Quote Originally Posted by StingerNLG View Post
Then they read Peter Angelos's statement, and I thought something I probably shouldn't have. Let's just say I had no empathy for him.
I live maybe a quarter mile from the Flannagans. I came home early from work yesterday. As I passed his house, around 4:50, a Baltimore County police was coming out of his driveway, pulling to a stop at York Road. I thought it was odd, but chalked it up to maybe an errant burglar alarm. That was just a half hour after the 911 call. Very surreal to wake up and hear the news this morning.

I hate to say it, but I had the same reaction about Angelos. I didn't hear his formal statement, but I did hear statements by Gerry Sandusky and Jim Duquette. Both suggested that Mike really struggled with the negative comments from fans and the media, feeling unfairly blamed for baseball club's embarrassing downfall.

It's a good reminder that things we say and write about players and managment are felt, and do hurt -- and we rarely know the whole story we think we know. While these boards are a good place to vent, we should all think twice about dumping on people in the public eye. Sometimes the criticism goes too far, or is based on faulty insights.

Duquette's comments, in particular, stood out for me. Not only did he confirm that the state of the baseball club burdened Flanny, he went on to cryptically talk about things that went on inside the warehouse that no one will ever really know about that made it difficult for Flanny to do his job the way he wanted to do his job. I have a good guess what that generally means--most of us probably do.

If anything good comes of this, I can only pray that it leads to fresh ownership in Baltimore. I realize that might sound hypocritical, given what I said about blaming public sports figures for negative events. It may be unfair for me to connect the dots in this way, but for god sake, show some mercy Mr. Angelos and sell the team.