Ripken

BALTIMORE -- Cal Ripken Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles are close to an agreement that would bring a minor league team to Ripken's youth baseball/minor league complex being built in Aberdeen, Md., the Washington Post is reporting in its Friday editions.

The unnamed team, affiliated with the Orioles, would begin play next season in the New York-Penn League, a "short-season" Class A league.

"We've been engaged in this effort for some time," Orioles owner Peter Angelos said Thursday. "It represents an excellent opportunity for Cal and for the Orioles."

Ripken, who officially announced Tuesday that he would retire after this season, will be involved in the ownership of the new team, an existing New York-Penn League franchise that will relocate after this season. The league plays a 76-game schedule, beginning in mid-June and running through early September.

Ripken's primary interest in the team is as an investment to help fund his planned youth academy and baseball complex that will adjoin the minor league stadium. The centerpiece of the youth complex, a field modeled after Oriole Park at Camden Yards, eventually will host the "World Series" of the Cal Ripken Division of the Babe Ruth youth league.

"The spirit of the deal, from my point of view, is that the minor league team raises money for the youth league," Ripken said. "I'm interested in building something special."

Ripken said he first suggested the idea of an Orioles affiliate in Aberdeen to Angelos at a face-to-face meeting in the offseason, but has kept himself out of the negotiations since the start of the Orioles' season. Joseph Foss, Orioles vice chairman and chief operating officer, said the Orioles and Ripken's representatives have been working regularly in recent weeks to finalize a deal.

"It's not a done deal," Foss said. "But we are very close, and we're optimistic we will have a deal in the very near future."

The Orioles will retain their existing minor league affiliates, which include teams in Rochester, N.Y. (Class AAA), Bowie (AA), Frederick (Class A), Salisbury, Md. (Class A), Bluefield, W. Va. (Rookie), and Sarasota, Fla. (Rookie).

Although Ripken has made known his desire to run a major league franchise at some point, he and Angelos stopped short of predicting such an arrangement with the Orioles.

The Aberdeen team "is really just as an individual case" and not the springboard to a future role with the Orioles, Ripken said. "If anything else happens down the line, I think it would be on its own merit."

Angelos said it would be inappropriate to speculate about the possibility of a future role with the Orioles for Ripken, saying he is satisfied with the personnel currently running the team.

But Angelos added: "The relationship between Cal and the Orioles is very solid, and there is nothing that could in any way militate against any role for Cal Ripken within the Orioles in the future."