The Orioles New Ownership Group Includes Some Absolute Big Dogs Like Cal Ripken Jr., Grant Hill, and Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg
You've seen the news by now, the Orioles are being sold to a group of investors for a crisp $1.725 billion and all of Baltimore is over the MOON happy about it. Literally smiling ear to ear all day thinking about it. Twas a day a lot of us thought would never come, it was much like how Commanders fans never thought Snyder would be out over there. But it happened, it really happened. I still pinch myself to see if this is real and you bet your ass it's real. John Angelos is going to be leaving our lives very soon and the Orioles will have an insanely rich ownership group ready to spend money. Everything coming up Orioles.
It started out as David Rubenstein and Michael Arougheti being the main names in the investors group. Then we saw the other names involved and what a god damn list we have here. Cal Ripken Jr., ever heard of him? Hometown kid gets drafted and plays for the team his dad coaches for and the squad he grew up watching? End up being the greatest shortstop ever and then eventually ends up owning that team? How awesome is that? Welcome back Cal! Then Grant Hill's name dropped from the clouds. People forget he was raised in DC which is still semi-local to the Orioles. But I didn't expect to see Hill's name involved with this purchase. Like Rubenstein, Hill went to Duke so they've got that connection. Hill's mom was also on the board at Carlyle. Hill also has worked with our next big money name.
My guy Michael Arougheti has a net worth of $1.8 billion. You read that right, $1.8 billion. He's also got no Wikipedia page which is kinda weird that you can be that rich and not have a wiki page. Something may be up there. Kurt Schmoke was included in the list, nice of the former Baltimore Mayor to get in the mix. Michele Kang, owner of the Washington Spirit, a National Women's Soccer League team joined up for another local influence.
And then we see that former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, net worth of $96.3 billion, is also included. Rubensten and Bloomberg have their connection through Bloomberg's programming so it makes sense they have an already existing relationship. Bloomberg also went to school in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins so he's probably seen himself some O's games. Let's hope he has a decent stake and reallllly wants to spend some of that cash he's got. It's such an interesting and complicated group of investors coming together to run the team, I love it all. A hall of fame shortstop, two former mayors, a trio of billionaires, a Women's Soccer league owner and a partridge in a pear tree. A shit ton of money too.
30 long years of the Angelos family at the helm. Lots of good moments under this family but years and years of pain. That pain is no more. David Rubenstein and his super group of owners are here to save the day in Baltimore. Having owners who want to spend the insane amount of money that they have is so sweet. I told someone that John Angelos finally selling is like the scene in "Forrest Gump" when they're in Vietnam and it's dumping rain. And then one day....it just stopped. That's where we are now, the rain has stopped and I'm all ready to go to the White House and drink some Dr. Pepper. What a time to be an Orioles fan.