From O's fan to O's owner: Rubenstein 'honored' to take on the role

BALTIMORE -- As a young man who was born in Baltimore and then attended Baltimore City College, David Rubenstein never dreamed of eventually buying the Orioles. Becoming an MLB owner just didn’t seem possible at that time.

“Growing up in Baltimore, I didn’t aspire to that. It was never realistic,” Rubenstein told MLB.com. “My father was in the post office, making a modest salary. So I didn’t think when I was growing up in Baltimore that one day I’d wind up as the owner of the Orioles. It wasn’t within my parameters of reality. But clearly, I was a fan of the Orioles.”

Now the 74-year-old Rubenstein is the owner of the Orioles, too. On Wednesday, MLB owners unanimously approved the sale of the control stake of the club from the Angelos family to a group led by Rubenstein, a private equity billionaire who is the co-founder/co-chairman of The Carlyle Group.

The transaction was valued at $1.725 billion and includes all of the team’s related assets, including its stake in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network.

“It’s always pleasant to be approved unanimously for anything, so I’m very honored to do it. But obviously, a lot of people were involved in getting that approval, so it wasn’t just me,” Rubenstein said. “Many different people were part of my team, and I’m honored that I’m in a position to do what I’m now going to try to do, which is to help the Orioles do as well as possible.”

Rubenstein’s ownership group is set to include Ares Management co-founder/CEO Michael Arougheti and Ares Credit Group co-founders Mitchell Goldstein and Michael Smith. The four of them will yell the ceremonial “Play Ball” prior to Thursday’s Opening Day game vs. the Angels at Camden Yards.

The group will also feature Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. The Orioles legend is scheduled to catch Thursday’s first pitch, which will be delivered by Aubree Singletary, a fourth-grade student at Harlem Park Elementary/Middle School who is the child of a Baltimore city postal worker -- an ode to Rubenstein.

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When Rubenstein attends games at Camden Yards, he plans to move around to different seats as an opportunity to meet more fans. As for his ownership style, he plans to be quite hands off.

“I’m not a person who’s been in baseball for the last 50 years, so I don’t have a wealth of knowledge compared to many people who are now either control partners or who have grown up in baseball and this is their whole life. It’s not been my whole life,” Rubenstein said. “But I obviously grew up in Baltimore, admired the Orioles, been a big fan for a long time. Now what I want to do is make certain that the baseball people have the freedom and flexibility to do what they do best.

“So I want to make sure [general manager] Mike Elias is feeling he can do what he wants to do with the players, and I’ll try to be supportive of him. I’m not going to go tell him to go hire this player or trade this player or those kind of things. That’s just not what I am knowledgeable enough about to do. So we’ve got a great general manager, and I’m just going to rely on his expertise.”

Rubenstein has long been impressed by the work of Elias, the 2023 MLB Executive of the Year.

When Elias was hired in November 2018, he had a lot of work to do in rebuilding Baltimore’s organization and getting the Orioles back to contender status. He has successfully done so, as the O’s went 101-61 and won the American League East last season. Plus, they still have the top-ranked farm system in baseball.

“I wish I could say that I’ve done as good a job at anything else I have done as he has done in this job,” Rubenstein said. “He’s done an incredible job.”

Everybody with the Orioles has a large goal: to win the World Series. And Rubenstein has made it known he’d love to bring a title to Baltimore for the first time since 1983.

“I recognize that when owners overpromise, they sometimes have to eat their words. So I’m not promising anything,” Rubenstein said. “But I believe we’ve got the nucleus of a really great team, one that could go all the way. But it’s a team sport, and you have to make sure all the players are healthy and you’ve got to make sure the fans are supportive and a lot of different things have to fall in place.

“But I think we have a very good chance of doing extremely well this year. Hopefully, even better than last year.”