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Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos isn't all bad?

A few years ago that notion would have seemed unfathomable. The Orioles have reeled off 11 straight losing seasons and appear headed for a 12th. Frustration grew so high among fans in the Charm City in 2006 that almost 1,000 fans walked out of Camden Yards in late September of that season.

Baltimore was once a proud baseball town. Earl Weaver. Brooks Robinson. Cal Ripken Jr. Jim Palmer. We all know the names. But that glory has faded over the last decade as the team has become an afterthought in the loaded AL East.

Given that his reign as Orioles owner has coincided with one of the darkest periods in the franchise's history on the field, it probably isn't much of a surprise that Sports Illustrated recently named him the worst owner in baseball.

And if he had a Hall of Fame vote, by george -- and thank God he doesn't -- he'd be voting Brady Anderson straight in:

"It happens to everybody. You age and you stop playing -- although he seems to have the fountain of youth, somehow," Ripken said recently of Anderson. "He came over in the Mike Boddicker trade and Boddicker's locker was next to mine, so he ended up coming into that locker. We struck up a friendship from that point.

"I don't know how many votes he's going to get, [but] I'll vote for him."

"Brady was pretty much my best friend in baseball, and I enjoyed spending time with him," Ripken said. "It's really weird now, because I don't get a chance to see him as much. We get busy doing other things. As he refers to it, it's the offseason all the time now. Brady's in fantastic shape and it looks like he can still play. I guess he's on the ballot because he's been out five years now. I didn't know he was out that long. It seemed like he was still playing long after I retired."

Unfortunately for Anderson, he is not a Hall of Famer by any standards, even if you throw out the pretty persuasive steroid suspicions surrounding his career. A cursory glance at Anderson's statistics doesn't reveal a Hall of Fame player; it reveals an above-league average player with a short shelf life and one unbelievable season. Fortunately, despite what Woody Paige might tell you, "friendship" isn't grounds for Hall of Fame induction. If only.

If there's any player who probably didn't take steroids -- besides Rafael Belliard -- it's probably Cecil Fielder. He was fat, out of shape, and naturally powerful. He joined the 50 home run club when it actually meant something -- you know, before Brady Anderson went out there and sullied the accomplishment with his abnormal burst in power. So Fielder came out and said baseball could not use ignorance as a defense for allowing performance-enhancing substances to run rampant throughout the game:

"If we didn't know, we ought to really slap ourselves if we didn't think something was going on in baseball - from the commissioner's office on down," said Fielder, the manager of an independent league team. "Guys were getting too big and too strong. Little guys turned into big guys. Baseball was doing so well at the time, everybody was turning away from it and letting it go on."

Fielder was getting set to make his exit from baseball around the time that the steroids issue became most prevalent -- 1998. So it's almost safe not to lump Cecil in with that crowd. I understand where he's coming from and agree with him. I was just as suspicious as the next person when skinny slap hitters started cranking 30 homers -- believe me, it messed with my fantasy baseball draft strategy. Fielder hit 51 in 1990 -- at Tiger Stadium no less. If anyone should be taking issue with the blind eye to steroids, Fielder certainly is well within his right.

I am so sick and tired of watching the media fall back in love with Sammy. This love affair is disgusting. If there has ever been a player whose career achievements reeked more of performance-enhancement, I have yet to see him. Sammy Sosa is the biggest fraud in baseball. He puts Barry Bonds to shame. He buries McGwire. He embarrasses Brady Anderson and Bret Boone alike. And he has no place in the present day Hall of Fame.

Sammy Sosa started off as a 200 pound outfielder who never cracked a .900 OPS for the first nine years of his career. All of a sudden, he makes a jump from 36 home runs in 1997, to 66 in 1998, nearly doubling the total of the previous year, and the size of his body just the same. Then, Sosa proceeded to go on an unprecedented run, making a mockery of the home run record by slugging over 60 home runs in three out of four years. He single-handedly diminished the value of the home run. What does it prove when a 30 home run guy grows into a 60 home run guy? All the while, Sosa capitalized on hitting 350 foot home runs out of the cozy Wrigley Field, and routinely striking out over 150 times per season.