About 18 minutes prior to the midnight signing deadline last night, Roch Kubatko blogged that it appeared the Orioles would not be inking a deal with first round draft pick Matt Wieters. Kubatko wrote that the two sides were “about $5 million apart.”

About 50 minutes later, Kubatko posted that a deal with Wieters that included a $6 million signing bonus had been reached.

Dan Connolly of the Sun, who also wrote a profile of Wieters’ agent Scott Boras, has the full story on the deal, which includes the quote that everyone has been talking about today already. In his article, Connolly quotes scouting director Joe Jordan saying, “You can tell the city of Baltimore that the old evil owner stepped up and took care of things tonight.”

Jordan is obviously taking a dig at Angelos detractors and it comes across as petty and vindictive on a night when you’d think mature members of the front office staff would have the sense to talk up the good news that occurred instead of taking pot-shots at people who pay their salaries through ticket sales.

I’m not taking anything away from the team’s negotiations which they apparently came out on the better end of since Wieters really must not have wanted to go back to Georgia Tech, but isn’t signing a draft pick part of the job of the General Manager and team owner? Nestor Aparicio agrees. Fans can be relieved that they got him, but how many other teams took until minutes before the deadline to sign their team?

Getting back to Jordan’s comments, the comments and calls to talk radio are already rolling in that say you have to give Angelos his due when something good happens if you criticize him when things go wrong. Some of the other Angelos-apologists and spin-machine generated sycophants are also saying that Angelos “stepped up” in making this deal.

If Angelos wants to continue to be the epitome of what’s wrong with a meddling professional sports owner then let him. He’s already surpassed Al Davis, Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder in that regard. I think most of the people critical of him when things go wrong wish that he would stop meddling or interfering in so many baseball matters. If the team needs to sue somebody for a slip-and-fall or for asbestos exposure, then Angelos can step in. Otherwise he just needs to provide the tools to his management people, who are actually apparently competent now with Andy MacPhail at the helm, to get the job done.

That job isn’t raising attendance or padding the owners’ tax write-offs. That job isn’t even getting to .500. It won’t happen overnight but that job, as it is for every other team in baseball, is to be the only team remaining at the end of the postseason.

Steve Davis of WBAL stood by his prediction on the signing and now thinks that dealing with Wieters in free agency later will be problematic because of the way the team was “bullied” by Boras.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad discusses the deal (also at OTB Sports.)