Our old WTOP Sports pal Dave Preston discusses the current state of Washington and Baltimore sports. The Orioles struggling with the worst starting pitching in the majors and frigid bats. The Nats have a rough schedule and a disappointing bullpen. And the Capitals are contending, with Alex Ovechkin creating thrills and chasing another goblet.
Nestor Aparicio and Dave Preston discuss the current state of Washington and Baltimore sports. The Orioles are struggling with the worst bullpen in the majors, while the Nationals have a tough schedule and a disappointing bullpen. The Capitals are contending, with Alex Ovechkin on the verge of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s goal record. They also touch on the history of local sports teams, including the Baltimore Banners and Washington Castles, and speculate on the future of James Bond movies with Amazon’s involvement. The conversation highlights the challenges and potential of various sports teams in the region.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Washington sports, Baltimore Orioles, Nationals, Caps playoffs, bullpen issues, Alex Ovechkin, James Bond, World Team Tennis, baseball schedule, pitching changes, sports market, team ownership, free agent signings, sports history, local sports teams.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Dave Preston
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. This one’s going to be fun, because the baltimores are traveling all the way down the Washington down to Washington this week for some games against the Nationals. I still get them confused. They are two channels apart on my my cable thing, so there is one in between mass and one, and mass and two. I always have to figure out, is it nats tonight. Owes tonight. What’s going on? This guy is always on the other side watching the Nationals when he’s not watching the capitals in those big wizards, a little milli make the playoffs, but he watches the wizards easy college football voter as well as college basketball inside or even on his little cup. I didn’t have him on during March Madness. He’s down the dial at W T O P. You can also find him out on the website, at W T O P, and probably at any James Bond convention or forum or Reddit. He is a part of he is Dave Preston, one of our defending champions, dude, the Orioles playing the Nationals. It happens a couple times a year. It gives me a reason to reach to you. And Ovechkin caps all of this stuff going on, our baseball team’s a little disappointing right now. Dave, it’s
Dave Preston 01:12
not ideal. And I think a lot of people thought that the Orioles would be better because they made the playoffs back to back seasons. I think the last time they made the play of three straight years was 69 through 71 different era completely as far as postseason qualifications. Steve,
Nestor Aparicio 01:28
orange uniforms, though, yes, see that? Yes, I know what a fashion guy you are.
Dave Preston 01:33
8Dave, I can’t tell you how much dye and curtains were killed to make those uniforms. Nationals. I think a lot of people thought that this would be the year that they would go for. Would go from pretender to contender. Now, you look at the schedule front loaded, just a tough April. They began the season with Philadelphia. Then they played, after a series against Toronto, they played the Dodgers in Arizona. So you in the first four series, you played the last three national league champions, then this 10 game road trip, which granted, Pittsburgh, Colorado, Miami, there no world beaters. But anytime you go on the road this early in the season, where you don’t have your chemistry set up, you you have a lot of moving parts, and you don’t know exactly how things are going to play out, it’s tough to make a road a long road trip in base, not necessarily three different time zones. But you start in Miami, you go to Pittsburgh, and then you wrap up in Colorado, where a game gets snowed out. And they had they flew back Sunday evening. I think they got back Monday morning at 7am you know, it’s a whatever the Red Eye is. This flight was one worse than that. And then they come back from this road trip, and then they have two Bellwether series, one against the Orioles and the other against the New York Mets, who have Juan Soto and who currently lead the majors in era. So this is the fact that they have a losing record at this point the Nationals. I’m not surprised. I think they’re going to make their hey, if they do so once the calendar turns to May, but what a tough schedule so far. And just looking up the street to what’s going on with the Orioles, you’ve got the worst bullpen in the majors in Washington, era, I think, over seven and era, over six for the Orioles rotation. So it’s one of those things that, you know, it could, what do they say? Something’s got to give? No, a lot of things could give this week. I’m going to take the over, and I think each and every game this week, well,
Nestor Aparicio 03:32
yeah, and the over on the time as well, because there’ll be some pitching changes. Dave, just on the Baltimore, Washington baseball wars. I mean, give your background. I mean, you, you always talk about waiting tables back in the day and all that, being a fan, and you’re from my wife’s hometown in Manchester, New Hampshire, in that part of the world. But like you’ve been here a quarter of a century, doing most of this professionally, watching the birth of the Nationals, watching the birth of Nat massen Watching Angelo’s Lerner the teams a parade in Washington, not really a parade, because they won, sort of in a weird time, but nonetheless, the whole notion of baseball in this corridor, I say, Peter Angelo has lied to me about virtually everything. He told me a lot of lies. He lied.
Dave Preston 04:20
Didn’t he tell you it was Tuesday when it was a Thursday? Once too. Well, yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 04:24
I mean, he’s one of those kind of cats. But the one thing that I go back and I try to find, I’m Baltimore positive, so I’m trying to find the truth here. He did say we don’t believe there should be a team in Washington, because if there’s a team in Washington, it’ll split the markets, and either one of them will have any money to be any good, that feels like a prophecy, you know, 30 years later in the way that baseball doesn’t share revenue, in the way that it probably should, in so many ways. But there is a point with this where, like Washington had a parade and had sort of a glory air. And could add a couple of them. The Orioles have had a couple of blips here. But it does become exceedingly hard when. Best players are playing in Philadelphia and New York now, after all of this in the parade and all that, you’ve got an owner that doesn’t feel fully committed. You don’t know what’s going on the television network all of that, both of these franchises are a little bit wayward after having whatever the prosperity was that has led to whatever prosperity you’d say they’ve had in 21 years together, right? Well,
8Dave Preston 05:24
and I think the disappointment too, for the nationals is the fact that they didn’t make any major free agent splashes this off season. And maybe they tried to, and they weren’t able to. I think a lot of people thought that they were going to make a Jason worth like move who, no, he didn’t win any MVP awards in Washington, but he let the world know that, you know what, the nationals are ready to contend they’re ready to add pieces, and they did over the next few seasons. Max Scherzer, perhaps, in my opinion, the best free agency move ever. And I think the only one that rivals it, maybe Reggie Jackson, you know, way back when, in the 70s, as far as personal production and team success. But since the pandemic, they really have been players. And I think a lot of people thought that this would be the year that they would do. So if you look at their bullpen, it looked like, it looks like they ran through the old and we’re dating ourselves here, going to the grocery store and going through the old VHS or DVD rummage bin. You’re like, on a way Weekend at Bernie’s four. Oh, well, hey, it’s only 99 cents. I’ll get it. And you find that sometimes Mike Rizzo, the general manager in Washington, has been able to get value from guys from the dumpster, but sometimes you get bad apples from the dumpster, and they’re not bad guys necessarily. They’re just not productive ones. So you look at the bullpen right now, that’s disappointing for the Nats. And even though there’s a nice young crew, there’s a I like the young nucleus. James Wood is a heck of a ball player. The pitching Mackenzie Gore currently leads the majors in strikeout. Dylan Cruz finally turned the corner this past weekend, hitting a couple of home runs. He’s been hitting the ball strong and solid and straight away, but guys have just been catching him. I think there are possibilities for this nationals team, but I think until they enter a month solidly over 500 I don’t think the fan base has caused to believe in them.
Nestor Aparicio 07:16
Dave Preston is our guest. He is at w, T, O, P, you can find them on the radio dial down in the district the Orioles taking on the Nationals for a couple of days here. You know, you mentioned your own woes down there and an attitude, but you know, you sign a 41 year old picture. I don’t know what you think the upside is going to be. We’re waiting on Kyle Gibson to come back now. I don’t know what you expect the upside of that to be, the injury part of this and the Tommy John part. And I don’t need to talk to a guy had Steve Strasberg on the front, right? So even when you think you have it, it evaporates very, very quickly. Ask the, you know, ask the Yankees on on, you know, what they spent on Garrett Cole’s. So for me, I don’t know what the answer is, but I know what good pitching and bad pitching. I know the value of that, and I know the Orioles right now can have all the blooming of Adley rutschman and Jordan westburg, and holiday can come into his own, and Henderson could be an MVP, but they could lose 10 to eight every night. Well,
Dave Preston 08:12
I think if you add the staffs together, if you put the national starters with the Orioles relievers, you might actually have a good pitching staff if you if you cobble that together, and that’s unfortunate, because in today’s day and age, you don’t expect your starters to go more than five six innings, so you do need quality heat from the bullpen. And even though the NATs have a couple of guys, you know, I look at Kyle Finnegan, who was an all star last year, learned he was an all star while on the line at one of the rides at Hershey Park. Hershey Park, happy indeed. But you thing is, you got to get to your closer, and they don’t have the necessary pieces to get to the closer, consistent to get to your a bullpen, your back end, your eighth, the ninth inning. Guys consistently, that’s going to hurt them in the long run when you look at the season, but as someone who covers this nationals team, I’m impressed with the starters, and you can’t see enough what Jake Irvin came off two really solid outings that if he doesn’t pitch as well as he does, they get swept in Pittsburgh, they lose a series in Colorado. That’s that’s a huge cog to their rotation. I think a lot of people thought of Jake Irvin as a fourth or a fifth starter on on most good teams, and maybe that’s maybe that’s where he winds up settling, because everybody finds their own water level. But I think when you look at what the Nationals look to do this season, I think if their rotation continues to hold up, if Mackenzie Gore continues to put together solid outing after solid outing. He’s, he’s had some good ones, and then he’s, he’s, he’s flamed out here and there. If he continues to pitch Well, he’s a potential front of the rotation ace. And those guys don’t come along every day.
Nestor Aparicio 09:53
8Dave, the notion of DC sports, and you’ve covered it for a couple of decades now, at top. The hockey team and the basketball team were headed to Virginia. Now they’re not the hockey that. What’s going on with Ovechkin is out. It’s It’s unbelievable that it’s happened, right? That he would approach this, how old he looks, how good he had to be this year, that he got injured. All of that, I don’t know where the shine is only owns us, one way or another, as being the nationals next owner, or the monumental Sports Network, or any of the media part of that, because once this kid was rude to me, I just eight years ago. I’m done so I don’t even really follow it, other than ambiently, the wizards are horrific, but they are the richest part of Ted’s portfolio, right? Like Ted’s going to make more money on owning an awful NBA team than he’s going to have made in anything in his life, like, literally, because of the value of those franchises and the way they’re going at this point. And the football teams change names, change owners. You know, magic Johnson’s involved. They had this miraculous run last year. They have a quarterback now, and the baseball team is sunk back to, sort of like my dad would say, Washington will never support a team, and lost the senators twice, where just sort of like even the soccer team has juice there. Dave Johnson, my dear friend, I see his work there with the Audi thing they’re doing. I just it’s, it’s now a mature sports town, in a way. When you founded waiting tables, there was no like thought about a baseball team, like it might not happen 2025, years ago. It’s all happened. Soccer’s happened all the Trump’s gotten elected twice in your town. So I look at it, and I say that as a sports community, and how much the market can bear for Maryland sports and navy and what my friends at Coppin and Morgan and Towson are trying to do up here. And it is really we’re saturated with sports here to some degree. And this whole thing with the commanders and the Ravens and both having these young, great African American quarterbacks, it’s in a live time, but winning still at a premium. And ain’t nobody really winning. And of
Dave Preston 12:06
course, we’re missing the big ship right there by not mentioning the Washington castles, a World Team Tennis dynasty. Mark, I will tell you they won like I don’t know how many games in a row. Tell me about Washington castles, World Team Tennis, oh, my goodness.
Nestor Aparicio 12:23
Baltimore banners, jacket that I got through. Phil Jackman, it is polyester, my man, it looks like, I swear to God, if you think of what Evil Knievel war, it looks just like his. 19 7270, Baltimore banners, baby Jimmy Connor, let’s go
Dave Preston 12:42
well, and you know, and we’re talking about banners, and I think you know, you mentioned the capitals Nestor just and the season that they had. And when you look at years from now, when we look at back at 2025 we’re going to look at this as the season where Alex Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky’s record for career goals as somebody who grew up following sports, and I don’t remember the day that Hank Aaron hit number 715 but that’s what this chase felt like down the stretch, or from what I’ve been told. And what’s great about this season for the capitals is that not only did Alex Ovechkin break the record for goals set by Wayne Gretzky years ago, but they weren’t hollow goals. This team is contending. They won the division first time since, I think 2021 they’re the top seed in the East. They have a chance to win a playoff series and make a deep run in the postseason for the first time since they captured the Stanley Cup back in 2018 with a somewhat old nucleus way back then. And there are, there are a handful of pieces who are still with this team, John Carlson and Tom Wilson and Alex avec and who are older now, who might have one more run in them. And so I’m curious to see over the next couple weeks, will they be able to sustain what was a fantastic regular season. Because we, as you know, the regular season and the postseason in the NHL are two completely different animals. And we’ve seen presidents trophy teams fade in the first run, like the capitals in 2010 and we’ve seen eighth place teams advance to the Stanley Cup final. I think the LA Kings did that one year. So looking forward to what should be a very interesting couple of weeks for the capitals. And of course, Alex can and your good friend Ted Leon, says,
8Nestor Aparicio 14:25
Yeah, I’ve seen the capitals urinate away a couple of presidents trophies through my day, so that never but by the way, the team tennis thing I did look to Baltimore banners up with 74 okay, but they bet they competed, and I may own, literally the only piece of paraphernalia in the history of the Baltimore banners, I gotta die. Chris Corman, a sport senator, the banner broke the Justin Tucker story a few weeks ago. Like I didn’t even, I don’t even equate one with the other, but there’s where did the Team Tennis play? Where do they play? In DC? You
Dave Preston 14:59
know? I. I don’t I think they, they played it in the George Washington University Smith Center. They
Nestor Aparicio 15:04
okay, it’s somewhere else. I saw REM there once, by the way, yeah, I never
Dave Preston 15:09
8attended a match. But you know, Mark, I’m the owner there. He’s a part owner of the commanders. He sent us a ton of paraphernalia, a plaque that said that be when they had this long winning streak that was only a handful shy of the Lakers, you know, 33 game winning streak way back when. You know, acquainting the NBA with World Team Tennis. But so we joke around and say, You know what you should have seen, the Washington castles. Because you know what? Very few people saw the Washington cast. Very
Nestor Aparicio 15:37
few people saw the Baltimore banners. But I know Phil Jackman didn’t I have a jacket, and I’m thinking if Jimmy Connors might actually worn it. By the way, Dave Preston is here, last thing for you, dude. So I’m getting you’re gonna do a little James Bond thing. You always want to do a little pop culture. So I’ll just let you know. You know, I’m curio sponsored, so I’m fully on the up and up with all this stunt. Day was not only a day the Orioles lost 24 to two in a baseball game. It’s not a punch line. It was 420 right? It says 420 I don’t know if you know if that so I know what that means. At 420 on 420 Cheech and Chong released their last movie, right? So my wife and I bought tickets. We go to White Marsh. We had a cocktail and we went in and we watched Cheech on there. On the way in, I said to my wife, I thought, there’s gonna be a big thing about Lou Adler in this and she’s like, who’s Lou Adler? I’m like, Haha, Lou Adler. Lou our Lou Adler was rock and roll. And I told her a little bit about Lou Adler before we went in, and I said Lou Adler was married to Britt Eklund. Oh, yeah, after Rod Stewart
Dave Preston 16:37
and Peter, Sellers was in that mix too? Yeah, your sellers was
Nestor Aparicio 16:41
in that mix. So there you go. So there was a whole James Bond reference on my way to see a chichi chaw movie, and I thought of you, and it’s the root and the essence. And I looked up and said, Orioles nationals, I’m calling Preston. What do you got on the James Bond front for me? Can you top that story? Okay,
8Dave Preston 16:57
well, well, Amazon, right. Net, yo. How Amazon is taking things over. So we’re trying to figure out what, what are they going to do? Are they going to release movies like the Eon series production crew did? Are they going to do what they’ve done with Star Wars, where you’ve got origin stories and spin offs, Amazon or James Bond? Yeah, yeah. Couple months ago, yeah. They bought they bought out Barbara broccoli and Michael G Wilson, the stepson and the daughter of cubby broccoli. So, yeah, so is money, Penny aware of this? Oh, I’m sure she knows. I’m sure money, Penny, money. Penny is cashed out. She’s gotten herself a golden pair. Is this one of Q’s workings? I wouldn’t be surprised. Wouldn’t be surprised at all, but it’s so right now we’re wondering, When are they going to release the next film? Because it’s been roughly, what, five years, four or five years, since they have last released a James Bond movie. And this is a series where you can, I’m not saying you need one every year, every other year, but every third year, give us an installment, and then if you want to do, like, a Felix lighter Origin series or something like that, that’s quality I’m thinking, like and, or that’s that’s gotten really good buzz. Do that.
Nestor Aparicio 18:11
They lost me with the Halle Berry movie. That was the last one from I was out. You know,
Dave Preston 18:15
I wish they had done a spin off with Jinx. I like Jinx, although that movie was rather ridiculous. Die Another Day. You had the invisible car. You had bond windsurfing and stupid stuff like that. The one of the other podcasts I do Bond, James Bond ranked. It’s on wherever you find your podcast. We rank each of the James Bond movies based on 10 categories. The Bond actor, the Bond girl, the villain, the minor henchman, slash Well, the minor villain slash henchman, the allies, the pre credit sequence, the song, the song, the gadget, vehicles, and then the the locations and look of the film.
Nestor Aparicio 18:55
8Lulu late recently, and I, you know, there was a little tribute to Lulu as well. Dave Preston is here. He’s got to go because he does radio. He’s a W GOP. The Orioles are getting together with the Nationals, the capitals are playing, and you and I are gonna go see James Bond movie
Dave Preston 19:08
winner, sir, yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s pick out two good ones. Yes, exactly. Go ahead. You gotta go. I do. I do. You know the only bond to do the gun barrel thing on his knee was George Lazenby, and in that movie Bond gets married, he mistreated
Nestor Aparicio 19:27
Pam Shriver. So
Dave Preston 19:32
heard he wasn’t a good guy. He was a decent bond, but he wasn’t a good guy.
8Nestor Aparicio 19:36
We are W NST AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and I would say good night to all of my Brit Eklund fans. Oh.
