Lords of Baltimore : As Much as George Calvert, Its Founder, the City Reveres Its Favorite Baseball Sons, Peter Angelos and Cal Ripken Jr., and Has No Use for Replacements

The kind of cold that make your ears burn and lungs protest grips this city.

The temperature has been in single digits. The wind-chill factor makes it seem below zero. It’s no time to be sightseeing.

But there, just inside the gate at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, stands a man gazing at the decorated wall, mesmerized by the 24 plaques identifying members of the Oriole Hall of Fame.

He looks away only when interrupted by a stranger, and is asked why he would choose such a time to be here. There’s an awkward silence. Finally, he breaks into a silly grin.

“You know something,” says Oriole fan Tom McErlean. “Of all the times I’ve been here, this is the first time I’ve even noticed these plaques. You see, usually there’s such a crowd of people, and a long line waiting for Boog Powell’s barbecue, it’s impossible to see.

“Funny, you know? You wait all your life to see something like this, but now it just doesn’t seem right.

“It’s like you’re paying your respects to a friend that’s dying. No one knows when baseball will ever be revived.”

*

Six months have elapsed since major league baseball was last played, and although cities and communities across a nation mourn, none grieves quite like Baltimore.

“It didn’t seem like summer ever came to its natural end,” said Billy Jones, who still has the scorecard from the first Oriole game in 1954. “Now the winter is out of context. It’s like we don’t know what to do.

“Maybe it’s different in other cities. Maybe for them, it’s just something to pass the time. But here, it’s a passion. Maybe that’s why it hurts so bad.”

Baltimore is the Green Bay of baseball. It’s the only city where baseball remains its only major sport.

It also is the only city whose baseball owner refuses to use replacement players and has a shortstop who has played in 2,009 consecutive games and the undying support of the entire community.

“I think we’ve become America’s team,” said Mike Beczkeowski, who spent 30 minutes at the ticket window, buying $624 worth of tickets for 24 games. “The Orioles represent defiance vs. greed, good vs. evil. We’re the people’s choice.

“You ask me, and we’ve got a genuine hero, representing all of the little people.”

That would be Peter Angelos, perhaps the most popular man in Maryland.

“He’s the governor of Maryland without the title,” said Baltimore-based player agent Ron Shapiro. “He has achieved legendary respect in our town.”

Angelos, 65, the son of an immigrant Greek steelworker-tavern keeper, grew up in the ethnic neighborhoods of East Baltimore and has become a feisty reformer who rebels against authority, alienates his peers and caters to the working class.

That makes him the lord of Camden Yards.

“He’s got 250 million people supporting him in this country,” Oriole broadcaster Jon Miller said. “And 27 owners who can’t stand him.”

Since the strike began, Aug. 12, he has chastised management negotiator Richard Ravitch and openly questioned the qualifications of Bud Selig to be acting commissioner. He refused to sign the owners’ declaration canceling the end of the 1994 season, the playoffs and World Series. He voted against the owners’ resolution in December to declare an impasse in negotiations and implement a salary cap.

And now, he refuses to participate in the owners’ plan to open spring training with replacement players, ignoring the league’s threats of fines, suspensions and even commandeering his team.

“Let them try it,” he says. “The concept of recruiting willy-nilly people across the country who are not major league baseball players and attempting to make teams out of them and offer them to the fans of America as legitimate major league players is a foolish enterprise.

“We will have no part of that.”

It was in his father’s tavern, a favorite for the Bethlehem steelworkers and Esso refinery workers, that Angelos defined his beliefs. He hung around, listening to the workers’ concerns and fears.

“I think he’s the shining light in the world of baseball,” said businessman Hal Donofrio, 58, who grew up in Baltimore. “It’s as if he’s the voice of sanity.

“He has the sense of knowing what’s on the minds of people, and most of all, he delivers.”

After buying the team, Angelos didn’t even wait for his $173-million check to clear before he began listening to the fans.

The Orioles need more talent? Angelos bought free agents Rafael Palmeiro, Sid Fernandez, Lee Smith and Chris Sabo.

You want a football team too? Angelos did everything he could to lure the Rams or Tampa Bay Buccaneers to town, and although he failed, the community extolled his efforts.

There are 3,000 seats at Camden Yards that are awkwardly angled? No problem. Angelos had them ripped out and replaced.

“The man don’t forget where he came from,” said Keith Wagner, a labor union worker in East Baltimore. “The working class put him where he is today, and he knows it. What you see is what you get.”

That is why no one in Baltimore is a bit surprised by his stance on replacement players. How can you represent unions all your life, have such a passion toward the working class, and turn around and use scabs?

“There’s nothing in the baseball constitution that says I have to go out and recruit those type of people just to provide something to the public,” Angelos said. “I won’t do it. I refuse to do it.

“They can do what they want, but they won’t be using replacement players in our ballpark.”

Other baseball owners maintain that fans would rather see replacement baseball than no baseball at all, but Angelos conducted his own poll. It showed that 82% of Oriole fans support his decision to forfeit games rather than use replacement players.

“What more proof do you need?” he asked. “It’s all right there. And really, I don’t think this community’s feelings are necessarily unique.”

Then again, no other city has Cal Ripken Jr.

*

The Susquehanna River starts at Cooperstown, N.Y., a tenth of a mile from the baseball Hall of Fame. It winds down past Williamsport, Pa., home of Little League baseball. It flows into Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Md.

This is the birthplace of Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr.

Ripken is on the verge of breaking perhaps the most sacred record in all of sport, the 2,130 consecutive games played by New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig. It is a record that baseball once considered unbreakable.

It’s a blue-collar record, when you think about it. It doesn’t require 3,000 hits, or 500 home runs or 300 victories. You just have to keep showing up for work. You go to work when you’re tired or sick. You go to work because it’s your duty.

It’s so Baltimorean.

It’s also why Angelos refuses to field a replacement team. The moment the Orioles play a regular-season game, even if it does not involve a single major league player, the streak is over. And streak, or no streak, Ripken will not cross the picket line.

“The notion is ridiculous to me,” Ripken said. “There’s no way I’d play if it wasn’t a major league game. And if there’s replacement players, it’s not a major league game.”

Ripken has not missed a game in 12 seasons. He played the night of May 30, 1982, and since has played in 2,009 consecutive games. If he plays in 121 more, the moment he steps onto the field for No. 122, he will live forever in baseball lore.

“I really don’t get into the fact that it’s a miraculous accomplishment,” Ripken says. “I’m proud of the fact of what it says: That I like to play and I want to be in the lineup.

“It was never meant to be done, or set out to do. If someone had asked me at the beginning of my career if I would play 2,000 straight games, I would have laughed. I never would have thought it was possible.”

The inning streak, perhaps more remarkable, has been largely forgotten. Ripken played in 8,243 consecutive innings spanning 904 games for the first five seasons.

The streak was broken by, of all people, his father, Cal Ripken Sr.

The Toronto Blue Jays were leading the visiting Orioles, 17-3, the night of Sept. 14, 1987, when Ripken grabbed his bat in the top of the eighth inning. His dad, then the team’s manager, told him that he was coming out of the game after the Orioles batted.

Ripken singled and was left stranded. Instead of walking to shortstop, he headed toward the dugout and watched Ron Washington take the field.

“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ ” former teammate Rene Gonzales said. “I immediately looked to Cal. He was in shock. I said, ‘Cal, what do you think?’

“I could see a tear coming up when he grabbed his cap and glove. He went right to the clubhouse.

“Man, it shouldn’t have happened. Come on, if it’s going to end, it should have ended in Baltimore, not on the road.”

Ripken’s streak frequently has been the focus of controversy in Baltimore, especially when he goes into a slump, but the hot argument these days pits Baltimore against Oakland.

Ripken, who has hit more homers than any player in the American League since the streak, and whose fielding percentage is greater than that of any shortstop in the Hall of Fame, just may be spending the most glorious night of his career in Oakland.

If the season were to start on time, with the major league players, Ripken would figure to tie the record Aug. 16 at Camden Yards against the Cleveland Indians. The Orioles are off Aug. 17. He would break it Aug. 18 at the Oakland Coliseum against the Athletics.

Had it not been for games lost to the strike last fall, the record-tying game would have been June 20 against the Yankees and the record-setting game June 22 at Camden Yards.

Now, presuming the strike is over and unless the American League interferes, Baltimoreans will have to watch the historic game on television. The Athletics, realizing the windfall, and certainly not disguising their contempt for Angelos, refuse to move the game to Baltimore.

“You can be assured that we’re not doing a lot to cooperate with Angelos and the Orioles,” said Sandy Alderson, the A’s vice president. “I’d like nothing more than to see Ripken break the record at the Oakland Coliseum.

“I’d be expecting (Angelos) to be watching the game personally. I think I’ll be closer to the field than he would, but he’ll enjoy the game from the third deck.”

Said Joseph Bach, 52, a security guard: “The media makes a lot more out of it than we do. Every boy grows up here wanting to be an Oriole. No one says anything about being a star. We don’t care for that glitz and glamour stuff. . . . That’s why Cal is so popular. You can relate to him. A lot of famous baseball people, you can’t.

“But we do understand the streak. I mean, we’d understand if Cal can’t play because he’s hurt. But if the streak were to be broken because of the strike, that’d be difficult to take.”

This city has never embraced glamour. Reggie Jackson was never accepted. Rick Dempsey was idolized. Eddie Murray was abandoned when he asked to be traded. Joe Orsulak was revered.

“The Oriole way has always been a little different than the others,” said former Oriole third baseman Doug DeCinces. “It’s the ultimate experience there.”

Said Dempsey: “I may live in California, but my heart will always be in Baltimore.”

How else can you explain the night of May 2, 1988? The Orioles opened the season by losing a major league-record 21 consecutive games. They returned home with a 1-23 record. A crowd of 50,402 was there to welcome them.

“That was my first year here and things were just going miserably,” General Manager Roland Hemond recalled. “The team was awful, and there was no sign it was going to get any better.

“So we come back home, there’s 50,000 people there and they decide to introduce us. I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on around here?’

“We walk onto the field, I’m waiting for all the boos and we get a standing ovation. I mean, it’s a standing ovation. Now, I’m walking off the field, pretty embarrassed to tell you the truth, and some fan yells to me, ‘Hey, Roland.’

“I look up, kind of wincing, and he says, ‘Just want to let you know you’re doing a great job.’

“I’m thinking, ‘This is my kind of town.’ ”

How else can you explain the game of June 22, 1979, the night Oriole Magic was born?

The Orioles were trailing the Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the ninth inning, 5-3. Ken Singleton hit a homer to make it 5-4, and two outs later with a man aboard, DeCinces stepped to the plate.

“The entire ballpark was electrified,” said Charles Steinberg, the club’s publicity director who has worked in the organization since he was a teen-ager. “They gave DeCinces a standing ovation just walking to the plate. It’s as if by sheer will, they could create the result that they anticipated.

“What transpired was the ultimate validation of your belief.

“Look at me, I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it again.”

DeCinces swung, hit a slider off Dave Tobic that carried over the left-field fence at Memorial Stadium and the love affair was under way.

Baltimore suddenly became the place to play. Instead of leaving for free agency at the first chance, players began to stay. Dempsey became the first to commit, signing a five-year contract on Christmas Day, 1980. Then Murray signed a five-year deal. Before you knew it, players were living in Baltimore during the off-season too.

“The players embraced the city, and the city embraced them back,” said Shapiro, who at one time represented 20 Orioles. “It’s a special place, and players began recognizing it. They finally realized, ‘Why should I leave? You don’t have to jump around to achieve happiness.’

“The team became symbolic of the city.”

Oriole pride has even grown since the construction of Camden Yards. Sure, there was really nothing wrong with Memorial Stadium, but now the team has a 30-year lease, a Baltimore native as its owner and the world at its feet.

“It’s become like ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ ” Miller, the broadcaster, said. “If you want to go to a game in August, you better make reservations in January.

“The Orioles have truly become a team for the people.”