As Riots Consume Baltimore, Orioles Postpone Baseball Game

Updated | With a game scheduled to start at 7:05 pm, the Baltimore Orioles canceled their game on Monday at around 6:15 as violent riots rocked Baltimore. Just miles away, protesters looted stores, attacked police officers with rocks and bottles, lit police cars on fire and attacked reporters. "After consultation with Baltimore City Police Department, tonight's game between the Orioles & White Sox at Oriole Park has been postponed," the team said in a statement.

It's unclear what will happen to fans who arrived early. "There's a lot of police in the area," a ticketing agent with the stadium told Newsweek by phone.

"We just want people to hold onto their tickets," a spokesman for the team told Newsweek of the exchange policy. "People who have tickets, they can hold onto them, take a picture and email it to us at tickets@Orioles.com or if they prefer, they can physically mail the tickets. We are working hard to get this policy set up." The spokesman added some employees of the team are in a warehouse adjacent to the stadium and were safe.

As the riot became increasingly violent, Orioles COO John P. Angelos tweeted the following powerful statement in response to a WBAL Radio host:

Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.

That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night's property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard working Americans into economic devastation and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American's civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids' game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards.

We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S. and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don't have jobs and are losing economic, civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.