An Essex birthday with crab cakes and old friends talking new Orioles ownership issues

When Nestor’s old pal John Keller appeared for his birthday Maryland Crab Cake Tour stop at Pizza John’s in Essex, Luke Jones and Nestor shared the crinkle cut french fries and gravy over a long conversation about the Orioles’ future with fans in and out of market and growing the brand of Baltimore baseball. And, yes, Pizza John’s has a crab cake!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

birthday pizza, crab cakes, Pizza John’s, Essex history, Orioles offseason, fan engagement, ticket prices, playoff success, community outreach, social media, video production, branding strategy, fan experience, financial sustainability, baseball market

SPEAKERS

Brett Steall, John Keller, Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

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Welcome home. We are W N, S T task of Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively eating delicious birthday pizza. It’s getting a little cold here. This is the Hawaiian with pepperoni. They have brought me crab cakes. They have brought me crinkle cut fries. Look at this. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. Sharon is here to help us clean up the mess. Michelle is here. Brett. Where’s Brett? Did he like make the food? John Keller is here from Arkansas. We have a Luke Jones here. I gave Brett seed away because Luke drove all the way from Pennsylvania via Owings Mills courtesy of Jiffy Lube, multi care. He brought these Raven scratch offs for me to give away. And lot of people don’t know Pizza John had a crab cake house. You’re aware of this or No? First ever heard of it? First you ever heard of it? Well, crinkle cut fries, proper gravy. And that is, that’s like a Gucci looking crab cake there. That’s pretty good looking crab cake. We’re pizza John’s. We’re in Essex Lucas here. This is, why is this your favorite restaurant? You have, like, a whole Essex background, right? You’re

Luke Jones  01:01

right. My dad grew up right across the street.

Nestor Aparicio  01:03

What years?

Luke Jones  01:05

Let’s see. I think he was born in 51 I think they moved in there probably in the early 60s. This started in 66 says, so right on the main I mean, he was a teenager, and so this was his place. The original place was literally a counter the kitchen and a line out the door. I mean, what it’s become is amazing, even since I was a kid, but back then, so

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Nestor Aparicio  01:30

you remembered as a kid. So, yeah, oh, for

Luke Jones  01:32

sure. Okay, absolutely. So, I mean, we wouldn’t we make it here once or twice a year, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little less, depending on the year, and this was just the place to go. I mean, yeah, like, you’d have other pizza, and there’s chains and all that. But like, pizza, John’s is special. That’s it. I was special.

Nestor Aparicio  01:49

I call it the rooster Essex. You know, my

Luke Jones  01:50

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grandma call my grandparents lived there. You know, they they passed. You know, my grandfather was 2010 my grandmother in 2008 they lived right across the street until they’re passing. So this was always a place. I mean, there was other good pizza places in Baltimore. I understand that, but pizza John’s was number one. Now

Nestor Aparicio  02:09

you have met John Keller of Arkansas, my childhood friend, one of my best friends in the world, who only flies in once a year, for your birthday, for my birthday, once or twice a year. You’re here. You live in Little Rock we know this. You and I have convened in all sorts of places. You’ve been at Raven events. You met Luke in Nashville, I think, right? Or New Orleans, New Orleans Super Bowl, all right. But you, you have been a part of a lot of our parties on the road. Real Ravens fans too cheap to afford to $300 tickets when Washington’s here this weekend. So we’re going over to Coco’s get some crab cakes later as well. Cakes later as well. But House is my nickname for him because he raised how when we were young, and that was not the nickname I gave you. But how many people call you Al’s besides me? Good number, good number. All right, that’s fine. So I call him house. So houses, you’re you’re with history here I because I want to tell a story about you that you don’t remember, that I remember. Are you ready for this? That’s always fun. This involves, this involves my first ever radio show. So this is back in 1992 and I’ve told this story, and I know you, I’ve told you over beard, Luke and I tell Kenny Albert every time he’s ever on to hockey story, Leonard, you like this one? Kenny Albert and I were doing radio together in December, December 13, the first day I did radio with Kenny. And at some point in January, into February, Jerry Coleman was sort of running around as a part of it. And there was a Friday night when Kenny and I were doing the show, and his dad was coming to Baltimore to see him broadcast the game, to be with his son. So Marv came down and sat in and Kenny said, my dad’s coming down on Friday. We’re gonna do the show together. And Kenny’s dad walked out on me at 605, and he said, Nestor, a good meeting. I’m gonna go see Kenny now. I’m like, Marv. I don’t know how to do radio. I don’t know what I’m doing. And he said, Nestor, you’re going to be fine. You’ll be fine. He walked out the door. Fantastic. Fred Robinson was my board op at the time, and I’m like, What am I going to do? And I thought, I’m going to call my three best friends and I’m going to have them call me and do 15 minute segments. So I called Mike fountain, I called Kevin Eck, and I called John Keller, and I said, Dude, you need to call it 610 and stay on with me until 625 and I said, you need to call it 630 and stay on with me till at least 646 45 and then John raphalitus is going to call. So I had callers, because this is w i th, 1992 Camden yarns isn’t even open yet. Glenn Davis was still going to hit 40 home runs that year, and you were. You’re one of the first callers to this 33 years ago. House. How about that? Who

John Keller  04:58

knows this long? Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  04:59

I don’t know, nobody, nobody.

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Luke Jones  05:01

You totally should have given him a really tough question and then said, oh, hang up and listen,

John Keller  05:08

probably

Nestor Aparicio  05:10

the NBA, something like that. Brett, sit down here. Man. I Brett Steele, you know, I we were all confused. We’re all mixed up. He’s trying to send tweets out. You’re nervous, aren’t you? You want to sit down? No, I’m okay. You’re looking at the injury this to Friday afternoon. We’re pretending football doesn’t exist. That’s what I do, though. Brett Steele is here. He is. So he’s already told the story about how his dad grew up across the street in his 60s, and this place like open in 66 right? I mean, give everybody the whole history pizza John’s, well, yeah, I got you on

Brett Steall  05:42

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now, go ahead, yeah, I could barely hear Yeah. Now you can hear okay, yeah. So professional running aboard here, yeah. So John, John Cruz, he came over in 1950 I believe, from Italy, and worked around different bakeries and ended up at squires pizza over in Dundalk, and where good things began at Dundalk. No complaints, because 50% of this crew hears from Dundalk, where we’re dear friends with the owners of squires still, actually one of their Lorenzo. Lorenzo still works at Pizza. John’s actually, after he retired from Squires. So anyway, so long story short, John jokes

Nestor Aparicio  06:16

still bad. Lorenzo jokes,

Brett Steall  06:19

they’re horrible. They’re terrible. They’re dirty. There. He tries to make him dirty. They

Nestor Aparicio  06:22

were terrible in the 90s. They’re

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Brett Steall  06:23

still pretty bad. Anyway, so, yeah, so John came over here with 100 bucks in his pocket from Italy, and putts around for about 15 years and then, and then decided he wanted to open his own place, and went to the owner of Squires. Well, he was working there, and he said, here’s $1,000 gave John $1,000 and said, just don’t do it within a certain amount of, you know distance of do that go across the bridge. So he went to he came to Essex, found a little place up the street 133 and a half, and opened up just a little shop. And then his other two brothers, Peter and Tony, came over a few months later, and they just kept working. That’s really good life in America, right? That’s the whole American dream, really. I mean, in a nutshell, they just came over and did what they wanted to do, and it worked out with hard work, 1820 hours a day, seven days a week for many, many years. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  07:14

we’re in the birthday room. It’s Luke’s birthday. It’s Leonard’s birthday. How’s when’s your birthday? April, yeah, all right, we celebrate right now, because your birthday, half birthday, here you go. All right, they do that. People come from everywhere to come here or know about this place, and now you ship, and that’s something like, he’s nodding. He’s in Arkansas, right?

John Keller  07:33

I’ve gotten pizzas shipped to Little Rock from here during covid. Did you really? Yeah? Yeah,

Brett Steall  07:38

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that was wild. Right? About that, this room that we’re sitting in, see

Nestor Aparicio  07:42

you think he’s here because he’s my friend. He was already coming here. He told me, I’m going to Pizza John’s. I’m like, I’m doing a show here. So here we are. Well,

Brett Steall  07:49

this room, during covid, turned into a shipping room, and we took it over. I brought a two tractor trailer loads in from Arnold, packing little plug to them, and we just filled this whole room and literally went through and we had to shut down the shipping the first day that we opened it. We because we didn’t have boxes, because we went off so well. It was a Sunday, we hit the button and sold that. We didn’t sell our product. We sold out of boxes to ship with, and then with all the backups and everything, we got ourselves back up and running. And it’s, you know, slower now, but it’s more it’s consistent where we ship, you know, anywhere in, anywhere in this Continental, United States,

Nestor Aparicio  08:23

nice. Well, that’s for you. I got a trucker hat. That’s a good looking,

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Brett Steall  08:28

that’s a good looking friggin hat. And it took me a long time.

Luke Jones  08:32

I’ll take it if you don’t want it, to get it, to get it in on it out there.

Brett Steall  08:35

It’s a long time. Get him in stock.

Nestor Aparicio  08:36

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Tell everybody how much ish I give you about wearing gear that’s not W this, I try to get him sponsored here. Now you’ve got a proper now. Radio Landia, what color that hat is? Everything here was purple for a while now it’s orange again, which may really play into where we’re going with this conversation

Brett Steall  09:00

and stock stuff. Okay, I wanted to have these back at Spring Training, and they were out of stock until, like, a month ago. This exact style hat I did. I did have purple. I sold out of them. I don’t know about two weeks ago, but that season, right? So anyway, it’s all good.

Nestor Aparicio  09:17

Well, houses down in Arkansas, like watching via satellite, and this guy’s on our social media all the time. And the Orioles thing, does it get to you from being far away big, you’re a raving guy through and through, but you’re originally you and I went to Orioles games

John Keller  09:32

always. Or, you know, grew up going to Memorial Stadium and just taking the bus there, just like Nestor did, and just grew into, I

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Nestor Aparicio  09:39

got to get you on, Mike, there you go. Sorry, I

John Keller  09:41

grew up going to Memorial Stadium, and it was that was everything, the Orioles going to Memorial Stadium and everything. But I love it all. You know, I follow everything. I mean, I’m probably my I like the ravens and Orioles, and my third best team is Liverpool Football Club in England. So I’m all over the map when it comes to sports, but I can tell you what we don’t have in little room. Is gravy fries and that crab cake, yeah? Well, right

Brett Steall  10:05

here, yeah, I didn’t see there was a fork there. No, we have real silverware too. Now, Luke, you’re

Nestor Aparicio  10:09

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not gonna eat this because got pineapple, right? That’s weird for you.

Luke Jones  10:12

I’m a pepperoni meat sauce guy. Oh yeah, I can do both at the same time. I can do pepperoni or I can just do make meat sauce. But always that, yeah, always that.

Nestor Aparicio  10:19

Well, nobody knows you have a crab cake, right? So this is for us, and I didn’t know they had waffle.

Luke Jones  10:24

That was my mom. Go ahead, this is crazy. My mom doesn’t love the pizza here, okay, so the rest of the family loves it, so she’s always out of luck, but we want to get it. She probably, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, tried the crab cake sub, and either that or the cheesesteak. That’s her go to. The rest of us get pizza and cheese. She’s known for a long time. It’s a good crab cake here. So I knew it. And if anyone had ever asked Betsy, try

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Nestor Aparicio  10:49

it. What’s your girlfriend’s name you brought from Arkansas, sir. Sarah’s eating manicotti over here, our manicotti. I have never had the manicotti here. That stuff shows, that stuff shows, don’t

Brett Steall  10:59

even know what she got. They’re so similar. Well, I

Nestor Aparicio  11:02

mean, I got the menu here, and I Leonard did the last segment, and this is my cross to bear. I get the same thing. Every time I get I get the works pizza. We get half onion, half green pepper, because my wife and I, I like green pepper. I don’t like onion. Vice versa. I get a cheesesteak, and then the cricket cut fries when I’m here, because they’re hot and you got to get them with the proper gravy, because this is the way you do it on the east side. Do they? They don’t do gravy with french fries in places like our it’s a Baltimore thing, right? Like, really, how is that? There’s potatoes and gravy exactly?

John Keller  11:35

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You can’t beat it

Brett Steall  11:36

salty. Saw that salt Exactly. And, yeah, I was gonna

Nestor Aparicio  11:41

go to yoga class, but he’s dragging me to Coco’s, their sponsor. What am I gonna do? Somehow, this would be one of two crab cakes today, but for your menu. Mean people couldn’t get pizza, like Luke said, My mom doesn’t love pizza, or whatever. Or Alan McCallum, who doesn’t eat cheese freak, but nonetheless, he doesn’t eat cheese. He’s not allergic, right? Use he eats cheeseless pizza. Okay? He’s called cheese evil. Hold

Brett Steall  12:04

that right there. It’s wrong. Pizza, John, Mr. John. John Peru Z, my wife’s uncle, founder of this place, doesn’t eat cheese. I swear to God, tomato pot. What

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Nestor Aparicio  12:16

is that? That’s trash. No, he doesn’t

Brett Steall  12:18

eat it. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the consistency of cheese, but he’s pizza. John, it’s That’s a true story. That’s

Luke Jones  12:24

pretty that’s great.

Brett Steall  12:25

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That’s a true he comes in and he gets a pizza.

Nestor Aparicio  12:27

We can drop a light. Now we go home. Now you learn when you do the show here,

Brett Steall  12:31

the works with anchovy and no cheese.

Nestor Aparicio  12:35

Do you do that? Philadelphia? You’ll do a tomato. Anything

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Brett Steall  12:38

you ask. You just build it. Tell me what you want. We make it. We make anything.

Nestor Aparicio  12:42

Listen, I want you to name, if I have, I want you to call this the Dundalk Venezuela and special, because I’m lying. I’m making this up. In my country, we put the pepperoni on time. But I’m not doing that. So, I mean, this is just the way I like it. I like a Hawaiian pizza with pepperoni. It’s very important the pepperoni that you say, the bacon. Unbelievable, Canadian

Brett Steall  13:01

bacon or ham? No, that’s important. It’s actually polish. You went through this, but there’s a lot of Polish people and don’t just

Nestor Aparicio  13:08

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import. It’s important, from Poland. Okay, it’s polish and, well, island town,

Brett Steall  13:11

well, is that? That’s what? That’s what this week says. It’s imported, but this time, right now, it’s from Poland. Well, I listen, or Danish,

Nestor Aparicio  13:18

I this is the other pizza I get, and we’re down to this. He won’t eat it because it’s got pineapple on it. John will eat it because it’s got cheese on it. I eat everything. I

Brett Steall  13:28

eat everything too.

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Nestor Aparicio  13:29

I’m good. But there’s so many things in this menu that I have never ordered, and I don’t ever think to get the pasta. But you said the chicken parm. You said the veal part. Or

Brett Steall  13:36

if you if you can’t have, you know, if you’re watching what you eat, we do the grilled chicken salad. Grilled Chicken Caesar salad, very good. I had a chef salad here last those are incredible. But not, you know, the grilled chickens a little bit healthier. For those that are watching, that’s good point. You know, we’re watching lunch meats in there. We have a gluten free crossed. We have a cauliflower cross. Saw as well. For the people that can’t have the gluten or have celiacs. There’s a lot of people, and we do. We are very conscious. We will watch, you know, go back there, scrub everything down and make sure that there’s no allergens in the people’s food, if someone requests that. So Jackie

John Keller  14:12

cauliflower crust, because people

Brett Steall  14:14

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bring in their own cheese sometimes, because they can’t have art, they can have that plant based cheese, or whatever it is. So we will do that for people. We’re very accommodating. All right.

Nestor Aparicio  14:23

Well, yeah, birthday parties, here you ship. Is it? Am I leaving anything else? A waffle thing. I haven’t talked about the waffle.

Brett Steall  14:30

We wait a minute. We sell wholesale to shop, right? The Klein family, and also to wise market. Oh, tell me you can get pizza. John’s new freedom roasting. You ever heard of it? Yeah, they sell our pizza. They’re open Wednesday to Saturday.

Luke Jones  14:45

They are, from what I understand, they’re closing later this year. Oh,

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Brett Steall  14:49

you know what? Because they lost the lease, right, exactly, but they’re placed, but they’re thinking about finding another place. I don’t know, but my sister will be happy to hear that. But they’re a good customer of our. Once a month they’ll order, you know, a few cases of wholesale, you know, the small, large cheese and pepperoni bake at home. And, yeah, covid, we picked them up. That’s when we started. We got all those taken bakes. You can just grab a bunch of exactly, or Gersh backs. We you know, they sell them at the gershpes stores. Richardson farm sells them, growls, eddies. They all sell wine merchant, they all have our pizza.

Nestor Aparicio  15:23

Okay? I mean, I come here, I drive this, but I’m trying to

Brett Steall  15:26

make it convenient for, you know, get closer to where you live, or

Luke Jones  15:29

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it’s always convenient, but you know what? Then I have to come here together.

Nestor Aparicio  15:33

I mean, it’s true. You talked about this, yeah,

Brett Steall  15:35

it’s so much better. I

Luke Jones  15:36

like to take homes. I

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Brett Steall  15:37

take homes are good, but they’re not to say it’s not the same, because your ovens, not exactly. It’s the it’s all about the oven, right? And the deck, the surface that you put that pizza

Nestor Aparicio  15:45

on, I got a stone that really kind of help. Each stone magic, same temperature

Brett Steall  15:49

as the oven, 500 degrees. Do not put the pizza on a cold stone, or it’s gonna be white on the bottom. I know that got a free heat to stone. I’m telling you listening. Okay, all right. Audience, well, I

Nestor Aparicio  15:59

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don’t want people having crappy pizza, especially not your pizza. You bring it home, you bring it home. You got to make it the right way, exactly. All right. All right. Cover everything on the pizza. I think so I was gonna talk Orioles with these guys.

Brett Steall  16:09

Yeah. Yeah. You guys talk Orioles because I it’s Friday or Wednesday. What’s

Nestor Aparicio  16:14

today? Today’s Friday. It’s Wednesday when, well, keep you any day you want it today? You

Brett Steall  16:18

want it to be it’s Friday.

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Luke Jones  16:19

He’s trying to trying to sell that

Nestor Aparicio  16:22

at your birthday. It’s my birthday. It’s my birthday. Monday’s my birthday. But that’s all right, I’ve already made the

Brett Steall  16:27

show is on Wednesday. Right before I let you go, I

Nestor Aparicio  16:30

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said the same thing to Luke. I came in here early. Sharon’s hitting me up. Nobody’s here. Leonard’s not here yet. One of my listeners, Dean, was here from the neighborhood. We’re talking he’s having a beer, asking a bunch of questions, and I ordered this pizza before we did anything, because I was a little hungry and I just want to have something to show on the air. And this pizza came just to me. I had it all to myself, and it’s piping hot right out of the oven. And I pulled it, and the cheese got all and I’m thinking I ate it, and the first bite I had, it was, like, a little hot and a little cheesy and gooey. And I’m like, it doesn’t taste as good at home. Like, what? Even if I take in the box at home and putting up, he’ll say, Yeah, fine. But like, there’s something about being here when it comes out, it just it’s a little bit better, but it’s better here, it really is. So that’s why I come one

Brett Steall  17:15

more thing, everyone needs to check out. Our Halloween shirt. It has a Beetlejuice kind of theme I just saw that. Isn’t it really cool? Yeah, it’s a limited edition. Those are things here I’ll be looking for, you know, coming up every holiday. We’re gonna have some sort of cool thing coming out. And check out the rest of our merch as well online. It’s really cool stuff. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  17:34

Luke came here for the pizza and for the crab CAFO merch, but you got merch,

Brett Steall  17:39

our merch, I love it. Richardson, it’s all good stuff. You know, puppy love stuff. We give back, dude. Luke took

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Nestor Aparicio  17:45

one look at that hat. He’s never, you know, listen, he and I’ve done 15 Super Bowls together, right? Do you have any people bring free crap over to our tape? Like, like, all the time. He’s never said, I want that. It has the first time he’s ever asked it.

Brett Steall  17:58

Also, I speak, but also it’s quality. It’s Richard sin. You put your stuff on the best works. It looks like a trucker hat. MD brand printed them for me. Amazing company. Look like they come from Dundalk trucker hat, actually. MD brands located in the originator of big Johnson shirts. If you remember them from the 90s, I do remember Big John. He’s the one that makes, he still makes them. Anyway, I gotta go to work.

Nestor Aparicio  18:23

Thanks for your sponsorship and love, and I’ll toss off to you. And this is one of the places I should Well, here, I’ll meet you, Mike. You could drop the mic now if you want. Actually, I just muted Luke’s mic, but he’s actually called me this summer. Said we got to be on wnst. We got to be back on the air with you. Come on out. Let’s do this thing. Let’s do a show. So here we are. My buddy John Keller is in from Arkansas. He is our visiting champion. Really one of the first guests ever on the sports forum before it was the Budweiser sports forum back in January 92 now you moved to Arkansas on, literally, the day the Ravens won Super Bowl 35 right? That’s how long you’ve been gone, right?

John Keller  19:01

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It was our first week in Arkansas. I watched the game from a hotel room because we didn’t even have an apartment yet. We moved the week. We moved the day after the AFC Championship game. So the moving trucks came. We we moved down Arkansas that week so, and then literally watched the Super Bowl from our hotel room that that Sunday. And you’ve been there 24 years? Yeah, it’s 20 going on 24 so every

Nestor Aparicio  19:23

year we try to get together. We’re getting a crab cake today, my buddies here, but you are. We could talk some Oreo baseball here. What do you from far away make of all of it? The empty seats, the new owner, seeing the team, seeing the team, get relevant enough that it’s seven o’clock in Arkansas, where it doesn’t come to you. You watch them probably play 120 games this year, I think, right? I mean, you’re an out of town app guy, you’re all of that.

John Keller  19:47

I don’t catch a lot of the games. I mean, I will catch them when they’re on national TV and things like, because I don’t buy the package or whatever. Okay, the games, but I still follow them online, social media wise. Yeah, and I love the team, and I love the youth, and I love what the direction it’s going, the whole empty seats thing, i i That doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers other people, but I see your I see the side that it’s kind of depressing to see the game not sell out. But I think it’s a major league baseball thing. I mean, it’s another ring of playoffs. They price the tickets really high, I think, for a wild card round. And it’s like people are, people only have so much disposable income, and if they’re waiting, they’re praying it did what happened this year? Didn’t, you know, what happened last year? Didn’t happen this year. And we get to the divisional series, and that’s where they’re going to spend their money in the championship series or whatever. But obviously it didn’t work out. You know, was another, you know, depressing. Well, they scored. The

Nestor Aparicio  20:45

hardest part is it, there really is a thought, right? Yeah, that’s

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John Keller  20:48

right one.

Nestor Aparicio  20:49

I’m gonna fix our camera, Luke, you could speak to this a little bit is that we’ve seen some changes here this week in regard to their business. You and I’ve talked about this. Greg Bader is gonna run mass, and now, God bless them. Katie, Griggs gonna run. God bless her. You know, Rubenstein was out. He got, he got, he got picketed last night by like, climate change people at this event. I mean, I got pictures of it, and people told me about it that were there the baseball offseason when you thud like this, when there’s new ownership, and they’re trying to breathe new life into it. When you’ve had these empty seats that really were say what you want, it’s a little bit of an eyesore, and it looks it’s bad optics, whatever it is, it’s bad optics, the angry season ticket holder. All of that aside, for this offseason, we have a real going concern here. You and I have not talked oils, baseball much in November, December, January, because there is no expectation. There was no expectation that they would ever spend any money beyond the Baldo Jimenez or buy from the bottom shelf or the second the bottom shelf, in most cases, couldn’t keep their own guy, Machado. All the uncertainty, all the crap with John Angelo’s, all the crap about the money. All that was cloudy. Now they’re in a place where new owner, new leader, players, stadium monies. There teams really competitive and really good, not good enough, but really good, like better than it’s ever been. I think we can all agree that what they have, as far as the components of a baseball program to compete against 250 $300 million for a little while, for a couple of years, they’re gonna have that. But at some point, you’re gonna need to buy the app. You’re gonna need to be the out of town guy supporting this. Everybody in Essex is gonna have to buy the app. Your mother’s gonna have to buy it. Your sister, you’re like, that’s what’s going to fund this. That what’s going to fund the Orioles are asses in the seats, whatever the sales and products and all of that stuff, and then the the media part of it, whatever mass and morphs into whatever Greg badders gonna grow it into. Because he’s in charge. Now, I’ll put him in charge too, since he’s in charge. But how will they fund this to be able to be what we’ve seen San Diego be the last couple days, and San Diego’s difference. It’s one sport town now, all the charges, money’s gone, right? They don’t have any NBA, NHL, any of that for fans. I’m talking about. But what we’ve seen in San Diego, that sort of enthusiasm, even in Cleveland, Detroit, much bigger market, especially Detroit’s really big market. We’re kind of like this nationals thing now that Peter’s dead, everything he talked about at the barn back in 1997 that’s a real thing as to how this franchise is going to financially, be able to compete using our money, our money, the people that love the Orioles are going to be the ones that finance it. I think that that people get pissed at me about point at the NPC, to think I’m just being a jerk. I’m trying to look at it from Katie Griggs, his perspective, saying, What do I have to operate with here? And how are we going to fund 120 100 and $50 million and that wouldn’t be enough. You would agree with that, right? I mean, like that, that’s going to be top 10, top 12, right?

Luke Jones  24:01

What? 120 Yeah, that’s below average in this day and age. I mean, your average is around 160 at this point. I mean, go, look at it. And I also understand that it’s, you know, if you want to talk about media inverse, mean, and all that, but team spend money. I mean, it’s, you know, where the Orioles were a couple years ago as they were finishing the five year plan for the rebuild and everything. I mean, that’s you’re talking about Oakland. I mean, that’s the kind of territory. I mean, even the rays are spending not a lot, but more than that. So, I mean, I’ll go back to something I said to you, Nestor. I mean, look, attendance has gone up. Went up from last year, went up from the year before that. It’s gone up. Has it been lucrative? Well, they haven’t won anything yet. And I don’t mean that to be disparaging to the fact that they won 101 games last year and they won 91 this year. I think enthusiasm would be far different if these two seasons have been flipped, for example, and say, the Orioles had snuck in as a wild card last year. Year, and then had, I think you wouldn’t have had any issues with selling playoff tickets this year. Had that happen? I mean, I think it was a lot of circumstances bad second half, they absolutely ticked off season ticket holders with raising prices in August and take cutting down on some of the amenities. I know I have friends who were Birdland membership, people who were ticked, and they are the types that were going to 10 games, even when they were lousy. So it was kind of a, I think it was a series of, I don’t want to say unfortunate events, because some of that was self inflicted on their part, missteps again. They kind of jacked up the prices before people fully got in to enjoy the meal. Before doing that. I think they kind of jumped the gun a little bit. Quite frankly, bit, quite frankly. And I think some of you know some of the moves that they’re making with business and everything right now, and what they might make in terms of the rest of the offseason, who knows, but think there’s a reflection of that. But yeah, I think Katie Griggs and David Rubenstein and this ownership group looks at what happened there. And I think just like what happened on the field, the key for me for what they’re doing on the field and off the field is to react to all this without overreacting because of what you just said, there is a lot to really like about this baseball team. Yeah, I want to see them win a playoff game, agreed and make some adjustments

Nestor Aparicio  26:18

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first, Peter’s gone, so sure, there is more sure, open possibility, right,

Luke Jones  26:23

right? And as far as off the field, I’ve seen things be better over the last couple years compared to even where it was five years ago, certainly where it was 10 years ago from an off the field perspective. But that doesn’t mean there still isn’t a lot of work to do. So again, it’s finding that sweet spot between realizing there is good and there is a lot that’s going for them right now, but also recognizing, okay, how do we make that better? You and I have talked about this for two years now, since they basically got good how do you maximize? How do you raise the ceiling as high as it can possibly go? I’ve had that long term pie in the sky vision of the Orioles becoming the St Louis Cardinals, and not the Cardinals of the last couple years, but what they’ve been over the last 25 years? That’s not a gigantic market. Go look at the TV shares there. It’s it’s more it’s more similar to Baltimore than you might think. But it’s also a place that lost its football team, right? But it’s also a hockey team, but it’s also a team that built a good farm system and spent money wisely and augmented and they, you know, would fluctuate from somewhere between 14th in payroll all the way up to maybe seventh or eighth, given given the year now, is that

Nestor Aparicio  27:27

your market? St Louis? Is that considered where you are, Texas, in Arkansas, you get the Rangers in Arkansas, but you can drive to St Louis faster. No,

John Keller  27:35

no. Rangers are still closer. Memphis is closer, but I don’t even get regional sports night where I have YouTube TV. So there’s no, I don’t get any. I don’t even get MLB channel on YouTube TV. Used to, but yeah, but if I had my when I had DirecTV, I would get the regional sports for Dallas and the Cardinals. So we would, we would definitely, we would have Cardinals

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Nestor Aparicio  27:55

games. I would think you would like, there would be Cardinals fans walking around a little rock. Somebody likes baseball. There’s tons of cards. Card of cars. I mean, I would see that for all of it. So that’s what I’m saying. Baltimore doesn’t have that anymore. They’re not orange fans in Richmond anymore, or Morgantown, Virginia, like that’s gone and

Luke Jones  28:11

again, no one. I don’t care how great your vision is, or how much you think your mom and your sister and your brother and the neighbor down the street who doesn’t watch baseball at all now, but we’ll suddenly spend they’re never gonna become the Yankees or anything like that. But that said, it can absolutely be better than the rays or, you know, I mean, Cleveland, it’s not like they’ve spent a lot of money on payroll even more market. Yeah. So, yeah. So again, there’s a way to do this, but, yeah, you’ve got to hire the right people, baseball ops and business and just generating relationships in the community and business, business partnerships and suites and all this stuff, I mean, stuff that I don’t know a whole lot about, other than to recognize that it’s important. And that’s why I said all along, when Rubenstein and the new group came in to me, it was, see what this looks like in the off season. They’re not going to make changes in April. Well, this is

Nestor Aparicio  29:04

what I’m talking about. It here we’re at Pizza John’s. By the way, we’re doing a Maryland crab cakes where Luke’s here my dear friend John Keller, we’re having some pizza and crab cakes and french fries, and we’re promoting our friends at the Maryland lottery, as well as Jiffy Lube MultiCare that gets Luke around town, as well as Liberty pure solutions winning under clean water. By the way, I found that liberty, pure solutions, does the water here pizza John’s. That’s why the that’s why the bread tastes so good. So nonetheless, that is true. We found that out in the last segment. Here’s where I am, my birthday week. We’re gonna play a lot of baseball in New York the next two weeks, right? They’re both in the championship series. One of them, two of them, will probably be in the World Series, given odds, maybe even against each other. Who knows, right that conversations is going on there in St Louis, they’re having a conversation about baseball right now. And in Chicago and in other places. This has been from a guy who owns a radio station for 26 years. This is right around the time the year, even when the orders are good, even after Zach Britton, we bitched about that for a week or two. That by my birthday, october 14 into next week, the ravens are four and three, three into five and two with four to whatever they are around now it just goes away, because baseball goes away. There’s a moratorium through the World Series on doing anything. We’re not firing our manager. We’re not firing our General Manager. Probably not signing anybody, probably not signing Corbin burns, probably not doing a $200 million deal. Baseball. Baseball’s, it’s, it’s cadence is to not do anything until the end, because all the owners are colluding to not spend any money, right? Like, literally, you got this Oakland eyesore, disaster, Sacramento thing going on, and then you have the spectacle of maybe Otani in the World Series at Yankee Stadium, or certainly, a World Series, right? So that’s going to go to November 3. Then that’s going to happen. How are the Orioles going to get back into the oxygen of not just Little Rock Arkansas, where you’re on the periphery of it, but on my radio station, where you in the morning on a Tuesday in November, December, say, we got to do an Orioles piece today. We got to talk Orioles today. Bal talks or else, because they have to talk Orioles, because they get paid to do it. And they’ll do a Christmas hot stove, and they’ll do all of that stuff and do something down at what used to be Dempsey’s with whatever new name they have, and and all that. But 1057, is locking forward. Gonna be doing Oriole stuff in November, December, bitching about them. Probably not, because we’ll be on to the next thing we’re on. And baseball has been this thing that’s allowed itself to go away. Angelos made it infinitely worse by being awful at everything in the offseason, but then they put their games on in spring training. You know that feeling like spring training should be the beginning of something, and it’s not. And then opening day trudges along, and they have trouble selling those tickets, and the weather’s not great, and it’s March, and we’re not really ready for baseball, and I haven’t heard a lot about it, and felt a lot, and I haven’t really seen the team, and I don’t even know who Albert Suarez is, even though he was starting that game, you and I saw JetBlue Park back in March, the getting to Know you part of the players in the off season, caravans and all that. There’s so much more about awareness that they’ve never done that. I would say our Stockholm Syndrome, part of our fan base, is not even really expected anymore, that anything they do would feel if we’re talking about them in November and December, even if it’s bad, it’s good, because they’re in the news, because they can’t just go away and roll the ball out again on March 28 and say it’s opening day and it’s 48 degrees. Come because of the losses, because of the empty seats, because of the price increase. They need to, I don’t see, make news. They need to make attention, and they need to be top of mind, and they need to be something that doesn’t go away, especially when they’ve been good. And I’ve said this, I think it’s tough for Adley rutschman to walk around town this offseason based on how he played, right? I mean, there’s a part of being 24 and not playing well and being hurt. He’s not living here. None of these guys are living here. They don’t spend any time. They’ll come back and do a weekend, or do an autograph or this, or make some money, or whatever, see their girlfriend if they got one, but they really have. I’ve been watching this for 30 years. It has blown me away at the lost opportunity since they did winter carnivals, you know, and we would sell the place out, and they’d open the stadium or the club lover people couldn’t afford the club level, your little nine year old kid, your dad could take you down there when he’s an usher. I feel like there’s so much candy and so much low hanging fruit of just basic involvement that has to feel different, because it’s been so awful for so long. And that’s my long winded way of saying, make some news, Katie. I mean, be nice to people. Get out on the street like, let’s sell the game because they need to sell the game because we want the team to stay thrive. Have a budget. Everybody’s got to love them. Your mother has to feel like she has to pay $300 to get them to get their games because she can’t come over to your house and she wants to have the games, and it’s that important to her, and it’s worth X amount of dollars. I don’t know. You tell me how much it’ll be worth to you to have every Oreo game on your app and how many you really would watch in Arkansas? Yeah, and you love the team. I

John Keller  34:08

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mean, I subscribe to peacock now, to watch every Liverpool game, and it cost me $7 a month, $7 a month. But that’s, that’s a whole different ballgame.

Nestor Aparicio  34:16

$84 for your soccer team. You’re good with that price? Yeah. I’m wondering what would be good in Essex for the price. Well, you know what? What would make your mother buy? What’s the pronounce

Luke Jones  34:25

to take it too far off track, that model and what Apple TV’s done with MLS? I think baseball is going to be at that point, at some point, and I don’t think it’s next year. It’s not the year after that, but at some point, and we’re seeing this with the RSNs crumbling at this point. I’m Major League Baseball has taken over production, and you know that, so I kind of think that’s

Nestor Aparicio  34:45

so what’s the model? $7 a month for Oreo baseball for everybody? Well,

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Luke Jones  34:50

you know, if they’re doing it a la carte, it’s gonna have to be way more than that. It’s $7 a month if you if you get Amazon, $7 a

Nestor Aparicio  34:58

month up for everybody in the. World that would possibly subscribe to real baseball, including Arkansas, including it’s different, because when that money adds up, what does it add up to? Not a whole lot.

John Keller  35:07

I mean, has all the WWE stuff. It’s got every NBC show ever created, practically on there. So it is a bundle. So it’s not just you’re going just orders, you’re just getting Liverpool, you know, you’re getting everything that they show NBC wise, and all other kinds of entertainment. So, I mean, I would, I would probably pay 10 to $20 a month if I could have access to every or else game on my phone or iPad for six

Nestor Aparicio  35:30

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months or 12. That’s another season. Yeah, right. I mean, so it’s, it sounds like a lot of its 25 a month, but it’s only six months, right? So you’re paying a bucket, bucket ahead, if

John Keller  35:38

it’s not part of if it’s $1 a game. But I

Luke Jones  35:41

also think the interesting part of this is you got to think about the price point that people who have held on to satellite and cable because of massen, and I know that they just this past season, they offered it on fubo tv. It’s on direct TV streaming service. So so they are branching out a little bit in terms of streaming services, Office offering mass and but keep in mind, like my satellite bill is 100 and dollars, right? It’s a lot of money. And I’ll be totally honest with you, I’m not sure if I would have that specific service if the Orioles didn’t exist, and it wasn’t, you know, the Orioles were on something else, for example, you know, I started in the way the NFL people went to direct CV. So that’s where you look at it from the from the standpoint of, the standpoint of they probably can charge more than you would think per month for a direct to consumer model, which some teams of what the Blue Jays, I think, do that, for example. I mean, you know, it’s Canada, it’s Toronto. I mean, they have a entire country that they can can market to Northern Lights. But I do think when you look at where the price points are for for those fans who are just holding on there, it’s higher, but at the same time for people who have just cut the cord and said, Well, you know, like, like John, for example, where he catches a game when he can, and maybe, if it works out and it’s on Fox One Saturday, great, but, but there’s no Tuesday night game against the twins that you feel like, I have to see, what is that price that somewhere more than $7 but isn’t so much where he’s going. I’m

Nestor Aparicio  37:07

really wondering where that is. And I keep thinking, There’s something for your mother and your family that says, Give us $800 this year. You get the games on TV for free, and you get the 13 game Pat, you know, like that would be part of the Birdland membership that if you’re buying tickets and you’re an experiential fan, that the bundling of the game would be, I spent 1000 bucks on tickets this year, give me the games on TV for free, right, right? That there’s going to be that part that That, to me, is going to be the orange club. That’s how they’re going to get people

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Luke Jones  37:36

and I still think a major point here. And look, and this is an exclusive to Baltimore. It’s every market. Fans are bandwagon jumpers. I mean, they are like, look, the die hards are much better lose. That’s

Nestor Aparicio  37:49

my point. No, my

Luke Jones  37:50

point is. Point is they need to win. This is losing, getting swept in the wild, caught around is not winning. I mean, we’re at a point now where you have six teams make make it. I mean, we’re rapidly approaching what the NBA you’re now competing, you’re not winning, right? So, and I don’t say that to be disparaging, my point is, unless you really want this thing to pop and explode, and we all saw this in 2000 with the Ravens. Like, don’t get me wrong, there was enthusiasm for the ravens, but it went. It got to the point where my dad and I had friends who had businesses who had season tickets that we would get free tickets all the time in 9899 that changed after 2000 and suddenly we didn’t get free tickets anymore, which is fine, like I understood that. But I mean, think about this, forget about the World Series for a moment, as we’re going to be going on 42 years next year, since Baltimore’s last World Series appearance, 2014 1997 1996 in 40 plus years, they have only made three appearances in the ALCS. They haven’t won anything. So I agree with everything you’re saying. And yes, there are things they can do to recruit people. In fact, I think one thing that they’ve done a way better job over the last couple years is their social media and some of their video production. It’s not on par with what the stuff that the Ravens do with with their video team and the amazing content that they turn out, but it’s trending more towards that. I think that’s a great that is a great arm to recruit people in the off season, knowing that, okay, you’re not going to get these guys to come in every weekend to go shake hands and kiss babies of every part of town. But there are ways that you can keep them engaged virtually, that you can then put on social media and have ways to engage with fans and hey, what’s gunner Henderson up to in the off season? Hey, what’s Jackson holiday up to in the off season? Again, I’m not saying that that’s the end all be all, but there are ways to do that, and I agree that they need to continue to recruit and continue to put the pedal to the metal, but I still don’t think it’s going to really, truly pop until you see October success. That’s just the truth. And look, that doesn’t mean anyone who’s listening right now who’s a die hard that went to 35 games this year. I’m not talking about

Nestor Aparicio  39:58

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San Diego. They already have. Is what they did a couple years ago, right? They already have that same thing in Philadelphia. They’ve

Luke Jones  40:03

talking about the new people, like, you need more champagne celebrations. Like in October, not just making it, but celebrating something in October.

Nestor Aparicio  40:11

You need more than one run over to you need a parade. Yeah. I

Luke Jones  40:15

mean, you do like, I don’t say that again. I’m not being dismissive of what they’ve done to this point. Mike Elias has done a fantastic job getting it to this point, but now that’s why I said, How do you react without overreacting? Yeah, you know, they’ve made some coaching changes. Ryan Fuller, one of their hitting coaches, they is not coming back. Their bench coach, you know that one of their other coaches, we’re going to see some roster changes. I mean, we’re going to see that. But that doesn’t mean you blow everything up and start firing people left and right either, right? I mean, there’s a happy medium here. But again, for everything you’re talking about in terms of getting to whatever the ceiling could possibly be here, and let’s just say it’s the st Louis Cardinals. Over the last 25 years, I’ve used that example a long, a long time now, St Louis Cardinals won multiple World Series, and they were winning pennants, and they were playing in the NLCS on the regular, and laying

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Nestor Aparicio  41:06

down roots that, quite frankly, have never been laid here with the Angelus Sure, the missed opportunities of Cal Ripken and coach Robinson all, of course, the missed opportunity of Camden Yards really,

Luke Jones  41:14

right, exactly. And think about this. I mean, you know the Ravens playing the commanders this past week, right? I mean, everything with Daniel Snyder, and you think about what the Redskins were in the 80s and the early 90s, they’ve been completely irrelevant on the field since then. And hells

Nestor Aparicio  41:29

can’t get a ticket on Sunday because it’s $300 now, right? Their fans are batting.

Luke Jones  41:33

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They’re excited at the same time, if Jaden Daniels is a half a year wonder, or, heaven forbid, something that happens to him, to what happened to RG three, it’ll be right back to everyone not caring. Again, it’s it’s fleeting, and the Ravens won’t have that problem. You need sustained success to really make this thing truly pop in the way that you’re talking. And again, that doesn’t mean you just sit on your hands and say, Okay, well, hopefully they win next year. No, I’m not saying that at all, but that’s still the driving force here, you know, my my mom doesn’t ask me about the Orioles whatsoever when they’re middling, or, you know, maybe when they’re really bad. She could ask me, like, how are they so bad? But you know, when she does ask me when they’re playing really well, and they’re showing up on national TV games more often, as we saw them on Sunday Night Baseball a couple times this year. So you

Nestor Aparicio  42:19

know, that way house can watch them. Yeah,

Luke Jones  42:24

it’s simplistic, but it’s not simplistic. I understand that, but I hope we’re talking more

Nestor Aparicio  42:28

about it all season. Hell’s I know you got to go because you got to get you to Coco’s Any parting shot here from being a guy who loves Baltimore and doesn’t live here and you’re probably never going to live here again, I’m committed to the fact that I only get to see you when I get to see you as one of my best pals, but, and it’s great to have you here my birthday, the whole deal, but you are the guy that went to Arkansas. You become an Arkansas fan, and you’re into your soccer and all that, but you’ve taken Baltimore with you, yeah, even though you’re not coming back.

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John Keller  42:54

I mean, I love the Orioles and ravens. The Orioles got to sell the brand. I mean, they have to be aggressive in the community and like, hit every business they can hit and really be aggressive and sell the heck out of that brand. It’s a great brand. It’s just as good as the Cardinals brand. Luca

Nestor Aparicio  43:09

wants an orange hat, right? Well, I mean, you talk about the thing being on fire with the Ravens. I’m thinking you get off a plane and see Oriole stuff everywhere. There’s orange pop up tents. If the orals were in the ALCS right now, would there be pop up tent selling, you know, Orioles guy, the Ravens were that way. Was that ubiquitous? I don’t know that baseball can be that way, given where it is.

Luke Jones  43:29

And let me know that that’s something that is a point I did want to make when you talked about all these sports go away, other than the NFL. Now, the NBA has carved out late June and early July with free agency. I even though the

Nestor Aparicio  43:41

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NHL doesn’t go away because they played all

Luke Jones  43:44

July. But the point, I mean, the NFL has made a tent pole event out of the schedule release for goodness sake. Now, I’m not suggesting that Major League Baseball can do that, although probably would be better to do them better with the draft. They’ve done what they have, they have, but the point is, some of that is just like we only compare it to the ravens, because that’s all that’s here from a pro sports standpoint, you know, with all due respect to the blast, or smaller, you know, smaller sports. But so, so there’s some of that, but, yeah, there’s they have to recruit people, I agree. And look, not gonna say you can get gunner Henderson here every weekend in the in the off season, but boy, if you can get him here a few and you can get, you can turn that into, you know, whatever, Fan Fest, Winter Carnival, however you want to do it. Yeah, they’ve done the caravans in recent years, but that’s been stale. That’s a smaller scale. Yeah, I have some friends who went to some of those. They enjoyed it, but it was smaller scale, right? So they do need to think bigger. And, you know, Katie Griggs and the new ownership team and all that, yeah, this, this needs become way more big league. Okay, it’s not the NFL, and it’s not going to be what the Ravens have been for a quarter century now. I mean, they have a heck of a head start on them compared to what the Orioles diminished into over the last four decades. But, you know, think big and, yeah, hustle. I mean, they got a hustle. But ultimately, again. And it still has to show up on the field. They need to. I’m

Nestor Aparicio  45:03

gonna keep saying that it’s one, it’s chicken and egg, because all of this hustle and selling tickets is what’s going to make that product on the field sustainable. Finance sustainable. Yeah. Finance sustainable,

Luke Jones  45:12

yes. But I’m saying that you’ve got to win to bring people in, in the door again.

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Nestor Aparicio  45:19

They’ve done a nice job of winning the last two years they have. And like I said, if you would go to an Orio game this weekend, if they were home, and what you want to go, right? I mean, yeah, I’ll go back to Baltimore. Not good. If

Luke Jones  45:28

the last two years have been flipped, I don’t think we’d be having this conference, but you wouldn’t

Nestor Aparicio  45:32

have felt that way five years ago, when they were stuck. You would say, I’m not going over

John Keller  45:35

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there. I mean, I’ve went to games when they were terrible. I mean, I would always go to a game if there was an opportunity and it was affordable. You don’t live here anymore, too, so it’s rare. I went to the Orioles team store earlier at ballpark today. Yeah, and it was sad to see racks and racks of October playoff stuff. Oh, you were there. That’s

Luke Jones  45:53

the wild card 12 hours.

Nestor Aparicio  45:55

And he’s already visited Camden Yards in a gift shop. Like, that’s, you know, that’s who you are. You know, that’s why I brought you on. That’s why you were the guy called 33 years ago when I didn’t have anybody to talk

John Keller  46:04

to. And it was sad. The crazy thing is, the Ravens don’t even have a shop open down there. During when there’s not a game shop, there’s no shop open the Orioles. I was surprised at the actual Orioles, but I think it’s more of the warehouse being open. I think it’s, yeah, they have it right, right? But that’s our friend who traveled from Arkansas. She’s a Lamar Jackson fan. We need people to Jersey, yeah, she’s, she’s

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Nestor Aparicio  46:28

Lamar she’s talking about, yeah, he transcends.

John Keller  46:30

Like sports around the country. We don’t, the Orioles have stars, but they don’t have Lamar Jackson kind of stardom. And then we need that. Baseball

Luke Jones  46:39

needs base, right? Yeah, exactly. But

Nestor Aparicio  46:41

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he had my travel, yeah, show. Yeah.

John Keller  46:42

Show

Luke Jones  46:44

Hayes, as close as it gets, and he’s had to be this unbelievable, historic, generational player to garner any attention, right? And he’s playing in a big market, albeit on the west coast, but still,

Nestor Aparicio  46:57

all right? Luke Jones, John Keller, my friend, Hals, we have french fries and gravy. Proper ear pizza Johns. We have Raven scratch off. So I’m gonna be giving these away over the dining area. And of course, my favorite pizza the newly named Dundalk Venezuelan Hawaiian pizza, which is the Hawaiian pizza with pineapple and ham and pepperoni and Essex back river neck, road, 6877733, make sure you take care of our friends here, our friends at the Maryland lottery, as well as Jiffy Lube, multi care, curio wellness and foreign daughter. And last but never least, pure liberty, pure solutions and wanting under clean water, making the water clean here with pizza Johnson makes my bread taste so good and the pizza taste so good as well. On behalf of Brett, my pal, Leonard Raskin, and Raskin and Raskin global. Everybody here, your wife, Jackie and her girlfriend for coming down, Dean for stopping by here in Essex, and Michelle and Sharon. Everybody here at Pete Johnson making it great. Signing off from pizza John’s. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. Yes, they have a crab cake at Pizza John’s, pretty delicious too. I’m back for more on W NSD. It is a Tampa Bay week. Well, plenty of football ahead. With Luke. Stay with us. You.