Seeing is Believing

"I'm absolutely responsible for baseball operations,"
- Andy MacPhail

Let's hope so. I cannot actually trust that to be the case until I see Peter Angelos letting MacPhail do his job the way he needs to do his job. Until then, he's just another face stuck in the revolving door of Orioles management types.

Peter Schmuck is giddy:

For once, they didn't have to open the windows on the sixth floor of the B&O Warehouse to get some fresh air.

New Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail took the podium this morning and took charge of this floundering franchise and, cynics be damned, it sure felt like a new day in Birdland.

It started with the structure of the media conference, in which club counsel (and Peter Angelos surrogate) Russell Smouse made the introduction instead of executive vice president Mike Flanagan. It started with Smouse acknowledging that ownership finally has gotten the message from the club's disgusted and diminished fan base and announcing unequivocally that MacPhail would have "full and ultimate responsibility" for the operation of the team.

Smouse was speaking for Angelos, who should have been there himself, but let's not quibble at a time like this. The Orioles -- for the first time since they hired Pat Gillick -- have a baseball operations czar with the kind of juice to affect dynamic change inside the organization and repair the team's broken image in the community and around the major leagues.

And I hope he is right. I was four years old in 1983, when the Orioles knocked off the Phillies. I cling to (and still wear regularly) my "1997 Eastern Division Champions" t-shirt, because it's the only thing I have left that signifies playoff success. I hope that, by next year, I have a reason to switch out that portion of my wardrobe.