Author and recovering baseball writer Tim Wendel talks Civil War, his new historical fiction book “Rebel Falls” and a ton of baseball history and no-hitter lore with Nestor as old friends reconvene and talk about writing stuff people want to read.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baseball, hitter, game, people, baltimore, civil war, writing, life, years, played, grew, watch, book, day, historical fiction, scherzer, talking, literally, press, lincoln
SPEAKERS
Tim Wendel, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Look at home we are wn St. Am 5070 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive celebrating 25 years. Our 25th anniversary documentary helped and narrated by so many Rock and Roll Hall of Famers like Jeanne shock and friends of mine like my bro heart John Allen and Mickey Coachella my dear friend Ray Bachman who will be at the heart Cheap Trick show on Monday night maybe you can wear my my backup cheat trick up belt buckle on Friday we’re gonna be at fadeless having crabcakes Luke Jones and I are gonna gather for Mother’s Day we’re gonna be giving away the PacMan scratch also in the Maryland lottery also have these next Friday the Orioles into a nice little chunky homestand here, first place oriels all of it brought to you by our friends at Liberty pure solutions bringing my water clean and clear to me. As well as Jiffy Lube multi care. I am drinking my royal farms coffee. It’s morning as we’re taping this, I’ve been awake for like six hours and it’s 8am. And you know, there’s nothing better than good fresh royal farms coffee out of the coal roofing mug with a real author with a real guy that writes real books, not baseball books, not Castro’s Cuba, not like how awesome the 1991 World Series was or anything like that. But I know him through baseball, he was at one time. One of my favorite baseball writers he’s moved away from the game a little bit to to more serious novel work and his work as a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins University. We welcome Tim Wendel back on to the program our defending champion. And dude, I was gonna talk Rubenstein with you and Orioles and Craig Kimbrel and starting pitching and all that. And I’m like, Dude, I’m doing like civil war, like sort of pseudo history novel writing now. And I’m like, Well, you know, your time at Johns Hopkins, you’ve changed and when not the guy I knew worried about the starting rotation. Right?
8
Tim Wendel 01:55
I still worry about a little bit but not as much as I used to. That’s for sure. That’s there. So no, no, we’re doing new book, rebel falls, and actually a drops next week. So did
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:06
you decide to go serious and stop writing in the toy department and worrying about things such as credentials? Things like that? Well,
Tim Wendel 02:13
I don’t know. When I when I saw the state of baseball sometimes I said, Well, I gotta I gotta branch out a little bit. But no, it’s I think you just follow what you’re interested in. I mean, I’m married to an incredible author, myself and my my wife Jackie’s and his very successful ghostwriter. And I’ll get latched on to certain things like I did with rebel falls about what I think is one of the biggest what ifs of the Civil War, and I’ll start doing a little bit of research. I’ll find out a little bit, and I’ll start talking to her about it at the dinner table. And ma’am, a one week goes,
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:46
8you’ll say you should write about that, Tim,
Tim Wendel 02:48
that that’s about 10 Dr. Wendel day limit she just goes you know, I’ve kind of done with this man, you should write about it. So that’s where I jump in and do it up.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:56
Um, you know, I’ve never done it. This is your life with you. So get give me the I just did my documentary. It began as like a five or seven minute sales piece from a sales meetings in January, February, people say, well tell me about yourself. And I’m like, where do I start? After 40 years of doing this? Like I don’t I don’t know how to give you two minutes of that. So I put this documentary thing together, but everywhere I go, there’s such a credibility about people I know who have credibility, and you’re one of them right? And I tried to have nothing but credible people on the show. The podcast the radio show, I don’t know which is more impressive if they’re the radio station, the video the YouTube the so it’s all it’s all of it. It’s communication, right? I mean, and it’s for people like you and me that learned how to write when we were kids that you’re still writing I write as often as I can and have time in between selling doing webbing, we have a new website coming out this week I just worked on this document are really crazy. I do this charity work all this stuff. But you know, you’ve moved away from your original thing and I’m I don’t see I move back to it. But I am now fighting with a new baseball owner about press passes. Right You know, it is it is whether I’m worried whether I’m I’m under review, you know, which isn’t bad if the New York Times is reviewing your but I’m under review and like what the hell are you reviewing whether
Tim Wendel 04:18
double secret probation? Yeah,
8Nestor J. Aparicio 04:21
exactly. I better watch what I say. I mean, if I if I put the pen on my nose and play the class clown, they will let me so but for you you aspired, I think and if you watch my documentary I said all I ever really wanted to be was Oscar Madison. And the My favorite part of the documentary for me is I unearthed this John Steadman audio of him talking about a young Nestor as a reporter. And the guy he knew as a 16 1718 year old kid, writing Chase and rock stars. So you came to me as like a baseball. I don’t say you’re a baseball God, but you had a job that I wanted when I was a kid, which is he runs around and writes about baseball. We For a tabloid magazine, and he’s having the time of his life, and he just profiled Enrico Cartier, whatever, whatever you were doing at the time, but I found you as a baseball writer, and every one of you who was smart that I ever knew Kevin cowherd go on and on and on, came to me at some point in my life and said, kid, give up the baseball card thing, it gets serious because these people are trash. The whole industry is a mess. There’s always been a mess. They’re all a bunch of louses. It’s louses, taking over for louses in general. And we have an owner squirting the fans in left field. So we’re all excited about it here. But you were baseball first in the way that I was baseball. And you at one point dedicate your whole life to that right and and even a couple of books afterward, right?
Tim Wendel 05:42
Oh, yeah. And several baseball books, you know, high heat, summers 68. Down the last pitch. I’d still love baseball. I watch baseball. But you know, as you mentioned, you get a little bit deeper into it. And it’s no, no, it’s uh, maybe not quite what you imagined that would be and and at some point, you kind of do this maybe the same thing over and over. You know, what’s the new hot team who just won eight in a row? I better go cover them. Oh, who just lost five or six? Oh, better cover them. And and you’re just kind of, it’s almost like a Casa Blanca, round up the usual suspects. You just got to swap out the teams a little bit. And away you go. But I still love it. But at times you’ve I did what peaceful for 2025 years. And then, you know, getting the gig at Hopkins kind of branches you out a little bit seeing what some of my students were doing. I counted the other day. I’ve now had nesta 30 plus students publish their first books, both fiction and nonfiction. And the great thing about teaching, the hours suck, but in a sense, you learn things from your students and you go well look what they’re doing, huh, that’s interesting. And then a way it went and, and one of the things I was very fortunate about growing up. I grew up in Lockport, New York. Very sad. Where’s that? It’s on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Rochester. And it’s not
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:06
what my god where you were
Tim Wendel 07:11
8no wonder you a lot this though. Yeah, baseball there you see there, but there’s a couple prominent people from Lockport, Joyce Carol Oates is from Lockport. I met her years ago, I believe we now email which is kind of weird. And but I met her once actually at a gig at in Fairfax at George Mason University. And she found out that I was from Lockport. She ended up kind of coming over and all we did was talk about Lockport for about 20 minutes. I found that later I was done put on the blacklist, never invited to anything at Mason again because it felt like I dominated her time. But she used to want to want to talk about Blackboard. And at one point she I knew the part of Blackboard she grew up and she was on the west side. More Highways, Shopping malls as she legendary to you then. Yes, and mostly because he was so prolific. And then she asked, Where are you? Where are you from unlocked?
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:07
Oh, you’re a writer right now.
Tim Wendel 08:10
And then I started to go well, I covered outside of town. I cover baseball, it was at that point. And she’s kind of looked at me like and they said I was at the other side of town pass Lower Town pass wide waters Marina right by the canal. And she said the Erie Canal and she Your eyes are getting bigger. And she had these talents Nestor for for fingernails, and she reached out and grabbed a hold of my forearm and just kind of squeezed out I thought she was gonna, you know, draw blood.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:40
How do you type with talents on old typewriters in the 60s and
8Tim Wendel 08:44
blue, and she leads it as your eyes are wide. She goes, Oh, that’s the real Lockport and I went, Oh, maybe. Maybe I should do a little bit more. And the other guy who had a huge impact on me see, I was supposed to be an engineer. I was supposed to be a civil engineer. Oh my god, that would have been awful. And because my father was my grandfather was I was supposed to here at the family engineering firm. Now that went off the tracks. And the other guy who had a huge impact on my life was Brock Yates. You ever hear that cat? Sure? Cannonball Run the several the Smokey and the Bandit movies. He is my second uncle. And he would come into my life. Oh, don’t
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:23
stop everything. What your second uncle wrote smokey and abandoned? Yes.
Tim Wendel 09:28
And he would come into my life periodically. And here I am in a family of engineers. And everybody’s pretty serious. Let’s build a bridge or something. Which doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me. And here we come. Brock, come up with a
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:44
8Wesen Terry Bradshaw is open the 70s
Tim Wendel 09:47
That’s right. And he would come in and I was going, this guy is having a hell of a lot more fun than I’m having. So in a sense, he had a major impact on me becoming Sheriff
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:57
Buford T justice. Someone in your family created that character. Yeah,
Tim Wendel 10:02
no line sometimes in the attempt if
8Nestor J. Aparicio 10:05
you look a little tall on the radio, Jim window here he is recovering. So back to the beginning. How does a kid from like the middle of nowhere fall in love with baseball in a knot? I come at it honest and I tell this Ben McDonald story because he calls the games a mess with Ben in the early 1990s when Ben was bad and he was you know, going to be the guy with the Orioles. He took me to lunch at the Benihana. You want to go to Benihana. Meet you and Brad Pennington. We go to Benihana. I buy you lunch nasty. So he told me growing up in Louisiana. He’d only been to one major league baseball game before he ever pitched him one. My dad took me to the Astrodome one time to see Nolan Ryan pitch, you know, and I’m like, I mean, my last name is Aparicio. I don’t know anything other. I went to the ballpark all the time with my father loved baseball. It was all I did. And then I when I was 15 years old, I got a job at the news American and the first story I ever wrote. I interviewed I called Hartshorn, Oklahoma and interviewed Warren spawn. Wow. Right? Literally the P It’s all in the documentary. Like so. And I remember Warren spawned for being joked about in the bad news bears second edition at the Astrodome, he made a cameo. So for me, baseball was my life, and it’s all I ever wanted to do. And then, you know, I find myself fight with Peter Angelos as a 40 year old trying to get the team sold. And it takes 18 years for all that to happen. But I almost forgot how much of my life I’ve been to 58 World Series games. Have you really with press presses? Are you? I like I’ve been wondering while we’re out here anyway, but I hopefully show. But like, I love baseball, and there’s people in my life like you that we connected for this period of time, where baseball was all in our life. And now, you know, I’m doing what I’m doing right documentary. You’re writing civil wars, and whatever. But like, we know, it always comes back to us, though. You’ve watched the baseball game The Last week, Tim you have right?
Tim Wendel 12:01
Sure, sure. The way the Orioles are playing, I’m watching them, I still got my Masson thing or whatever. But But it’s funny. You know, you were just talking there about how the thread goes back. I mean, I grew up at a time, obviously, you know, older, a little bit older than you were, I couldn’t stream anything. I wasn’t quite sure what the players look like. I’m just looking at a box scores. And I still remember, say the Red Sox 67. That was my little league team, the Red Sox, and then 68 You know, with the tigers in the Cardinals, and it’s not like I’m watching them a lot. But I’m following the narrative through boxscore. So it’s such and it was great. It was a lot of fun. Because you could kind of make your own story. Oh, what does that Oh, what did they do here? Whatever. Do you Do you ever play? Oh God, we used to play sports illustrated the baseball game with the dice. You know, you could show
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:55
strat ematic was big in my stomach was big my dad like a PBA. He often backs over to sporting, but yeah, board games that but we don’t play ball. You know, like we played wiffle ball, tennis ball, hard ball, little league ball, I mean, and then we weren’t doing that we played football and basketball like everybody, you know, I didn’t play soccer, lacrosse, my neighbor, I played a lot of tennis. But baseball was everything because it’s Baltimore, like in the 70s. And Brooks is still playing. And it’s all just retcons about to happen. And all of that, to have the last 30 years here and to chronicle it the way I have. And being the only one that’s been honest about most of it. I find if I like I’m drawn back to it now because the community is getting drawn back to it with the new owner and like all of this stuff, but I find people like you that have like, right Civil War stuff now doing doing different things in my life. And I have so much respect for that. Because sometimes it’s like a mafia you can’t get out, are you but with the media shrinking and everything that you saw, you took your life in a different direction, but like, you probably wanted to cover baseball your whole life and do nothing but baseball, right? Yeah,
Tim Wendel 14:06
8certainly for a point and I love bringing people in the baseball was that I think a couple two summers ago, they had the Sabre convention there in Baltimore. And I went up and one of my editors, dear friend guy named Rob Taylor, who was at University of Nebraska Press, we’ve done a couple of books together. He had never been the captain. And you know, and he’s busy. You know, he’s got his booth there at Sabre, and he’s meeting with people. And I kept got Rob Rob brought up their plane, we’re gonna go I’m gonna, I’ve got you a ticket, please come, let’s go. And I pretty much pulled him away from his booth. And I got him in the Camden. And it was like one of those great moments, and that’s so much the game but we sit down, and all of a sudden he’s just kind of looking around and he’s quiet for about an inning or two. Yeah, and I’m going, are you okay? And any other Great as blimey goes, this is better. This is much better than expected. Cool, I’ve done my job. And
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:08
I said to him, If I were there, I’d have been the smartest. And imagine when Angelos knows how good it’s gonna be.
Tim Wendel 15:13
I’m actually with Brooks, better Brooks if he was played third base of this place
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:19
with baseball to love it as much as you did being from where you were box scores. I mean, I get all of that. But like, what was your experiential part of going to a game in the middle of No, I mean, I guess going off to Buffalo for every
8Tim Wendel 15:31
game. Yeah, minor league game in Buffalo. I played a little bit of literally, but my grandfather used to take me to games, he was a big baseball fan. And he would take me to games in Buffalo. Now, people need to remember it, they know that stadium, and everybody kind of knows that who’s piled the natural, the natural and so and when they and there’s a moment in the natural where, you know, they take out the and a sense experienced pitcher and they kind of bring in the guy who looks like you know, Redford back in the day and all this stuff and they kind of set up this deal and everybody’s read the book knows it’s not all beautiful at the end. It’s more tragedy. But the guy pitchy that they take out the experience pitcher was a guy named Phil Rosenberg. Phil Rosenberg went to Lockport, Senior High High School, amazing pitcher, amazing pitcher he was drafted, obviously never made it got a little bit hurt. So when people kind of go, oh my god, I saw that natural that’s a lot different than the book by Bernard Malamud. You know what happened that I went, it would have been exactly the same if they kept Phil Rosenberg in the game. But instead they set up this other thing, and I loved that stadium. That Stadium was great. I saw Mike Epstein hit three homers there one time and a game and, and that’s also where the bills played for a little bit. It’s no longer exists. And, and it’s a real tragedy because unlike Baltimore, the mistake buffalo keeps making over and over again, as they don’t have their stadium downtown. They’re building now a new stadium that’s literally right across the street from the existing football stadium in Orchard Park and going to be as much as snow and problems as the current one is Spoken like
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:17
a true Western New Yorker, a fact and fiction and baseball and fantasy and he’s written about all of this stuff. The good Doctor Tim wenzels, your new book, Cornell University Press. I got to promote all this rebel falls. I’m not baseball related but certain there
Tim Wendel 17:36
is a baseball scene in it though I always seem to include one now. So in it during the Civil War, it was baseball. Yeah, they were they were playing. Yeah, there was not quite the game we know today. But both sides were playing day or post double day. Oh, here comes double day. I forgot my history on that one. Yeah, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:52
8don’t know. They make it all up in Cooperstown. Anyway. So you decided to this is not your first book of of? I want to get the word, right. It’s not fiction, but it’s civil war. But you’re telling me what it is. You’re the right. It’s
Tim Wendel 18:07
historical fiction. And this is probably the Castro’s curveball was historical fiction. So is the sequel to that. So a little bit experience with it. But what the start of it the genesis of it was that sir, I love reading endnotes and that footnotes but endnotes say how did they put this together? Like in the back of a book like Eric Larsen, we used to live in Baltimore. Does this a great deal? I love it. And I was reading Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin, and I got to like the end, and I’m going, thank God. There’s these two guys she’s mentioning just briefly, but mentioning John Yates, Bill Bennett burly, who the hell are these cats? They were Confederate spies along the Canadian border and the last couple of months of the Civil War. All right, big deal. What they try to do, they almost seize the only reunion warship on the Great Lakes. Oh, what’s that mean? It means if they had gotten that they were going to shell to Lido Cleveland, Erie buffalo. On the eve of the presidential election, Lincoln probably loses. And I went, this is interesting. And I was also intrigued because as we were just talking about with the natural and buffalo. I love Niagara Falls, I grew up 15 miles away from Niagara Falls, and all this intrigue, this espionage just spies on both sides. The Union and the Confederate are all centered in Niagara Falls Toronto, Montreal at that point, and I went this it’d be a lot of fun to write. And we kind of are so as Canada at that point. Historically, like, I don’t know, it was a dominion of Britain. But what is interesting this is in the history books, if they touch on this at all, when we’re in high school, or in in college, they’ll talk about oh, Canada was the place, you know, escaped slaves or tried to reach who was like the endpoint or the Underground Railroad. That’s all true, but it was also had a great deal of backing the South. A lot of the churches, a lot of the businesses, a lot of the banks of the newspapers, they were all for the South. Why would bet a better business deal when they pulled John Wilkes Booth out of that farmhouse where they spent shot 12 days after assassinating Lincoln and Port Royal Virginia. They are going through his pockets. Okay. Oh, they find some change, you know, a pocket knife. Diary. He’s been keeping the scanner interesting. But the thing that blew their mind was they pulled out a banknote from a Bank of Montreal. That’s where he was getting all his money. That’s where he was getting his support to first hatched the plan to kidnap Lincoln, and then the Genesis to assassinate Lincoln. I mean, Canada is a very interesting place. And I can say that I married a Canadian. So in a sense, it’s it’s it’s bizarre how it plays out the backdrop during the Civil War, especially the bookcase. Was it the book drop? Look will officially drop in about two days. Oh,
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:03
wow, this is this is good. I’m warming you up for all the press you’re going to be doing for forever. This year. I would love for you in Baltimore. Everybody you’re sure? Because you’re a Hopkins? Right? I get that was that the official title? What are they
Tim Wendel 21:18
greater in residence? Yeah, I
8Nestor J. Aparicio 21:19
assume everyone. Something I don’t know why I don’t know. Well,
Tim Wendel 21:23
I said writer in residence. What does that have? What does that mean? I was like a small committee meetings or something? And they said, No, you’ve only got to do two things. You’ve got to write and you’ve got to reside I want I can do those two things. Outside of that it gets a little bit nuts.
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:37
There’s the residing part contain what does that
Tim Wendel 21:40
8ring I come on up periodically. But so much of now nessa is virtual, that pretty much all reside in this another way
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:47
you have this great microphone, dude, just that’s kind of weird. Air Traffic Controller.
Tim Wendel 21:52
It’s like, you know, no,
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:53
you sound great. On the radio, though. It’s perfect, man. It’s exactly where you are. So the book comes out and what what is the modern writing a book, you want to be the New York Times bestseller? I don’t the genre of doing this is very, there’s still people that read books. I know people that read books, read books, write books on tape, there’s audio books, there’s, I’ve told I had, I had an author on two weeks ago with a book. I’m like, I’m gonna read your book. But I have Geddy Lee’s book in front of it for the first trip. And I have Rick Emmetts book from trying. And after I get through those, I’ll get to your book, then, you know, so I’m sort of lining up my summer reading, I got to find a vacation first and find a portal layout, because I’ve been kind of busy, but I’m just writing and for an audience clearly different than writing baseball books, right?
8Tim Wendel 22:42
You know, it’s you always try to find your community, so to speak. And I think sometimes that’s the mistake some writers make, they’ll either try to pitch a book to try to sell a book or even, you know, go out with a book to promote it, and they aren’t quite sure what the community is. I’m pretty sure I know what the community is with this. And its historical buffs, you know, Civil War, especially the last, you know, potentially maybe speculative history. And so it’s, it’s fun. And in fact, one of the guys who’s big and rebel Falls is William Seward, who was Secretary of State at that point in time in 1864. When this takes place, and Seward the Seward family is arguably the most powerful family in the north. At that point. He’s Secretary of State, he could have been president, but Lincoln beat him out, etc. He’s the guy who goes out and buys Russia advice, Alaska from Russia. And I’m going to be but not Greenland. Greenland. That’s different. That’s Mr. Green, for sure. But so anyway, I’ll be doing a gig, what, two weeks, two and a half weeks at the Seward house and Auburn, New York, and I’m looking forward to that. That’s part of a big swing we’re doing through upstate New York, and I’ll probably end up in Lockport.
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:54
Well, I mean, you’re writing Civil War history, right. Like, anytime I’m anywhere near Antietam, I did the crabcakes where I had never been to the fields out there and really read about the tragedy there. And you know, you learn about this stuff in eighth grade, and then you either revisit it, or you wind up at Gettysburg for a day or you know, but the trail of Manassas going down to Bull Run and like so I see all of these battlefields as part of going to a concert I’m going to have crabcake I’m driving out to Deep Creek Lake or I’m going up to Pittsburgh and you go you go to Pittsburgh now you see Somerset, you see the 911 and everything that’s going on. But we have such a fertile soil here in the area where you are at Hopkins, Baltimore, Washington, all the Lincoln stuff and trains and coming in and sneaking in and out of Baltimore and all of that stuff that’s so rich for all of us and you see it anywhere you go to flea markets, weekends, Civil War history, all of that. We think you’ll be doing stuff in the area here right like Baltimore be rich for this right? Yeah,
Tim Wendel 24:52
Baltimore be up and it’s funny because I think sometimes we tend to put the Civil War maybe too far back. You know, we just Sad, you know, I live here in Charlottesville. All the statues have been taken down, we had the unite the right thing in 2017 In some ways, you know, we’re still fighting this war, we’re still debating what how it should be remembered, you know how it should be immortalized. And it’s it’s interesting because you dig just a little bit deep. I mean, it’s just been in recent weeks in recent months that they finally are taking down the Confederate War Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. You just go what is that doing there? And yet it’s been there forever. And so how this you know, we tend to think history is written, and then it’s put away in the case of the Civil War, history is being rewritten a lot. And the one of the things that blows my mind is often it’s the victors that right, in a sense, the history books, in the case of the Civil War sometimes and a lot of cases. It hasn’t been
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:55
8if the aggrieved Yeah, to some degree, it’s a lost cause. A little interesting piece. I didn’t even think about this, but my mother was from the Deep South and Abby Ville, South Carolina. At one point, Julia Roberts call it the most racist place she’d ever been. And she grew up in Georgia. She grew up in Smyrna. So she shot sleeping with the enemy. In literally the house across the street from the house. My mother grew up in on magazine Street and Abbeville South Carolina. It’s my I lost my mother, six years ago, and at the end of my mom lived to be 98. I mean, she lived a beautiful life. At the end of her life. I kept threatening to take her to what she would call home, because that was your hometown, and all during the 70s I watched everyone and Nolan Ryan’s no hitters in at AP and Abby Phil, South Carolina on rabbit ears. Like literally right in the 7870 90 they cable television there before we had it here. My aunt’s house so I would go down there in the summer in have TBS and watch cartoons and it was awesome. But I went back for the first time in 30 years. I bless them I was back just by 1985 it was longer than 40 years. I went back to see Sammy Hagar in Greenville, South Carolina on my birthday six months ago. It was when the Orioles got eliminated if you already played the Astros in one, I couldn’t do the trip. It was like October 20. So I went went down to Abby Ville, South Carolina and I knew all of this through my family and my mother and her sister. They were deeply Southern, you know, and I mean still are my mother’s brothers kids are Confederate over the top trumped out like, ad to throw them off my Facebook. I went down in October my mother’s grandfather, my mother was born in 1919. My mother’s grandfather was a civil war hero. His name was Thompson. He has a plaque, not a statue but a plaque. The brothers of the Confederate Army Abbey Ville, colonels, he was a colonel. He lived. He lived afterward, came back had a family for a while lived into the 1790s plaque up. It literally is in front of the Civic Center, which isn’t like the Baltimore it was it’s more like a gym, more like a community center in Abby Ville. And I went and found it. I hadn’t been to the abbey bone for two years. And I went to this little town. And it was just as I remembered it. I grew up, I spent, you know, 10 summers in my not summers, but two weeks of my summer longer than I wanted to be there chasing crickets. Trust me in July, when the orals were in the pennant race in 79. Trying to listen to those games on PTO, I remember that the beer was not cold for any Chuck Thompson fan out there. But I went down there and it like I don’t have a perspective as to whether that should be there or not. And whether the name should be there or not. I know it was very important to my mother’s family. I know it’s twisted and weird and the whole trail of all of it and spending any amount of time down there. You still sense that we have moved too far away from where we were and but I think for anybody in the south, I have a South story. And it comes right to the door of my family frontage. And it’s something I never talked to my mother about neural, you know, I live she lived I was 50 years old when she died. I never talked to her about like, what was it like, now I know she had slave Help, help or like in the 20s and 30s when she she had a nanny, who clearly was a remnant of all of that. So my mother grew up into it. But I don’t know whether that thing should be there or not. And I took a picture with it. I wasn’t smiling. And I thought it’s still here. You know, my mother’s grandfather is still here, and the plaque stole there. And I was told by my cousins, the Georgia cousins that they would kill if anybody ever tried to take that down. Yeah. Like that’s on the internet. I saw that. I’m like, at that point. That’s when we need to disconnect on Facebook. But that’s how people feel about it. Well,
Tim Wendel 29:46
and that’s why, you know, the civil war has been called our most complicated of wars. You know, we’re still trying to tease out where we’re at with it. So many decades later, or centuries later. It It’s amazing. You know, you should talk about that. It’s funny how it kind of comes out of nowhere. years ago, it was 100 and 50th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination. And they had actually a very moving ceremony in DC, right there by the Ford theater where he had been assassinated. And at about 1040, I believe, which is about when booth killed him, or shot him. The side doors to the Ford theater opened up, and they had like a fleet of people carrying candles signifying the Lincoln’s body being brought across the 10th Street alley, to the building time where he was, where he died by seven o’clock the next next morning, so I went down, and we’re kind of lighting candles, and we’re just kind of memorializing this, you know, marking this and, and I lit my candle on one side, and we’re supposed to gonna light the candle help the person next to you, I turned in the person on my right was Colin Powell. And I went, Whoa, you know, and if, you know, he was there, he was part of the crowd. And I just went hang on your, and he just, you know, I’m here, but I’m not here. And so we did the ceremony, and the candles move across the alley going to the boarding house, or LinkedIn eventually dies. And I turned to talk to Paul, but he was gone. He was like, the, the wind. And yet that’s another indication like your story of how this war, I don’t know, we try to forget or whatever kind of reach still reaches out, it still has its hooks in us. And until we come to some kind of, you know, real, you know, decision or way to memorialize it or really remember it. I think it’s always going to be there.
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:54
Now that I know, you know, Doris Kearns Goodwin, I gotta get her on and when the Red Sox are in town, and
Tim Wendel 32:01
that’s super tight with her, but I love her stuff. Yeah, well, I
8Nestor J. Aparicio 32:03
mean, you dropped her name like and I’m like, you know, there’s Red Sox and it’s always comes back to baseball with you. And I didn’t one of those here. He is the professor in residence. I got all of that tenured stuff wrong. At Johns Hopkins, is out about old things and rebel falls historical fiction that define that for anyone. Is that sort of like what what the the Trump administration historical? No,
Tim Wendel 32:29
no, if anything, facts are probably important and historical fiction, certainly more so than our political discourse these
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:36
days. Kellyanne Conway, you know, alternative facts? Is that what it is? Oh, no,
Tim Wendel 32:40
8that’s a whole different universe. That’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:42
what I was trying to come up. You know, Kellyanne Conway, your premises if the South had won the war? Is the premise sort of kind of right? Well,
Tim Wendel 32:50
no, it’s it’s more based. A lot of research went into it. Because one of the guys, Bennett burly was actually from England, Soldier of Fortune, I went to England, went to the London library, found all his stuff. And pretty much the twist is not so much if the South had won the war. I mean, that’s been done. But how close they came in the waning months of the Civil War, from creating an international incident on our northern border. And some people go, Oh, what’s the big deal with that? There’s a great book called A World on Fire by Amanda Forman. And she indicates that there was so many spies and the potential for international incident along the northern border with Canada, especially in 1863 1864, that it almost brought in some of the European powers, notably Great Britain, de France, whatever. And she maintains, and it’s pretty cool that the right Spark, or the right incident, and that’s one of the ones I talked about with the season of this warship, potentially starts the First World War. There was so much interest at r&r Civil War, that, in a sense, various countries were looking to come in, we
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:00
clearly didn’t have our ish together, you know, through the 20s and 30s and 40s. You know, we didn’t really know we were going that industrialization thing wasn’t you know, really happened in there. One
8Tim Wendel 34:10
could argue we’re not quite sure where we’re going right now either, but I love
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:14
real stories. It’s just been good dude. I just, I called you to say Mr. Angelo’s dad, Mr. John boys gone and Mr. Rubiks like squirt fans are excited about it. Next thing I know, we’re talking about Doris Kearns Goodwin, and other great authors from your hometown. Do you have anything on baseball for me? I mean, Korean spy called you, you know, give me some baseball, Tim, something. Baseball, baseball, you remember that? The first 50 years of your life. I
Tim Wendel 34:41
do remember it. In fact, what we’re trying to do, I think we’re going to do it next year, is we’re going to kind of do a mash up, I believe, and we got to pull this off and I’m out on thin ice here. But one of the books I did was high heat where I went in search of the fastest pitcher of all time, and I’m thinking of that was you’re talking about Nolan Ryan who had Some great interviews with well said Finch, if you could find it all said finches in that book too, if you can find them, but that that was a marvelous April Fool’s thing, but I’m thinking of taking re issuing high heat, and then taking in a sense the four pitchers who have done 20 strikeouts in a game, a major league game, and that would be what Carrie would matchers or Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Katherine never did it right severs 90 Bri never did. It. Feller had 18 of the will of Orion, I believe had 17 and a game and unfortunately, you know, we would do almost 17 Even before again, give me Terry would max Scherzer Clemens does it twice. Randy Johnson Johnson. Okay, that’s it. And I was at the game where Scherzer did it. In fact, it was one of the most bizarre things is, this is a lesson that people have good baseball lists and keep score. I mean, we’re in that shows your game. You know, the hood, no hitter gets broken up early. All the things you kind of watch for early on in a game. You know, I’ve been lucky to see what two no hitters I was going to ask you. Have you seen a no hitter. And that fact the first one I saw was Wilson Alvarez, Eric Camden, which was a bizarre one because it was like walks and errors and all this stuff. And you’re going I got but he hasn’t allowed to hit I better stick around. But in the Scherzer 20 strikeout game, I’m keeping score. And there’s really no way in a modern stadium. I mean, they’re gonna they’re gonna have the number of strikeouts up but it doesn’t really register. And I was with a really dear friend of mine from baseball weekly. Gary Kaczynski was one of the editors. And we would kind of done a little reunion thing a bunch of us had gone to this game, that’s ballpark and, and Gary about the sixth or seventh and he just goes, hang on a minute. If you try counts how many strikeouts you’re keeping score, I’m not how many strikeouts and I literally I just counted them up. And I and he had either 15 or 16 at that point. And the people around this kind of heard that I really Olson the game took on this record. What’s the record? We’re on our phones I got what is the right it’s 20. Terry would Did you know Clemens did it twice. Remember
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:10
8Seaver had the record for a long time and 19 Right, like, that was a kid maybe right? Yeah. But you know that guy. I think it severs and they four guys at best Eva so okay. And I’ve been doing this 30
Tim Wendel 37:24
And it’s funny you know, Kerry wood came up the other day because my good friend Bill Francis up at the Hall of Fame and Cooper said Kerry wood just went through there as a visitor, you know, kind of was checking things out. You look at that game. If people want to go deep in the weeds baseball wise on I guess we are now look up Kerry Woods game on YouTube, you know, where he has the 20 strikeouts. That made me the most dominant pitching performance you’ll ever see. You could just see the hitters by the second or third time they’re going up. They’re going I don’t have a chance. And he had everything working for him that day. It was your second no hitter 10. Second, no hitter was hanging out at Scherzer. Okay, which was many years later,
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:06
with a lot of nats games when they were good than 10 years ago, huh? Yeah, I
Tim Wendel 38:10
did. And, and was funny. The story with Scherzer is no hitter. You know, we you know, we’re from the climate of though, the press box, right? You don’t say no hitter. So I’m even carrying that on
8Nestor J. Aparicio 38:26
a national game. He’s, he’s having a special game, right?
Tim Wendel 38:29
He’s a special game. And I’m with a bunch of people. In fact, I was doing a thing on Cuba, it was a bug. I talked to a bunch of people about Cuba and Fidel Castro and all this stuff before the game at some luxury suite at the NATs ballpark. And now, I said, Okay, I’ll watch the game with them. And they knew nothing about the game. And now we’re in the fifth sixth seventh inning. And sure, she’s got a no hitter going. And it almost had the perfect and you might
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:57
as well be at a cricket game or something that never happens, because you don’t even understand the rules, right?
Tim Wendel 39:01
8But some of these people sent something special was going on. And they going what’s what’s up,
Nestor J. Aparicio 39:07
why are people so to zero up there to seven thinning,
Tim Wendel 39:11
but I didn’t even say that. And I had some guys in front of me who who are part of this group and they knew what was going on. And I started say, Well, you know, and they turned around it just gave me dagger eyes like going, Oh, you better not say it’s a no hitter. And I finally said, you know, I finally said, look at the scoreboard. There’s something very interesting or unusual going on up there. That’s all I can say. And they didn’t quite get it at first and then they got it and then by the eighth ninth inning, they were into it. And I still who’s the guy who got hit by Scherzer and he kind of leaned into the pitch that kind of destroyed the perfect game. I’ve never seen a perfect game that would have been fun.
Nestor J. Aparicio 39:51
I have a long Lord history that I wrote about in my my book about my father in 2006, which is now 18 years old. When I to free the birds so here’s my no hitter history. The night one the aim is through the no hitter. This is back when I had a media credential I was in the real media is 1987 8888 88. I think it did. It was at April 80. It was early. It was early in the season 8781 others to either way, it was very early, very cold first week of the year. The Amish was a little left handed guy. And I lived on cane street nice Baltimore and I had a press pass and a parking pass. I could go whenever I want the games all the time. I worked at the newspaper. I went all the time. The press pass is shown in the documentary you can go see what a press pass look like in 1986 87. So sixth inning of the game. I know he’s thrown in no hitter. I mean, it’s an Oreo game. I’m watching listening whatever you were doing at the time, home team sports or Cablevision, whatever it was, I jumped in the car went over there. 10 minutes. I got over there on the seventh thing came in, you know parked in the front, nobody there it’s April, there were 7000 people at the ballpark. Walked up and pressbox got my usual crabcake from the nice ladies up there and sat down and watched the end of the game. The the game ended, Robin Yount laid out Robin had a shortstop layout and right centerfield to Rob I believe it was Eddie Murray. And it probably still was Eddie Murray. At the end of the game to make the last play of the game. And Jack Gibbons my boss said go down and get a sidebar on the Avis you know, so I went I was in the locker room when the champagne was flying and Memorial Stadium. But I didn’t see the game. I showed up in this. So I never really considered that. A real no hitter, you know, so I attended several that went seventh inning eighth inning like that during my life got busted up. Messina some other stuff like that. nationally syndicated on Sporting News Radio In 2001. This is three weeks before 911. It was Labor Day weekend. And I was assigned to do the show in San Diego because Tony Gwynn was retiring. And Tony loved me. And Tony said come on out. I’ll sit down with you. And I’m like, okay, so I flew out to San Diego for the weekend. I did my show nationally afternoon drive which was midday 11 The three in San Diego from the press box, the football press box at Jack Murphy stadium. They set me up by doing a national show. The Arizona Diamondbacks had just left town Curt Schilling it just got out there. They were about to win the World Series shilling I famously DJ his wedding Don’t blame me for his politics. But I I was best friends with his wife. We grew up together. She’s like a sister to me. So Schilling sat with me that a half an hour that I was going to run, Tony Gwynn sat down with me. Kevin towers sat with me. Bruce Bochy sat with me. Tony La Russa sat with me because St. St. Louis was coming in national TV game, national TV game. It’s the weird six o’clock game and an all day wide triple hitter on Labor Day. I did my show had everybody on the show I taped when the night before. Messina was throwing a perfect game at Fenway Park that night. And on Sunday Night Baseball and Gwen and I stopped the interview to watch it. The next day, I’m at the game. My flight was supposed to be 11 o’clock through Chicago to get me back home on United. I did the show, I’m sitting in the press lounge. I’m like I want to change my flight. Change my flight to two hours earlier, which means I need to leave the game like the fourth inning, I was gonna fly through LA it was gonna get me home at 5am instead of 8:50am or some four hour difference to get home. And I’m like, I’m gonna go through LA get home sat at the game and I remember very pretty girl who worked for the Padres befriended me who knew a ton about baseball. She was a lawyer and I’m having this great conversation. It’s really pretty girl. I had tickets. I have tickets. I had my press pass I sat in the stadium the whole day and I sat through the first three innings in the Spock seats right behind I took this girl’s phone number I said I gotta go I got a flight to catch my rental car and as I looked out on the centerfield wall where the palm trees that literally Keno had grown out there, I saw there had been no hits. third inning I saw zero. I’m like I promise you never leave a game when there’s not been a hit right. I had to leave left again. Docked my rental car flew up to La got a nice seat on an all nighter flew the whole night landed at BWI. shuttle to the to the airport car my park and ride. I walked off the plane bleary eyed in the old a lounge at United Airlines. Little tiny little thing and I walked onto my rental car I looked down on the USA Today Mr. Windell former I can that guy, corner box. Smith throws no hitter in San Diego. I walked out a bud Smith’s no hitter on Labor Day After broadcasting all day after having tickets to the game I’ve tickets from it, press pass from it. I broadcast from it for hours radio with the late great Kevin towers and late great Tony Gwynn. I walked out of nowhere, the only no hitter I ever attended. I walked out of it. How about that, like that? Wow. I walked out of a no hitter. And I walk into a no hitter and David cone perfect game that happened on a day against the Expos at Yankee Stadium that Scotty P and I were going to see Springsteen at the Meadowlands that night. And that morning, he called me saying I don’t feel like going. We were going to see David cone throw a perfect, so I haven’t seen one for real. So I can’t brag that I’ve seen too, like
8Tim Wendel 45:58
you got to stay put a little bit you’d be all set. But I don’t go
Nestor J. Aparicio 46:02
to enough baseball games anymore. But like it is a holy grail. You must admit it’s a holy grail.
Tim Wendel 46:07
Right Is it is was it’s funny you going back to that first one that I saw with Wilson Alvarez at Camden. I was up there. You know, I would go up early do interviews, you know, like you, you’re trying to get the stuff
Nestor J. Aparicio 46:19
8standing around a batting cage with the batting coach. Talking ball. That’s
Tim Wendel 46:24
the great thing about baseball, you can get so much done before the game. It’s not a big dog pile afterwards. So I was there. I’d done some interviews. I had like the little earbuds on I was transcribing tape. I was getting my act all together. I was in the back row there at the press box at Camden. And I was getting ready to leave there was an afternoon game. And part of you know me want to get home. I want to get home I want to get across American Legion bridge word turns into a you know, parking lot. And I looked up and again it was like a three to one game or four to one game or something like in the sixth inning when I was getting ready to put my stuff away. And I looked up and I went yeah, what a mess. You know this and it was it wasn’t a great game. And but then I looked at I saw zero for hits for Baltimore. I want hang on and even ask somebody Alvarez I knew I counted but I wanted to make sure Alvarez had been taken out of the game they got no Alvarez is still going and I’m going okay. And I actually got my little laptop back out. I kind of sat there and ended up doing a sidebar for USA Today. That evening. I got home at like midnight or something. If you had
Nestor J. Aparicio 47:33
been at Jack Murphy that night, it would have been your sidebar that was here the book is is now out was we shall say this weekend rebel falls. And he is a baseball historian. He’s written so many. Great. What’s the greatest baseball? I mean, maybe you wrote about it, right? I mean, what’s the greatest baseball game you ever saw?
Tim Wendel 47:54
was the greatest baseball game ever saw. It’s gotta be well, I’m going back and forth between a couple here. Maybe Ricky Henderson breaking Lou Brock’s record that that that was a great game. But that whole day, like I was at one event, and then Nolan Ryan supersedes it. And because what Ricky steals breaks Lou Brock’s record earlier in that time, and we’re on deadline. We’re on deadline with baseball weekly. That was a Monday, Monday, Sunday, something like that. And
8Nestor J. Aparicio 48:29
this was a midnight deadline. Probably on the back end. Yes. Weekend games. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Wendel 48:34
Ricky Ricky breaks the record. I had been the rookie guy the whole time. I did the first cover for baseball weekly, which was Ricky Henderson. And I had covered Ricky when I was working in the Bay Area for this emphasis go examiner so I’m going crazy. I’m it’s all Ricky all the time. Ricky’s broken. Lou Brock’s record, blah, blah.
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:53
He really preferred himself in third person. Oh, yes, he
Tim Wendel 48:55
8was the first guy ever did that with totally. When you say Ricky I say Ricky, we
Nestor J. Aparicio 49:00
say Ricky and Ricky talking about Ricky is Ricky. Ricky’s
Tim Wendel 49:03
hammy is kind of bothering him today as well. Who’s this other Ricky? Literally the first time he did that, I thought there was a guy named Ricky behind us. You know, Ricky certain today I’m going, Ricky, okay. But anyway, Ricky breaks lubricates record. I am writing my brains out. And I think I was still what in the press box or something. And like you now we’re going back to you watching with Tony Gwynn watch it watching a game and all sudden Ryan is dealing and he throws the no hitter that evening. I believe it’s a seven time might be at a sequence here. And all of a sudden I get the call going. Yeah, great Ricky stuff, but we’re tearing it all up. We’re going Nolan now, even with the cover, and I and I literally had caught a lot of Nolan Ryan stuff. Nolan Ryan has been great to me over the years and and so I literally wrote Two major features in one day because one superstar superseded the other superstar and that was that was crazy and it’s not like one game but in my mind it blends into this weird dream nightmare of a situation where you think you’re done it’s about ready go out and have a beer and so on. No, Nolan Ryan’s throwing a no hitter we better watch this and if he does throw it you’re writing it and I did well
Nestor J. Aparicio 50:25
it’s been quite a month I choose a foreign off talking about the Dave King man and the rat a couple weeks so we you know the Oakland A’s we go through all of that I’ll tell you why bill is one of my dear old friends who was a baseball guy that love talking baseball history with but you can go check out his Civil War historical fiction in the new book, rebel falls you can also have people find you out on the interwebs your ad on the Twitter and the tweets in the exile Yeah, that’s enough and next project opera knows that this is the only project right now
8Tim Wendel 50:55
it’s your sound like my agent a little bit yeah sound to get some other stuff going. I may stick around with some historical fiction for a little bit. I had a lot of fun with this.
Nestor J. Aparicio 51:03
I’m trying to write you know, like, like total fact and everything that’s going on here with the baseball team good like it’s been quite a you know, transformation in the last couple of months. I’m still trying to process a weather I’m getting my press credential back be whether this guy’s a right guy or not skirt and fans and Cal Ripken and, you know, signing players and trying to grow the brand and fix downtown. So a lot going on here on the baseball side. And it’s the first time in a long time we’ve got like, real positive activity happening here. So it is it’s only been three decades it’s only been 40 years since we’ve had a World Series here. So Tim hopefully I’m winners World Series. Yeah, I’ll be sitting next to you and you’ll be chronicling it for someone
Tim Wendel 51:41
that’s rapid and somebody will be throwing a no hitter and we’ll stick around.
Nestor J. Aparicio 51:46
Robert and William Robert in here. Writer in Residence at Johns Hopkins University baseball story and and real author unlike you know, me just writes books for fun. I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore and we never stop talking. Baltimore positive
