Markakis announces retirement after 15 seasons in major leagues
Former Orioles outfielder Nick Markakis is retiring, ending a 15-year career that spanned the Orioles’ competitive renaissance and ended with the Atlanta Braves.
The news was first reported by The Athletic.
Markakis debuted at age 22 with the Orioles in 2006 and spent nine seasons as a durable right fielder for the club, batting .290 with a .793 OPS and winning two Gold Glove awards.
In his final season, 2014, Markakis was an everyday player for a team that won 96 games to claim the American League East division title and ultimately reached the American League Championship Series.
The Orioles, though, had questions about how healthy he would be the rest of his career and didn’t sign him back once he hit free agency after that playoff run.
Markakis instead joined the Atlanta Braves and proved those concerns to be unfounded. He played no fewer than 156 games in a season in his initial four-year contract there, and made his first All-Star appearance in 2018 at Nationals Park. He added his third Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger award that year.
The 15-year big-league veteran finished with 2,388 hits and 189 home runs in his career.
CASPER, Wyo. — President Joe Biden’s bid to tackle climate change is running straight through the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry — a much bigger, more influential foe than Democrats faced when they took on the coal industry during the Obama years.
Coal dominated U.S. power generation for decades, with the bulk of that fuel coming from the massive strip mines of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — a market that collapsed in recent years as utilities switched to natural gas.
Fast forward to 2021 — and oil and gas have eclipsed coal to become the biggest source of greenhouse emissions from public lands and waters, federal production data indicates. That’s made government fuel sales an irresistible target for Democrats as they try to rein in climate change.
Biden’s election has put big oil companies on the defensive after largely having their way in Washington under President Donald Trump. But in taking on petroleum companies with a moratorium on oil and gas lease sales, Biden picked a foe that spent lavishly over decades to secure allegiance from Republican lawmakers.
The industry is also deeply enmeshed in local economies — from Alaska and the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountain drilling hub of Casper, Wyoming — posing a challenge to the Democrat as he tries to navigate between strong action on the climate and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic’s financial devastation.
“You’re not hurting the big guys that are doing all the development. You’re hurting these little guys that
are dreaming up where no one else thought there was any oil and gas,” said Steve Degenfelder, land manager for family-owned Kirkwood Oil & Gas in Casper, a community of about 60,000.
Trump’s final months in office saw a huge spike in new drilling permits after his administration sped up approvals. As a result, some companies with the biggest presence on public lands have announced that they are ready to weather changes under Biden.
An executive from Devon Energy told investors last month that the company was “ready to roll with the punches” and has about 500 drilling permits in hand. That will last the company for years in Wyoming and New Mexico.
“They expected this ... They prepared for it,” said University of Oklahoma Associate Professor Robert Lifset, who teaches history of the U.S. energy industry. “But the difference now is going to be stark. (Oil and gas companies) don’t get to run energy and environmental policy in the way they once did.”
Gone from power in Washington are former industry lobbyists including Trump’s Interior Department secretary, David Bernhardt, who oversaw a loosening of rules for drilling. They’ve been replaced in many instances with environmentalists and industry critics. Biden’s nominee for Interior secretary, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, has a history of anti-oil activism.
Just a week after his inauguration, Biden announced the sales moratorium while officials review potential climate impacts and whether energy companies are paying enough. He’s following a familiar template — a 2016 Obamaera moratorium on federal coal sales that Trump and other Republicans seized on as evidence of a “war on coal” by Democrats.
That last “war” was against a retreating army: Coal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008 — and by the time of the moratorium, most major coal companies had gone bankrupt and scuttled plans for major expansions.
SATURDAY
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL A full slate of Conference Championship action lay ahead today, starting with this morning’s final in the America East Tournament between UMass-Lowell and Hartford, which is followed immediately on ESPN2 by the MEAC championship. Then in the evening, there are a slew of finals in the Mountain West (CBS), Big East (Fox), MAC (ESPN2), Southland (ESPN2), Pac-12 (ESPN) and Big West (ESPN2) conferences. 11 a.m. on ESPN2
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LOVE & MARRIAGE: HUNTSVILLE In the new episode “Iama, Fix My Life,” Marlene stirs up Melody’s emotions by revealing the gender of Martell’s new child, while Kimmi and Maurice confront Jaylin about career ambitions. Meanwhile, LaTisha surprises Marsau with a little romance. Later, Mel, Kimmi and LaTisha join Destiny on a girls’ retreat. (TV14) 9 p.m. on OWN