubenstein, a purchase that is awaiting final approval by MLB owners.

“I offer my deepest condolences to the Angelos family on the passing of Peter Angelos,” Rubenstein said Saturday in a statement. “Peter made an indelible mark first in business and then in baseball.

“The city of Baltimore owes him a debt of gratitude for his stewardship of the Orioles across three decades and for positioning the team for great success.”

Tough-minded and ego-driven, Angelos rose from a blue-collar background to amass a fortune as a lawyer. Casting himself as a defender of steelworkers against corporate irresponsibility, Angelos won more than $1 billion in damages from asbestos companies during the 1990s and built his personal wealth on the commissions.

He used that fortune to buy the Orioles for a then-record $173 million in 1993. Angelos, who grew up in East Baltimore, believed the club should no longer be owned by out-of-towners, and his early willingness to spend on free agents earned him the love of hometown fans.

In an interview prior to Angelos’ death, Democratic Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg of Baltimore reflected on the team owner’s influence on the city.

“His legacy will be that he made Orioles’ ownership local,” Rosenberg said. “Peter Angelos was extraordinarily committed to this city — and he proved it by putting his money where his mouth was.”

The team statement said the burial would be private, adding “the family asks for understanding as they honor that request.”

“Mr. Angelos had been ill for several years, and the family thanks the doctors, nurses, and caregivers who brought comfort to him in his final years,” the statement said.

Before his death, Angelos had became incapacitated, according to documents in a 2022 legal battle that pitted his younger son, Louis, against Peter Angelos’ wife, Georgia, and elder son, John. In February 2023, the parties settled all litigation arising from Louis’ claims that his mother and brother had sought improperly to seize control of the elder Angelos’ assets, including his real estate holdings and the Orioles.

Decisions about the team were being made by his wife, Georgia, on his behalf.

During his active years as the team’s owner, Angelos was an iconoclast, swimming against the tide on labor issues, taking Major League Baseball back to Cuba and refusing to give an inch as he negotiated compensation for the Washington Nationals’ move into the Baltimore-Washington market.

He owned the Orioles through one of the darkest periods in club history — 14 consecutive losing seasons accompanied by a steady decline in attendance and the exodus of the Orioles’ sharpest executives, some of who found themselves at odds with Angelos’ autocratic, heavy-handed approach.

The Orioles pulled out of a long tailspin in 2012, making a surprise playoff run led by widely respected manager Buck Showalter, whom Angelos had aggressively recruited. In 2014, they won the American League East for the first time in 17 years.

The winning seasons, and Angelos’ renewed willingness to spend freely to keep signature stars such as Adam Jones and Chris Davis, prompted a reassessment of his record as an owner. Even that was complicated by the club’s subsequent return to the bottom of the standings in 2017, with the Davis deal and other moves proving disastrous, and Angelos playing a reduced role as his health declined.

“Though there are those who will lean toward some negatives of his legacy, there are significant accomplishments to support a positive legacy,” longtime Baltimore sports agent Ron Shapiro said in an earlier interview.

“There’s no one you’d rather have on your side,” Alan Rifkin, the longtime primary outside counsel to the Orioles and a friend, said before Angelos died. “He put ordinary people in the asbestos and tobacco cases on his shoulders and lifted them up, and that’s who he was.”

This article will be updated.