Seth Elkin of The Maryland Lottery goes Back To The Future with Nestor as they torpedo into the swing of Home Run Riches and baseball season with Orioles homers for cash.
Nestor Aparicio and Seth Elkin from the Maryland Lottery discussed the “Home Run Riches” promotion, where $500 is given away every time the Orioles hit a home run. Seth highlighted recent winners, including a $3,500 prize for Tiffany Jester and a $2,000 winner, Rudy Augustine. They also talked about the “Back to the Future” scratch-off game, featuring a top prize of $10,000 and a second chance contest with prizes tied to the movie’s events. Additionally, Seth mentioned a $500,000 Powerball Double Play winner from Harford County and upcoming changes to Mega Millions, including a price increase from $2 to $5 and improved odds.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Lottery, Home Run Riches, baseball season, scratch off tickets, Back to the Future, Powerball Double Play, Mega Millions changes, torpedo bats, Orioles pitching, contestants of the game, second chance promotion, $500, 000 winner, sports betting, 1980s movies.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 1, Nestor Aparicio, Seth Elkin
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are, Baltimore. Positive we are. We’re getting into this spring thing and baseball being played every day. We get the home run riches happening as well, and really getting the Maryland crap gate tour back out on the road to some of our beloved places. We’re at, faith, Lee’s this week. By next week, we’re going to be Costas. I’m wearing my costume shirt for my dearly departed friend, Costas, who we lost last week. We will be there next Friday, honoring him. Please come by, dude. Let’s, let’s do it up. I will have scratch off. So the Maryland lottery, I think I’m going to move beyond magic eight ball. I got a handful of these left to get me through failies. I know I’m going to be hitting Roz up for this before it’s all over with. And also, later on in the month, we’re going to be Cocos. We’re going to be Cooper’s north in two weeks, we are going to be at, I say, Cocos and Coopers already. Oh, we’re going to be at the Beaumont Catonsville. It is baseball season, and John Martin is busy doing things, probably trying to pay off opening day for the six home runs. I’m not sure. Seth Elkin joins us. Usually it involves Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Dude, I went looking for my Roberto Clemente shirt today, even though I love Mr. Costas and I look good in the Costas insured I had the one day. I’m going to find the Clemente shirt, and I’m going to put on that pirate hat, and you’re going to see that I threatened to take Luke Jones. We flew in the Buffalo, we drove across the border. You’ll never believe who was playing at Niagara Falls on Friday night. I didn’t go because I was in Toronto. Sister Sledge. Sister Sledge. Seth Elkin was playing at the Niagara fall. I can’t believe you weren’t there with Omar Moreno. We
Seth Elkin 01:50
are family, right? I was gonna use later. You were leading into a Pittsburgh I thought you was trying to be nice to Pittsburgh, but tell me it was Donny Iris, but, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 02:01
come back, by the way, Donny Iris, I found out doing much better touring this year, playing some shows. So yeah, all right, man, for all the Pittsburgh rockers out there, right? I gotta give you some how are you happy baseball season? You happy Rome and Richard? Is it true that Jonathan take the day off to go find the money to pay off all those home runs?
Seth Elkin 02:19
Well, you know, I can’t speak to that exactly, but yeah, we have to dig out from under the $3,500 that we gave away in that that opening day game that you were there to see in Toronto, the six home runs by the Orioles that opening day and gave away Tiffany jester from Cambridge, came home with $3,500 from that game, $500 for being selected as our contestant of the game for the very first game of the season. And boom, right out of the chute, six home runs by the Orioles. That’s another $3,000 for her. So a couple of big games, get a $2,000 winner, Rudy Augustine from Parkville in the March 29 game. So you got to see a bunch of home runs if you were up there to see that series and a good start for the Orioles, and hopefully that’s continues, because we’re giving away $500 every time the Orioles hit a home run this season. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 03:10
my first tweet of the season, I want to be really clear with this Seth, I was standing in center field wearing my 69 Luis Aparicio throwback jersey that sort of pale blue and gray, you know, sort of fit in with what Joe Carter was wearing the night that I saw him. Boy, actually, he was wearing a home jersey that night, white but, but nonetheless, it, you know, sort of fit into the motif and the Canadian flag and everything that went on there. And then Adley walk boom, like jerk my neck to the left because the ball landed above the bullpen. May he hit that ball, and then Tyler, boom. And it’s like, wow. You know, John’s gonna be giving some money away this year. They’re gonna hit the ball this year. And every time I see a home run now, I’m like, you know, this close off the wall, if you’re that person, it’s a, you know, I mean, it’s fun. It’s fun. Baseball’s fun. And I it’s certainly a lot of fun when you have a chance to
Seth Elkin 04:06
win, man, we enjoy. It’s just one of the in terms of fun. I think this is one of the most fun promotions that we do, because it’s every day, somebody new throughout the baseball season, we have 162 contestants of the game. And you know, every day when you sit down to watch the Orioles all summer long. You’re kind of rooting for those home runs because you know that that person is going to win $500 every time the ball flies out of the park. And you get a you get a mention during the game broadcast, which is a lot of fun for us to to hear as well. So but, but definitely something that I know a lot of people enjoy getting in on every year. So your chance to do that still coming up, but you got plenty of more chances to enter. We did the drawing for the first month’s worth of games has been done already. So all the winners for April. You can see other those games at the tail end of March and the games in April, you can see the winners up on the website now, if you go to the promotions page at MD, watery Yak. Com, but you got your chance to get into the next drawing. If you want to be one of the contestants of the game in May, you can enter up through April 21 and we’ll do the drawing april 22 and fill out the calendar for all those games in May. And could be you. So enter your home run riches walk off winnings ticket. It’s a $5 fast play ticket that you can get at any Lottery retailer. Now you may win an instant prize on the ticket itself, but whether your home run riches ticket is a winner or not, it can be entered into the second chance promotion, and you can get a chance to be a contestant in the game. So the top prize on that ticket is again a $5 ticket, but the top prize is a progressive jackpot that starts at $40,000 and we have not had the first winner yet. So Nestor is you and I are speaking it’s almost $53,000 is the progressive jackpot prize on that ticket, and then many 1000s of others, smaller prizes ranging from a few dollars on up to $5,000 on that ticket. So plenty of chances to win instantly, plenty of chances still to win all season long. With that next contestant of The Game drawing coming up on April 22
Nestor Aparicio 06:07
my man Seth Elkin is here from the Maryland lottery. He directs all communications, and is communicating in my direction right now about all things baseball, home run, riches. I have a couple of Toronto stories. I haven’t done a lot of radio this week. I Luke and I, sort of, you know, got in and out of Toronto, went up to Buffalo. I wound up having dinner with the the father of one of the boys who ran the mark Andrews go fund me $150,000 for diabetes, which my wife appreciates, being diabetic and all that. So we did these cool things, but I wound up, you know, watching all these home runs, and Luke and I were watching for Nestor Cortez. There haven’t been a lot of Nestor. There’s sets everywhere in every walk of life. You know, the couple of Nestor that have had some success, you know, they’re the world’s most famous flutist was a Nestor. The former leader of of Argentina was a Nestor. And and there’s, you know, pitcher Nestor, and he’s giving up home run, home run, home run, home run. And I’m like, I hope the New York lottery is not playing the torpedo back game. And Luke said something to me about torpedo bats. Like, at that point, I’m like, dude, season’s not even a week old. I’m getting old. I had juice balls. We had Charlie Finley with orange balls. Remember that? And his daughter wrote a book. I think she’s coming on next week. That’s good. Anything with Charlie Finley. I’m all about, you know, because that’s my era, right? So, um, torpedo bats. I’ve heard of some ish, honestly, Seth, but we’re your baseball guy. Torpedo bats. You know, I need to look into this, because this affects home runs for sure. I never heard of such a thing. It’s weird.
Seth Elkin 07:48
They say it’s legal, but I can’t imagine how I just doesn’t seem right to me. And how is this okay? But you know, all those years ago, George Brett put a couple inches too much pine tar up the handle of his bat. And that’s not okay. I don’t get
Nestor Aparicio 08:04
that. I love that. You defended George Brett on this show. I only own one baseball bobblehead, and it’s George Brett, because George Brett was worthy. There you go. So, yeah, I agree with you all. Listen, you know, when it comes to baseball, and it’s like, this is one of the reasons I, you know, like, I always say to John, the game’s on the up and up completely at the Maryland lottery. And I gotta talk lottery stuff with you, sort of insider thing. Okay, so I’m in Toronto, different country, different rules, whatever that lotto six, four, and I don’t know what it is, so I’m I’m literally having a happy hour, and I’m engaging in conversation with Canadian people, and this young lady next to me, somehow we got on the lottery. I have no idea. I didn’t I didn’t mention anything or whatever, but she told me she loved it. We were told my gambling. We were talking about sports wagering in their country and art, that’s really what it was. But it got to lottery, and she said, I love playing the games on the scratch offs, because I love the gaming part of paying and playing along and having a game to play. And I thought I was going to tell John this, but I thought I’d tell you this, because sometimes when I give scratch offs off, people like to learn the game and play along. And this plays into back to school a little bit, because we went through whatever was it? Was it Lord Game of Thrones? Was that what it was? I didn’t know anything about last year’s promotion, but I know a lot about this one because I’m a child of the 80s, and there’s a branded promotion and a new game, and people like to play along. And this young lady told me she likes games and playing. I’m like, you know, in my world, people just zap the QR code. They just want to do I did I win? Or did I not? You know, but the games are fun, and I know they’re designed to be that way, and you got a new one.
Seth Elkin 09:41
Yeah, the Back to the Future ticket, you might have gotten your back screw a little messed up that there’s Back to the Future and back to school.
Nestor Aparicio 09:48
It’s back to school. Did I say back to school? Two different 80s? Did I say? Did I drop a Rodney Dangerfield?
Seth Elkin 09:56
Because I’m from the 80s too. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 09:58
hilarious. I. Remember both. I’m not even going to edit that because it’s worthy of not being edited. That’s hilarious.
Seth Elkin 10:04
You know what? That’s yeah, exactly. Now, every
Nestor Aparicio 10:07
reference the rest of this segment, I’m going to extend this segment just to drop in things like, I have no class, I’m sorry. But instead, we’re going to drop in, you know, some Michael J Fox and stuff, because that’s the real movie,
Seth Elkin 10:19
both very memorable 1980s movies and Back to the Future, back to school. I think was, was the year after, I think was 1986 if I remember, right? And
Nestor Aparicio 10:28
you are the dude, you and I do our own podcast on pop culture. You know, back
Seth Elkin 10:32
to the Back to the Future is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. And we’ve got, as you mentioned, we’ve got a Back to the Future scratch off game, $2 scratch off game with a top prize of $10,000 but it also has a second chance contest attached to it. You can enter any non winning Back to the Future ticket into your My lottery rewards account. And we’re going to be doing monthly drawings all the way up through July to give away cash prizes. And I love this part of it. I love the game just in general, because I remember that movie so well. I mean, I have a vivid memory of going to the theater in July of 1985 to see Back to the Future. And the prizes in this second chance contest, all are dollar figures that are tied to some event or some number from the franchise, from the Back to the Future franchise, the top prize, which will give away in the last second chance drawing that comes up in July, $8,888 and of course, you know why it’s all eights, right? Because you’re back to the because you remember the 80s like I do. Why is it all eights? Nestor
Nestor Aparicio 11:41
DeLorean, back in time, right? That’s
Seth Elkin 11:43
that 88 miles an hour was the speed that Doc Brown’s DeLorean had to travel in order to to trigger time travel. In order to travel through time, it had to go 88 miles an hour. And then, then the I
Nestor Aparicio 11:55
always say to him, is Iggy from taxi. And, you know, I was going to sing the family tie song for yavi. You know, I got it all tied together here. But when I think of Back to the Future, i i hear Huey Lewis. I just, I mean, I’m being honest with you. It’s, you
Seth Elkin 12:12
know, all kinds of memories that, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 12:13
I hear it, see it, feel it. You feel the movie theater. You probably smell the popcorn the theater with them. But see,
Seth Elkin 12:19
the great thing about it is that it evokes more than one time period. I think that’s why it’s endured as well as it has. Because, yes, it was made in 1985 and if you remember that period of time, it’s a product of its time. But they also travel back in time to 1955 in both the first and the second films of the of the franchise, and 1955 $1,955 is another one of those Second Chance prize amounts to commemorate that the year that they went back to. And then not 2015 is another prize amount $2,015 that will give away the Second Chance contest that indicates the year that they went to in Back to the Future Part Two, and I have, I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 13:02
know there’s a baseball reference there, correct? And they said their Miami baseball team won the World Series, and there wasn’t a Miami baseball team, right? And that
Seth Elkin 13:11
the Cubs made the World Series, because at that time, they were far from having done that. So, so you there
Nestor Aparicio 13:17
really were baseball right? See, I knew this was going to happen. I wrote down Miami because, like, I’m like, I know there was a baseball right? Because I haven’t seen the movie at 30 years, and I’m still clever, and really, you know, because it always was right, it’s a great movie.
Seth Elkin 13:33
Well, and there’s a there’s unfortunately, perhaps a little unfortunately, there’s a sports betting tie in as well, in the back to the future too, because he when they travel to the future, he gets a hold of a almanac full of sports results and thinks about using it to go back in time and win himself some money betting on the game. So right, of course, at a time back then, 1989 Back to the Future, Part Two was made, sports betting wasn’t legal in most of the country, so a little bit of a hurdle to clear there. But, well, we
Nestor Aparicio 14:03
don’t like to know the outcome of something in the future or whatever, you know. I mean, how I met my mother became a series, right? Like, it’s sort of like back to the futures, really, you know, like a neat story. It was family. Is all I saw at a golden ring Mall. So I’m guilty, you know, right above the Farrell’s ice cream parlor there, where everybody had their right their ice or birthday parties and holiday events and all that stuff with the little jazz band like the memories of the 80s are the best, and the game’s fun too, right? And
Seth Elkin 14:33
you know, the other thing that I remember, I wanted to point this out to you, because being a former newspaper guy like me, you’ll appreciate this is in Back to the Future Part Two. When they go into 2015 everybody’s they’ve got flying cars and everything’s futuristic, but they’re also still looking at news in a print newspaper, if you remember, there’s a scene where they’re hilarious, and a print copy of USA Today in 2015 which they. Is the one thing about the future that they didn’t quite get right?
Nestor Aparicio 15:02
Well, always, I’m sure Steve Jobs saw Back to the Future, right and, and whatever he thought of it.
Seth Elkin 15:08
I’m always amused by that. When I see that one newspaper guy to another. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 15:13
mean, all of those things like, you know, where Brian gumballs like the internet, what’s that going to be? Where I think I saw a thing two weeks ago, whereas Regis talking about, you know, surfing online, or something like just, you know, and how quickly time changes. Seth Elkin is here. He’s moving, let’s see, not back to school or Back to the Future. I’m trying to throw lines in. I’m really trying to lead Shakespeare for everyone and do all of that. You got a lot of other things going on here, including, like, big winners. John and I were like, sometimes people win a half million bucks, and you’re they go missing for a little while, and then they come in and claim their winnings. And you’re always on the hunt for people when there’s a big ticket out there to say, Hey, man, don’t wash the ticket. Don’t launder the ticket. Wouldn’t be Be careful. But apparently somebody came forward this week, right up Harford County.
Seth Elkin 15:59
Yeah, in late March, we had a winner of a $500,000 second tier prize in the Powerball double play. Drawing a double play is an add on feature that you can add when you buy a Powerball ticket. It’s a $2 ticket, and then if you, if you want, you have the option to add the double play feature to it for an additional dollar. So it would take your price to $3 and what that does is make your ticket good for both the main power ball drawing and a second separate drawing that takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday after the Powerball drawing, called double play. So you have a $3 ticket with a double play on it, and that ticket is good for both drawings. And we had a person in in Aberdeen who bought their ticket at Carson’s run liquor in Aberdeen and decided to play the double play option. Said he always plays double play, because why not take the second chance? And it paid off. He won the second tier prize of $500,000 the top tier, if you were to match all of the numbers in the double play drawing, is a ten million prize. So it’s not the same jackpot as Powerball, but still a very substantial amount. And this was a also a very substantial amount, $500,000 he was here March 31 to claim his prize, and very happy to to to meet him and and celebrate with him a big win on a Powerball ticket. So a really special occasion for us, because $500,000 it’s not an amount that you see all the time. We get a little jaded around here. Sometimes we have $50,000 winners and $100,000 winners on a much more frequent basis. And I think a lot of people realize last year, in fact, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of almost 600 winners of prizes of $50,000 or more across the state over the course of 12 months. So that happens pretty frequently, but when it gets up over that $500,000 amount and that million dollar amount, it’s not an everyday thing, and we certainly celebrate that when it happens, and we’re very happy for that winner to to come on in and claim. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 18:07
sometimes when I’m with you guys, and by the way, Seth Elkin is here for the Maryland lottery, and sometimes they get together with John Martin, and sometimes Doug joins me and talks about winners or things that are going on within the lottery. Couple months ago, we talked about Mega Millions changing and changing the format a little bit, and we’re now up on it the the advertising this week would support that, and all that we did last month in Gambling Awareness and some things move away. But this has been something we’ve talked about for a couple months, that this is the week that it happens. You’ve had both the jackpots get real, real thick for, you know, week or two, they both have been hit at the end of March, getting into April, I wouldn’t say big changes, but fundamental changes, certainly with Mega Millions, that if you’re a player, and my wife is a big jackpot player, by the time maybe people even hear this next week, one of these could go over into three digits. The idea is to sort of get it to three digits quicker and to get it started a little faster and the game and the price point that a lot of things have changed about Mega Millions, but fundamentally tried to make the game more fun, right? Yeah,
Seth Elkin 19:08
it’s a pretty significant change. And you know, the the the big thing that’s going to jump out at people is the price change. It does move from $2 to $5 on your Mega Millions tickets beginning on April 5. So the Friday, April 4 drawing is the last drawing of the $2 Mega Millions format, and the tickets will go to $5 at that point. But a lot of other changes coming along with that. The first thing is that all of the prize amounts are increasing right now under the $2 Mega Millions format, if you win, the smallest possible prize is also $2 so you might break even when your money back. The new Mega Millions format with the $5 price does not have a break even prize. So if you win any winning ticket, will pay a minimum of $10 so you’ll always be at least twice that $5 amount that you paid to play, and there will be a. Built in multiplier on every line of numbers that you purchase. So you’ll play your line of Mega Millions numbers, and it will have a multiplier amount automatically generated and printed on the ticket to the right of your Mega Ball number. So it’ll be either 2x 3x 4x 5x or 10x and you’ll see that when the ticket prints out. And so the prize structure chart will have a base amount, and you’ll always be multiplying that base prize by whatever the multiplier is on the winning line of your ticket. So all of the prizes are getting bigger. And of course, as you mentioned, the jackpots are going to start to rise more quickly as a result of the price increase. There’s a portion of the cost of each ticket that goes to fund the jackpot prize. So with the cost of the ticket going up, the jackpot will rise more quickly. And you know what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard from players, and what we know from from the purchasing patterns that we see, is that people love to play. When those jackpots get big, it becomes almost like a social event, because you’ll have people will pull their money together. You’ll have groups of friends or coworkers or relatives that will go in together as a group. Maybe they don’t play all the time individually, but when that jackpot gets big, that’s when they’ll jump in together to play. And it becomes a shared experience, and it’s something fun, and we certainly want everybody to keep it something fun. And remember, you know, even with the price change, make sure that you’re playing within your means. Play responsibly. And if $5 is a little too rich for your blood, remember that there are a lot of other ways to play lottery games for $2 or less. There are still two other jackpot games, if you like, a jackpot style game, where that that top prize amount increases as time goes along, Powerball remains $2 and then there’s multi match, which is our in state, Maryland only jackpot game. It’s not sold all across the country the way Mega Millions in Powerball are multi match is only sold here. And both of those games are still $2 each. And there’s still a host of other games that we have. Both draw games, scratch off games fast multi match
Nestor Aparicio 22:01
got like 700 grand right now, right? You know, I mean, and it’s, I don’t see more winnable game, but certainly the odds are, the odds, right, so math, right?
Seth Elkin 22:11
Yeah, the odds are certainly it’s a smaller range of numbers that the game is drawn from. So the odds are certainly better in your favor in multi match than they are in the national jackpot games, and there are more ways, more ways to win and more opportunities to win. You know, in multi match, when you buy a ticket for $2 you’re getting three rows of numbers three lines, and you win the jackpot by matching all of the winning numbers on any single line. So a $2 multi match ticket gives you three chances to hit the jackpot, whereas a $2 Powerball ticket gives you only one chance, or a $5 Mega Millions gives you only one chance because it’s it’s $2 or $5 for one line of numbers, compared to three when you play multi match. So these are all the decisions that people should definitely consider and make for themselves and make informed choices about the games that they play. The Mega Millions change. One other change that goes along with it is that the odds of winning get very slightly better. We don’t want to oversell that. There’s still very, very long odds of hitting the jackpot or of winning a prize, but the jackpot odds actually will get a little bit better than they are in Powerball, so that, you know, again, that’s part of the calculation that people make for themselves. But the way that’s happening is that the range of numbers that we use, or that the Mega Millions will use to draw the Mega Ball, number will be reduced by one. Right now, in the current $2 format, you pick the Mega Ball from one to 25 in the new format, when it moves to $5 you’ll pick a Mega Ball from one to 24 so you’re reducing the range of numbers. It reduces the possible number of outcomes, and that that makes the odds very slightly better. And that’s, again, something else to consider, as the game makes its changes the
Nestor Aparicio 23:54
odds better than me hitting a triple Lindy, sorry, I had to get it back to school back to school. Reference, there you go. Seth Elkin always takes me back to school with the Maryland lottery and back to the future with some fun. Listen, it’s baseball season before I let you go, because you know it is. It’s opening day week. Hope springs eternal for everyone, unless you’re a pirates fan. Well, I’m worried about the Orioles pitching, right? I mean, like, it’s early in the year already. They’re gonna get Henderson back, but cows are down already. Suarez by Venezuelan compadre. Like, I would just say all of this is, it’s baseball. I mean, the Yankees, look at how much pitching they’ve already lost, right? The Dodgers and Padres look great the first week, but it’s early, and we love baseball, and I, you know, I just hope we get away from torpedo bats. And just like, let’s get Zach effin deal. Let’s get Bautista working, right. Let’s get, you know, let’s get, let’s get keep guys healthy and all of that. Let’s get Adley rutschman, right? That’s where I am as an Orioles guy. Where are you as a as a pie? Arts
Seth Elkin 25:00
person. Well, you know, I have one note on the Orioles that you’re interested mentioned the pitching I was watching highlights. Was watching MLB Network last night, and they were talking about Sandy alcontra from the Marlins. You know, on the Marlins a team not going anywhere fast unless they play all their games against the pirates, who they did awfully well against in the season opening series. But maybe Sandy al contra is a possible acquisition target for the Orioles going forward, if they’re looking for a pitcher, he’s coming back off off Tommy John surgery, I believe, was missed most of more than a year. Well,
Speaker 1 25:30
aren’t they all you know, aren’t they all right, but yeah, you’re, you’re,
Seth Elkin 25:34
you’re the Orioles are certainly in a better situation than the pirates are. The pirates have are scuffling along and will continue to do so. I have a feeling everything a real star, Paul Skeens on the mound, and that stopped the bleeding for a little while, and and then you got to go play the New York Yankees for your home opener coming up later this week. So not looking forward to that, not looking forward to getting a close up look at the torpedo bats, because it’s going to be ugly, I can tell you that
8Nestor Aparicio 26:02
right now. Well, I mean, nobody’s banging trash cans, and if they’re legal, I don’t, I don’t even know what to say with baseball and the strike zone and the automated stuff that we saw in the spring. I mean, the game’s changing and evolved. I I can honestly say this. I mean, the game’s played when it’s played at a good pace, and it’s a great game. I mean, I think we’ll all agree when that, but within the guard rails and Dave shining joined me on the crab cake tour over pizza John’s two weeks ago, we did, he and I and Luke went an hour and a half on what we like about the game and how the game’s changed. And Dave was, you know, Dave’s covered 30 years of baseball, and, yeah, we talked about hundreds of World Series games, you know, crazy numbers. And he just said, I, you know, the game with the shifting and the length of the game, he’s like, it just got away from me as someone who loved the game. Then we’re all sort of coming back in different ways. And one thing that keeps it interesting, I as you, as a pirates fan, you got a great player, right? Like, I think it kind of starts with get me interested in some way. And when you don’t have great players, you don’t have much and I guess that’s a start. And boy, the Orioles
Seth Elkin 27:06
have certainly done that the way they built this team the last few years. Difficult to be losing guys. You lost Santander, you lost Corbin burns, you know, tough to replace. When that happens, you lose your big home run guy, and you lose your top starting pitcher,
Nestor Aparicio 27:20
I don’t know, O’Neill’s looked okay this week, right? And injuries are a whole different I mean, for anyone, Yankees included, right? They they hit everybody. But it’s baseball season, and I, you know, I like talking about the games on the field, right? Like the game itself fun, and how the pitching is doing, and all that stuff. I like to keep it to that, because the torpedo bats and stuff, you know, I’m not a scientist. I can’t play one on the radio. You know, at the end of the day, people
Seth Elkin 27:44
love home runs, right? Everybody knows that. Baseball knows that. And if the torpedo bats are helping teams hit more home runs, then it’s going to attract more eyeballs to the game too. I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 27:53
know how I’m going to get John Martin on if they keep moving the fence back in. I think the Orioles
Seth Elkin 27:57
need to get some of these torpedo bats, and then our contestants of the game are going to do really well this summer. So Steve,
Nestor Aparicio 28:04
look at that. You’re you’re on the inside of the lottery, and you’re cheering for the winners. I you know what I mean. You’re cheering for John to get more money away. Seth alkin is here. He is the director of communication and communicating, we usually communicate some baseball and have some fun. It’s a little spicier in football season when it’s Steelers and ravens between us. But off season here, I will leave you with this. And Mike would not mind me saying this the meme of Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin AI generated they were doing yogic namaste together out on a lake somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. It was funny picture. I made sure that coach Tomlin got a hold of that. I got three crying Funny Face memes back. So if it means anything, I’m going peaceful into this draft. Is that okay? Seth, I
Seth Elkin 29:00
suppose so I don’t know how peaceful things are among the Steelers fan base right now. But who’s
Nestor Aparicio 29:05
your quarterback? I don’t know. I don’t know either. I’ll leave it at
Seth Elkin 29:11
that. I recall saying to you a couple years ago that we went 20 years between Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger, and that I I did not see it possible for us to to have that repeat itself. And every
Nestor Aparicio 29:22
time I ever met Mark Malone or saw him on ESPN, I thought about that. Hey, by the way, you know my crazy belt buckle collection, right? Like I have, I’ve moved to the NFL 1971 collection. Have I told you this? I vaguely I know the belt buckles I’ve been talking to this is I found this Houston Oiler special. How, how beautiful is that 71 oiler helmet? Huh? Come on now. And by the way, also got some medallions for 7071 too. I have not invested, and it would be an investment in a Pittsburgh Steeler one just yet, but I do have a Cleveland Browns one I’ll show you next time. How about that? Oh. Like the most if I’ve been in your office. Man, you got Pittsburgh Penguins trash cans and and foot rests and stuff going on in there? Man,
Seth Elkin 30:07
gotta surround myself in black and gold around here, especially during football season, it can be a little difficult. On behalf
Nestor Aparicio 30:13
of my friends at the Maryland lottery, I’m gonna sing the Huey Lewis song for the Back to the Future promotion, and not the Sister Sledge around here, which I managed to avoid on my way into Toronto last week. All of our baseball coverage is fun around here. Luke has been covering the games. Birds are out in the west coast, in Arizona, late night coming up this week as well. We’re going to be taking the Maryland crab cake tour to our dear friends that cost us in who need a hug, some love. Stop. See them, be with them. The family has been devastated by the loss of Mr. Costas. We’re going to be there celebrating his life, eating crab. I’ll probably eat my face off next Friday, I’ll have the magic eight balls to give away. We’re going to be doing the Maryland crab gates, where I haven’t booked a guest yet, because I’m trying to figure out how to properly honor Mr. Costas. Next Friday, because it was already on rotation. It is the 11th of April, so come on down next Friday and toast him. We’re also going to be at Cocos. We’re going to be at the Beaumont we’re going to be Cooper’s north, doing the Maryland crab cake tours, all presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Always telling folks do this responsibly. It’s baseball season. We have fun with it. Play some home run riches, get involved in all of that. And we do love watching the games. Of it is, it is it is really awesome that baseball’s back. I missed it gives us something to do every day. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 calf, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.
