The rich history but lack of any real rivalry between Philadelphia and Baltimore continues this week as the Phillies bring their fan base and passion to Camden Yards and will fill the Inner Harbor with tourist dollars in visiting the Orioles. Fresh back from two days at the All Star Game in Philaldelphia, Nestor welcomes old sports executive pal and Baltimore native Micah Buchdahl back to test the waters of Charm City sports history and a Camden Yards visit with friends and family colliding in his twisted fate of professional sports. This guy once roomed with Charlie Eckman on the road and ran an indoor soccer franchise in the MISL…
Nestor Aparicio and Micah Buchdahl discuss their shared history in Baltimore sports, including Nestor’s first credential from Micah and their mutual love for the Baltimore Clippers and Baltimore Blast. They reminisce about attending the MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia, highlighting the high costs and the unique experience of the event. Micah shares his passion for Philadelphia sports, particularly the Phillies, and his experiences attending games. They also touch on the potential MLB lockout and the impact of streaming on sports revenue. Micah recounts a memorable story involving Charlie Eckman and Stan Stamenkovic from their MISL days. Nestor Aparicio discusses the upcoming Phillies series at Camden Yards, highlighting the importance of targeting the fourth and fifth starters, Aaron Nola and the fifth spot, for a higher chance of winning, as the first three starters have a poor recent record. Micah Buchdahl, a Baltimorean now in Philadelphia, joins Nestor, who expresses his love for the city and his positive outlook on Baltimore sports. They also mention the trading deadline, the Ravens’ return to the field, and plans to enjoy crab cakes and water ice at Fagley’s. Nestor shares his recent experience learning to ride the subway in Philadelphia.
Baltimore Sports and Personal Connections
- Nestor Aparicio discusses his recent trip to Fenway Park and his plans to attend various baseball events, including a game at Pizza Johns and Costas in Timonium.
- Nestor reminisces about his first credential from Micah Buchdahl, who is now an uptown lawyer in Philadelphia.
- Nestor shares a story about running into a doctor who saved his wife’s life in Philadelphia, leading to a humorous mix-up about the location.
- Nestor and Micah discuss their mutual love for sports, including their experiences with the Baltimore Clippers and the Baltimore Blast.
All-Star Game Experience
- Nestor and Micah reflect on their experiences at the MLB All-Star Game, including attending lesser-known games and the excitement of the home run derby.
- Nestor shares his joy of seeing various baseball legends and the pageantry of the event, including the presence of international media.
- Nestor and Micah discuss the high cost of attending the All-Star Game and the privilege of buying the entire event package.
- Nestor expresses his hope that Baltimore will host an All-Star Game in the future and his excitement for the event.
Philadelphia Sports Fandom
- Micah talks about his long-standing love for Philadelphia sports teams, including the Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles.
- Nestor and Micah discuss the differences between Baltimore and Philadelphia sports fans, including the passion and commitment of Philly fans.
- Micah shares his experiences attending games in Philadelphia and the unique atmosphere of the city’s sports venues.
- Nestor and Micah reminisce about their shared history of attending sports events together, including Eagles games and the World Series.
Sports Career and Insights
- Micah discusses his career in sports, including his work with the NHL, NBA, and various professional teams.
- Nestor and Micah talk about the changes in the sports industry, including the rise of analytics and the impact of streaming on revenue.
- Micah shares his thoughts on the future of sports, including the potential for a lockout in baseball and the importance of fan engagement.
- Nestor and Micah reflect on the legacy of the MISL and the impact of the league on the careers of many sports professionals.
Personal Stories and Memories
- Micah shares a story about Charlie Eckman, including a memorable experience where he was paid to drive a car back to Baltimore.
- Nestor and Micah discuss their mutual connections in the sports world, including their experiences with various teams and leagues.
- Micah talks about the importance of maintaining connections in the sports industry and the impact of the MISL on his career.
- Nestor and Micah reminisce about their shared history and the lasting impact of their experiences in sports.
Phillies and Orioles Reunion at Camden Yards
- Nestor Aparicio introduces the topic, mentioning the Phillies are in town for the weekend and the event is sponsored by the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, Farnin, and Germer.
- Nestor highlights Micah Buchdahl’s background, noting his love for sports and his return to Baltimore for some games.
- Speaker 1 discusses the statistics of the Phillies’ starting pitchers, emphasizing the importance of targeting certain starters for a better chance of winning.
- Speaker 1 mentions the importance of avoiding the first three starters (Wheeler, Lazardo, and Sanchez) and highlights the five spot in the rotation as a potential win.
Strategizing for the Phillies Series
- Speaker 1 elaborates on the strategy of targeting the fourth and fifth starters (Nola or the five spot) for a higher probability of winning.
- The conversation touches on the challenges of facing the first three starters, with a 70-5% chance of losing.
- Speaker 1 notes that the fifth spot in the rotation has lost 10 consecutive games, making it a critical area to focus on.
- Nestor Aparicio expresses his excitement about the upcoming games and his plans to attend the Friday and Saturday night games at Camden Yards.
Personal Connections and Event Plans
- Nestor Aparicio mentions his plans to take Micah Buchdahl to Fagley’s for crab cakes and discusses the trading deadline and the Ravens’ return to the field.
- Nestor shares his positive experience of learning to ride the subway in Philadelphia and his interactions with the locals.
- Nestor expresses his love for the city and his hope that the Orioles will perform well in the upcoming games.
- The conversation ends with Nestor reiterating his support for Baltimore and his optimism about the Orioles’ chances.
Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively into the summer months around here, having a little fun with baseball. Not so much fun that Luke and I did not go to Fenway Park on Tuesday for the rainstorm and the doubleheader on Wednesday and all that, I’ll let him tell you about it as we get Ravens coverage together next week. Luke will be out in Owings Mills. All of it brought to you by our friends at Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. Any breaking news happens first there. That’s on Matabika or anything that were to happen between now and then. But of course, it is baseball season around here. Luke will be at the ballpark. I am at Pizza Johns on Friday of this week, and then Costas, which is why I’m wearing my Costas gear here. Doesn’t say Timonium on it, but it might as well be Timonium. It’s Timonium location. We’ll be there on Thursday afternoon after cracking some crabs in my mom’s honor. It will be her 107th birthday on Sunday, so we’ll go down to Costas and Dundalk, get some crabs as well. Crabs sound good to this guy. I don’t know. Like you can get a Maryland crab where he’s now from, but I mean, he ain’t from there. He’s from here. If you see me out on social media, he’s not the doctor who saved my wife’s life, who I ran into in between running into him and his family in Philadelphia last week. I keep wanting to say at the vet, at the vet, at the vet. It’s not the vet. It’s the bank. The bank, whatever they call it. His kid doesn’t know from the vet. Michael Buchdahl was. Yeah, he was a part of giving me my first real credential, not the Skip Jack’s credential. I’ll give Walt Kutowski and Bud Freeman that, but like an NHL credential. He, along with Luke Corletto, conspired to give a 15-year-old version of Nestor Aparicio, special to the News American, a byline where I think Gartner scored a hat trick and they beat like the St. Louis Blues six to fours. My first Capitals byline. He is now a an uptown lawyer who eats well in Philadelphia, and he rings the bell, and his kid loves Philadelphia sports, and his poor brother is still down here praying for the Orioles and to get well, or maybe the Ravens to get even weller, and his nephew was actually an intern of mine here in Ezra, who is becoming a rabbi in New York. It all comes full circle: the Dundalk hockey, Pikesville rabbi. Rabbi, Philadelphia, Eagles winning, Flyers are never going to win. But Micah Buchdahl’s been my friend a long, long time, and we’re playing the Phillies next week, and baseball matters again. So I figured I’d bring you in here. How are you doing? I mean, have you wrung out all of the fun you can wring out of World Cup and All Star Gaming, the weather held up. I mean, you even saw me twice in Philadelphia over cheese steak and some pretzels, Micah.
Micah Buchdahl 2:49
Yeah, no, I mean it was it was cool. You know, we had the World Cup here. We saw one of the lesser games. I think we saw Curacao and Ivory Coast.
Nestor Aparicio 2:58
There are no lesser games in the World Cup, come on! It
Micah Buchdahl 3:01
was it was fun. It was fun, and then obviously you know the all the All Star game is now you know whatever like four or five straight days of having to go to CBP, and as I mentioned to you last week, you know they make you buy all the the complete strip of the futures game and the three on three, and then the but the the home run derby. You know, really, all you want in the end is the home run derby in the game. And and they were fun. I mean, you get the
Nestor Aparicio 3:30
privilege to buy the whole strip. Come on now, right?
Micah Buchdahl 3:33
The best part was that they throw in now that you have to buy the program for like 25 bucks, and then they mail it to you. So, like a couple days before the All Star Game, like this big box comes with like four programs, and they’re not even like the legit program. It’s not even like the exact one that you get at the game. It’s you know it’s a manufactured for for fanatics or whatever they sell wherever they sell it. So, but it was it was it was fun, and I hadn’t been to I hadn’t been to an MLB All Star game since almost back to back. It was like in the ’90s they had it at Camden Yard, the game at Camden Yards, and then like two years later, the vet. And so those were the last times I had gone to the All Star festivities. So it was fun.
Nestor Aparicio 4:19
You know, the neat part for me is you tracked me down twice. I ran into friends. I was looking for my boy Paul Canceller up there, who’s doling out beers as John Cruck in the upper deck there. You called it CVP in Baltimore. That’s the Charles Village Pub. Just so you know that CVP is the Charles Village Pub here in Towson for sure. Make a nice wing over there, hi Michelle. But the the All Star Game brings together this color and this pageantry that even for a jaded version of me and I literally you gave me my first ever credential. I went down with Jackman. I remember how sky blue the ice was with the Capitol Center. By the way, I heard from Jeff Rimmer this week. He’s coming on next month. With his book out in Columbus, but you know, if all these years later that when I’m out on that veranda in left field, even not being treated so good by Adley Rutschman, but seeing Verlander, seeing the Dodgers guy, seeing the Miz putting an ear in on Freddie Freeman, who my wife loves, and just you know, like ball players, Arias hearing Spanish spoke and seeing the Japanese media, but they were all out there in their jerseys, soaking in the sun on that Monday, and then on Tuesday to walk around the stadium and to see your brother and your nephew show up in Orioles gear, and you’re in your Phillies gear, and you know the doctor saved my wife’s life was in that weird Phillies disco, whatever those those throw up things they have, City Connect, yeah. And but but the pageantry of walking around the stadium, which I did two or three times in and around seeing you, especially on Tuesday night, Pirates Arizona Brewers, Brewers throwback. There’s a George Brett jersey. Oh, look, there’s a Willie Stargell. Just like the the whole gamut of the the the rainbow, the MLB rainbow, throwback Mariner stuff, like Bruce Bachty looking stuff. And I’m thinking to myself, you know, this is what I love. This is what I love about baseball, and and I don’t know if you found the cynical version of me. I think we had fun the two nights we were together about all of it, how much money willing people are willing to pay to get a $600 to come to an all-star game and sit on the roof on SeatGeek the night of the game or whatever. And but it is it’s a beautiful thing, and I can’t wait for our city to get it. And I hope we make it a big deal here. I didn’t vibe it out in Philadelphia as being a bigger deal than it was, which was the convention center and the stadium. I was in a bunch of the hotels downtown. I’m not going to say it was mobbed with Super Bowl tourism or anything like that, but I think it’s going to be a nice thing for our city. And I hope we have our act together when we get it because it is a really nice event, and I’ll. And I’m not just saying that because they gave me a press pass, Micah. You know, I mean, I really was having a good time, and I think you being into the spirit of your brother coming up and being a part of it, and walking around and feeling it. Aside from being a Phillies fan, where you go to 2030, Phillies games a year, it it felt special, didn’t it? I mean, you’re glad you went, right?
Micah Buchdahl 7:20
Absolutely, absolutely, and. you know, again, it’s a it’s an event. It’s a marquee event. And if you love baseball, you know, I grew up, you know, I grew up at Memorial Stadium, right. And so it’s been it’s been one of those parts of your life that never kind of changes, like your love for the love for the game and your love for the sport. And that’s really the, you know, baseball’s the first sport that I I fell in love with, right? It was all the Orioles in the 70s, and then you know, and then you needed something, you know, then you you know the Colts were terrible then before they left, and and then I’d go all the time to the Baltimore Clippers games, you know. So as soon as the Orioles season ended, I’d take the bus downtown and go to the Civic Center and I
Nestor Aparicio 8:03
didn’t know that. So you were Howie Menard, Mark Dufour; those were your guys along with me. Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 8:09
yeah. I mean, I the guy I remember. You know, when Gene Briako was the coach. Oh, okay.
Nestor Aparicio 8:14
So you were a little old. Okay, I’m going back to the early ’70s. My, I begged my father to take me down there, 1973 7475 Nova Scotia Voyageurs, the the Hershey Bears. I’m talking, and then they went. You know, they they they were WHA for three minutes, and they were ECHL after that, which was more of the the the green and gold of the Minnesota North Stars and a few of their players as well, right? And then, then it was Rubiaco and and the and the the Penguins.
Micah Buchdahl 8:44
Yeah, that was the team that that North Stars team was the one that I started. That’s when I started getting into hockey, really. And that was Jim Weaver was in gold. Sure. I mean, Brent Bogle, who was like I think he was the enforcer. Warren Young
Nestor Aparicio 8:56
played on that team. Yeah.
Micah Buchdahl 8:58
Yeah, Warren Young and one of the Thomases, I don’t think it was Tim Thomas, but you know there were no Tim Thomas
Nestor Aparicio 9:06
was the one out. Yeah, Tim’s done the show with me.
Micah Buchdahl 9:09
Yeah, so it was it was fun, and I mean you know again that was before that was between like you know before the blast, you know. So what brought
Nestor Aparicio 9:16
you to hockey? Because like nothing brought me to hockey other than I loved it, and I made my dad take me, and my dad had no affinity for like, you know, taking a bus down to the city in 1974 7576 to see minor league hockey after my dad had seen Chamberlain and not even Kareem Abdul-Julu Alcindor, the Milwaukee Bucks playing against unseld and stuff like there was that fall off period that anyone older than us for Baltimore in that decade where my dad didn’t like your boss Abe Poland just because he he took the bullets you know I mean Baltimore was stripped of a lot during that period of time and you know I. Cooper on the other day, and I know you had travails with him in the indoor soccer league. By the way, Michael Book Dall’s here, and I swear I’m going to get all his whole story. But we’re getting your sports back on the things I didn’t know about you because I met you through hockey, but I never have ever heard you talk about the Clippers in any way or how you wound up there. And I don’t have a real reason. I dragged my dad. That’s the God’s honest truth. Didn’t even want to go.
Micah Buchdahl 10:24
Well, I just I I would go. It was really a supplement when the Orioles season was over. I needed something else to go to, and you know, so I had there was somebody who took me to one or two Colts games a year, but I started I started going to the Clippers games, and I just I was into it. Like you know that that East that East Coast Hockey League team, you know they had that rivalry with the with Erie, and you know it was a
Nestor Aparicio 10:49
fight, and they played some hockey, if you remember right.
Micah Buchdahl 10:52
A lot of and they had the cheerleaders, you know, like on the concourse, they had the the Baltimore Clipper cheerleaders that were right around. I was at those
Nestor Aparicio 10:59
games, dude. I swear, you and I must have been kindred spirits. You know, I would stand and ask the players for pucks and sticks down a little hallway there, the or the elevator that we would take to the press box 10 years later. I mean, I was that I was a skate rat kid at the rink for sure.
Micah Buchdahl 11:14
Yeah, and I don’t think I’d ever been to a Washington Capitals game. You know, I think I probably went to a couple Flyers games when I got to college at Temple, you know, again in the early ’80s, and then obviously, you know, it started with you know interning for the Flyers in ’84, ’85, and then ’85, ’86, I was with the Caps, so you know, and and then I was just into hockey, you know. I didn’t
Nestor Aparicio 11:37
know you interned with the Flyers.
Micah Buchdahl 11:39
Yeah, I interned. We can’t be
Nestor Aparicio 11:40
friends anymore. What? What? What?
Micah Buchdahl 11:42
Well, it was always funny because I remember. I don’t know if you remember Warren Strilo, the goalie coach. Sure,
Nestor Aparicio 11:47
absolutely. Right?
Micah Buchdahl 11:49
Like, and he he would always put his Olympic gold medal ring in your face when he’d ever, you know, because he was the goalie coach for the Miracle on Ice team. He was Jim Craig’s coat. I did
Nestor Aparicio 11:59
not know that. Okay, I know that now.
Micah Buchdahl 12:01
He had this huge Olympic gold.
Nestor Aparicio 12:03
So he was coaching like Pete Peters at that period of time, in and out of right. Okay,
Micah Buchdahl 12:08
good number of years. He was. I mean, I’m sure he was there for. You had to be there close to a decade, and and he would always whisper to me. You know, when I’d go, when I’d be in the flyer in the Spectrum, he’d tell me he knew that I was still a Capitol, and people at the Caps always thought I was still a Flyer. But it was really the Flyers who got me started in in the NHL, and and that connection, and it just it was kind of you know I don’t know what you call dumb luck, but you know the 8485 Flyers team was Mike Keenan’s first year, and and that team came out of nowhere with Pelly Lindberg. Oh no, and
Nestor Aparicio 12:44
I hated every one of those plays. Not Lindbergh, because God bless his soul. But like Crop, Kerr, oh Shel Samuels say, I’m going down. I off the top of my head, right? I’m just getting there, right? Start scratching the surface, right? Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 12:56
but I I remember, you know, I remember I got ready to go to the Caps, and. and all my my knowledge, or you know what Brian Mur, the picture of Brian Murray was the Philadelphia Flyers picture of Brian Murray, who was this like raving lunatic behind the bench, and and I remember thinking like I wonder you know I wonder what it’s going to be like dealing with this guy when I then went to went to to Washington the next year, and you know Brian was one of my absolute favorite people ever in life. He was the greatest person, both Brian and Terry Murray and Ron Lapointe and Warren Strello and all those folks from from those caps years, I stayed friendly with all of them until pretty much until each of them. I mean, Terry’s still here, you know. But I got to get
Nestor Aparicio 13:47
Terry on the show, dude. I was closer with Terry than any of them. I love Terry Murray, and Terry Murray loved me, man.
Micah Buchdahl 13:53
So Terry’s the only one that’s still around or still alive. Me and Terry are the only ones that are still here. But I love, you know. Well, let’s
Nestor Aparicio 14:01
not wait for the Flyers to win the cup to have both you on. You know, I want to do that.
Micah Buchdahl 14:05
I was also gonna, you know, I was gonna shill for Rimmer at some point in this conversation. Oh, but his
Nestor Aparicio 14:11
book-he’s got a book coming out, right?
Micah Buchdahl 14:12
Yeah. So I figured I was gonna mention his book and say that. Well, you don’t have
Nestor Aparicio 14:15
to do that when I already did it. I already pinned for it. He
Micah Buchdahl 14:17
did. He did already mention it. I
Nestor Aparicio 14:19
told him that when he called me. You know, you like old school. We get, we need to talk, and I get the Canadian accent and all that. I’m like, Jeff, I’ll put you on a show. What do you need? Half an hour, hour? How much you need? We’ll talk about Pete Rose. We’ll talk about Canada. Like, we’ll talk about HTS. We’ll talk about WBAL. We’re talking about Cal Ripken. Talk
Micah Buchdahl 14:39
about Larry King.
Nestor Aparicio 14:40
Larry King, all of that. Makabukdal is my friend. He’s been my friend for 42 years now, going on from the time he was the assistant to the assistant PR director of the Washington Capitals, and I was the assistant to the assistant parking director for Phil Jackman, going up and down 295 when I was reporting. By the way, you said you didn’t go to Caps games, dude. Went to my first Caps game, I want to say ’82. I have the ticket stub, and they were playing the Islanders in you know one of five games. They played the Islanders a lot. They were in the Patrick division, and it was like a a March night where the weather was good. We convinced my step brother to go down, and my dad bought tickets. We bought tickets up in the the high seats and the in the red seats up the high, and they were like it was outrageously expensive. It was like $6 or something at the time, and parking was nuts. It was four bucks or something. Abe Poland grabbing us at the lot, but I ain’t going to concerts. Obviously, I go on a lot of rush sticks. You know all these kind of concerts there. I knew my way down, but I had never seen a hockey game there, and I was like, and I had gone to a lot of Skip Jackson Clippers games for a decade, like going to a Capitals game for a kid from Dundalk where it wasn’t on the bus line. My parents didn’t drive. It I can’t begin to tell you. And I told Leonard Raskin this. I had the guys that did the Capital Center coffee book, which is by if you buy anything, buy the Capital Center Coffee Book. It’s the Laurel Publishing Group. Laurel got there. What a phenomenal book that is! I mean, I keep it. It’s near and dear to my heart. The Capitol Center, but I think about the first time I saw a hockey game there, and it was bossy Troche Pot fan. You still suck, Smith, Arbor. You know the whole deal, and it wasn’t a pageantry game. The Caps probably lost six-two. They were on the cusp of getting decent Dennis Marook into Gartner era, but after that, like going to a Capitals game felt like a big event to me. And I, I, I went as you know a lot of Capitals games after that, and I was a fan, and I, I followed the team inside and outside, and you know all these years later we keep this relationship. Now you end up in Philadelphia as a student, right? And then you’ve been practicing law there for like a long, long time. But you’ve adopted Philadelphia teams, and I always think that’s an interesting concept, especially with the Phillies coming to town next week. Because you’re like, ah, we’ll come down, we’ll do a game. We don’t get to do them all the time. And Philadelphia and Baltimore. There’s no like rivalry going back to Jaworski and Burt Jones. There was no rivalry between the cities and going back to the ’83 World Series. No, nothing. But it is kind of you’re the dude I know that left here, and you look behind you. You’re like you might as well be what’s the roughly what the hell’s the name? The the the flyers. What’s the the
Micah Buchdahl 17:24
oh, gritty,
Nestor Aparicio 17:25
gritty, gritty. You might as well be gritty. You know I love the Philly fanatic, right? Like the Philly fanatic. When I saw him out on the field at the All Star game, I couldn’t look at anything else but him on the bike. You know what I mean? Like the Fnatic for me is a part of my childhood, when I went up there, it made me fall in love with the Phillies, and I think you know I have a you know I had a deep core love of the Phillies in the 80s.
Micah Buchdahl 17:48
Yeah, so I like the Phillies were my National League team before I ever came to Philadelphia, and like you said, there was never any rivalry between the Orioles and Phillies, and there was no there’s no interleague play back then, right? And so, so you went to
Nestor Aparicio 18:02
college and like started going to Phillies games and thought this is great. I’m in a city where I can go to National League games, kind of, sort of, maybe.
Micah Buchdahl 18:08
Yeah, I mean, I’ll tell you, like in ’83, I lived. I was at Temple in undergrad, and I went back. I was still an Orioles ticket plan holder. I was an Oriole ticket plan holder until probably well into the well into the 80s. I think they were probably not not into the 90s, but probably well into the 80s. I kept my Sunday plan, which I bought in 1976 with my bar mitzvah money. Wow! So I that’s
Nestor Aparicio 18:36
important, man. You took your bar mitzvah dough and dedicated it to Hoffberger, EBW, straight on through. Right?
Micah Buchdahl 18:45
Got you. Got the little hit, hit and run club admission.
Nestor Aparicio 18:48
Oh man, you felt you were you’re you’re a sports fan. You’re old school. They see you coming.
Micah Buchdahl 18:54
But that was that was back in the day, like when I went to the World Series in Memorial Stadium in ’79 and ’83. Even with your little Sunday plan, you got your exact same seats for every single postseason game. So the seat that I sat in, which was Section 38 Row 26 which was the first row of lower reserve, right between home and first, like those seats, those two seats, those were mine, you know, for over a decade on Sundays, but they were also mine for every single postseason game, and that’s behind the
Nestor Aparicio 19:25
visitors’ dugout at Memorial Stadium.
Micah Buchdahl 19:27
Yeah, I’m trying not the home
Nestor Aparicio 19:28
dugout. Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, the Orioles dugout was third base, and it moved. Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 19:32
yeah, it was great. You know, like I so, you know, now like with my son, I still have a Sunday plan in Philadelphia, but you get you know one ticket per round, you know, and your your ticket in the World Series might be they last year, even though you know we never got there, but the ticket that I received for that round was literally a game that could never be played, you know. So you get you know if it was 1267 and you know they gave you six and it was impossible to ever. Have a game six at at home, like you know, it was kind of the luck of the draw. But and also, like they’re out in the nosebleeds, way out somewhere. But back in you know, again, back in Baltimore in the in the in the 70s and 80s, you know, just having a a 13 game plan got you every single postseason game in your seat, and so I saw those ticket stubs, and I went back and forth in ’83. I went to every single game in the NLDS and in the ALCS. So I would just go back and forth between Philly and Baltimore to all the games, but I was still 100% or like in the 1983 World Series, I was 100% Orioles, and and when I was at the vet in those games, I was rooting completely for Baltimore. And I still remember how upset I got because if you remember that World Series, we lost Game One at at home in Memorial Stadium. Absolutely,
Nestor Aparicio 20:54
I was at that game. Yeah, I went to I went to 124, and five. I missed Game Three, which was my birthday, and we had a dance in my high school that night. And I’m I went to the dance. Mike Palmer pitched game three, Benny Eddie Allen night. I didn’t go to that game.
Micah Buchdahl 21:09
79 I went to all 712345 Pittsburgh six seven back at home. So, and I still wake up in cold sweats sometimes thinking about Kiko. Just game five,
Nestor Aparicio 21:19
baby. Just get it. You had to get it done up at Three Rivers. You had to. So I, you know, for you in working in sports, and let’s bring this thing full circle. I mean, what do you do? Tell me what you do now, by the way. And by the way, Michael Buchdahl’s my guest. His nephew is an intern here. He’s about to become a rabbi. His brother lives here. He lives in Philly. His kids going to some sports statistical acade. I don’t know what the hell these kids are doing. Syracuse, something like that. Like Luke went to, but you wanted to work in sports. You were a sports nerd. You took your bar mitzvah money and gave it to the Orioles. You’re running around seeing mineral. I mean, you and I like the same dude, except you’re Pikesville and I’m Dundalk, and here we are. And you become this lawyer and doing all this stuff, but you’re still a big sports fan. Every time I get together with you, you’re spending money on sports, whether it’s going to Super Bowls or just going to games or taking your kid to a Sixers game. The things that you do very normal, but very expensive. Via what my dad, if he came back, he’d say, you know, I don’t know how people are doing this, and sometimes I wonder how people spend 1518, 20 bucks for beer, or how they get access to it as often as they wish or would like to, and how I can just buy $10 tickets sometimes and go to a ball game and have just as much fun. But you worked for teams that needed to sell tickets in hockey back when that was everything for salaries, for your salary, for being the assistant to the assistant PR director. You got at it on the real inside of sports. You ran a minor league hockey team. I had Kenny Cooper on; he was a part of that league in New York, and and then you went into like a whole different place that wasn’t sports. But like the things that you were taught in sports in the ’80s and even into the ’90s are far different than what your kid will be getting taught, but just on customer service, customer retention things we do. You’ve already mentioned like I’m a bigger fan; it costs five times as much, and they’ll still screw me and put me in the outfield and give me a strip for a ticket. I can’t like we can’t have that with the Orioles, and the Orioles sort of behave that way. I think in Philadelphia, and I know you’ve spoken to this in the past, and part of this will be next weekend when everybody comes down here and all the Phillies fans take over the stadium here for wherever the Orioles are on a seven-game winning streak or a losing streak at that point, buying or selling, and we’ll tune in august 3 and we’ll let you know. But for me, the Phillies have this really robust thing that they’ve built there over the 25 years that the Orioles have been very dormant here for your brother and your nephew. That’s made it very easy for you to be a Phillies fan, but also, you know, you don’t mind writing the checks and you don’t bitch about the money and you kind of have kind of a come see, come saw like whatever they put me in the outfield for the playoffs. That’s just the way it is. That’s not the way it was when you were the Capitals intern in 1985, right? I mean, it’s just a different level of what our level of expectation as fans are, and especially the old guys like us. The kids will never know the difference.
Micah Buchdahl 24:14
Yeah. Well, I remember. You know, Brian Murray once told me we were sitting in. I still remember it. It was a conversation in the Sheridan Society Hill in Philadelphia, and you know I had worked. It was after after I’d already got my law degree. I I’d worked at the NBA in New York at the league, and then I was with the Flyers again as an attorney, and and I remember talking to him, and and he’s like, Micah, he goes, go be a lawyer, make some money, buy effing tickets for yourself, right? Like he’s like, you know, like you know, just you know, get out of it. You know, go to games, go to all the games you want, but you know, go make some money and then and then buy tickets. And you know, that’s pretty much you know, that’s pretty much the advice I ended up taking. But you still show
Nestor Aparicio 25:02
up every time I see you, even when we do these zooms, even when we interact on text. Like it’s beautiful that you’re a fan in that way, and not that I’m not, because I can be right. Like I mean, you you got the best and worst. To me, five minutes after I’m with you, I’m sobbing in the basement of your stadium, running in, and 20 minutes before I saw you, I was on the field with Adam Jones talking about Spain and World Cup because I had to be in front of a television and I had to watch that game. You know, and you know that because you ran into me. I’m like, hey, I just got greased up on a World Cup game with these criminals, literally, literally international criminals. You’re smiling at me, but you know it’s true. You know what I mean, and it’s just sort of like, well, that’s the price of doing business. And then you’re like, no, no, no. In Philadelphia, the baseball owner could make a bobblehead, and people would want it and not want to poke its wallet for more money. But in a general sense, the Phillies and your community, and the Sixers running the team down the wrong road, the Flyers long awaited, the Eagles delivering with various administrations, coaches, quarterbacks in different ways. That they’re and the Kelsey thing, just the demands of Philly sports make it such that they need you to be all in, man, and they have to do everything they can do to keep you all in, right?
Micah Buchdahl 26:26
Well, I’ll tell you what. Like, my son was talking about this the other day. Like, the the price point for the All Star game was like an all time high, and just just the home run derby last week was about 500 bucks to get in to sit in the nosebleed somewhere, right? Like on the secondary market, it is a you know again like look. I loved I loved growing growing up in Baltimore. I love the fact that we were always passionate. We all worshiped Brooks and Johnny, you know, like you know, and and and it’s a it’s a different it’s a different it’s a different type. Baltimoreans are different.
Nestor Aparicio 27:05
19-year-old Micah could not go to seven games of the World Series, even with a rich daddy going back and forth to Pittsburgh. Right, like it’s we’re talking about a different level. My dad and I went to four of the five games in ’83, and it’s not my dad couldn’t afford the 18 bucks to go on Friday night, it’s just like literally. So I mean, I again when I see what people spend, it’s a different level of commitment in Philadelphia. We’re here; people don’t want to spend $10 and go down there on a Tuesday night. You know, it’s weird.
Micah Buchdahl 27:33
No, I mean people here, but you know the you know you were talking a little while ago about you know the number of years that the Orioles were not good, and that made it very easy for me to like go look elsewhere, right, for for my baseball passion. But you know, my son who just turned 18, you know, he had about a 10 year stretch after the what around 2010 right? That yeah, the oh 809 2010 like after 2010 until you know whatever five years ago, like the Phillies were terrible, and they lost a lot of their fan base. You could get into Citizens Bank Park for a couple of bucks, just like you know you can get into Baltimore for cheap many many games. But if when they win here, then the price point skyrockets, and it skyrockets way beyond most markets. It’s it it’s insane. I mean, so you know when they finally made it to that World Series, whatever four or five years ago, you know the lowest price point to get into the ballpark for a World Series game, you know to sit in the worst possible seat in the house was over 1000 bucks. Okay, that was just to to be in the building, and so that’s that’s a different that’s that’s a different that’s different in Philly than it is in not not just Baltimore but a lot of markets, and then you know for me you know look man like I grew up and I grew up loving sports and I I loved being a part of it, and and really all of those people that you know, like people like yourself, people like you know, I was just on, I was just trading texts with Rimmer yesterday. So you know, people like Rimmer and Kenny Albert, the guy that was my right hand person at the NBA was the head of licensing for the FIFA World Cup, and you know, so you know, I was talking to him about his experience there. So, you know, I’ve stayed in touch with all of these folks. They’re my friends. You know, my friend Mike Santos was the assistant GM of I think three or four different NHL teams. He’s like almost like a godfather to my kid. We met great
Nestor Aparicio 29:36
people in sports, didn’t we, Micah? I mean, you’re mentioning Terry Murray and Brian Murray, man, you’re talking top of the pops here. You’re talking about some of my favorite people: Barry Trotz, Doug Mcclain. I mean, people I met through hockey. Ed Frank of U. I met you through hockey. I mean, here we are, 42 years later. Howard Scher, still one of my best friends in life. He went to Skip Jack games. I met him. He’s another Pikesville, you know, Randallstown guy. How. I have met him, other than at a ball game, being a Dundalk guy or being in the second deck rooting for the Skip Jacks in 1983-84. Skipper’s on the Warpack, go go right? Yeah, Jeff Amder, the late great Jeff Amder. We did a whole segment for him. Michael Buchdahl’s my guest. He’s in Philly, so the Phillies come down here next week and bring their fans. And I think the thing I was going to say to you is, other than seeing water and daughter and the words where I can clearly, they’re not from Baltimore; they’re from Philly. You know, like I hear it and I feel it. I was texting with Eskim when I was up there, and he was locked out, and I was in, and I could hear his Philadelphia accent. It just on the text, I heard his voice because I hear that that sound, and I guess for me we’d say the cities are alike in this or that. But when the fans come down here, every usher I talked to in Philly was a 50 to 60 something year old, maybe a little older than me. I’m 50 to 60 something, maybe a little older than me. But they were all had their Philly accent, and they all said the same thing. Oh, you from Baltimore? We went down to the harbor a couple, you know, a couple years ago, and I’m like, yeah, every one of you, the whole town, and it was the flight week. Well, you were here, right? You went to those games, right? That’s when we thought the Orioles were like. I tell you what, man, it it was like a Jim Schwartz defense. You came in, you softened us up, and the whole franchise has gone to hell for two years since that weekend. Literally, that weekend it was all Finley’s fans, and everybody left. And I think the Orange might have put an ass kick in her because I remember. I don’t remember, but
Micah Buchdahl 31:32
they smoked Zach Wheeler. That that was probably Zach Wheeler’s worst game in the last three years. Was that game at Camden Yards at Sunday?
Nestor Aparicio 31:39
I’m just telling you, everything went away, and I’m expecting that the Phillies fans will all come down and take. You’re coming down. Everybody’s coming down and taking the place over again. You know that is something to see, and I think in the modern era because we see the Red Sox and Yankees fans come in here or whatever, but the Phillies have this army of, and Philadelphia sports has this army that you’re a part of that makes it a hell of a lot more fun for you and your kid than it is for your brother and his kid. That’s all I’m saying.
Micah Buchdahl 32:09
Yeah, and a lot of them are really bad people. The Eagles
Nestor Aparicio 32:14
fans.
Micah Buchdahl 32:14
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, when we you know when we travel, we always we always laugh because you know like we we like to you know, my son and I like to go to road games, and so we’ll go to like last you know we’ll go to Pittsburgh, we’ll go to Cleveland, go to different places, and we’ll have all our Philly stuff on, and people will be so nice, right? Like welcome. Did you did you see this? Did you go here? And like you know you put on the visiting colors, and you walk into all ball bar, our ballpark, and you know we curse at you, and we flip you the bird, and it’s just it’s it’s it’s it’s terrible, right? Worst
Nestor Aparicio 32:49
experience ever. The worst two experiences I’ve had in the NFL have been in Philadelphia last two times we played there. That’s honest to God.
Micah Buchdahl 32:55
And and I’ll tell you, like I both
Nestor Aparicio 32:56
times involved my wife, both times, and like my wife is not a prude at all. But there’s a there’s a line. There’s a line,
Micah Buchdahl 33:03
and and even for me, you know, I sit up in the same. I’ve sat in the same seats at at the link for whatever decades now. In season tickets, it’s the same group of people around us, but you know, there are always all these folks in those sections where I’m like, oh my God, you know, this is, you know, they’re they’re and they’re rooting for the same team as me, and they’re they’re terrible, right? Like they’re just terrible to deal with. You know, I don’t, you know, I I drink alcohol, but not at games, right? Like I don’t I don’t typically drink at games. Like I don’t need to. I’m not there to have a beer. I’m there to watch baseball or football or whatever it is that I’m I’m there for. So, you know, but it it is it is kind of a funny experience, and Ben and I always look at each other like laughing when again when we go to a visiting city, even like in Pittsburgh two years ago, like Pittsburgh the Pirates killed us, right? Like the I think they won, I guess they won two out of three on the weekend series, but you know like we’d go out afterwards and nobody rubbed it in, nobody laughed, nobody said you know that’s what you get right you know everybody was polite and welcoming and you know that’s not what happens when you when you come here and in Baltimore it’s the same way right well the home
Nestor Aparicio 34:10
run derby booing was right on it was it was right on it
Micah Buchdahl 34:13
was it’s funny you know like and and it’s but there’s a lot of passion and my argument always when I do defend Philly sports fans is that they spend they spend the money and they show up, right? Like they spend the money and they show up, and so you know. So do they behave in a you know the best way possible? No, right? But but they do they do show up and they are passionate. That’s why there’s
Nestor Aparicio 34:38
police and lawyers and jails and stadiums right there, right.
Micah Buchdahl 34:41
So we’re, you know, we’re, you know, and you know, we’re we’re passionate, and you know, you talk about, you know, again, like I know you made you you were teasing us last week when we saw you about, you know, my son’s going to study, he’s a sport, who’s going to be a sport analytics major in the sport college at at Syracuse, and. And me and my buddies, like you know, Mark Piazza from the from the Rangers and Santos, and you know, we’ve we’ve all told him like the the direction you need to take is it’s all in analytics. I mean, if you look at you know if you look at who gets hired in leadership roles at pretty much any team in any sport now, they all came right out of the analytics department, like that’s where you have to be. That’s the skill set you need. That’s the talent that you have if you’re going to work in in a in a front office in pretty much any sport. So we’ve kind of directed him there, right? Like not in broad. He’s not in the broadcast. You know, he’s not in the broadcasting sport. But he is in
Nestor Aparicio 35:37
sports, and you were in sports. So like there really is this incredible link of you passing those Clippers games from 1978 on to him in Philadelphia, on to Syracuse. I mean, like my kid would rather never touch it, right? You know what I mean? He is not watching the Orioles doubleheader in Fenway right now. I assure you of that. You know what he’s just not. But you know, life’s path is different in in a lot of cases, and I think part of it is, it’s been a lot more fun to be in Philadelphia than it has been to be, especially in baseball season here, right? So, Micah Bookdahl’s our guest. You know, it is. It’s fascinating you take me down that pathway about the Philadelphia Baltimore thing because it does sort of there is no rivalry, right? Like in that particular way, and for it to be so close, where I would get in the car tonight to go see sticks in Chicago up at the Camden Shed and think nothing of it. And you know, you mentioned the Philadelphia passion that you have for the Eagles. You do know that I was a Philadelphia Eagles season ticket holder for six years. Do you know this? That when I met you, did you not know this?
Micah Buchdahl 36:42
I I don’t think I remember that.
Nestor Aparicio 36:43
Okay, 1984 we lose the Colts. 1986 I’m working at the Sun, not even at the News American. I’m well into knowing you at this point, right? You’re about to go run the New York. What were the names? The Air Express, not
Micah Buchdahl 36:58
yeah
Nestor Aparicio 36:58
Express of the MISL. So and Mike Litwin write this. You can Google it. I got to get an Eckman story out of you before this is over with, right? So, gosh, I digress. I’m I’m losing my train of thought here. Where was I? I was in 8586 Where was I? I so my buddy Russ Letra from Dundalk High calls me and says, “Hey, I got season tickets for the Eagles. He bought an Eagles jacket that he still has one of his starters with the silver mid ’90s. Randall Cunningham, Brian Baldinger on those teams. Byers, gangrene defense, Jerome Brown, the the Hall of Famer, the great Hall of Famer in the middle as well, Buddy Ryan coaching those teams right. Then Ko Tight after that. I was an Eagle season ticket owner. I could bring you all the stubs. Section 721 row one, and get this says right on the ticket family section. There was no booze, cursing, or alcohol, and this it was right behind home plate in the vet, so it was literally the corner of the end zone up in. But I went to the only games I didn’t go to. His wife was a Cowboys fan, so she always went to the Cowboys game, and my season ticket was dependent upon when Warren Moon and the Oilers would play because I really wasn’t an Eagles fan, I was an Oilers fan. So if the Oilers played on Monday night, it didn’t matter if it was five degrees and they were playing the Phoenix Cardinals at the time. I would, you know, go to that game. So I, dude, I was there when they booed Santa Claus, the the the like all of that. I was there when they closed all the men’s room in the upper deck of the vet, and the dudes just peed right in the little alcoves there. It was just a big river urine in the upper deck of the vet. So I mean, I, dude, I’m down and dirty with Philly. You know what I mean? That’s not. It was not my first look at the Liberty Bell there at in front of CVP. I remember it hanging out there in center field. So you know, I um, I felt that passion from the fans, and and I think that’s one of the things that I am so impressed about is I did go to Phillies games and Eagles games and Flyers games in that era and it always felt to me like the Flyers sort of ran the place at that time if not the Sixers with Dr J they ran the place and it never felt like the Phillies were ever going to run the place and certainly not the Eagles.
Micah Buchdahl 39:18
Yeah. Oh no, those were the low. That was a low point for the Eagles. You could easily get tickets for games in those years, and that was, you know, I did, I did, I loved Buddy Ryan. Like I was a huge Buddy Ryan fan, and but those were, you know, like basically I was in college when the Mayflower Vance pulled up, right, like in Baltimore, and so I. Well, how
Nestor Aparicio 39:38
close was it? Russ Letcher would pick me up every week. I swear to God, he would pick me up at 730 and we would literally be sitting in the Penrose diner, Passyunk. Swear to God, we went into that diner, and I bought a Philly Inquirer. I read it, soup to nuts. I, I know where the bathroom is. I know where the dessert case is. I know where the syrup. For the pancakes, I that was our ritual. We were parked right by the armory, which is now the workout place, and we walk down Patterson. Like literally, I did that for every start that Randall Cunningham when he made the the game. The I was at that Monday night. I’m like literally, so I got a little ego. I get some street cred when you come down here, right? Use guys come down. You bring your water, right? Did I get some street cred for that? A little bit?
Micah Buchdahl 40:25
Yeah. I don’t. I don’t think I talk like a Philly guy.
Nestor Aparicio 40:30
Not yet, but you. I don’t know. You say you drink casually. We’ll see after the second drink. You might let it fly.
Micah Buchdahl 40:35
That’s true. That’s true. I’m
Nestor Aparicio 40:37
not sure. So you Philly’s this year and the Orioles. Just a little primer on that part of it because we had a good time at the All Star Game. Michael Bookdall is my guest. He’s truly a Philadelphia lawyer. He’s one of them, literally and figuratively. But my friend through sports for many many years and worked in in professional sports through three or four different leagues in different ways. You know, you want to buy in. This trading deadline’s coming up. Phillies are in this week. Maybe the outcome with that would figure some part of this out. But it does feel like everybody feels like they have a shot. And if you have a shot, you take your chances in that first week, October. Some weeks, some years you do well. Some years you win 108 games and get eliminated. But it really is about they’ve lowered the bar like hockey when 16 of the 21 teams made it. That it does make people believe a little bit, and the Orioles go on a winning streak during the All Star break against some bad teams, and suddenly you’ve got some inertia to energize a fan base, which is what I’ve been trying to do here since 1991, Micah.
Micah Buchdahl 41:32
Yeah, and you know what they it’s you know the way it is. It’s just a you know it’s like the other sports now. It’s a tournament, and so you just got to get in, and then the team that gets hot wins, right? Like that’s the way you know. That’s not the way MLB was growing up. You know, first of all, you you had to win the division, and then even before then, you had to win the league, right? So I think it’s a it’s a matter of it’s a matter of just getting hot at the end and just making sure you get in. And when you look at the list of teams now, that I mean, what’s the list of teams that are completely out of it? It’s like four, right? I mean, it’s it’s some ridiculous. I think they say what Rockies, Giants, and
Nestor Aparicio 42:15
Ace Angels, maybe. Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 42:17
yeah, they’re three. They’re three or four. They’re like four teams that are completely out of it. Everybody else is somehow within like you know three games of the final walk. Well, then maybe
Nestor Aparicio 42:26
it makes it more exciting. But then we, you know, I could bring you back home. We could do an hour on labor because you are a lawyer, right?
Micah Buchdahl 42:32
Yeah, and yeah, and and you know, like look, everyone thinks next year is not, you know, might not happen at all, right? So you know, good luck to your
Nestor Aparicio 42:42
kids studying sports analytics when there’s nothing to analyze.
Micah Buchdahl 42:44
More time to study, right? Like, because you’ll you won’t have games for for three months or six months or whatever. But you know, it does look like there there will be a lock. You can pretty much tell there will be a lockout. The question isn’t if it’s like how long, right? And and hopefully they’re not dumb enough to to blow out an entire season because it is you know we do live in a world now that is different from our our own childhoods where there’s a lot of there are a lot of places to put your time and money and you put a lot of energy into building you know fan support building a base becoming a part of that discretionary income for folks, and when that discretionary income starts going into a different direction, you know sometimes it doesn’t come back, and so you know you want to be really careful. You know, like you know the you know what what you can really lose, like you lose fan, you you lose interest. I mean, you know, stream and and look, you know, the best thing to ever happen to pro sports owners is streaming, right? Like, because streaming is really what created that revenue, that that exorbitant new multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for for for teams, because it’s the only thing that you can watch live and still get somebody to watch the commercial for, and so just the the value of franchises and the the cost of broadcast rights and that the whole world’s just changed. And even even when you look at you know what happened this week at you know with ESPN, and you know they talk you know here they chop they chop out a bunch of folks, people that have been there for 100 years, and you know, meanwhile, there’s a couple of personalities where they’re paying them, you know, 5070-5, million, you know, because they come with like a base, right? They come with you know, sort of a a revenue stream attached to them. Keep the
Nestor Aparicio 44:37
Yankees and the Dodgers, and we fold up the Twins and the Expos, kind of, sort of, right?
Micah Buchdahl 44:41
And I’ll tell you, I sometimes, as a Phillies fan, I sometimes, you know, I look at the set, the potential of the salary cap, with mixed emotions because I, you know, here I live in a city where the ownership is usually going to be, they’re going to be in the top what six or eight in terms. They’re
Nestor Aparicio 44:57
trying,
Micah Buchdahl 44:58
right? Like they’re going to, they’re in.
Nestor Aparicio 45:00
Taking your money and investing it in a team, right? They’re they’re
Micah Buchdahl 45:02
investing in the team, so you know. But they’re so see here in
Nestor Aparicio 45:05
Baltimore, Rubinstein’s taking his money or the team’s money invested in Pete Alonso because it there’s there’s no chum line for that here other than go win and go get my attention. You know what I mean? In Philly, they have the attention, but in order to keep it, you have to feed the beast, Bryce Harper, right?
Micah Buchdahl 45:22
Yeah, but also too, like I mean, look, ownership decides. You know, how much how much money do you really want to make? You know, like in you know, if you own a like, look, if you went and if if Jeffrey Laurie sold the Eagles tomorrow, what are you looking at? You’re looking at probably you might be looking at $20 billion right? Like you know, like that he bought it for what a couple 100 million. You know, he might be looking at selling it for for $20 billion and and so the question is like, how much? You know, why why do you have it? You know, like if I was a if I was a billionaire owner in the NFL, all I would care about was trying to win a Super Bowl, because like I’m not going to live forever. I can’t take the money with me, and so why am I owning a team? I’m owning it so that I can, you know, have fun and and play with it, right? You know, so I’m always amazed by these by by some of the teams where it’s like, you know, how how many? What’s it matter if you make $100 million more, $100 million less, even a billion dollars more, a billion dollars less? It’s really irrelevant at the end of the day. So you know, it’s it’s just it’s a lot of it’s philosophical. You know, unfortunately, you know, you go back like you know what would what would you know what would Jerry Hoffberger be like in 2027 right? Like I mean, well, I wonder
Nestor Aparicio 46:38
what Bashadi’s like now, right? Like, cause he’s been in on this. He spent 600 million. The thing’s worth at least 10 billion. I mean, the Seahawk just sold for 9.6 billion. So we’re talking with billions with bees. And by the way, I want to wrap this up because you got to go practice law, and the Orioles have a second game to lose today before sunset. Micah booked all
Micah Buchdahl 46:56
ballpark, man. Was that as soon as you get off? I’m heading down to the CBP. And you know
Nestor Aparicio 47:01
what? And I’ll say this: I was treated so well there at the All Star Game, which is why you’re here. Not just by you, but just in general. I had a great experience. Those ushers down in the the clubhouse were just top notch dudes. They were great guys, great people working behind the scenes. I’m watching, you know, every lemonade get made, all the t-shirt people, all the people behind the scenes making the chicken wings and making those Philly cheesesteaks with that Cooper cheese sauce and all that stuff. Michael Bookdall’s here. So look, dude, I could go through the list here and say, okay, worked in the NHL, worked for the NBA, legal NHL, baseball fan, Baltimore Orioles. I could like give all the street cred. Philadelphia, I’ve seen you at Super Bowls. I’ve seen you World Series. I’ve seen you at All Star Game. Your kids, all the street cred in the world. You literally roommated with Charlie Eckman. That like, so for that, for my audience, they’re like, “Who’s this Micah? Book? Book? Why’s he on? And I’m like, what’s his street cred aside from going to Clippers games and like all the stuff we talked about here, including me knowing where the the Penrose Diner is on Passy Young, the fact that you roomed with Eckman that takes you to a different level of Baltimore credibility and like a story that I need to get out of you, Rabbi. no.
Micah Buchdahl 48:24
So you know, like Charlie, just you know, when I when I was interning for the blast, and I was in high school,
Nestor Aparicio 48:29
I forgot that part. You interned for the blast too. I forgot that. Sorry. Okay.
Micah Buchdahl 48:33
So, so I was the assistant PR director. The caps not. You keep saying assistant to the assistant to the assistant. Like it was me and Corletto, right? That was a PR department. You did the
Nestor Aparicio 48:42
job of three people, though, right?
Micah Buchdahl 48:44
Oh, I did do the job of three. Okay, so you did the
Nestor Aparicio 48:46
assistant. You said, “There you go. There you add it up.
Micah Buchdahl 48:50
But you know, Charlie took a liking to me, and he he just always he was he was always good to me. Even you know, in the in subsequent years when I was with the Caps, there was a time where the blasts were in St. Louis the same night the Caps were in St. Louis, and he had me bring Brian Murray up and he was the halftime guest with Charlie on WFBR, and and so but but when I that’s kind of neat
Nestor Aparicio 49:15
that’s that’s a great story man
Micah Buchdahl 49:17
yeah but when I was in high school and college he would you know like I’d I’d go up to Clete, like I’d go to Cleveland or Pittsburgh for the missile games, and Charlie would be like, “Hey, if you come up to Cleveland, we used to stay at this in every. We all stayed at the Richfield Holiday Inn. That was actually the fanciest hotel near the arena in Cleveland. You know, because you weren’t in Cleveland back then. You were in yeah. It was like the
Nestor Aparicio 49:39
Capitol Center. It was built on a freeway, literally. Yeah.
Micah Buchdahl 49:42
So you know, so you know, so Charlie would you know Charlie would say, “Hey, if you come up, I’ll get a room, we’ll get two beds, and you can just stay with me, because I would pick up you know 5075, bucks on you know doing stats. So Charlie
Nestor Aparicio 49:54
loved you then. Charlie took you to heart.
Micah Buchdahl 49:56
You know, so so he always he always took care of me and. Same with me.
Nestor Aparicio 50:00
I mean, we were just kids, right? And he just-he-he was beautiful and rough around the edges. But man, if he loved you, if he took a shine to you, forget it. He loved you, man. You know,
Micah Buchdahl 50:12
if he loved you, if he loved you, and if he didn’t like you, he didn’t like you. But but but he would, you know. I think I told you this story last week. Like I remember sitting in the in in the Holiday Inn, and he ordered a bottle of brown something, right? Whiskey or whatever was whatever liquid he had, right? You know, and I ordered. I said I’ll have a beer, and so he orders me a six pack of like, and it was I forgot what the name of the beer was. They don’t even make it anymore, but and he and I still remember it. You know, he’s like, you know, Micah, you gotta drink hard liquor, you know, because beer will bloat you, right? Like I just remember him saying that to me. But then I had room with him during the MISO All Star Game in Cleveland again in Cleveland in another year, and he arranged. It’s too long a story to tell right now because I’ll miss the game tonight. But Stan Stamenkovich won the All Star Game MVP that not that year, and he the the MVP of the All Star Game won a brand new car, like a really I forgot what it was. It was it wasn’t a Cadillac, but it was a really nice car, like a I think it was a Chrysler, and so we’re in the locker room after the game, and the one of the minority owners of the blast said, you know, we need somebody to drive the car back to Baltimore, like you literally were handed the car that you won for the All Star, like they literally like give you the keys, right? So they’re like, here are the keys. There’s Stan Semankovic, Ohio
Nestor Aparicio 51:45
plates.
Micah Buchdahl 51:49
So, so we’re in the we’re in the locker room, and the this this owner, you know, again one of the little guy, little owners, right? Who Charlie didn’t really have time for, and and he’s like, I need somebody to drive the car back to Baltimore. Like, who can drive it back? And Charlie goes, and he goes like, I’ll give you, you know, he goes, Micah can drive it back. He goes, Micah, come here, drive the car back to Baltimore. And I was there with a buddy, so he had his own car. And and he goes, he goes, yeah, I’ll drive the car back. I’ll give you 100 bucks. Charlie goes, give him 500 bucks, and and he and the guy who’s standing there, he’s like, come on, Charlie’s egging him on, right? He goes, he goes, you’re a big owner, man. You’re a big owner. Get out that wad. Let me see that. Give him 500 bucks. He’s a kid. He’s going back to college. So so the guy like you know he embarrasses him into giving him like giving us $500 to drive this car
Micah Buchdahl 52:49
to back to Baltimore. So the guy like white you know he’s got his little you know
Nestor Aparicio 52:55
this sounds like a scene in Smoking a Bandits when Big Enus Burdett was pulling out the hundreds for the bandit.
Micah Buchdahl 53:00
Yeah, he’s pulling out the C notes. He pulls out 500 bucks. He he hands he hands it to Charlie. He goes, “We’ll get the car back. Don’t worry about it. And then he goes, “Oh, give me another 100 for gas and tolls, right? So the guy gives him another 100. So so he the guy walks away, and Charlie looks at me, starts laughing. He takes 100 he sticks it in his pocket.
Nestor Aparicio 53:25
That’s mine. He
Micah Buchdahl 53:26
he hands me 500 bucks, and he goes, “Go drive the car back. And so, so I literally like leave the arena and drove the car directly to the civic center, and I pull up right on the side where the you know the media entrance is on that side of the of the building, I literally pull in, park the car, walk in, tell one of the security guys this is Stan Stamenkvich’s MVP car. Here are the keys, and I left, and then I went back to Philly, you know, because I was in school. So that was that’s one of my favorite Charlie Eckman moments, and I probably didn’t do justice because I mean he really egged the guy on. Like, you know, come on, mr. Big Shot, you’re an owner, you’re an owner, and and and then I remember Charlie saying like he was going to give you 100 bucks, like, and and I had a you know I had $500 in my pocket. I drove the car back, and that was the end of it.
Nestor Aparicio 54:23
Well, that’s a beautiful story, and I love that Stan Stamankovic was involved in it because I brought his name up with my wife. We’re watching the World Cup and talking about how big the blasts were here at that period of time. Because I had Kenny Cooper coming on about the England World Cup, and just to mention Kenny Cooper’s name here, sort of the godfather of modern indoor soccer in Baltimore, and the guy who flew the flag, and Ekman’s guy, and all of that. But the whole notion that how that league came close, you were involved in that. But here’s where it got me: I was like Stamankovic and Stan. I know they were from Yugoslavia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina. Like when U.S. played, I’m like, I, I knew, I remember Tito Uzis was the name of the town. That and pizza and beer, and I looked it up on a map, on the Google map, and those former Baltic states are broken up. All 45 years later, after the horrible wars and everything that went on in Bosnia over there, and the atrocities. But I looked it up, and I-I mean, Stans Demankovich been gone a long time. Still, I said to my wife or anybody in the audience, Google him, add on YouTube, and watch him on the ball in that game back in that period of time coming over here from Memphis, it was extraordinary, and I’ll wrap it with a World Cup wrap. That all these years later, you’re still taking your kid to outdoor soccer, knowing like how good some of those players were at that sport, and they found a home in your league, our league in the ’80s here in Baltimore. Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 55:57
I think it’s the hardest thing is that when when I’m talking to people when I’m talking to them about professional sports or experiences, and you talk about the MISL in the ’80s, like you just can’t do it justice to get people to realize just how big it was. Like it was in the MISL outdrew the NBA in almost every city that they went head to head. Okay, if you went to Cleveland, you went to Richfield Coliseum. You went to a Cavs game. There were 5000 people there. You went to a Cleveland Force game. There were 18,000 people there, and that was the case across. That was the case in St. Louis with the St. Louis Steamers. You know, nobody was bigger than the Blast in Baltimore. I forgot how many dozens of games in a row they sold out at the arena at the Civic Center, right? And so you know, and and also too, like there’s a who’s who of when when I talk about maintaining sports connections. There’s a who’s who of people that are you know very powerful people in in pro sports today that cut their teeth on the MISL, and even in the in the media world. Like I always when whenever I see Mary Kay Cabot, you know, who’s a very well-known NFL writer for the Cleveland Browns. She’ll be a
Nestor Aparicio 57:06
Hall of Fame writer. She’ll be a Pro Football Hall of Fame writer. Yeah,
Micah Buchdahl 57:08
you know. So I knew Mary Kay when she she’s probably about the same age as me, and so you know I knew Mary Kay when she was a young girl. Buster
Nestor Aparicio 57:16
Olney, who I ran into at the All Star Game, covered the San Diego Soccer’s. That’s where I met Buster. Covered that league. Rick and
Micah Buchdahl 57:22
Rick Rick Bucher covered the San Diego soccer when I was there. But there’s a litany of you know Bernie Nicholas and Bill Glauber. John
Nestor Aparicio 57:30
Hawkins went on to golf in for me. Sure, absolutely.
Micah Buchdahl 57:33
And that’s just the the media side. You know, Tim Leiwicky, you know, was 19 years old when he was the general manager, the first general manager of the blast. I mean, Tim Lywiki’s considered one of the, you know, most powerful powerful people in in professional sports in the world. You know, so you know, so you see the way, and and the the rest of the Lywicky brothers, who are all well known within the MISL, who are running various sports franchises, and so you know, so it’s it’s you know, when when and even here in Philadelphia, you know, whenever people talk about Mark Zumoff, who just you know retired what a year or two ago from as as the Sixers play-by-play guy, yeah, I’d be like, I knew Mark Zumoff because he was the play-by-play guy for the Philadelphia Fever in 1981, and you know I got to know, and he was also the play he was also the PA announcer at the Spectrum for MISL games, and that’s what he did long before the Sixers. And so, great legacy,
Nestor Aparicio 58:28
really great legacy, right?
Micah Buchdahl 58:29
So it’s it’s it’s it’s great to go back. It’s great to go back and look at and and really the MISL, which really was like a breeding ground for so many very successful people in sports broadcasting and sports management today, and so you know I always look anything. I always look at everything fondly. You probably can’t see it like in the in the back there. There’s a MISL Rocket Red Soccer Ball.
Nestor Aparicio 58:52
Oh, okay.
Micah Buchdahl 58:53
Up there from the ’80s.
Nestor Aparicio 58:55
Okay.
Micah Buchdahl 58:55
Yes, I’m you know Commissioner Bill Tentley was the commissioner then, and and so you know I want to
Nestor Aparicio 59:01
share something with you, Michael Bookdalls here. If you’re watching out on YouTube, this is the map that I pulled up to figure out where Stan Stemankovic was from, which was Tito Uzzes in Serbia now. So it’s Serbia, but right on the border of Bosnia, Herzegovina, who the U.S. played, Croatia off to the to the water, Montenegro, KoCo, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to the north. But like literally, I looked that up on a map to try to figure out if Stan Stamenkovich was on the on the the the the team we played against a Bosnia Herzegovina. So during the tournament, soccer brings this thing together all these years later. Even geography through all of this, and you know, I I still Pele still the guy though, right? I mean, but but this has been something to witness what Messi’s done, right?
Micah Buchdahl 59:56
No, absolutely, absolutely, and it’s fun to say the MLS. Sort of build and succeed, you know. I don’t think, I don’t think the U.S. team is gonna go any further in our lifetime, maybe or kids’ lifetime.
Nestor Aparicio 1:00:09
I don’t know. We’ll see. You know, Holistic’s old man played in the league, and I called some of their games. So have at it with that. Phillies are in town all weekend long. We’re at Costas on Thursday. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland Lottery. I’ll have the new Raven scratch-offs. Also, our friends at GBMC and Farnin and Germer. Micah Bookdall has been a very, very patient guest of mine and friend. A Baltimorean who went to Philadelphia, never came back, and had a whole life in sports and still loves sports. And be back here for some games next weekend that we hope mean a whole lot for the Orioles if they could just, just, just catch the ball, hit the ball, they’re pitching the ball okay.
Micah Buchdahl 1:00:45
Well, there’s, I mean, if you look at the statistics, if you know anything about the Phillies, like you know that if you hit the first three starters, there’s probably a 70-5% chance that you’re going to lose Wheeler, Lazardo, and Sanchez. But if you hit Nola or the five spot, you’re you’ve got like a 80% chance of winning. As a matter of fact, the five spot in the rotation has lost 10 consecutive games. So you know, so when you’re looking at the way the the games play out in Baltimore next week, that’s what you want. You want to try to hit the four and the five because those are almost guaranteed wins. You just want to stay away from, you know, one two and one two and three. But but they’re fun to watch, you know. So we’ll see. And I’ll I’ll be I’ll be at Camden Yards. I think I think I’m going to be there the Friday night and the Saturday night. All right.
Nestor Aparicio 1:01:37
I got to get you over to Fagley’s for crab cake this weekend as well, and it’s trading deadline. the The Ravens are back on the field, and the Phillies are going to bring the water ice down here, and your daughters down here to Camden Yards, and we’ll try to have some fun, eat some pretzels. Mike, I love you, man. It’s great seeing your family. Great seeing your nephew and son running off and living their their best lives, and us living our best life at yet another big sporting event in Philadelphia, dude. I learned how to ride the subway in Philly last week, so it was fantastic. Everybody treated me great. I got nothing. I got nothing but love for use. Now give it to me, wit. I am Nestor. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us. They still have a better baseball team, I think. I fear. I hope not.
