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State of Baltimore Sports Media

Communicating and capturing sports history and local business needs

Baltimore Positive

We knew inviting our old journalist-turned-communications pro Greg Abel would involve a walk down “Free The Birds” memory lane but Nestor did not bring him to Koco’s Pub on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to talk about the past but instead to question the future of the Orioles brand and Baltimore sports media and marketing with a lifer chronicler and fan of Charm City glory.

Dear Catie Griggs: When Orioles fans ask why I don’t have an Orioles media credential, I’m sending them to you for answers

Nestor Aparicio

I’m pulling for you to fix the Orioles on-and-off the field, even if you continue the bizarrely petty Angelos family tradition of willfully, purposely and strategically mistreating me and restricting a legitimate professional working local media member from asking you serious questions in the David Rubenstein “Next Chapter” era.
“We all want the same things here.”

Do you believe Justin Tucker, words of Ravens “leadership” or the 10-game suspension from NFL?

Baltimore Positive

It’s pretty simple: Justin Tucker is gone from the Baltimore Ravens and serving a 10-game NFL suspension for the outrageous conduct outlined in a tremendous piece of journalism done by the sports and news reporting team of Chris Korman at The Baltimore Banner. Here, he continues his Maryland Crab Cake Tour discussion with Bill Cole and Nestor about local journalism and its difficulty and impact.

A tribute to the Baltimore baseball legend of my former colleague Jim Henneman

Baltimore Positive

Back in the 1980s, baseball coverage at The Evening Sun was sacred and Jim Henneman was the sage leader of Baltimore Orioles’ coverage and made quite an impression on a teenager who wanted to be a sportswriter. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the incredible baseball life of “Henny” and all of the old-timer Baltimore sports media legends who kept the stories of Brooks and Frank alive over the years.

ColumnNes: My letter to Orioles President Catie Griggs

Nestor Aparicio

This month, I’ve had many Orioles fans ask me on the streets of Baltimore why David Rubenstein, a full year into his new ownership and trying to spread a different image from Peter Angelos with a stunt like this bobblehead promotion this weekend, would continue to deny me legitimate press credentials after 40 years of covering Baltimore sports. So, I wrote this letter to new President Catie Griggs a month ago, a week before Opening Day:

Nestor Aparicio media guy

My fall journalism “Declaration of Independence” – Breaking ‘kayfabe’ on how we’re going to cover Orioles and Ravens after 40 years

Nestor Aparicio

What does it say that Nestor Aparicio has been professionally bullied, gaslit and banned by Orioles and Ravens ownership after four decades of covering Baltimore sports as a professional reporter, author and journalist? Plenty. About billionaires, money, fealty and the death of local sports journalism and the emergence of team websites as monopoly “news” sources. Read and learn…

Finally playing “This is your life!” with Mark Viviano after all of these years

Baltimore Positive

After three decades of behind-the-scenes friendship working for “rival” media companies, the freshly retired Mark Viviano finally joins Nestor to discuss their long-standing careers in sports journalism, reflecting on mutual experiences and personal connections. From St. Louis to Baltimore via Atlanta, Dayton and Cedar Rapids, Viv’s memory of their first-ever radio chat via Chicago 25 years ago even makes Nestor blush.

Moving the Ravens press box – and kickoffs

Baltimore Positive

After the second preseason sleeper with the Atlanta Falcons, our Luke Jones joins Nestor to discuss David Ojabo, the offensive line and scrimmage life in Green Bay. And the new media view of the field and the NFL’s new kickoff return strategy for the genius of John Harbaugh.

IMG 8471

How did Nestor wind up with a media credential in Pittsburgh after being banned by Ravens in Baltimore?

Baltimore Positive

As many know, Bill Cole from Cole Roofing inspired large parts of this Baltimore Positive platform over the past decade. A meandering podcast conversation from Christmas to Qatar kept coming back to Nestor being pressed on how he wound up in the locker room in Pittsburgh doing his job for the first time this season after being locked out by Chad Steele and the Baltimore Ravens ownership.

Here’s what you think about WNST…so far!

Nestor Aparicio

For being a radio station that no one can hear and that no one listens to according to Arbitron, our 2012 Great Baltimore Sports Media Report Card is garning huge hits and many folks trying to win the trip to Cleveland. The final question on the survey asks: “What would improve WNST.net & AM 1570 in 2013 to make you visit more often? SO FAR HERE ARE THE RESPONSES: precisely updated “morning newspaper” Seems like some of the stuff is repeated and not updated 9/19/2012 2:29 PMView Responses change to fm. am dosen’t seem to get here without static 9/19/2012 2:14 PMView Responses Have Peter write more article, he does a great job with the business of things, but I miss hearing his thoughts in the blogs. Tell Drew to tone it down a bit especially with his predictions, when a game is way in doubt. I understand Nestor dispute with Angelos, but give it a rest. No one is more passionate about Baltimore sports than he is, but saying the same thing over-and-over again gets old. Luke does a great job, I’d like to see him do more Orioles stuff when it conflicts with preseason football though. All-in-all, WNST

Happy 5th Anniversary to my Free The Birds friends who want change for Baltimore baseball

Nestor Aparicio

I’ve been watching the Baltimore Orioles since 1973 and I’m not sure any of us could’ve predicted what this franchise was to become back in the late 1980’s when Camden Yards was built, our city was starved without football and the Colts had split town. It’s amazing now because most of the people in my company and many of you reading this under the age of 35 do not remember the Colts at all. Or a time when there was no purple. Or when there was no shiny stadia downtown that we all take for granted. I watched William Donald Schaefer fight for all of this. I watched John Steadman politic and report through all of this as a colleague and a kid at The News American. I watched the first shovel go in the ground downtown. I was at that magical game in 1988 when all of this civic planning was announced on the backend of an 0-21 start that invigorated the renaissance of not only the Orioles but this community as a whole. I wrote more than 75,000 words on this topic five years ago. You can read all of it here… I was there for all of

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 3: People ask me all of the time: “How big is your stick?”

Nestor Aparicio

If you’re on this website, chances are you’ve been a WNST or Nestor or Drew or local Baltimore sports fan for quite some time. Sure, a few of you just heard about us recently on Twitter, but for the most part it feels like I know most of you. All 50,000-plus of you, who come to us in so many ways all had a “virgin experience” with WNST. But you’re all here now and my 42 years in Baltimore — 27 of them as a local journalist and almost 20 more as a local media and marketing entrepreneur – has you somewhere an arm’s reach away whether you’re my Facebook friend, Twitter follower, ex-girlfriend, a former sponsor, current sponsor, old friend from high school, you’re on our text service, you get our morning newspaper, you got a “Dump Trumpy” or a “Wacko 4 Flacco” sign from me  – I think you get the picture. I’ve always thought that the late, great Dick Schaap had the greatest line I ever heard about humanity and walking the earth: “I collect people.” There are a LOT of you. There really are. And I’ve shaken hands with thousands of you like a politician at

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

Baltimore loses its No. 1 fan with passing of William Donald Schaefer

Nestor Aparicio

There will be a lot written and said about the honorable William Donald Schaefer today in Baltimore and throughout the state of Maryland. I can honestly say that I knew the man a little and as a kid who grew up watching him shape the landscape of my beloved hometown and later knew him in the “real” world, what you saw was what you got: he loved Baltimore and he loved Maryland and he literally put the “public” in a phrase that has now become trite: public servant. Schaefer served us all, especially those of us who love sports. I’m not sure Schaefer could recite the statistics of the 1958 Colts or the 1966 Orioles, but he could recite the statistics for what the economic impact and loss of the Colts did in 1984 and the value of the Orioles playing baseball in downtown Baltimore in 1992 and beyond. Every time I see a crowd like the pathetic one last night at Camden Yards, I think of what Schaefer would really think of the travesty the Orioles have become in terms of economic impact to stimulate the downtown business district. There’s no way he would’ve been Mayor and watched this

An indictment of local journalism: Here’s our side of baseless Royle v. WNST lawsuit

Nestor Aparicio

Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do? And been accused by someone who is a direct competitor who is attempting to wreck your business and your reputation with a loud and frivolous lawsuit? And have it play out publicly all over the internet and local media? Well, on Tuesday afternoon I became the accused and now under the microscope of live social media, many of you have made it here to my blog to read “what Nestor thinks” about this crazy attack on the integrity and reputation of WNST.net, a company I’ve spent 27 years of my life building to serve Baltimore sports fans just like you and me with quality information, analysis and community spirit and engagement. In case you haven’t heard, WNST.net is under attack, getting served what we deem to be a baseless lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court regarding Jennifer Royle, an employee of my two main competitors over the last year. Her allegations are so outrageous that my mind can’t get around how these baseless accusations could ever enter a court of law but such is the state of the American judicial system. “Anybody can sue anybody for anything” is more than

Confessions of a lifetime of hatred for Pittsburgh from a real Baltimore sports fan

Nestor Aparicio

It’s a big, emotional week of football in Baltimore and the reason it’s so significant is because of our civic desire to have another purple parade at the Inner Harbor and the sheer nausea we all feel in the pits of our bellies about the fact that at 8 p.m. on Saturday night this could be the worse loss of our lives all over again. Just like all of our January losses to the likes of Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and Cleveland and New York. Or, it can potentially extinguish the 40 years of domination from the city of Pittsburgh, but specifically the Steelers and their arrogant, obnoxious fan base here in the region. This is an epic throwdown between two cities that don’t like each other but a rivalry that is so embarrassingly lopsided that it makes the Roadrunner look like a winner. I’m up to my eyeballs in rattlesnakes throwing parties, organizing bus trips and running WNST.net – 12 hours of radio, the daily newspaper, text service plus all of our social media endeavors on Facebook and Twitter that truly is Baltimore’s best and most comprehensive sports coverage in the world. And for those of you who know me,

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

Live from New York: Sports Media & Technology coming to life…

Nestor Aparicio

I’m live in New York at the Sports Business Journal Sports Media & Technology Conference. You can follow all of the correspondence from this event on Twitter at #sbjsmt. For those of you who hate reading about sports “business” or anything more than the latest drama regarding the Ravens’ secondary, this will bore you. But for those of you who REALLY follow WNST and are sophisticated about my personal growth as a new media zealot (and hopefully, one day, a guru) this will be compelling information. Needless to say, I love to learn and I love sports and I love sports media and I love technology. So this is right up my alley. I’ll be breaking my observations up into segments from the panels of the day. You can see the various panels and topics here… I’ll be blogging all day and adding to this piece and I hope you enjoy some of the conversations and observations. ********* Big screen vs. small screen and where is cable TV headed? We’re all paying for cable TV becaue that’s what we’ve always done.
But what will that look like in three years? Or five years? We’ve all seen and felt the myriad of

Communicating and capturing sports history and local business needs

Baltimore Positive

We knew inviting our old journalist-turned-communications pro Greg Abel would involve a walk down “Free The Birds” memory lane but Nestor did not bring him to Koco’s Pub on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to talk about the past but instead to question the future of the Orioles brand and Baltimore sports media and marketing with a lifer chronicler and fan of Charm City glory.

Dear Catie Griggs: When Orioles fans ask why I don’t have an Orioles media credential, I’m sending them to you for answers

Nestor Aparicio

I’m pulling for you to fix the Orioles on-and-off the field, even if you continue the bizarrely petty Angelos family tradition of willfully, purposely and strategically mistreating me and restricting a legitimate professional working local media member from asking you serious questions in the David Rubenstein “Next Chapter” era.
“We all want the same things here.”

Do you believe Justin Tucker, words of Ravens “leadership” or the 10-game suspension from NFL?

Baltimore Positive

It’s pretty simple: Justin Tucker is gone from the Baltimore Ravens and serving a 10-game NFL suspension for the outrageous conduct outlined in a tremendous piece of journalism done by the sports and news reporting team of Chris Korman at The Baltimore Banner. Here, he continues his Maryland Crab Cake Tour discussion with Bill Cole and Nestor about local journalism and its difficulty and impact.

A tribute to the Baltimore baseball legend of my former colleague Jim Henneman

Baltimore Positive

Back in the 1980s, baseball coverage at The Evening Sun was sacred and Jim Henneman was the sage leader of Baltimore Orioles’ coverage and made quite an impression on a teenager who wanted to be a sportswriter. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the incredible baseball life of “Henny” and all of the old-timer Baltimore sports media legends who kept the stories of Brooks and Frank alive over the years.

ColumnNes: My letter to Orioles President Catie Griggs

Nestor Aparicio

This month, I’ve had many Orioles fans ask me on the streets of Baltimore why David Rubenstein, a full year into his new ownership and trying to spread a different image from Peter Angelos with a stunt like this bobblehead promotion this weekend, would continue to deny me legitimate press credentials after 40 years of covering Baltimore sports. So, I wrote this letter to new President Catie Griggs a month ago, a week before Opening Day:

Nestor Aparicio media guy

My fall journalism “Declaration of Independence” – Breaking ‘kayfabe’ on how we’re going to cover Orioles and Ravens after 40 years

Nestor Aparicio

What does it say that Nestor Aparicio has been professionally bullied, gaslit and banned by Orioles and Ravens ownership after four decades of covering Baltimore sports as a professional reporter, author and journalist? Plenty. About billionaires, money, fealty and the death of local sports journalism and the emergence of team websites as monopoly “news” sources. Read and learn…

Finally playing “This is your life!” with Mark Viviano after all of these years

Baltimore Positive

After three decades of behind-the-scenes friendship working for “rival” media companies, the freshly retired Mark Viviano finally joins Nestor to discuss their long-standing careers in sports journalism, reflecting on mutual experiences and personal connections. From St. Louis to Baltimore via Atlanta, Dayton and Cedar Rapids, Viv’s memory of their first-ever radio chat via Chicago 25 years ago even makes Nestor blush.

Moving the Ravens press box – and kickoffs

Baltimore Positive

After the second preseason sleeper with the Atlanta Falcons, our Luke Jones joins Nestor to discuss David Ojabo, the offensive line and scrimmage life in Green Bay. And the new media view of the field and the NFL’s new kickoff return strategy for the genius of John Harbaugh.

IMG 8471

How did Nestor wind up with a media credential in Pittsburgh after being banned by Ravens in Baltimore?

Baltimore Positive

As many know, Bill Cole from Cole Roofing inspired large parts of this Baltimore Positive platform over the past decade. A meandering podcast conversation from Christmas to Qatar kept coming back to Nestor being pressed on how he wound up in the locker room in Pittsburgh doing his job for the first time this season after being locked out by Chad Steele and the Baltimore Ravens ownership.

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