For 2,632 consecutive games, Cal Ripken Jr. took the field, and for 21 years, he wowed fans at Memorial Stadium and then Camden Yards. For his next act as an Oriole, the Hall of Fame shortstop will play an ownership role.
Ripken, who has become a businessperson in the years since his retirement from playing baseball in 2001, is part of the Orioles’ new ownership group, according to a news release from the Orioles and David Rubenstein, who has agreed to buy a control stake in the team from the Angelos family. The deal, which values the team at $1.725 billion, still needs the approval of MLB’s owners.
Major League Baseball previously encouraged Ripken to join an ownership group if the team were to be sold, sources told The Sun in 2022.
“I am excited to once again be a part of the Orioles organization and I thank David for including me in the ownership group,” Ripken said in a statement Wednesday. “The Orioles have been a part of my life since I was a child, and this is a special day. I look forward to this opportunity and will do whatever I can to help the organization. Let’s go O’s.”
The Orioles have been owned by Peter Angelos since 1993 — a year that Ripken was named to one of his 19 All-Star teams — but legal documents from 2022 revealed that Angelos, who is 94 and has been in ailing health for years, wished for the team to be sold upon his death.
Angelos’ elder son, John Angelos, has been the team’s control person since 2020. Rubenstein is now set to take over as part of the deal.
Rubenstein, a 74-year-old native of Baltimore and an alumnus of Baltimore City College, is a philanthropist and founder of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm based in Washington. Other members of the ownership group include Michael Arougheti, co-founder of the private equity firm Ares; Mitchell Goldstein and Michael Smith, who are co-Heads of the Ares Credit Group; former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke; NBA Hall of Famer Grant Hill; businessman and former mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg; and Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang.
Ripken owns the Orioles’ High-A affiliate, the Aberdeen IronBirds, as well as the Ripken Experience, a youth baseball complex with locations across the country, including one in Aberdeen.
When asked at a news conference in 2007 whether he would be interested in hypothetically buying the Orioles, Ripken said, “Certainly if that ever became an opportunity, I certainly would look to be a part of that,” according to The Associated Press.
Ripken, 63, a Harford County native, is one of the most revered Orioles of all time and leads the club in career hits, most of which came during his games-played streak, which ran from 1982 to 1998. His father, Cal Sr., spent decades with the Orioles — rising from minor leaguer to manager — and his brother Bill played second base for the Orioles.
This year, Ripken Jr. was often seen at Camden Yards, witnessing one of the team’s best seasons in years from a front-row seat, and he spoke during an Oriole Park memorial for the late Brooks Robinson in October. Ripken told the crowd that, later in his career, when he moved from shortstop to third base, Robinson’s position, Ripken felt that was standing on “sacred ground.”
Earlier this month, he served as honorary captain when the Ravens hosted the Houston Texans in an NFL playoff game.
