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How my Pop and his love of baseball created WNST

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Chapter 3: My Pop and Little League in Dundalk

Nestor Aparicio

What are your Little League memories of youth? Here’s how Nestor fell in love with baseball at rec leagues at Colgate, Eastwood and Berkshire in Dundalk with his Pop as an umpire and manager for kids.

The Orioles will be better next year — and more new lies after The MacFailure

Nestor Aparicio

Our cool, growing (and still free!) sports media company had another great B2B-Business To Business event last week in Towson with @CoachBillick and an old friend and reader of WNST.net approached me and asked the eternal Orioles question: “So, Nasty, I’ve read all of the issues regarding the Orioles and Mike Flanagan and Andy MacPhail and Free The Birds, but what are we as fans going to do? You need to offer solutions…” Well, virtually every human being I’ve spoken to over the last three years – and I still have a ton of friends in upper management at Major League Baseball and all over the league — has concurred: this just isn’t going to change on the field as long as Peter Angelos is involved in Baltimore baseball ownership. But, of course, I came to that conclusion five years ago when I did the original Free The Birds rally and campaign because in my mind – and time has proven me correct – this was long past the point of no return with the local community and most people of integrity within the baseball community in 2006. And what I’ve come to realize is that this REALLY bugs the

Five years ago we did Free The Birds rally and I’m still proud of it

Nestor Aparicio

There’s been plenty written about the Orioles demise and the AL East standings and the empty stands at Camden Yards speak for themselves as to what the Baltimore community feels the value of the baseball team is circa 2011. The stadium is empty most nights. Fans stuck with tickets can’t find anyone to take them for free. The city has tumbleweed blowing down Pratt Street most nights when the Orioles play. The fan base is so angry, so disenfranchised, so beaten down and/or disillusioned that they’re literally all but gone. It’s the Fall of 2011 — the most recent version of The Apocalypse for any lifelong Orioles baseball fan and baseball lover like me. With the tragic suicide of Mike Flanagan last month – and the subsequent tales of the trail of a broken baseball man who loved this city and the Baltimore Orioles more than words can express – the Orioles have clearly hit rock bottom. Or have they? Oh, I’ve now been hearing for well over a decade that “the Orioles have bottomed out.” Heck, Ken Rosenthal was writing that stuff 12 years ago when he was covering the Orioles for The Sun. I’m not sure any of

Part 2: What does WNST stand for & what journalistic value do we have in Baltimore in 2011 and beyond?

Nestor Aparicio

It’s impossible to address anything that has happened at WNST in our 13 years of existence without talking about the deterioration of the Orioles, the orange fan base and the interest and passion surrounding baseball in our community. And conversely, what would we be – as a company or as a sports town – without the emergence and consistent excellence of the Baltimore Ravens? We launched WNST-AM 1570 in the summer of 1998, when the Ravens were “the other team” in Baltimore. In our entire existence as an entity, the Orioles have yet to play a meaningful summer baseball game. Not one game! To think that hasn’t done incredible damage to our community and my business would be to just not understand the premise of what we’ve always tried to do – create enthusiasm and support and interest and passion for Baltimore sports. Our perceived “war” with the Orioles is legendary and we’re proud of everything we’ve ever said or done in regard to protesting 14 years of losing, insolence and lack of civic courtesy shown by Peter G. Angelos and his ownership group. And every time they continue to do stupid things as an organization – and they do

For those of you who love WNST, please read this and pass it on to a friend who loves Baltimore sports

Nestor Aparicio

Thirteen years ago this week, when I was still in my 20’s, I drove down Hart Road here in Towson for the first time with a cult following on a sports talk radio show from an AM big band radio station with a bunch of local listeners and a handful of small local business owners (largely bars and restaurants) who promoted their dreams via my dream to build the kind of company and Baltimore sports radio station my Pop would be proud of if he had lived long enough to hear it come to life. Three months later, on August 1, 1998 we launched WNST-AM 1570 – “The Station With Balls.” The Baltimore Sun wrote a front-page piece that predicted our demise and quoted the general manager of WBAL-AM 1090 as giving us long odds to survive. So before I ambitiously and enthusiastically begin updating all of you on our cool progress, growth and ambitious next chapter circa 2011 here at WNST, I want to simply say: THANKS! Thanks for all of the nice gestures over these years as a community. From the crazy events, road trips, charity gatherings and parties to the conversations on the radio, to the kind

As purple Festivus season is upon us, alas the real Grinch continues to be Peter G. Angelos

Nestor Aparicio

It’s been 51 months now since the initial “Free The Birds” campaign that we launched at WNST.net in “Year Nine of The Black Cat” and motivated more than 2,000 other brave souls who said “enough is enough” to Peter Angelos and the losing and nasty ways of the Baltimore Orioles. The holiday results are in yet again for another sad orange offseason and I’m feeling pretty confident — as is Las Vegas — that the Baltimore Orioles will not be a playoff team in 2011. And the real reason the team won’t win this year is the same as last year and the year before that: they won’t (or can’t) spend all of the millions of dollars they have managed to extract from this community via their incredibly wealthy and lean “regional sports network” called MASN. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in direct profit that was allegedly to be spent on improving the baseball team for the community to enjoy. But instead of the $150 million payrolls that were promised to “compete with the likes of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox,” that previously earmarked U.S. money donated by Middle Atlantic cable subscribers is in

Happy 91st Birthday to the “real” creator of WNST

Nestor Aparicio

Dear Pop: Happy 91st birthday!!! I know you might be used to me doing the radio show dedicated to you every year here on March 5th but this year I’m “off” the radio (the listeners call it “retirement” and I call it “sabbatical”) so I’m just gonna write you this letter and hope it gets to you. And instead of taking calls all afternoon, I’m gonna take comments from folks on this space-aged thing called the internet. (I’ll explain it to you later but there’s a lot of stuff in the world here in 2010 you wouldn’t really understand without seeing it!) A lot has changed since you left us back in July 1992 and I just thought I’d check in and update you a little with this letter – just kind of catch you up a little bit because every single day I think “What would Pop think of this crazy place now?” And I know how much you love to read, so I thought I’d put it in writing for your birthday – how much different this place is in 2010! Yes, I still write “for the paper” occasionally, but they just don’t call it a newspaper anymore.

Giving Thanks to Baltimore coaches everywhere

Nestor Aparicio

Nestor gives thanks to all of the Baltimore sports coaches and managers from Gene Ubriaco to Brian Billick over his 25 years as a media member. “Coaches are my favorite people” he says.

Happy 90th Birthday to my Pop!!!

Nestor Aparicio

On a morning when the coffee buzz is about Ray Lewis and Matt Birk getting signed and Terrell Owens getting released — and I can’t believe any serious or rational Ravens fan would think signing T.O. is a good idea — my thoughts have been about my father on what would’ve been his 90th birthday. As many of you know, I dedicate each March 5th broadcast on AM 1570 to my dad and in 2006 I wrote a book about my father and his influence on my life and what it’s become. I’ve said it many, many times: my father is really the one responsible for building WNST. My career and my passion for sports and Baltimore is all a result of those trips on the No. 23 bus from Dundalk through Highlandtown and the connection to the No. 22 over to 33rd Street. It has now been 30 months since our “Free The Birds” march on Camden Yards. I’ll save the report card for the changes it enacted for closer to Opening Day. But I wanted to “reprint” the book here online over the next few weeks. There are 19 chapters about how I was raised, my love of

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Chapter 3: My Pop and Little League in Dundalk

Nestor Aparicio

What are your Little League memories of youth? Here’s how Nestor fell in love with baseball at rec leagues at Colgate, Eastwood and Berkshire in Dundalk with his Pop as an umpire and manager for kids.

Giving Thanks to Baltimore coaches everywhere

Nestor Aparicio

Nestor gives thanks to all of the Baltimore sports coaches and managers from Gene Ubriaco to Brian Billick over his 25 years as a media member. “Coaches are my favorite people” he says.

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