Commentary

Congratulations to Gov. Wes Moore (D), the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Orioles on getting a deal done that ensures the Orioles will play in Camden Yards for at least 15 more years. I can’t wait for opening day. In August when I first wrote about public ownership of the Orioles I thought a lease would be signed well before the end of the year. But when I went to The Warehouse at Camden Yards on Monday to see the special meeting of the Maryland Stadium Authority, it was clear that fans, taxpayers, and city and state government had been driven right up to the edge of a cliff by the Orioles’ Managing Partner John Angelos.

Reviewing the big stories of the year to determine what individual or organization made a significant impact on the state and deserved the title of Marylander of the Year, it quickly became clear that most were continuations of big stories from last year, including the tragic level of gun violence in Baltimore, the highs of an Orioles’ winning season, the urgency of ensuring access to abortion care and the righteous battle being waged to give survivors of sexual abuse the means to hold their abusers accountable.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor issue, generally more an annoyance than a serious problem facing local government. It is not comparable to the need for good schools with good teachers to educate our children. It is not like the need for a well-trained police force to protect us from crime. But the humble sidewalk — when it is a broken, uneven and dangerous mess in need of repair — can just rankle someone’s soul.

The number three is essential in baseball. You get three strikes and you’re out, and you get three outs each inning. So it’s entirely fitting that the new lease for Oriole Park at Camden Yards required three announced decisions. The first came in September and flashed on the O’s scoreboard, but it turned out to be woefully premature. The second leaked Friday, Dec. 8, only to be nixed by Senate President Bill Ferguson.

People did rotten things, real and mythical, in the vast Leakin woodlands of West Baltimore. It’s an old story, going back decades, and the stuff of local legend: Leakin Park, where killers dump their victims or bury their bodies. It’s by now a municipal cliche. A few years ago, when I heard of a witness in a murder case claiming to have been “taken to Leakin Park” and ordered by the primary suspect’s gun-wielding brothers to change his story or else, the tale struck me as trite. I had heard Leakin Park invoked in a criminal context, or just for laughs, too many times.

As 2023 draws to a close, we look back on some of the year’s biggest headlines, alphabetically: A is for the Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which was released in April and chronicled 80 years of horrific abuse of hundreds of young people. B is for Brooklyn Homes and the tragic mass shooting that took two lives and injured 28 other young people during a block party this summer.

Over the past several weeks, world affairs have moved to the forefront of our national dialogue, and an exchange of viewpoints is underway at colleges across the country, including those in Maryland. Global learning has never been more critical for fostering the mutual understanding and cross-border collaboration essential to addressing our shared existential challenges and to deepening our humanity.