Dan Connolly

Mother’s Day Edition of Know Your O’s: Angela Showalter

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Mother’s Day will always be special to me.

It took on added meaning for me in 1999 when my wife, Karen, became a mother for the first time.

And it has had quite a different significance since 2011, when my mom passed away just a few days after Mother’s Day.

So I’m a big fan of the fact Major League Baseball and the Orioles make a big deal of Mother’s Day with the pink bats, cleats, wristbands, jerseys, hats, special commemorative bases, etc. Many of the items will be auctioned off after Sunday to benefit either the Orioles Charitable Foundation or to fight breast cancer. Really cool stuff that you can find at orioles.com/auction and at mlb.com.

In this, our first Mother’s Day at BaltimoreBaseball.com, I wanted to do something special to coincide with the holiday. And so today’s “Know Your O’s” video segment is our first with a non-player.

It features a mom, a wife and a community leader: Angela Showalter, the wife of Orioles manager, Buck, and mom to Allie, 29, and Nathan, 25.

I tried to call her “The First Lady of the Baltimore Orioles” and she wouldn’t accept that, saying Georgia Angelos, wife of owner Peter G. Angelos, deserves that title. Angela wasn’t a fan of my attempt of “Orioles matriarch” either.

She’s just Angela, and I think her personality, compassion and “momness” come through in this piece. She discusses the first time she met Buck, explains what it’s like to raise a family while trying to juggle the crazy world of Major League Baseball, and shares some of her passions, including Basset hounds and the nonprofit organization KidsPeace Inc.

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She also talks about how she wants to buy a zebra – and paint it (Hey, PETA, she’s joking. I think).

So, yeah, there’s some really good stuff here. Enjoy it. And enjoy Mother’s Day, everyone.

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.