Mike Burke
I have added Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti to the list with Nick Faldo of people it would be okay for me to be if I weren’t me.
Bisciotti’s strictly an open-collar guy who has earned it all, man. Young, good looking, from Baltimore, great businessman, self-made man, bought his hometown football team and built them a castle to practice and train in, and just seems to be your basic everyman, never really seeming to take himself too seriously. Not only that, he’s got at least four midcourt, front-row tickets to every Terps basketball game. Oh, yeah, you can see him at Bentley’s before every game.
Now if that’s not cool enough, just to prove how grounded this guy is in his community and his hometown, during the Ravens’ “State of the Ravens” media conference the other day, in discussing the present-day economics of the NFL, he happened to take a shot at the New York Yankees and the enormous payroll they take on every year.
“It certainly doesn’t show up in the standings,” Bisciotti said. “If I’m a Yankees fan, I’m upset we’re not winning 130 games with the roster that they have and the money that they pay out. I think it’s a disgrace they only beat the average team by 10 games in the standings with three times the money. I’d fire that GM. You don’t need a GM. All you have to do is buy the last Cy Young Award winner every year.”
Now in watching the news conference, it was clear Bisciotti was kidding about the 130 games and the average 10 games in the standings and firing GM Brian Cashman ... we think ... in making his analogy.
Having said that, it was sooooo Baltimore for a Baltimore guy to second-naturedly express his contempt for the mere idea of the New York Yankees the way every good Balwmorean should do, hon.
It should also be noted in the next breath, Bisciotti said he didn’t believe Major League Baseball could afford to put an NFL-like salary cap into effect at this point (“I think the genie’s out of the bottle ...”), because it would damage the huge value of the Yanks, baseball’s most valuable franchise, which, in turn, would damage the value of the other top money-making franchises.
It’s just so refreshing to see a guy like Bisciotti, a man of enormous self-made wealth, conducting himself as though he’s no different than you or I, sitting in the ballpark, smoking a big fat cigar (when you were allowed to smoke them at the ballpark), rooting for the O’s, and just hating life that his tickets are stuck beside one of those Yankee fans.
How nice would it be if things weren’t nearly as tight-arsed in the ownership digs of the B&O; Warehouse? And did anybody notice Jon Miller, one of the two most beloved play-by-play men in the history of Baltimore, will be entering the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, while he’s still in the prime of his broadcasting life? Nice reminder, huh? To paraphrase Terrance Mann, “It reminds us of all that once was good ... But will it ever be again?”
Hey, if Steve Bisciotti were the owner of the Orioles, not only would we be cranking the buses for the trip from Baltimore to Cooperstown again this summer, that statue of Brooks Robinson that will be put up across the street from Camden Yards by somebody other than the Orioles? That baby would have been placed at the center of the Schaefer Plaza rotunda years ago.
So make no mistake about it. If I ever get the chance to go through what Warren Beatty went through in “Heaven Can Wait,” it would be quite all right if I were assigned to carry on as the current owner of the Ravens.
And speaking of reminding us of all that was once good, and could be again? Never fails, does it? We’re blessed with the most beautiful day of the year weatherwise the day before all hell is supposed to break loose. It’s downright unfair, I tell ya — not that we’re gettin’ it and gettin’ it big time, we’re long overdue — but that we get it the day after such a gorgeous, fresh-aired and scented day that gives us the hope and the promise of the coming spring, which now seems to be an even bigger rumor than it was as recently as the middle of last week.
In any event, we’ll be fine. I tell you, we’re going to be all right. After all, pitchers and catchers report in 12 days.
As good old Sgt. Phil Esterhaus of the Hill Street precinct liked to say: “Hey ... Let’s be careful out there.”
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
