Baltimore Orioles Now Subsidized by Beverly Hillbillies Video Slots

Peter Angelos’ reign of terror can no-longer be confined to just Baltimore City — he’s recently put in a bid to purchase a bankrupt racetrack in beautiful downtown Prince George’s County, MD.  The details:

Under Angelos’ proposal, supported by Rosecroft Raceway’s owner and the bankruptcy trustee, he would pay $9 million in cash plus another $5 million if slots are permitted in Prince George’s County and a casino is operational at the harness-racing track by Dec. 1, 2012. The purchase agreement, outlined in court documents filed this week, needs to be approved by the bankruptcy court.

Fourteen million dollars is nothing to Mr. Angelos: after all, this is the guy that gave nearly $30M to David Segui ten (!) years ago. Despite Pete’s past financial foibles, the current track’s owner is ecstatic:

“We’re thrilled. The Angelos family is a great family in Maryland,” said Kelley Rogers, president of Rosecroft’s owner, Cloverleaf Enterprises Inc.

Of course you are — you’re getting millions of dollars for a dump!  How about the Maryland Racing Commission, the attention-starved organization that seems to thrive on the yearly “will-they or won’t they” debate to cancel the Preakness:

“Mr. Angelos is a good businessman, a prominent lawyer and well known in the community. To me, it’s like a trifecta,” said John Franzone, a longtime member of the Maryland Racing Commission.”

Notice there’s nothing in there about “great baseball owner.”  Anyone else pick up on the tone of this article?  Almost makes Mr. Angelos seem like a pretty great guy, despite the whole running-a-beloved-baseball-team-into-the-ground thing.  Oh, wait.  Here we go:

Under the deal, Angelos also agreed to pay another $3 million if the General Assembly approves a $15 million bond that would be funded through slots revenue dedicated to a standardbred purse account. Angelos also said he would apply for a racing license with the state racing commission to run live racing at Rosecroft in the fall.

Nothing like a little taxpayer subsidy, hey, Petey?  I knew this was too good to be true.  Oh well, if I owned that team, I’d probably need some sort of access to unfettered gambling as well.  Your move, Dan Snyder.

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