Peter Angelos: The Toughest Bird In Baltimore

When Cuba's baseball team plays the Orioles in Baltimore on May 3, there will be one pugnacious plaintiff's lawyer basking in the warmth of the TV lights--and taking intense heat from critics of the Castro regime. But hey, Peter Angelos can handle it.

It wasn't Steinbrenner or Turner or Eisner or Murdoch or any of the other Major League Baseball owners who got the State Dept. to allow an American ball club to play in Havana and then host the Cuban team in the States for a rematch. It was a guy who came up the hard way in East Baltimore--toiling in the tavern of his immigrant Greek father, going to law school at night, working as a union lawyer. It was a guy who stood up to the asbestos industry and won. It was a guy who bought the Orioles and sells out Camden Yards. It was a guy who helped exact billions from Big Tobacco. It was a guy who can command the attention of a roomful of U.S. senators. It was a guy who snaps his fingers in Maryland and a dozen officials come running. It was a guy who drives a late-model Caddy and picks up his own dry cleaning. It was, of course, Angelos.