Peter Schmuck: Davey Johnson "resigned because of a personality conflict with owner Peter Angelos."

By way of explaining why the Baltimore Orioles currently are 2-15, sports columnist Peter Schmuck considers "the curse" of Davey Johnson. Schmck's full quote is: "The Orioles haven't had a winning season since Johnson's 1997 team went wire -to-wire to win the American League East and he was named AL manager of the year on the same day he resigned because of a personality conflict with owner Peter Angelos." ("Have O's Gone from Bad to Cursed?" Baltimore Sun, April 21, 2010, Sports, page 2.) 


A personality conflict? Whaa? Did Bernie Madoff have a "personality conflict" with his investors?   


In 1997, Davey Johnson wanted out of Baltimore, a small-market town. Johnson wanted to void his contract with the Orioles. The Johnson answer was to create a serious issue of trust with owner Peter Angelos. 


So, Johnson manufactured a problem with Angelos, the man who had hired him and who was putting up multiple millions to field a team of superior ball players for Johnson to manage. 


To get out of Baltimore, Davey Johnson began to solicit contributions to his wife's foundation from the players Johnson managed. When Orioles management objected, Johnson denounced Angelos and got himself fired. 


This manager-driven crisis created a quandary for Peter Angelos. Johnson's talent as a manager gave him leverage in the baseball business. How, then, can a business owner avoid putting multiple millions in the hands of a talented but egotistical jerk?   


Angelos fixed this problem by recognizing he could control the talent question if not the ego question. Realizing this, Angelos made a decision that has saved him probably half a billion dollars and which ought to be studied in business schools: if your revenue is the same, hire people with little talent. That way, even if they are jerks, they gotta behave.


Since 1997, the Orioles have hired only marginal managers and mostly marginal players. These managers are so grateful for a job they would never dare to buck Angelos. They know no other team wanted their services. As for the Orioles players hired since 1997, most of them are so ordinary they would be cutting short their own miraculous careers, if they ever complained that Orioles management had no intention of fielding a quality product.  


Why put up millions upon millions to field a talented team when some jerk can mess it up in a weekend? The answer: save the multiple millions. Put up enough to field an average or even a below-average team and pocket the $50 million a year or so that otherwise is at jerk-risk. That is a good business decision, since the media revenues are the same whether the team wins or not.


Pete Schmuck, got it partly right. The current below average team  goes back to Davey Johnson. But there is no "curse." There is simply the owner of a business, having made a mistake once, by entrusting a fortune to a venture that is subject to jerk-risk.


Mr. Schmuck, you probably would have done the same thing Angelos did. Me too. The team has sucked for more than a decade but the owner is half a billion richer.