By: Liz Farmer

Let’s face it — I don’t care how loyal you are or how much you love the history of baseball in this region, it’s not a good week to be an Orioles or Nationals fan.

Let’s start with the O’s: on Tuesday, Sports Illustrated came out with its best and worst owners list and guess who came in as the worst owner in baseball? You got it, our very own Peter Angelos. Since the lawyer bought the team for $173 million in 1993, the team has had two playoff appearances and posted a .486 winning percentage. Sure, the team’s value has more than doubled to $400 million, but one might argue the O’s could have been worth a lot more than that now.

Here’s what SI had to say: “[In 1993, the team] was a year removed from its Camden Yards debut with a stacked roster Angelos allowed former GM Pat Gillick to build….Then Angelos began his notorious meddling, firing popular manager Davey Johnson, burning through another five managers, killing trades proposed by his GMs and stripping down one of baseball’s proudest franchises.”

But I’d argue the Nats have it worse. Owner Ted Lerner, who bought the team in 2006 was named the fifth-worst owner in baseball. The team has actually gone down in value by $44 million from its purchase price of $450 million and despite the Lerner family’s grand visions, the Nationals are as lowly as they were when they left Montreal, the article says.

“That’s bad enough, but then factor in the Esmailyn González bonus-skimming scandal (which led to the firing of GM Jim Bowden) surrounding a Latin player who falsified his name and age while the execs and scouts stood to benefit, and you’ve got perhaps the biggest recent impropriety in baseball outside of the Steroid Era,” SI said.

Ouch.

Add to that a report released by the Sports Business Journal this week that shows through eight home games the Nationals have had a 34 percent decline in attendance — the worst drop in Major League Baseball. (I guess the sheen of that new ballpark wore off pretty quickly.) Even Detroit fans, in a city that has seen its top industry absolutely crippled by the recession, have made a better showing than D.C. fans: a 27,172 attendance average vs. 20,028 in D.C. (Detroit’s attendance dropped by 25.5 percent this year.)

In case you’re wondering, through 13 home dates, the O’s attendance slipped 3 percent from last year. Through 13 games last year, the Yankees had also played three games at Camden Yard. But this year’s opening round with the Yanks fell on Opening Day (which traditionally sells out) and was met with poor weather, so that’s hurt the team a bit. Still, the O’s are about in line with the rest of the league, which is averaging a 3.6 attendance drop as a whole.

So where do we start with the blame game? Obviously SI thinks the ownership has something to do with it. But I’d also point out, the magazine also has Dan Snyder as the third-worst owner in the NFL, and his Redskins have no problem filling up Fed Ex Field for regular season games.

So is it the fans, too? Are we too fair weather? Or is it a demand issue and we have too many options here? Are the Nats and O’s proof that when you put a team within 40 miles of another one without some kind of major barrier (like the San Francisco Bay), that this close proximity thing just doesn’t work?