A Baltimore “birds” past and present with John Eisenberg

He came to Baltimore 40 years ago and became the venerable columnist at The Sun and then an insider with the Baltimore Ravens but his present passion was rooted in a late 21st century book on the history of Orioles baseball. Author John Eisenberg returns to school Nestor on Birdland lore and the future Bird Tapes of past glories. From Jesse Minter to Craig Albernaz, our mentor is always on point and separating fact from opinion.

Nestor Aparicio and John Eisenberg discuss the Orioles’ history and future prospects. Nestor highlights upcoming events, including a Maryland crab cake tour and a baseball preview. John reflects on his 40-year relationship with Nestor and his time at the Baltimore Sun. They discuss the Ravens’ coaching changes, particularly John Harbaugh’s departure and the hiring of Steve Bashati. John shares his Bird Tapes project, which includes interviews with former Orioles players and staff, and his thoughts on the Orioles’ current state and future. They also touch on the challenges of modern journalism and the importance of maintaining fan interest in the team.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Write letters during March starting March 1 to named recipients (including Steve Bashati and Katie Griggs/Green) as part of a month-long letter-writing effort to people in the sports/media community
• [ ] Send a letter to David Rubenstein to notify him about the Bird Tapes Orioles history project and offer access to interviews and archival material
• [ ] Schedule and conduct interviews with additional Orioles figures and beat writers (including Rick Vaughn and other press-box colleagues) to expand the Bird Tapes oral history series

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Upcoming Events

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland crab cake tour, mentioning upcoming events with journalist friends Dan Rodricks and Greg Missoni.
• Nestor highlights the importance of the Baltimore Sun in his career, mentioning John Eisenberg’s role as a takeout writer.
• John Eisenberg shares his thoughts on the Ravens’ coaching changes, mentioning John Harbaugh and Steve Bashati.
• Nestor and John discuss the challenges of covering sports in Baltimore, including the changing landscape of journalism and media access.

John Harbaugh and Steve Bisciotti’s Departures

• Nestor and John discuss John Harbaugh’s departure from the Ravens, including his relationship with Steve Bisciotti and the timing of his departure.
• John Eisenberg reflects on Harbaugh’s coaching record and the impact of his departure on the Ravens.
• Nestor shares his personal feelings about Harbaugh, including his perception of Harbaugh’s actions and his relationship with the media.
• John and Nestor discuss the differences between the Ravens and the Giants, including the challenges of building a winning team.

John Harbaugh’s New Role and Media Perception

• Nestor and John discuss John Harbaugh’s new role with the Giants, including the challenges of building a winning team in New York.
• John Eisenberg reflects on the differences between the media landscape in Baltimore and New York, including the impact of the Washington Post and New York Times.
• Nestor shares his thoughts on the changing nature of journalism and media access, including the challenges of covering sports in a digital age.
• John and Nestor discuss the importance of having a winning team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles History and Bird Tapes Project

• John Eisenberg discusses his Bird Tapes project, which includes interviews with former Orioles players and staff.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of preserving Orioles history and the challenges of accessing key figures in the organization.
• John shares his thoughts on the current state of the Orioles, including the team’s efforts to build a winning team and the impact of new ownership.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a strong minor league system and the potential for developing future talent within the organization.

Orioles’ Minor League System and Future Prospects

• John Eisenberg discusses the Orioles’ minor league system and the potential for developing future talent within the organization.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a strong minor league system to support the major league team.
• John shares his thoughts on the challenges of building a winning team in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles’ Ownership and Fan Engagement

• Nestor and John discuss the challenges of engaging fans and maintaining interest in the Orioles, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• John Eisenberg reflects on the importance of having a strong relationship with fans and the media to build support for the team.
• Nestor shares his thoughts on the challenges of covering sports in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• John and Nestor discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles’ Future and Bird Tapes Project

• John Eisenberg discusses the future of the Orioles and the potential for developing future talent within the organization.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a strong minor league system to support the major league team.
• John shares his thoughts on the challenges of building a winning team in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles’ Minor League System and Talent Development

• John Eisenberg discusses the Orioles’ minor league system and the potential for developing future talent within the organization.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a strong minor league system to support the major league team.
• John shares his thoughts on the challenges of building a winning team in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles’ Ownership and Fan Engagement

• Nestor and John discuss the challenges of engaging fans and maintaining interest in the Orioles, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• John Eisenberg reflects on the importance of having a strong relationship with fans and the media to build support for the team.
• Nestor shares his thoughts on the challenges of covering sports in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• John and Nestor discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

Orioles’ Future and Bird Tapes Project

• John Eisenberg discusses the future of the Orioles and the potential for developing future talent within the organization.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a strong minor league system to support the major league team.
• John shares his thoughts on the challenges of building a winning team in Baltimore, including the impact of new ownership and the team’s efforts to improve.
• Nestor and John discuss the importance of having a competitive team on the field to maintain fan interest and support.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Orioles history, Bird Tapes, John Eisenberg, Baltimore Sun, John Harbaugh, Steve Bashati, Ravens coaching, Orioles ownership, baseball preview, Maryland crab cake tour, sports journalism, Orioles minor league, Latin operation, Orioles future, sports coverage.

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SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, John Eisenberg

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positively getting the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. We will be on Wednesday with another one of my journalist friends, Dan Rodricks, is doing a 1966 show over at the BMA. I would tell you to go get tickets, but it’s sold out. Dan can even find room for me. So on Wednesday, we’ll be over at gertrude’s, my cousin’s place. That’s John shields his place. My son married into the shields family, happily, and I happily will have some collard greens and delicious vegan crab cakes. On Wednesday at gertrude’s. Friday, we will be at Costas and Dundalk with a bunch of friends, including a big baseball preview, which is what this segment is primarily going to be about. And then on Tuesday, the 10th will be at missones. And of course, the great name Greg Missoni hearkens back to chuck and Brooks and Scotty on channel two. So we’ll be doing that on Tuesday, the 10th of march up in Perry Hall. This guy’s been my friend and my mentor for four decades. He doesn’t realize it, but we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of our relationship. It was 40 years ago, on January the sixth of this year, that I began my journey at the Baltimore Sun. John Eisenberg was a takeout writer back then on sports two running around with Joe Don Looney, amongst others, and a transplant from Philadelphia via Dallas. And he never left the Oriole magic got into his blood, and he’s doing Oriole magic and baseball. But John, first things first. How are you? It’s been a little while since I’ve had you on. I didn’t bother you much during the the John Harbaugh, Jesse Minter, Steve, but I know you were circling all of these things. How’s your winter?

John Eisenberg  01:44

Oh, well, I Excuse me, I will say my winter’s been fine. And yes, I have been even with nowhere to write anymore. People ask me, What do you think about Harbaugh, you know? And I’m like, Well,

Nestor Aparicio  01:59

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think about Jesse Minter. And I’m like, he has it. What do you want me to say? I mean, that’s what I wrote this week. Like, how do we grade him? We can’t grade him until September, right?

John Eisenberg  02:10

No, no. I mean, I knew him a little bit. I mean, my last full time job, I was actually in the building there writing stuff and and, you know, he’s at lunch. So, I mean, you know, I know him a little bit, and was always just like Mike McDonald. Actually, I used to do a podcast for the Ravens. He was on it. And, you know, I knew McDonald. Know McDonald pretty well, big fan long before he became, you know, the head coach of the Seahawks. And Minter is, you know, come from some of the same cloth, just a fairly young, smart, impressive guy. So we’ll see how you never know what that means. As a head coach, McDonald I felt like, Whoa, now that that is a guy they should not let out of the building. I felt that way a long, long before they did let him out of the building. But, you know, Minter is good. Seemed like a good, good hire. Honestly to me, we’ll we’ll see how it goes.

Nestor Aparicio  03:04

My personal feelings for John Harbaugh are well read. I am writing, literally I’m a man of letters because of people like you beginning March 1, I’m writing letters all of March to people. I’m going to write to Steve bishati. I’m going to write to Katie green, I’m gonna write to everybody but John Harbaugh, I know for fact he didn’t like you, so I How did you feel about him?

03:30

Well, she just went on about

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Nestor Aparicio  03:32

McDonald not letting him out of the building. Not letting him out of the building would have meant throwing John out of the building at that point. At that point, right, right.

John Eisenberg  03:40

It just wasn’t going to happen. The timing was wrong. I would think maybe the Ravens. Steve bashati probably recognize that, but that was coming off. It was after the 23 season, which was one of the best regular seasons of Harbaugh’s tenure. They were a number one seed in the AFC right and lost to the chiefs in the AFC Championship game at home, by the way, if you know, if I think if, if they had won that game, I don’t think there would have been a change made this year, two years removed from AFC championship victory, I don’t think he would have seen a change. But anyway, that game, you know, there was no way they were going to, I mean, McDonald left after that, and you’re not letting the coach leave after he makes it to the AFC Championship game. So there was no way. So that’s just the way it goes. But so, yeah, you know, Harbaugh, no. I mean, we were definitely up and down. I was out of the building. I was inside the building. He sometimes didn’t like things, and was never afraid to point it out to me. And so we butted heads. He didn’t

Nestor Aparicio  04:47

like truth. He didn’t like truth. And he went and worked for a guy who was on Epstein Island, and, you know, like, and no, but no, speak, you know. And, and he pulled the power play in New York in that four day period. To get all of the control and and he is, he’s living his best life doing the Papa wave at Nick’s games. It is unbelievable how he is perceived there, even by I mean, look, I’ve had Ian on the show. I’ve had reporters on the whole deal, like he’s going to go save the giants, and here he was, yesterday’s news for a lot of us who dealt with him, and a lot of us who have paid attention to the message, and a lot of people that manage second half blown leads playoff losses, the fact that Lamar has won MVPs and hasn’t won playoff games like his relationship with Lamar, just in a general sense, he has completely pulled the Tony Soprano hustle. He’s gonna run New Jersey now, like, literally, and that’s fascinating to watch. It is,

John Eisenberg  05:49

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well, it just shows you the differences of franchises. It really does. I mean, the giants are desperate. They are really desperate. And, you know, they they needed some stability, they needed a track record. They needed a guy that knows how to do that. And I’ll say that even if we I butted heads with him over the years. I mean, you know, I will all the things you point to, the blown leads and Lamar and all that. You know, he had a good record, and he won a lot of games, and he’s pretty good coach.

Nestor Aparicio  06:16

I told him to his face dozens of times, you’re a hell of a coach, but, yeah, yeah, but he, there was never a but with him and Buck got me thrown out of the media. So yeah, he is individually responsible for trying to wreck my career. So I have, I have a say in it. I you know, my line is going to be heard, but I also know he didn’t like you, he didn’t like a lot of people. He didn’t like anyone who would ask him a tough question. And I think New York’s gonna be an interesting place if he’s not for

John Eisenberg  06:47

Yeah, you know the post. You know the sports sections up there are not quite what they were. You know, like all newspapers, I think, I mean, the Daily News barely has the sports section. Now, the post is still fighting a little bit, so it’s too bad. It’s too bad it wasn’t like the 1990s when there was just every day snarling, you know about everything. And if you lose two games, you know, forget about it. They’re like eating you whole like, Well,

Nestor Aparicio  07:14

he’ll always have the Jets below him there, so at least he has that go like he had the Washington commanders below him here, forever, right?

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John Eisenberg  07:20

It’s not the same. You got the jets and, you know, you got, I mean, the, you know, the Mets, and it’s quite a market up there, and it’s fun. And, you know what? I think, I think it’s gonna go well. I think it’ll go pretty well for him, you know, I don’t know, it’s a, I don’t know how high it will go. See, really, there’s three stages right in the NFL, you’re a bottom tier team, you’re in the great middle, or you’re a top team. All right, the Ravens have been a top team. They’ve sunk to the middle here, certainly in this past year. They want to get back up. That’s a tough leap to climb, but you’re at the bottom where the Giants have been for a while, and you want to get to the middle. That’s really what they want to do, first and foremost, get us out of this bottom. It is really bad. You got to have a little hope he can do that. And I think he will. And I think he’ll do it pretty fast. So I think you’ll see that. I don’t know that the top tier is coming up there. It’s that is tough, but I think he’ll make them better. And I mean, he can do it. And I think we’ll see it well, I

Nestor Aparicio  08:23

guess it’s 75 years of they import Casey Stengel or Joe Torre or, you know, Phil Jackson or Pat Riley, you know, whatever it is, he’s the next part of that. And I’m not gonna let it pass without saying on John Harbaugh and on, you know, and all that I am, I don’t root against him, but there is a point for people like when I would sit with him the first 678, years, I sort of bought what he was selling. They won a Super Bowl, even when I thought he was a little out of line, a little out of balance. And then I watched his speeches at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and then his words and then his the deeds didn’t sort of match up over that, but it was in moments. And I will say this with full conviction for you as my friend and mentor, and 40 years when he would shat upon you and my presence in his office at eight in the morning, I would look at him and think, and this is, maybe speaks how I feel about you. You don’t like. John Eisenberg, like, what’s wrong with you? You know, I’m like, I literally thought you were the fairest, most balanced, most cerebral. Non mean. You were never mean. Jackman was mean. Kenny Rosenthal could be mean. You were not like to me. Litman was mean. I’m mean. You were like, I thought, how could you you were like, the most balanced journalist there is. You were so good the Washington Post might have hired you one day.

John Eisenberg  09:49

Well, thank you. I don’t know about Well, they didn’t. So

Nestor Aparicio  09:53

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you wanted to get to, did you? No, I mean, I, which leads me to where we were talking about New York. And being tough on horrible and all that. Boy, The Washington Post, and I’m sitting here with the venerable Baltimore Sun columnist who’s now been gone 15 years. How long you’ve been gone from there?

John Eisenberg  10:09

Long, let’s see, 2007 so nice. Jesus, you’ve

Nestor Aparicio  10:13

been gone 20 years, and I still think you’re in the paper every day, like it’s crazy. But that’s what’s happened to journalism, which makes it easier for John Harbaugh makes it easier for Chad steel to throw me out. I’ll never meet Jesse Minter. Somebody sent me a note and said, What about Jesse Minter? I’m like, You don’t understand. They don’t even coaches. Don’t even come out and shake hands. John Harbaugh didn’t run into anybody pumping gas in this city. John Harbaugh was never spotted in this city the last 10 years, like he just wasn’t. And so this sequestering of all of it and the Washington Post going out of business is just it’s unthinkable for people like you and me that always sent George Solomon, you know, notes and said, Please hire me.

John Eisenberg  10:54

Yeah, boy, it’s really sad and shocking. I mean, I would say it’s shocking, but the New York Times did it, what, two or three years before that got rid of the sports section, of course, they had bought the athletic, and so just sort of corporately replaced it with the athletic, which, you know, it’s okay, the athletic has some good stuff, and a lot of attention is being paid to it. I don’t think it’s as good as the people that were writing in The New York Times. You know, you’re not going to see what you’re talking about. Is, okay, the morning after the Super Bowl. All right, good Super Bowl this year. Who did you want to read this is, and I hate to be an old guy, you know, complaining about the way things used to be. But it used to be after a good event, okay, good sports event, Winter Olympics. It just happened. It used to be there was an array of just great column voices from different cities that you would want to read. That’s what I wanted to know, their perspective. I’m just not seeing that around anymore. And to me, that’s just sad. It’s just the way it’s gone. And people want different things out of their sports coverage. They see everything now, everything’s on television, and, and you know, as a result, you know, and everything’s online too, and as a result. And this is something you and I have talked about before, the nature of access has just changed dramatically in those 20 years that I’ve been gone. You can’t get to people anymore. The Oriole clubhouse when I was, when I was working, was open for like, three hours before a game, and now I think it’s like I went to one game this past year with a press pass 45 minutes. I think it’s open.

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Nestor Aparicio  12:27

Well, Luke always tells me, if they ever gave your press pass back, you would be really unhappy anyway, because you wouldn’t see anybody, meet anybody. You get bad hot dogs, and they would tell you where to stand, and wouldn’t be very nice to you and like so when Mark fine informed me three weeks ago that I’m not a real media member, which is a joke, which is speaks to them, it’s like, I don’t even know where the place is when there is no Washington Post, and people like Dave shining and people like Mark masky are no longer around and will never be around again, because the next group, they won’t say you’re with the post. We’re going to let you in. Feinstein’s dead. I mean, like, I just think about all of this change and how it could possibly be good for sports or sports fans, or even really, and this is what my letter to Katie Griggs is going to be about. You’re a last place team. You lost a half a million people last year. Jim Palmer came up to me at hennemann’s funeral and told me how poorly you treat Jim Palmer and like and I’m thinking, if you don’t want me down there, I’ll sit here and get the app for 99 bucks or whatever I get on cable television and opine is someone who’s witnessed this for 60 years, but Henneman is dead. Craig heist is dead. The people you know schmuck doesn’t care anymore. Neither does Connolly. You care a lot, but you’re doing more retrospective things with baseball. I’m thinking like, Don’t you want your story told by people like us? No, Katie Griggs doesn’t know from people like us and David Rubenstein and his links to the Epstein files, that should be a huge story in our community. Instead, he’s just going to run off, and Eric Getty is going to move in and whatever it is, but the team on the field for you and I to move into that direction, I mean, their competitor, they’re they’re a contender. They’ve spent some money. There should be you, and I should be like glorifying them and wishing we could get down to Sarasota with wick and Barry and watching a game together and putting hats on and say, new ownerships in. Let’s go. Let’s be about this. They they can’t even recruit the people who want to be recruited. I mean, it’s, it’s really been a weird two years here, bobblehead Epstein files. I don’t know where to go with it, but I love baseball. I love the Orioles, but people, I don’t feel invited. I feel uninvited. I feel unwelcomed.

John Eisenberg  14:45

Well, you, I mean, you certainly have had a personal journey, and to say the least, and so have any member of the media. And so that’s different from the fans. You. Know, just the normal people, and it is interesting to get their perspective on it. And, you know, I’m out and about a little, and I talk to people, and I hear some interesting things, and a lot of it’s positive. I mean, of course, with with the fans, the most important thing by far, of course, is the product on the field. I don’t really care how we’re treated and the fans are treated.

Nestor Aparicio  15:23

When the bird land memberships come out and everybody’s pissed off, and I don’t even know what they’re talking about, but last August, every I mean, they were banning their biggest fans on Twitter and stuff like, like, just doing dumb beyond treating me like, like dirt, like, that’s cool, but treating Jim Palmer poorly and not recruiting the Mike bordicks. And, I mean, it’s nice that Ryan ripkins, that’s great, but his father owns part of the team, allegedly, I don’t know, but, like all of it, I thought this was going to be a new page in a new day, and I feel like it’s that way with Alonzo and with signing Bassett for 19 million bucks on Valentine’s Day, like they are doing some baseball things that you and I, in a baseball vernacular could say, well, we’re going to watch them this summer, but how much money am I going to give them? How much time above and beyond the game is on to recruit me to get a Pete Alonso jersey? That’s, that’s the part that I there’s a real synapse and where they were with the trauma left behind with Peter. Instead of trying to fix things like me that would have been easily fixable, all they have to do is be nice to me, Pete, treat me like a normal human being and but they can’t even do that with Jim Palmer. They can’t they can’t figure that out.

John Eisenberg  16:39

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Well, I think the prices are going up. You know, I that that, that, you know, is a really, really, certainly, yeah, the stuff with the tickets in the back, and was that in September, or whenever they announced it at the end of a bad season? But yeah, they are, and that’s what I’ve heard from a couple of people, is there, there? You know, the price of the price of going is going up, and so you always have to be careful with that. You got to be really careful in this town especially. Yeah, you better, you better put a winning team on the field. People will get angry with you, and that honestly has that’s just universal. That’s anywhere, but in this town, they’ll smell it. You know, I recently on my bird tapes thing that I did, you know, I did an interview with buck, okay, which and I did Part One ran. And I’m, you know, I’m sure you’ve talked to buck, and, you know, I really do enjoy talking to him, and especially now that it’s been a few years and he can talk about it, and now, so I asked him, Why did you come, you know, why did you do this? And he said, a lot of people told me not to do it. And he said, when I got here, what I found was people that had been talked to a lot, and they sort of had a BS detector. And you know this, the town knows the town can sniff it out. He says they know what’s real and what’s fake. And so I thought that was interesting. And look, you know, certainly a little bit of a warning shot to put down to anyone trying to do it from this point forward. Because I think he’s right, you know, I you know, people will in this town and what it’s been 43 years since the World Series. So people have been talked to a lot, enough, and that’s what Buck said. We’re done talking. We were done talking. It was by I know it’s what you want to see.

Nestor Aparicio  18:35

Have you talked to David Rubenstein at all? No,

John Eisenberg  18:39

I have not talked to him. I’m going to send him a letter, you know, I’m going to send him a letter and say, you know, Mr. Rubenstein, you know, here, I’m out here writing. I’m doing this Orioles history project. You like history? I’m publishing an Orioles history project on sub stack. It’s got 1000s of subscribers. I’m talking to the old guys. It’s all based on my book from 25 years ago. You know, you want to listen to a Jackie Brandt interview. I got it so, you know? And just letting you know that it’s out there, that’s all I’m saying.

Nestor Aparicio  19:14

Well, I admire everything about what you’re doing with the Oriole thing, and you sort of brought it back to life at the time, two, three years ago, when it was trending. And hey, I got all these young players, and everybody’s excited. They’re gonna have new ownership. Peter’s dead, John’s gone. Here we go. My God, billionaire, good guy, philanthropist, comes in and all of that stuff. Where are you on the current state of affairs and the team on the field in the summer ahead? And then we’ll get the bird. I definitely want to talk bird tapes with you.

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John Eisenberg  19:43

John, well, you know, I think just on the team, on the field. I mean, what I really liked seeing, I mean, sure, they put some money into it. They could have put more into it. I think it’s a pretty good team. I think it’s interesting. They don’t have the ace pitcher, the number one. A playoff game starter. They got some nice pictures. Maybe they do by the end of the year, though, maybe Trevor Rogers. He looks, you know, to me, that’s the real I mean, he’s unhittable downstream training, not that that means anything, but

Nestor Aparicio  20:14

the firepower to steal for scuba if such a thing were to happen, right? I mean, they, they, they, they’ve never had that before, and an owner that would take on money and like just it is a way more interesting thing from our perspective than it ever was with Peter, because Peter was predictable. You know, there was, there was no there. There on March 1, back in the day, at least, there is a thing.

John Eisenberg  20:35

Now, listen, it’s way more interesting. And the thing that’s more interesting is what, to me, the MO almost the most important thing, that’s nice. They’ve got Alonzo and they brought in some veteran pitchers better than last year’s veteran pitchers. That’s for sure, is that, you see, and this filters up during spring training, you see, because they have not as much as they’ve succeeded in producing some major league players, they haven’t really done it with pitching this, this Mike Elias pipeline, but now you’re starting to see a couple guys. They’re triple A Trey Gibson, this Nelson German, you know, listen, the Blue Jays in the world series last year had that, yes, cabbage kid that just came out of nowhere, okay? And that’s how you make it. That’s how you make it, all right? You get some big stud that just nobody saw coming. And they’re starting to have a little bit of that, the Latin operation. Let me tell you. You know, in the 1990s Baltimore Sun sent me down to the Dominican Republic just to write a series of features about winter ball. And I wound up writing about the Orioles situation down there, which was one guy driving around in a truck with rice and beans in his Carlos, right? Carlos Bernhardt, yeah, baby, I love Carlos. And so he drove me around, and he said, You know, I bring rice and beans to these kids and and I found a double a catcher stirring cement by the side of the road. And it was, it was, meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays had Georgia league MVP, you know. And you wonder why they were winning World Series. Orioles, decades behind, decades behind on that. And you wonder why they’ve gone so long without winning a World Series. But you know, they were.

Nestor Aparicio  22:12

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My name’s Aparicio. You don’t have to tell me. You know, I could get thrown in a meat wagon over in Highland town if I looked the wrong way. So, yeah.

John Eisenberg  22:19

So you know, you got to be careful with it. I’ve interviewed at the bird tapes, Andy McPhail. That one has not run yet. I interviewed Dan Duquette, and they both said, Yeah, you know, our Latin operation, we got some stuff out of it. You know, this is the early 2000s

Nestor Aparicio  22:35

Andy Machado is not the Latin operation.

John Eisenberg  22:38

No, no. But so my point being, now, now there really is one, and there are pitchers and players coming, and so this bicycle is already here, and they got this Estrada’s and infielder. That’s when, to me, that’s the most interesting thing to see. It’s like, wow. You know the talent pipeline. Because if, if that becomes something that’s viable. Now that’s getting interesting. You’re talking about sort of a steady stream of talent, and they are putting money into signing these guys. And of course, Peter Angelo’s never really wanted to do that, you know, he did not see the value. And it was R and D, you know, the to use an old business term, research and development, right? He ate something. Wow. We gotta, you know, there’s 10 of them, and we’re gonna sign 10 of them, and eight of them aren’t gonna be any good. Why are we doing that? It’s like, well, you need baseball. You need those two. You need those two really bad. And if you’ll look at 30 something years without a World Series. That’s why you need to do it. However, anyway, finally, they’re doing it. So that’s really, to me, the most encouraging thing to see

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Nestor Aparicio  23:51

John Eisenberg is here. He always encourages me. He’s got bird tapes and sub stacks and writings, of all writings. And we covered the hardball, football thing. We’ve covered the journalism thing. Let’s cover some bird tapes here. Because, you know, you did inspire me last year when you had Fred Lynn on, I got pissed off about it, and I went and found Fred Lynn, and I put Fred Lynn on my show because I but you know, some of these guys like you said that I would know Buck like I’ve met Buck once in my life. It came under the terms of that I was not allowed to be where I was, but talk to him anyway, because I was a bad guy. Was the night that Brady Anderson told me I should leave town. I was at the sports legends music, so I don’t so some of these people, when you get them a you’re a great journalist, and whatever questions you’d ask can be better or different than anything I’m going to ask anyway, but there is a point where, like the history of Oriole baseball, you’re moving into this ownership space of it with the loss of Jim Henneman and my loss of interest, as well as some other people, but the thought of finding people, and, like the other day, Luke brought up Nolan reimal To me, and I’m like, You. There’s a whole bunch of Oriole things. Melvin Moore is up the road. BJ sur offs around here that the oral history that you’re trying to pull together. I want you to give me a little dissertation on where this thing began and where it is now, because I think you did it as sort of a fun book project a couple of years ago, but I think it’s taken on its own life and space for you. And I hope the team wins to help you, if nothing else, you and Clancy,

John Eisenberg  25:24

yeah, well, whatever. Yeah, that I can’t control. But what happened was, yeah, it came out of a book project that I did really 1999 2000 2001 I went around the country interviewing all everyone who’d ever done anything with the team to that point, and put together an oral history of the team. I was under contract to write a book, and I published it in 2001 and so then I went on with my it’s a big 500 page thing, and it covered as much as I could, The Good, the Bad, everything, the first 45 years of oral history. And then I moved on to other books, other things. Wrote a lot of football and left the sun. And I had this, these little tapes sitting in my in a these micro cassette tapes that I’d recorded, you know, gone to Las Vegas and interviewed Steve Barber, who was a school bus driver, the first 20 game winner in Orioles history. I had all the had the history, entire history of the team, and a bunch of tapes sitting in a shoe box in my closet, all right, and I knew that they were in there.

Nestor Aparicio  26:29

You are an AI large language model dream. And I know you don’t know what that means, but, like, trust me, you know Anyway, go ahead. I just gotten into AI recently, and I’m thinking, oh, man, what you could do with these tapes. But go ahead.

John Eisenberg  26:42

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Well, I went old school. 20 something years later. I got them, I took them, pull them out of the out of the box, and got them digitized. And yeah, you can hear it. You could hear it pretty well in a modern format at mp three or whatever. And I found a format sub stack where you could put these things on there, good audio. And I said, I, you know, people talk about, oh, beta testing, you know, or focus groups. My focus groups was my kids and their spouses. I said, Hey, listen, if I put out an Earl Weaver interview from 1999 will anyone want to hear it? And they were all like, hell, yeah. So, so, so I did. So I started this project on sub stack. The audio functionality is good, and, yeah, I didn’t know where it would go. I had like 40 interviews on tape. And so I’m now starting my third year. So I ran out of those original ones. I published them. I also started doing some new writing, just whatever I wanted to write, any nook and cranny in oral history, I said, oh, let’s write about Hoyt Wilhelms, no hitter in 1958 or let’s, let’s write about Gus triandos. You know, who was he? Just sort of introducing him to modern readers. So I’ve done all that, and now I’m interviewing new a new wave, new new wave of people, because there’s parts of my book, you know, it stopped in 2000 it’s like, well, there’s been 20 something years. So I’m interviewing you. I’m interviewed buck, I interviewed JJ Hardy. I’m interviewing sort of the newer trying to bring the story along, what happened in those years of oral history, while also still doing some of the old, old guys, and so it’s just a project and doing writing, and I’m expanding it a little bit this week. As a matter of fact, I did something I was hesitant to do. I’ve really done it very seldom, but I wrote about myself, my family, and the history of baseball and in my family, and it’s something that I had in sitting in a folder for 10 or 15 years that I was moved to start writing when my son was playing college baseball. This is going back away. So I pulled it out, I looked at it, I said, Ooh, this might work on the bird tape. So I’ve been messing around with it. I published it this week. So all sorts of stuff at this site. And yeah, the reactions been really, really good. I got 1000s of subscribers, and people want to read about baseball and memories and Orioles and history, and it’s just an ongoing thing. I’ll just keep rolling with it. How often when

Nestor Aparicio  29:14

you get down the ballpark this year, John, I

John Eisenberg  29:16

don’t go, Oh, you mean as a fan,

Nestor Aparicio  29:20

as a whatever, as a me, just, just to me. Katie Griggs should be on the phone with you, kissing your ass and like, literally, they should be doing anything and everything for people like you and I, who actually want to promote the sport the team in La Crosse town, in a Ravens culture, it just in a general you and I should be at the ballpark 30 times this year because we should feel welcome to go. I should be picking you up, down stonely and going like literally. And people ask me, Well, it’s not a lot of fun for me when I go and Luke and I always have this argument that the strike zone on television and now that they’ve made it all automated. Yeah, I can see the game, which is the strike zone and the movement of the ball, better on television than I can when I’m out there sitting anywhere having a good time, having a hot dog for six bucks, eight bucks or two bucks. That matter to me. But there is a point where, like, they have not done a good job of recruiting people back to the game, and I wish they had, because like, and by the way, Jim Palmer should be sitting with you for three or four hours. I mean, who’s on your hit list this year? Are you? Because you’re randomly finding people and getting them on. And I keep thinking to myself, you need to sit with Charles Steinberg for five hours. Sit with Rick Vaughn for five hours sit with you know, those are the people to me, that tell the stories even better than players. And we keep losing players all the time. And I think that that’s from the historian part. I want you to find them all John, I do well.

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John Eisenberg  30:55

I am working on it. And you mentioned Charles Steinberg. I got him good. All right. It has not run yet. And let me tell you, in two parts, it was so long, one of the great Oriole storytellers and one of the great Oriole stories ever, a guy that never set foot on the field. I loved my interview with him, and I’m not taking credit, but he is so good. And he’s now, of course, a pre, you know, he was a Gilman kid who, you know, became a dentist, and then he winds up he’s now the president of a triple A, the Red Sox triple A team. And just amazing. So I got him. Rick Vaughn is on my hit list. Would be great. You know, I’m going to talk to a few. Last year, I started doing beat writers, old beat writers, and went through a real Greatest Hits list. You know, Kenny Rosenthal, Tim Kirk and Richard justice, Mark Hyman. And I’m going to do some more of that. My old press box colleagues definitely going to get them. It is getting harder and harder to get players and, you know, I but I will find some. And whether or not the or, you know, the Orioles. I don’t hear from them on this, and it’s just my little corner. It’s my little corner. And I don’t care who’s, you know, who’s helping me or not, really, because I’m just doing what I want to do. And so, you know, it is, it’s good enough for me, you know, if they want to help, great. But I’m not expecting it.

Nestor Aparicio  32:22

Well, I I always dreamed that there come a point when Peter was gone, that people like you and me, and, you know, people like me and Craig heist, who are no longer here, would go to ball games together for fun. Ginsburg does it all the time, like I see him after having a beer and having a good time Luke, and Luke’s taking his niece for the first time in May to a game. So there is, you know, that, and I see grandpa behind you, like, do your grandkids? Are they baseball oriented? Because your kids are, for sure, absolutely.

John Eisenberg  32:49

And, you know, yeah. I mean, I think it was last was it last year on Mother’s Day? You know, that was the choice. Let’s go to a game, all of us. I mean, both my kids are married. I got two grandkids. My immediate family is now eight, eight and yep, everyone went to the Oriole game. And so, yeah, absolutely. You know, as I wrote in the piece, it’s actually running that’s running this week. I said my listen one night at the ballpark, my grandson shook hands with Larry sheets. I mean, does it get any bigger than that? Well, it doesn’t

Nestor Aparicio  33:21

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just shake hands with Ben sheets. Well, we’re all generational around her. John Eisenberg is our guest. I would encourage everyone to go out to his sub stack, to his bird tape. Subscribe. Hang out. Wait for that Charles Steinberg interview. Listen to that Buck show Walter interview, and that Fred Lynn interview that you know, yours is better than mine, but, but mine meant more to me because we talked about the Aqua Velva commercial, and, like all the things that happened back in the day. So Fred’s Great, great. I really enjoyed it, and I had the senses on, because you inspired me to do that two years ago. So every year you get one person that I’m like, I want to get that Oriole on and have that person on and but I, you know, I’m at the point now where I just want them to be competitive. I want the city to talk about them again and listen to your tapes and be engaged the way it was. And I hope that this is a summer that they can, you know, resurrect it, because I think it’s important for the city. John, I really do.

John Eisenberg  34:17

I agree. Could not agree more. And it would be, it would be great to see it’s just fun, that’s all. It’s just, it’s just fun. And and a nice little as the city needs it. It’s a nice break from the reality of the world we’re living in. And so, yeah, it would be nice to see

Nestor Aparicio  34:35

something magic happens. March 26 opening day. John Eisenberg still doing it better than anybody does it for bird tapes and Orioles, and that’s and that’s it. You’re in the rest of your time. You’re, you know, no books going on right now. You don’t want me to promote any of that, right? You’re good.

John Eisenberg  34:52

I’m good. I’m good. Thank you. Yeah, no semi retirement, yeah. I mean, I still do fair amount of, I mean, I have. Books that are still selling a lot, especially the league, the one I wrote about the early days the NFL. And I do a fair amount of interviews with that. I mean that one is really broken through. It never really stopped selling, which is great for me. I don’t you know. I guess I told a story there that no one had read, or there was an appetite for it, because it really does well. So I’m that’s sort of giving me a lane as a football historian. So I still do a fair amount of interviews with that, because that’s where a lot of my last books were. So yeah, plenty of that going on. People don’t

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Nestor Aparicio  35:34

even know, like, you covered the World Cup in 86 and like, the World Cup’s coming to America. So you could talk about the World Cup at length, if I wish for you to and you’re an Olympic head, right? Like, you’re an Olympic nerd. On the back end of this, my wife was giving me ish, the two weeks that she was, like, glued to the peacock all day and the TV and the hockey and the skiing. She’s into all of it. She’s like, you’re not into the Olympics. I’m like, Man, Carl Lewis has been in my house. Stop, dude. I mean, you know, so I went through a little bit of Mary Lou Rett was my favorite interview ever, ever, ever, in 35 years of doing this. Mary Lou Retton was my favorite person to sit with for 15 minutes and Bs with. So I need ice cream with. So, like, I have an Olympic thing, but you like, when I had people like you and shine in, I get out of the way because, like, you had a rich how many Olympics did you cover?

John Eisenberg  36:22

I did five, I think. Or was it six the winters? I did Calgary, Alberta. I did Albertville, France in 92 and I did lillyhammer, which was Tonya Nancy in 1994 my favorite Olympics by far, and that was the last winter Olympics where they just had the whole thing up in the mountain somewhere. Lillyhammer was not a big town. Now they have them in these big cities, and they take the, put the ski events up in the little where the snow is, back in littlehammer, everything was in town, and it was just a little town, and never got above zero. I think the whole time, there was never a cloud in the sky. Two weeks of just frigid cold. And these Norwegians, they told me, yeah, the weather’s beautiful. I said, when it when the sun starts to go down, go inside. Go inside, because it’s gonna be really cold. And it was, but a great experience, great fun. And yeah, it definitely when I when I look at the cross country skiing, I turned that on, I said, Oh yeah, I remember that. I remember being on the side of a mountain with 100,000 Norwegians when, you know their dream team, quote, unquote, lost to the Italians. And it was like a national depression. They lost a cross country four by four by 10k relay was the the event of that Olympics in 94 we have our dream team. We’re going to win. Blah, blah, blah. You know, the Italians trailed them for like three legs in the lat to last 100 yards, and they passed them in one and the dream team lost. And I’ve never seen sadder people in my life. It’s like the best sports event I ever covered was the four by 10k cross country relay at the 1994 Winter Olympics. So, yeah, I do have a frame of reference. That’s all right.

Nestor Aparicio  38:16

So I told my wife, and this is, this is true, I went to Lillehammer. I was in Lillehammer in 98 during the Nagano Olympics. Yeah, my buddy, we had a cheap flight. We went to Amsterdam, we went to Sweden, and we went to Norway, just in the dead of winter. And we were up on that hill in Lillehammer. We had a nice hotel in the little village, and there was nobody there. It was completely dead of winter. Other than skiing at night. We went out to drink beer at night, and there was like five people out. But everywhere we went in Norway for the three days we were there, every television was on the cross country skiing, and it would and so I went out and tried to do it. That was part of the gig is that I have been on real skis once in my life, at round top in my life. Twice, I was in Sun Valley. I was on skis. I didn’t do very good, but I was in Idaho. Once, I went to Lillehammer, 1998 so I was only 30 years old, better shape, and I got on cross country skis. We went out into the woods. We rented the skis for 75 bucks, or whatever. The nice Norwegian guy slapped them on me, John, I didn’t make it from here to there before. I’m like, Nah, cross country skiing is not for me. And then last week, I’m watching those guys like, try to go up the hill, and I’m thinking, and now you’re telling me you’ve attended 25 Super Bowls, you’ve been, you’ve been all over the world, that your favorite thing you ever covered was cross country skiing in little

John Eisenberg  39:44

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like the greatest sports event I’ve ever seen. And it was,

Nestor Aparicio  39:48

it was authentic, right? It was, it was real.

John Eisenberg  39:51

It was so authentic. It wasn’t judged. It wasn’t, you know, and you’re

Nestor Aparicio  39:55

wondering, Where did these people park?

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John Eisenberg  39:58

Oh my gosh, there’s literally. 100,000 people on a hill, people camping out. People camped out on the course for like, two weeks to watch in the cold, in the cold. And it was as it’s so it was just great sports. It’s just as good as it gets, really. I have a

Nestor Aparicio  40:15

picture of me struggling on my cross country skis in Norway that I’m gonna at some point fine and show to my wife, because she doesn’t. She didn’t believe any of this until I started pulling pictures out of Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, you know. I mean, you have to go, you’re like your grandkids aren’t going to believe that grand pop. John covered, you know, the World Cup with meridion A but you did so anyway, you know, anyway, keeping memories, that’s what all we got at this point of bird tapes and memories. John Eisenberg has been my friend and mentor for 40 years. Go follow him out of bird tapes and and I get stories of Lillehammer out of you. That’s what makes this good. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 we never stop talking Baltimore positive and Lillehammer cold.