Fish, family and fastballs at Gertrude’s with Casper Wells

In the spirit of the holiday season, we bring friends and family together. Chesapeake chef extraordinaire and proprietor of Gertrude’s at The BMA John Shields hosts Nestor once again for a Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebration (at an hour we can all appreciate) along with former MLB outfielder Casper Wells for chat about seven fishes, sauerkraut and Pete Alonso.

Nestor Aparicio hosts a holiday-themed discussion with John Shields, proprietor of Gertrude, and former MLB player Casper Wells. They discuss Christmas traditions, including sauerkraut and kielbasa recipes, and the importance of local and traditional ingredients. John shares his restaurant’s special menu items, like sweet potato and carrot soup. Casper recalls his baseball career and his connection to Baltimore. They also touch on the impact of Pete Alonso joining the Orioles and the community’s excitement. The conversation highlights the blend of local culture, family traditions, and the significance of food in bringing people together.

Action Items

• [ ] Tell Roxy to prepare a new menu (add the sweet potato and carrot soup special and other holiday items)
• [ ] Stir the crab soup (attend to the cauldron and finish preparation before service)

Outline

Christmas Dinner Preparations and Family Traditions

• Nestor Aparicio discusses his Christmas dinner plans, including sauerkraut and kielbasa, and seeks advice from John Shields on how to prepare it.
• John Shields suggests simmering the kielbasa in sauerkraut and adding sour apples and ginger for extra flavor.
• Nestor shares his experience of making sauerkraut and how it tastes best a few days after preparation.
• John mentions his restaurant’s sweet potato and carrot soup as a holiday favorite and suggests incorporating it into Nestor’s Christmas meal.

Baseball and Personal Connections

• Nestor introduces Casper Wells, a former major league baseball player and Towson graduate, who is now in the insurance business.
• Casper shares his background, including his draft by the Detroit Tigers and his time in the minor leagues and major leagues.
• Nestor and John discuss their family connections, revealing that they are cousins by marriage.
• John and Nestor reminisce about their Polish heritage and the traditional Polish dishes they enjoy during the holidays.

Local Businesses and Community Involvement

• John Shields talks about his restaurant, Gertrude, and its special events, including an Emerald Isle New Year’s Eve extravaganza.
• Casper Wells shares his connection to Baltimore and how he met his wife while working at a bar in Federal Hill.
• Nestor and John discuss the popularity of crab cakes and the unique way crabs are prepared in Baltimore.
• John mentions the success of Dos Beer Hall in Parkville and its connection to the history of the Barn in Federal Hill.

Baseball in Baltimore and the Impact of Pete Alonso

• Nestor and Casper discuss the excitement around Pete Alonso joining the Orioles and the positive impact it has on the city.
• Casper highlights the nostalgia of Camden Yards and the significance of having a strong offensive player like Alonso.
• Nestor shares his experience of attending an Orioles game and the positive reception Alonso received.
• Casper expresses optimism about the Orioles’ future and the potential for success with Alonso leading the team.

Holiday Traditions and Family Recipes

• Casper shares a Lithuanian family recipe called vinaigrette, which includes beets, potatoes, eggs, and pickles.
• Nestor recalls a segment on his show where listeners brought in Lithuanian hooch as a holiday gift.
• John Shields talks about the importance of keeping family traditions alive through cooking and sharing meals.
• Nestor and John discuss the significance of local and independent food sources in maintaining family traditions.

Final Thoughts and Holiday Wishes

• Nestor thanks Casper Wells and John Shields for their participation in the show.
• John mentions a special menu item at his restaurant, the sweet potato and carrot soup, and its popularity.
• Casper shares a personal story about his Lithuanian heritage and the importance of preserving family recipes.
• Nestor signs off the show, wishing listeners a happy holiday season and encouraging them to eat more sauerkraut.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Christmas table, sauerkraut, kielbasa, baseball, Casper Wells, John Shields, Gertrude, Maryland lottery, GBMC, Polish cuisine, crab cakes, Pete Alonso, Orioles, holiday traditions, local farmers market.

SPEAKERS

8

Nestor Aparicio, Speaker 1, Casper Wells, John Shields

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are classing the joint up today. And I have all sorts scratch off tickets. I have my I some ravens left here, but I have the candy cane cash. I smell like Santa Claus. John shields is here. He is the proprietor of all things, Gertrude. We were at the BMA is all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Casper wells getting one right there. It’s like a fastball as well. Our friends at GBMC also putting us out in the road, keeping us safe, and advising that I eat sauerkraut after my colonoscopy, so I have sauerkraut kielbasa feast of the East Baltimore, Polish Venezuelan people. And John is my cousin by marriage. He’s one of the great chefs here. He given autographs to girls from LA here. And Casper wells former major league baseball player, Towson grad and in the business of insuring Marylanders. Is that fair?

Casper Wells  00:58

Casper say that? Yeah, both personally and their businesses. Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  01:01

So baseball players do after they’re done, man, work with the Heller Koco’s Folks,

8

Casper Wells  01:06

you and Brian all together and all the ball players, all the ball players, that’s right, yeah. Well, I

Nestor Aparicio  01:10

invited Casper I talk a little ball. We’re gonna talk some Pete Alonso. I invited Dan Rodricks to talk baseball and his play in the BMA. And John and I are just gonna like, what is on the Christmas table at the shields household. My wife’s out of town. I need to adopt your family and come over and eat some fishes and some feasts, but I brought sauerkraut and kielbasa, and I thought to myself, I’m going to ask John what I need to do to dress this up the right way for a Christmas that would be appropriate, but not necessarily my family, Chris, because it would be ham. It would be, let’s see here, I would have some green bean casserole with the mushrooms and the onions. That’s my thing. But I want to know yours. I want another idea.

John Shields  01:52

Well, you know, I mean, I think you got a good basis thing going on here. Yeah, boss, you can’t go wrong. Kobasa. I mean, you can even have the ham with it, but the sauerkraut, and we’re going to get back to the colonoscopy and the sauerkraut in a second. Okay, okay, but let’s go into the dinner. I’m healthy now. I thank God, yeah. I mean, thank God. You know, we need that probiotic kind of digestion, correct. But you know, I don’t think down at the colonoscopy clinic, they actually talked about the cabasa. I’m just saying, I’m just saying the sauerkraut, the sauerkraut? Yes.

Nestor Aparicio  02:22

8

All right, yes. He’s a sauerkraut

John Shields  02:25

you do a festival. We do, we do kraut fest, and all things sauerkraut and polka and everything you can imagine. So, all right, so you got your sauerkraut, right? You’re gonna do it with the kielbasa. You’re gonna simmer the kielbasa in the sauerkraut, right?

Nestor Aparicio  02:40

So what I do is I cut the casing off and I put it in the bottom, and I get a little warm, just to get a little brown, like, you know, and then I just dump the sauerkraut on. I go low and slow, and I walk away, and I mix it up a little bit, and it crumbles into the sauerkraut. And I’ll be honest, it tastes best. I make it Christmas day, usually not this year. I’m doing it. I’m doing a little earlier this year. Yeah, my wife doesn’t get home till Friday, so I’m gonna eat it without her. Because, you know, it’s sauerkraut. It does. It’s not good for sleeping quarters, sharing afterward. But so it tastes the best on about the 28th or the 29th for me. And when I, you know, I put it, I eat it, put it away. Leftovers on the 26th leftovers on the 27th but the 28th when I pull it out, I usually have, like, leftover mashed potatoes to kind of offset it a little bit, right? It tastes so good a couple of days later, so I try not to eat it all. So I was gonna make it for you today and bring it down and but I’m like, You got a restaurant, you got your own thing going on. And I thought the next best thing I could do is ask you what else I should get? I’m gonna tell you right now this soup that you made here, sweet potato and carrot soup, top with roasted sweet potatoes. Yeah, I want that on my Christmas every year.

John Shields  03:53

So good. All right. Well, I’ll tell Roxy to get a

8

Nestor Aparicio  03:57

new menu I do my Christmas my mother’s way. I’m trying to find a new way for me to like last year, you know, Dara bungen, correct? Yeah, I love Dara. She came on my show because I stole her cream corn recipe, cream corn pudding. Yeah, I stole it from her Facebook, and it was, I want to have it now, she

John Shields  04:20

should be proud that you stole all right, so, all right, you got your sauerkraut right, and you’re putting it in the thing, another thing that you could do with it is go to farmers market and get some really good kind of sour ish apples, okay? And quorum slice those all down, and then put those in while everything simmering with the kobasa. So you put the apple in the sauerkraut, in the sauerkraut, then speak of ice. Now, you know, it’s more like a tart apple, just they

Nestor Aparicio  04:54

don’t do this in Schenectady, do they?

John Shields  04:57

8

And then, and then, you know, if you. Want to get really fancy schmancy. You could get some fresh ginger mince that up. Never Marianne put put that in there. Marianne lazinski, ginger, Mary Ann or ginger. Marianne, oh, she was on Gilligan. I figured you would know that. I figure I would exactly so anyway, so you put that in there, and then you can just kind of let the whole thing simmer. Now, sometimes when people are doing kobasa, they use some beer, some darker beer, to put that in there. Let that do it. Or if you’re doing the apple thing with the ginger, you could get some local apple cider, put just a little of that in, let all of that simmer together. And it’s like, Dear God, this is amazing.

Casper Wells  05:41

Probably go throw a Dunkle in there. Yeah, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  05:45

See, it’s like a man’s drink beer. You know, Casper Wells is here. Thanks for coming by and experiencing this and being a part of this. But I didn’t mean to have you two together, but ball players eat. I’m, you know, I’m sure,

John Shields  05:58

from from my experience, they they do. They do indeed. And sometimes they can eat a lot, yeah, well, because they use all the calories, you see,

8

Nestor Aparicio  06:06

I have told I can’t, they can. I’ve told all the weird stories about how I found that I was related to you on my show, after Dan put this thing to see, he said, How are we related? So if you want to, like, once a year, you sit in with me. I think it’s the craziest, small to more thing that we’re related and I didn’t know it well.

John Shields  06:23

My first cousin’s daughter is married to Nestor son, so

Nestor Aparicio  06:31

there’s a whole east ball. You haven’t known this?

John Shields  06:33

8

We didn’t know it. I didn’t know it. He didn’t know it. Did you claim Parkville is home? Where do you claim Parkville is where you claim to be? Mom? Dundalk, through and through exactly. I mean, a very similar,

Nestor Aparicio  06:44

well, the Gertrude story even comes even crazier, because the first person that ever made me kill boss in sauerkrauts name was Gertrude, Miss Gert Gibson, oh, really, Bank Street and Dundalk, yeah, yeah, Polish family for you know, like, I remember, my wife is Polish. She’s making this weekend, pierogies. That’s what they do with my parents, my in laws. They do pierogies, and they do kaposta, and they do all of these gown key they do all the Polish thing. So I married into a Polish family. So I have this longing that I am Italian. I’ve never, ever done feast of Seven Fishes. You and Roderick just talked about it.

John Shields  07:22

He does that. Dan does it. He’s the expert on you don’t do that. No, I don’t do what’s on the shield. I’m Irish, for God’s sake. What do you do? All we have is a ham and potatoes, that’s it. And beer, cabbage, cabbage. Cabbage is good too. Ham, cab, potatoes, yeah. Potatoes, yeah. We’re doing a thing here. It’s called Emerald Isle New Year’s Eve extravaganza, and it’s everything from Ireland. And we have a carvery, we have Irish cheeses, we have oysters on the half shell. You can’t get in. It’s already sold out. But I hate now. He tells me I hate New Year’s Eve. And so what I decided last year was to do, was to do it, and it starts at five o’clock. We have a live stream from Dublin. The ball drops at seven o’clock our time. I’m in bed at 10.

Casper Wells  08:10

That’s a solution for my wife. I have three kids at home. I’m like, hey, this has got to do the Irish drop. And then we’re not gonna miss Yeah, and you can even

8

Nestor Aparicio  08:18

have the kids be a part of it at six o’clock, right? Amazing. And then say kids got to go to go to bed now, and then you can put party hats on. And, yeah, it’s a good idea. You send everybody out of here at eight o’clock,

John Shields  08:29

838 30. We let them. We have Jimmy genius, Jim Egan and the Jay Patrick all stars. They’re, they’re Irish band, and they play all night. And we have also, it’s like

Nestor Aparicio  08:40

St Patrick’s Day, just less drunk, exact. Well, we tried have fun. John shields is here. Thanks, Richards, um, have you been to the PMA before? Casper? Have you been in this building before? I have not, not so, um, so this is so give everybody your background, because the CASPER wells former major league baseball player. I ran into him about six weeks ago at the Sashi brown Katie Griggs event, I know you through Heller kowitz and local insurance. You’re selling insurance, but you’re a little bit of a Towson baseball legend, and certainly anybody in the baseball space remembers

Casper Wells  09:12

8

you as a player, yeah. Well, sure, I, you know, grew up in upstate New York, went to went to Taos University. Mike Gottlieb was my head coach there. 2002 to 2005 then I was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 14th round, 2005 amateur drafts. So came up in their system, through the minor leagues five years. Then in the big leagues, 2010 so played parts of four seasons in the bigle.

Nestor Aparicio  09:34

Mud hen and I was real mud.

Casper Wells  09:37

And that’s right, Seawolf. I was all the things, all the things, Flying Tiger, yeah, back

Nestor Aparicio  09:44

to Baltimore, because I, like, I met you that night, and Brian’s like, don’t you know Casper? And I add a context. I’m like, the house he doing here? And I’m like, Oh, he went to Towson. And I’m like, What’s he doing here? You know? Because, like, I always think every ball. Player I’ve ever met settles somewhere in Ahwatukee near Phoenix or skino or Florida, or they live in Tampa, or whatever. Especially guy from Schenectady, like, what do you do? What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?

8

Casper Wells  10:12

No, yeah, it’s funny. You mentioned that, you know, just as Baltimore’s this way, like sucking you back in my wife’s lair. So, you know, we have, we have ties here with family and everything.

Nestor Aparicio  10:21

Peter Towson, then what’s that you made her a Towson during that period of life?

Casper Wells  10:25

No, I actually met her down in fed hill when I went back. So I saw how to, you know, obviously, three semesters left to get my degree. Once I got done playing, I went back to Towson to get finished up, get my education, get my degree. So when I went back in 2015 16, I was working in my bar down at my buddy’s bar that he opened up dos beer house down in Federal Hill. So me and my wife was also a bartender.

Nestor Aparicio  10:46

8

We’ve, we’ve, yeah, bent

Casper Wells  10:50

the elbow, yeah. Dust beer hall is over in Parkville, and now, so they’re doing well. Scott and Mel Bauer,

Nestor Aparicio  10:56

they’ve started. Scott looks great, man. He’s the best shape I’ve ever seen anybody in.

Casper Wells  11:00

I know he’s and he’s, he’s got me, my wife signed up for high rocks in March. He Koco, and

8

Nestor Aparicio  11:06

he lost 100 pounds,

Casper Wells  11:08

100 pounds, yeah, I mean, hasn’t drank any 600 days. I’ve only

Nestor Aparicio  11:13

met Scott a couple of times. But so there’s a real connection here. You know, my wife had her life saved on the bone marrow registry in 14 and 15 from a German man, and when he came to America for the first time to, you know, see America, we took him to dos beer hall, because he’s German. And we went down, and there was, like, a little festival going on down in Federal Hill. Still there six, seven years ago and maybe 10 years ago now. Geez, what’s getting we’re getting older. Then they moved out to the barn. Was, I know the barn to be your Parkville. So these are my dos Bureau, middle of Parkville, middle of Carney, right? I did all of my legendary shows there. Ray Lewis, the Super Bowl, 35 team, Rob Woodson, Shannon, sharp, Lawrence Taylor, buddy every all of them have been at the barn with me. We raised a trophy and took the trophy out into the middle of Hartford road that night. David Modell brought it out 25 years ago now. So I have such a history with that space. So when das beer hall bought it, I’m like, I love that. It’s still, still so popular, because I do my yoga across the street from there. So like, I drive by there, but it’s small to more man, you know, and you know.

Casper Wells  12:20

8

And you gotta trust Scott and Mel. They’re not doing anything to disrupt the, you know, nostalgia that the barn brought, yeah, bring in that German influence and just bring in some of their crowd, same crowd that was up in fed Hill, kind of now graduated, have kids and now can party over in Parkville,

Nestor Aparicio  12:36

over there when it’s been done before. Oh, yeah, you’ll be crabs I’ve eaten in the basement of the DOS beer hall. Me too. I taught Ray Lewis how to eat a crab there. Did you? Yeah, absolutely. Back September 1996 taught a lot of guys, because the guys would come in and play football, and they’re not like you. You came to Towson. Did you ever eat a crab from Schenectady when you came here?

Casper Wells  12:55

No, no, but I did miss it when I was out in Arizona. Let me tell you. Yeah, that’s a bit. That’s the first thing I did, like, when we moved back here, I ate everything and all things crab, pretty much for the first, you know, three months, and didn’t get sick of it by any means. You know, June, July into I was like, hon, I miss crab so much. Telling my wife, just eating everything crab.

Nestor Aparicio  13:14

People ask me, When a crab cake tour is gonna end? When’s a tour over? I’m like, never, never, never. I mean, it’s my brand. It’s my thing now, and it brings people together. It was sort of my my Monday Night Live show was always about the ravens and about players and begging guys like you to come out. There were athletes. And then the modern era of that has been problematic, to say the least, with corporate sports in a general sense. And this thing begat covid started this I was like, What is the thing I could do after covid? Take the masks off, where I could go everywhere in town, and everyone would have a different crab cake. Some people, like John shields have a vegan crab cake on the menu here. I can’t believe it’s not crab cakes. And Odette Ramos is the one that told me I needed to come to Gertrude and eat a vegan crab cake. So I mean, I’ve had crab cakes everywhere, but the whole idea of bringing people together, a chef, but the Chesapeake part of people like from skin equity, or people from out of town, or even Dan Rogers, who grew up in Massachusetts, they come here. This is Mr. Chesapeake recipe guy, and I would have my whole life being here and being a Baltimore guy, I bet I was 25 maybe 30, before I realized they don’t have crabs anywhere else in the world where they serve them the way we do here. There was a Riggins crab house down in Florida, if you ever played in the Fort Lauderdale stadium there as a young player, even spring training. Riggins crab house in Florida, in lantana, Florida, that dudes from Baltimore. He’s the only place in Florida, right on the freeway in 95 like by Del Ray, where I went in, and I swear to you, it’s a crab house. You would think you’re an edge mirror when you went there. It’s the only place. I’ve ever been in my like, North Carolina, people do these boils up here, and it’s

8

Speaker 1  15:05

illegal. It’s illegal.

Nestor Aparicio  15:06

Even if you go from Elkton, Maryland, just go to Wilmington, you can’t find a crab like not the way we do them here. And I would say that that’s part of your charm, that this beautiful young lady who’s a musician from LA went and bought your book at the bookstore here, and came over a minute ago to have you sign it, because the Chesapeake thing is a worldwide thing, and we don’t Parkville and Dundalk don’t know for people to eat crabs here. Don’t really understand what a delicacy it is, and why people, the minute they land, they want to get in the car and go to Costas and eat crabs. You know,

John Shields  15:40

they love them. They love them. People love crabs. Like when I opened back Dear God, in 1983 I opened gertie’s Chesapeake Bay cafe in Berkeley, California. And we flew everything in, from Nick sugars, Tommy sugars, the whole family, and Tommy’s a ball of repository, they went crazy. So for I think 100,000 crab cake served on the West Coast, doing the Chesapeake crab cakes. So they love it. They love it everywhere.

Nestor Aparicio  16:12

8

You know, you can’t do it wrong, man. You got to come and do it right. We’re Gertrude so for the holidays and for you, and for celebrating any words of wisdom you’re always, you know, one for getting family together. And this is a special time where, like, Thanksgiving is, where food is the center of, like, love and family and tradition and your gingerbread house. I mean, it’s

John Shields  16:32

exactly all of that what is. And one of the things you have to remember is what you just said. It’s about tradition for most families. And so keep that in mind. One thing I tell people to do, get out to a local farmers market, get to a local independent buy from the people who are growing and the artisan food makers from around here, put them on your table. Also use so many of the dishes that you grew up with that your grandparents cooked that your parents cooked. You don’t have to go crazy with that. Keep that on the table, because as that connects us to our past, it connects us to our grandparents, and so as long as we cook those meals again, they’re still alive. Make me cry, and they’re still with us. So it’s really important to do that, we need to know where we’re located. Say, get out there. Cook, buy local, shop local, and make the things that are near and dear to your heart.

Nestor Aparicio  17:29

You go to an Orioles game this year. I did. I’m looking at Brooks and frank here. I got former major league player, Casper Wells, who lives in the community, Pete Alonso, and baseball and how baseball brings people together, you enter a room differently than me. I have a baseball last name and a baseball family member and Hall of Famer and all that stuff with Louis. But when you when you get introduced, people say, I played in the big leagues. I mean, even today, I text you, and I said to him, I said, you know, some people don’t like public speaking, you know, they’re nervous. He said, I’ve been in the box against Andy Pettit. I can handle doing but there is something about baseball in this community, and a part of maybe even in Schenectady, that you were big league player wouldn’t mean as much as I played a Towson. I played in the big leagues. I’m in Baltimore. Sell insurance. I live here. I married a local girl. Raised my family here. But the baseball part opens a door that you have that not a lot of humans have, not a lot of people, a lot of people made crab cakes John shields, not a lot of people hit off in the big leagues in a batter’s box. And that brings some notoriety, but I think it also brings the fact that, like, Hey, man, the Orioles last place. You don’t want to talk about it when they’re in last place. I know I didn’t all those years either. The Pete Alonso thing has made people talk about baseball this week, which I think is awesome. You know,

Casper Wells  18:44

they’re not far removed from making the playoffs as well. I mean, they had a young team. Bringing Pete in is obviously huge, but it’s a big baseball town. I mean, you know, the Ravens at one point weren’t here, but the Orioles were here. You know, for a long time, there’s a lot of history, obviously Cal Ripken, you know, with everything that he’s done. You think about me growing up watching like the warehouse, just a nostalgia, just Camden Yards in general, just a great stadium. You were a little sick go there, right? Yeah, I was a big Griffey fan. So watching him hit home runs, the All Star game off the warehouse, man. I mean, you know, those are memories that I have. So obviously, everyone in my generation, that’s, you know, I’m 41 so everyone in the four, you know, around 40 years old. That’s as well, you know,

8

Nestor Aparicio  19:26

gets away from you when they get to be, yep, you think they’re contemporary. And you’re like, I got socks older than you dog. Yeah, that’s crazy, yeah. But it’s a big baseball town,

Casper Wells  19:34

and they love their baseball, and they love when the Orioles are doing well, and it’s obviously good all around when they’re doing well. So bringing someone like Pete in is good, good, not just for baseball, but good for businesses around, good for the vibe of the city. And, you know, I’m excited for spring training now that I’m here and get good to see the polar bear in action. You know,

Nestor Aparicio  19:51

I had John Hoey here, who runs the Y he was here about an hour, and a big Mets guy. He’s Mets fan, and he just went on and always said, Man, gonna play every day. You gotta. Leader, man. And I think the press conference showed a little bit too to your point, like I was kidding you about hey, you really want to come on the show a lot of ball players. I’m gonna come over Meet John. I want to have a crab cake, whatever. And I’m thinking, like not all baseball players show up to their 150 $5 million press conference. And look the part. He looked the part to me. I didn’t know a lot about him, I hadn’t heard speak much, or whatever it really felt like from my soul of Brooks Robinson, who I knew well, and, you know, Cal Ripken, who I like. We need that. We need that again, Adam Jones, I mean, we need somebody out in front of it. And I feel like, all right, they bought themselves relevance for a couple of years in some way above and beyond baseball people to try to get the city engaged in it, because the city is different when a baseball team is doing well, 162 Yeah. I mean, it changes the conversation around here in the summer, June, July, August, come on, Parkville and Dundalk crabs on the newspaper. We don’t have newspapers anymore, beer and the ball game on

John Shields  21:03

8

that transistor radio,

Casper Wells  21:06

he’s got to be excited to, you know, not going to test being a right handed power hitter. Cannon yards is a great ballpark to be hitting the ball in. I mean, you could blast, blast the baseball

Nestor Aparicio  21:15

your air. It was and I moved the fence back to Utah. I mean,

Casper Wells  21:19

no, it’s good even like it at the right where he’s he’s gonna have

8

Nestor Aparicio  21:22

some fun. Something true. Now, I think it’s playing more like the last year was more true than it had ever been. I was friends with Mike Messina. One of the reasons he went up pinstripes was, like, 364 in the gap. What, you know? I mean, it was a pop fly for you to come in here. You loved hitting here when

Casper Wells  21:40

it was right, it was great fun batting practice, for sure. Yeah, what fun

Nestor Aparicio  21:45

if you’re a pitcher, though, no nothing but, but, I mean, I think that was a real challenge for them to grow arms or buy arms that my buddy Denny Nagel went out and pitched in the thin air out in Colorado, made a lot of money, but didn’t like his era. Same thing with Mike Hampton, a lot of those guys, right? So picking that spot and picking your place, that’s why I thought it was so crucial that Pete Alonso picked Baltimore, even the money, and, like all 150 5 million, to get you a lot of places, to get John and I back some ways, eating crab cakes and then why? But for him, I think it’s important for him to pick a place where he can be successful, right? I mean, that’s whatever. He can add money instead been a man, right? The fact that he picked here, I think it’s a sea change that that that’s a it’s a major moment for me as a life for Baltimore guy who’s watched all the bad things happen here, to think like, all right, maybe we are going to have a World Series here. Because I haven’t felt like

Casper Wells  22:39

8

that’s working to give him what he what he what he got anyway. So, I mean, I feel like, you know, he’s in the gut, got the best offer, but also he gets a chance to be, you know, the face of the the Orioles now, offensively in the and he’s just kind of, he’s gonna relish that. I hope he rakes, man, yeah, I think he will.

Nestor Aparicio  22:56

All right, John shields, you I gotta get him

John Shields  22:58

back. I gotta go stir that crab soup.

Casper Wells  23:02

You listen? A cauldron

8

Nestor Aparicio  23:06

off here in two minutes. But, okay, this sweet potato and carrot soup, top with roasted sweet potatoes, is on a special menu.

John Shields  23:12

Yeah, it was just, it is so good you could take a bath

Nestor Aparicio  23:16

party. Winter, sweet thing. So

Casper Wells  23:18

8

one thing I one thing I make you brought up, like, the nostalgia of, like, you know, your family and having something. So for Christmas, we’re Lithuanian, so we’re Eastern European, right? So, so we always make stuff called vinaigrette this. It’s like, it’s got like, beets, potato, egg, pickles in it, and it’s like, purple, you know, and we eat it. So that’s something that you just got my memory. I need to make that just for my mom’s mother, on that side of the family, just to just kind of bring

Nestor Aparicio  23:40

that back the Lithuanian liquor, the viticus, or whatever they call

Casper Wells  23:43

it, we don’t I mean, that’s not anything I partake. I used

Nestor Aparicio  23:47

to talk about this John on the show. I used to talk about this ray Bachman. And listeners would start to bring hooch by Yeah. They would bring this Lithuanian hooch. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like it was called, yeah, whatever it was, I had bottles of it laying around a radio station because I mentioned it on the air and all

8

Casper Wells  24:06

like, Lithuanian Absinthe, right? Like, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  24:11

Lithuanian people are calling the show, and they’re like, I’ve been drinking that for the holidays. I’m gonna bring you some. And Odette Ramos, who’s always here, she is the Councilwoman of this area, and another person that really wanted me to do the show with you before I knew you were my cousin because of the vegan crab cake. Her husband, John Spurrier, DJ red locks, married into the Puerto Rican family. He makes Coquito every year for Christmas. He boils it all down, lives right over. In fact, text him, he’ll stop pub. He gives it to me in a little bottle. So anybody want to send hooch my way for the holidays? Hooch for the holiday. I love you, John, thank you for having me. Man, it is always a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1  24:50

So nice meeting you.

Nestor Aparicio  24:52

8

We’re baseball as the baseball the hot stove heats up, pitching, right? What’s that I love beats and pitching, right? You. Pitching, Yeah, always. I’m always here, Mr. Rubenstein, here’s all I’m trying to do. We’re gonna sign off from Gertrude. So brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery with candy cane cash and her friends at GBMC, who helped kept me alive, John shields has been keeping me alive with his very, very spirited online little they do. They smell like Santa. Yeah? Listen, that’s good. That’s, it’s my daughter’s gonna love this. It’s gonna be a John Martin hates when I call him sniffers, but I’m sniffing it right now. It’s great. It smells like Christmas. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I am signing off here. We’re gonna be a Planet Fitness on Monday, wrapping things up for the holiday. Luke’s in Owings Mills, right up until when Santa comes down the chimney and hopefully brings a Festivus for the rest of us. I am Nestor. We’re W NST. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. My thanks to Casper wells, my thanks to John shields. My thanks to Dan Rodgers, to John Hoey and to Councilman Mark Conway for stopping by and being a part of Baltimore. Positive. We’re back for more on AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore, happy holidays. Everybody. Eat more sauerkraut. It’s good for you.

 John Shields hosts former MLBe…stmas,
sauerkraut and baseballSat, Dec 20,
2025 10:05AM • 26:07SUMMARY KEYWORDSChristmas
table, sauerkraut, kielbasa, baseball, Casper Wells, John Shields, Gertrude,
Maryland lottery, GBMC, Polish cuisine, crab cakes, Pete Alonso, Orioles,
holiday traditions, local farmers market.SPEAKERSNestor
Aparicio, Speaker 1, Casper Wells, John Shields Nestor Aparicio 
00:00Welcome
home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive.
We are classing the joint up today. And I have all sorts scratch off tickets. I
have my I some ravens left here, but I have the candy cane cash. I smell like
Santa Claus. John shields is here. He is the proprietor of all things,
Gertrude. We were at the BMA is all brought to you by the Maryland lottery.
Casper wells getting one right there. It’s like a fastball as well. Our friends
at GBMC also putting us out in the road, keeping us safe, and advising that I
eat sauerkraut after my colonoscopy, so I have sauerkraut kielbasa feast of the
East Baltimore, Polish Venezuelan people. And John is my cousin by marriage.
He’s one of the great chefs here. He given autographs to girls from LA here.
And Casper wells former major league baseball player, Towson grad and in the
business of insuring Marylanders. Is that fair? Casper Wells 
00:58Casper
say that? Yeah, both personally and their businesses. Yeah. Nestor Aparicio 
01:01So
baseball players do after they’re done, man, work with the Heller Koco’s Folks, Casper Wells 
01:06you and
Brian all together and all the ball players, all the ball players, that’s
right, yeah. Well, I Nestor Aparicio 
01:10invited
Casper I talk a little ball. We’re gonna talk some Pete Alonso. I invited Dan
Rodricks to talk baseball and his play in the BMA. And John and I are just
gonna like, what is on the Christmas table at the shields household. My wife’s
out of town. I need to adopt your family and come over and eat some fishes and
some feasts, but I brought sauerkraut and kielbasa, and I thought to myself,
I’m going to ask John what I need to do to dress this up the right way for a
Christmas that would be appropriate, but not necessarily my family, Chris,
because it would be ham. It would be, let’s see here, I would have some green
bean casserole with the mushrooms and the onions. That’s my thing. But I want
to know yours. I want another idea. John Shields 
01:52Well,
you know, I mean, I think you got a good basis thing going on here. Yeah, boss,
you can’t go wrong. Kobasa. I mean, you can even have the ham with it, but the
sauerkraut, and we’re going to get back to the colonoscopy and the sauerkraut
in a second. Okay, okay, but let’s go into the dinner. I’m healthy now. I thank
God, yeah. I mean, thank God. You know, we need that probiotic kind of
digestion, correct. But you know, I don’t think down at the colonoscopy clinic,
they actually talked about the cabasa. I’m just saying, I’m just saying the
sauerkraut, the sauerkraut? Yes. Nestor Aparicio 
02:22All
right, yes. He’s a sauerkraut John Shields 
02:25you do a
festival. We do, we do kraut fest, and all things sauerkraut and polka and
everything you can imagine. So, all right, so you got your sauerkraut, right?
You’re gonna do it with the kielbasa. You’re gonna simmer the kielbasa in the
sauerkraut, right? Nestor Aparicio 
02:40So what
I do is I cut the casing off and I put it in the bottom, and I get a little
warm, just to get a little brown, like, you know, and then I just dump the
sauerkraut on. I go low and slow, and I walk away, and I mix it up a little
bit, and it crumbles into the sauerkraut. And I’ll be honest, it tastes best. I
make it Christmas day, usually not this year. I’m doing it. I’m doing a little
earlier this year. Yeah, my wife doesn’t get home till Friday, so I’m gonna eat
it without her. Because, you know, it’s sauerkraut. It does. It’s not good for
sleeping quarters, sharing afterward. But so it tastes the best on about the
28th or the 29th for me. And when I, you know, I put it, I eat it, put it away.
Leftovers on the 26th leftovers on the 27th but the 28th when I pull it out, I
usually have, like, leftover mashed potatoes to kind of offset it a little bit,
right? It tastes so good a couple of days later, so I try not to eat it all. So
I was gonna make it for you today and bring it down and but I’m like, You got a
restaurant, you got your own thing going on. And I thought the next best thing
I could do is ask you what else I should get? I’m gonna tell you right now this
soup that you made here, sweet potato and carrot soup, top with roasted sweet
potatoes. Yeah, I want that on my Christmas every year. John Shields 
03:53So good.
All right. Well, I’ll tell Roxy to get a Nestor Aparicio 
03:57new menu
I do my Christmas my mother’s way. I’m trying to find a new way for me to like
last year, you know, Dara bungen, correct? Yeah, I love Dara. She came on my
show because I stole her cream corn recipe, cream corn pudding. Yeah, I stole
it from her Facebook, and it was, I want to have it now, she John Shields 
04:20should
be proud that you stole all right, so, all right, you got your sauerkraut
right, and you’re putting it in the thing, another thing that you could do with
it is go to farmers market and get some really good kind of sour ish apples,
okay? And quorum slice those all down, and then put those in while everything
simmering with the kobasa. So you put the apple in the sauerkraut, in the
sauerkraut, then speak of ice. Now, you know, it’s more like a tart apple, just
they Nestor Aparicio 
04:54don’t do
this in Schenectady, do they? John Shields 
04:57And
then, and then, you know, if you. Want to get really fancy schmancy. You could
get some fresh ginger mince that up. Never Marianne put put that in there.
Marianne lazinski, ginger, Mary Ann or ginger. Marianne, oh, she was on
Gilligan. I figured you would know that. I figure I would exactly so anyway, so
you put that in there, and then you can just kind of let the whole thing
simmer. Now, sometimes when people are doing kobasa, they use some beer, some
darker beer, to put that in there. Let that do it. Or if you’re doing the apple
thing with the ginger, you could get some local apple cider, put just a little
of that in, let all of that simmer together. And it’s like, Dear God, this is
amazing. Casper Wells 
05:41Probably
go throw a Dunkle in there. Yeah, yeah. Nestor Aparicio 
05:45See,
it’s like a man’s drink beer. You know, Casper Wells is here. Thanks for coming
by and experiencing this and being a part of this. But I didn’t mean to have
you two together, but ball players eat. I’m, you know, I’m sure, John Shields 
05:58from
from my experience, they they do. They do indeed. And sometimes they can eat a
lot, yeah, well, because they use all the calories, you see, Nestor Aparicio 
06:06I have
told I can’t, they can. I’ve told all the weird stories about how I found that
I was related to you on my show, after Dan put this thing to see, he said, How
are we related? So if you want to, like, once a year, you sit in with me. I
think it’s the craziest, small to more thing that we’re related and I didn’t
know it well. John Shields 
06:23My first
cousin’s daughter is married to Nestor son, so Nestor Aparicio 
06:31there’s
a whole east ball. You haven’t known this? John Shields 
06:33We
didn’t know it. I didn’t know it. He didn’t know it. Did you claim Parkville is
home? Where do you claim Parkville is where you claim to be? Mom? Dundalk,
through and through exactly. I mean, a very similar, Nestor Aparicio 
06:44well,
the Gertrude story even comes even crazier, because the first person that ever
made me kill boss in sauerkrauts name was Gertrude, Miss Gert Gibson, oh,
really, Bank Street and Dundalk, yeah, yeah, Polish family for you know, like,
I remember, my wife is Polish. She’s making this weekend, pierogies. That’s
what they do with my parents, my in laws. They do pierogies, and they do
kaposta, and they do all of these gown key they do all the Polish thing. So I
married into a Polish family. So I have this longing that I am Italian. I’ve
never, ever done feast of Seven Fishes. You and Roderick just talked about it. John Shields 
07:22He does
that. Dan does it. He’s the expert on you don’t do that. No, I don’t do what’s
on the shield. I’m Irish, for God’s sake. What do you do? All we have is a ham
and potatoes, that’s it. And beer, cabbage, cabbage. Cabbage is good too. Ham,
cab, potatoes, yeah. Potatoes, yeah. We’re doing a thing here. It’s called
Emerald Isle New Year’s Eve extravaganza, and it’s everything from Ireland. And
we have a carvery, we have Irish cheeses, we have oysters on the half shell.
You can’t get in. It’s already sold out. But I hate now. He tells me I hate New
Year’s Eve. And so what I decided last year was to do, was to do it, and it
starts at five o’clock. We have a live stream from Dublin. The ball drops at
seven o’clock our time. I’m in bed at 10. Casper Wells 
08:10That’s a
solution for my wife. I have three kids at home. I’m like, hey, this has got to
do the Irish drop. And then we’re not gonna miss Yeah, and you can even Nestor Aparicio 
08:18have the
kids be a part of it at six o’clock, right? Amazing. And then say kids got to
go to go to bed now, and then you can put party hats on. And, yeah, it’s a good
idea. You send everybody out of here at eight o’clock, John Shields 
08:29838 30.
We let them. We have Jimmy genius, Jim Egan and the Jay Patrick all stars.
They’re, they’re Irish band, and they play all night. And we have also, it’s
like Nestor Aparicio 
08:40St
Patrick’s Day, just less drunk, exact. Well, we tried have fun. John shields is
here. Thanks, Richards, um, have you been to the PMA before? Casper? Have you
been in this building before? I have not, not so, um, so this is so give
everybody your background, because the CASPER wells former major league
baseball player. I ran into him about six weeks ago at the Sashi brown Katie
Griggs event, I know you through Heller kowitz and local insurance. You’re
selling insurance, but you’re a little bit of a Towson baseball legend, and
certainly anybody in the baseball space remembers Casper Wells 
09:12you as a
player, yeah. Well, sure, I, you know, grew up in upstate New York, went to
went to Taos University. Mike Gottlieb was my head coach there. 2002 to 2005
then I was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 14th round, 2005 amateur
drafts. So came up in their system, through the minor leagues five years. Then
in the big leagues, 2010 so played parts of four seasons in the bigle. Nestor Aparicio 
09:34Mud hen
and I was real mud. Casper Wells 
09:37And
that’s right, Seawolf. I was all the things, all the things, Flying Tiger,
yeah, back Nestor Aparicio 
09:44to
Baltimore, because I, like, I met you that night, and Brian’s like, don’t you
know Casper? And I add a context. I’m like, the house he doing here? And I’m
like, Oh, he went to Towson. And I’m like, What’s he doing here? You know?
Because, like, I always think every ball. Player I’ve ever met settles
somewhere in Ahwatukee near Phoenix or skino or Florida, or they live in Tampa,
or whatever. Especially guy from Schenectady, like, what do you do? What’s a
nice guy like you doing in a place like this? Casper Wells 
10:12No,
yeah, it’s funny. You mentioned that, you know, just as Baltimore’s this way,
like sucking you back in my wife’s lair. So, you know, we have, we have ties
here with family and everything. Nestor Aparicio 
10:21Peter
Towson, then what’s that you made her a Towson during that period of life? Casper Wells 
10:25No, I
actually met her down in fed hill when I went back. So I saw how to, you know,
obviously, three semesters left to get my degree. Once I got done playing, I
went back to Towson to get finished up, get my education, get my degree. So
when I went back in 2015 16, I was working in my bar down at my buddy’s bar
that he opened up dos beer house down in Federal Hill. So me and my wife was
also a bartender. Nestor Aparicio 
10:46We’ve,
we’ve, yeah, bent Casper Wells 
10:50the
elbow, yeah. Dust beer hall is over in Parkville, and now, so they’re doing
well. Scott and Mel Bauer, Nestor Aparicio 
10:56they’ve
started. Scott looks great, man. He’s the best shape I’ve ever seen anybody in. Casper Wells 
11:00I know
he’s and he’s, he’s got me, my wife signed up for high rocks in March. He Koco,
and Nestor Aparicio 
11:06he lost
100 pounds, Casper Wells 
11:08100
pounds, yeah, I mean, hasn’t drank any 600 days. I’ve only Nestor Aparicio 
11:13met
Scott a couple of times. But so there’s a real connection here. You know, my
wife had her life saved on the bone marrow registry in 14 and 15 from a German
man, and when he came to America for the first time to, you know, see America,
we took him to dos beer hall, because he’s German. And we went down, and there
was, like, a little festival going on down in Federal Hill. Still there six,
seven years ago and maybe 10 years ago now. Geez, what’s getting we’re getting
older. Then they moved out to the barn. Was, I know the barn to be your
Parkville. So these are my dos Bureau, middle of Parkville, middle of Carney,
right? I did all of my legendary shows there. Ray Lewis, the Super Bowl, 35
team, Rob Woodson, Shannon, sharp, Lawrence Taylor, buddy every all of them
have been at the barn with me. We raised a trophy and took the trophy out into
the middle of Hartford road that night. David Modell brought it out 25 years
ago now. So I have such a history with that space. So when das beer hall bought
it, I’m like, I love that. It’s still, still so popular, because I do my yoga
across the street from there. So like, I drive by there, but it’s small to more
man, you know, and you know. Casper Wells 
12:20And you
gotta trust Scott and Mel. They’re not doing anything to disrupt the, you know,
nostalgia that the barn brought, yeah, bring in that German influence and just
bring in some of their crowd, same crowd that was up in fed Hill, kind of now
graduated, have kids and now can party over in Parkville, Nestor Aparicio 
12:36over
there when it’s been done before. Oh, yeah, you’ll be crabs I’ve eaten in the
basement of the DOS beer hall. Me too. I taught Ray Lewis how to eat a crab
there. Did you? Yeah, absolutely. Back September 1996 taught a lot of guys,
because the guys would come in and play football, and they’re not like you. You
came to Towson. Did you ever eat a crab from Schenectady when you came here? Casper Wells 
12:55No, no,
but I did miss it when I was out in Arizona. Let me tell you. Yeah, that’s a
bit. That’s the first thing I did, like, when we moved back here, I ate
everything and all things crab, pretty much for the first, you know, three
months, and didn’t get sick of it by any means. You know, June, July into I was
like, hon, I miss crab so much. Telling my wife, just eating everything crab. Nestor Aparicio 
13:14People
ask me, When a crab cake tour is gonna end? When’s a tour over? I’m like,
never, never, never. I mean, it’s my brand. It’s my thing now, and it brings
people together. It was sort of my my Monday Night Live show was always about
the ravens and about players and begging guys like you to come out. There were
athletes. And then the modern era of that has been problematic, to say the
least, with corporate sports in a general sense. And this thing begat covid
started this I was like, What is the thing I could do after covid? Take the
masks off, where I could go everywhere in town, and everyone would have a
different crab cake. Some people, like John shields have a vegan crab cake on
the menu here. I can’t believe it’s not crab cakes. And Odette Ramos is the one
that told me I needed to come to Gertrude and eat a vegan crab cake. So I mean,
I’ve had crab cakes everywhere, but the whole idea of bringing people together,
a chef, but the Chesapeake part of people like from skin equity, or people from
out of town, or even Dan Rogers, who grew up in Massachusetts, they come here.
This is Mr. Chesapeake recipe guy, and I would have my whole life being here
and being a Baltimore guy, I bet I was 25 maybe 30, before I realized they
don’t have crabs anywhere else in the world where they serve them the way we do
here. There was a Riggins crab house down in Florida, if you ever played in the
Fort Lauderdale stadium there as a young player, even spring training. Riggins
crab house in Florida, in lantana, Florida, that dudes from Baltimore. He’s the
only place in Florida, right on the freeway in 95 like by Del Ray, where I went
in, and I swear to you, it’s a crab house. You would think you’re an edge
mirror when you went there. It’s the only place. I’ve ever been in my like,
North Carolina, people do these boils up here, and it’s Speaker 1 
15:05illegal.
It’s illegal. Nestor Aparicio 
15:06Even if
you go from Elkton, Maryland, just go to Wilmington, you can’t find a crab like
not the way we do them here. And I would say that that’s part of your charm,
that this beautiful young lady who’s a musician from LA went and bought your
book at the bookstore here, and came over a minute ago to have you sign it,
because the Chesapeake thing is a worldwide thing, and we don’t Parkville and
Dundalk don’t know for people to eat crabs here. Don’t really understand what a
delicacy it is, and why people, the minute they land, they want to get in the
car and go to Costas and eat crabs. You know, John Shields 
15:40they
love them. They love them. People love crabs. Like when I opened back Dear God,
in 1983 I opened gertie’s Chesapeake Bay cafe in Berkeley, California. And we
flew everything in, from Nick sugars, Tommy sugars, the whole family, and
Tommy’s a ball of repository, they went crazy. So for I think 100,000 crab cake
served on the West Coast, doing the Chesapeake crab cakes. So they love it.
They love it everywhere. Nestor Aparicio 
16:12You
know, you can’t do it wrong, man. You got to come and do it right. We’re
Gertrude so for the holidays and for you, and for celebrating any words of
wisdom you’re always, you know, one for getting family together. And this is a
special time where, like, Thanksgiving is, where food is the center of, like,
love and family and tradition and your gingerbread house. I mean, it’s John Shields 
16:32exactly
all of that what is. And one of the things you have to remember is what you
just said. It’s about tradition for most families. And so keep that in mind.
One thing I tell people to do, get out to a local farmers market, get to a
local independent buy from the people who are growing and the artisan food
makers from around here, put them on your table. Also use so many of the dishes
that you grew up with that your grandparents cooked that your parents cooked.
You don’t have to go crazy with that. Keep that on the table, because as that
connects us to our past, it connects us to our grandparents, and so as long as
we cook those meals again, they’re still alive. Make me cry, and they’re still
with us. So it’s really important to do that, we need to know where we’re
located. Say, get out there. Cook, buy local, shop local, and make the things
that are near and dear to your heart. Nestor Aparicio 
17:29You go
to an Orioles game this year. I did. I’m looking at Brooks and frank here. I
got former major league player, Casper Wells, who lives in the community, Pete
Alonso, and baseball and how baseball brings people together, you enter a room
differently than me. I have a baseball last name and a baseball family member
and Hall of Famer and all that stuff with Louis. But when you when you get
introduced, people say, I played in the big leagues. I mean, even today, I text
you, and I said to him, I said, you know, some people don’t like public
speaking, you know, they’re nervous. He said, I’ve been in the box against Andy
Pettit. I can handle doing but there is something about baseball in this
community, and a part of maybe even in Schenectady, that you were big league
player wouldn’t mean as much as I played a Towson. I played in the big leagues.
I’m in Baltimore. Sell insurance. I live here. I married a local girl. Raised
my family here. But the baseball part opens a door that you have that not a lot
of humans have, not a lot of people, a lot of people made crab cakes John
shields, not a lot of people hit off in the big leagues in a batter’s box. And
that brings some notoriety, but I think it also brings the fact that, like,
Hey, man, the Orioles last place. You don’t want to talk about it when they’re
in last place. I know I didn’t all those years either. The Pete Alonso thing
has made people talk about baseball this week, which I think is awesome. You
know, Casper Wells 
18:44they’re
not far removed from making the playoffs as well. I mean, they had a young
team. Bringing Pete in is obviously huge, but it’s a big baseball town. I mean,
you know, the Ravens at one point weren’t here, but the Orioles were here. You
know, for a long time, there’s a lot of history, obviously Cal Ripken, you
know, with everything that he’s done. You think about me growing up watching
like the warehouse, just a nostalgia, just Camden Yards in general, just a
great stadium. You were a little sick go there, right? Yeah, I was a big
Griffey fan. So watching him hit home runs, the All Star game off the
warehouse, man. I mean, you know, those are memories that I have. So obviously,
everyone in my generation, that’s, you know, I’m 41 so everyone in the four,
you know, around 40 years old. That’s as well, you know, Nestor Aparicio 
19:26gets
away from you when they get to be, yep, you think they’re contemporary. And
you’re like, I got socks older than you dog. Yeah, that’s crazy, yeah. But it’s
a big baseball town, Casper Wells 
19:34and they
love their baseball, and they love when the Orioles are doing well, and it’s
obviously good all around when they’re doing well. So bringing someone like
Pete in is good, good, not just for baseball, but good for businesses around,
good for the vibe of the city. And, you know, I’m excited for spring training
now that I’m here and get good to see the polar bear in action. You know, Nestor Aparicio 
19:51I had
John Hoey here, who runs the Y he was here about an hour, and a big Mets guy.
He’s Mets fan, and he just went on and always said, Man, gonna play every day.
You gotta. Leader, man. And I think the press conference showed a little bit
too to your point, like I was kidding you about hey, you really want to come on
the show a lot of ball players. I’m gonna come over Meet John. I want to have a
crab cake, whatever. And I’m thinking, like not all baseball players show up to
their 150 $5 million press conference. And look the part. He looked the part to
me. I didn’t know a lot about him, I hadn’t heard speak much, or whatever it
really felt like from my soul of Brooks Robinson, who I knew well, and, you
know, Cal Ripken, who I like. We need that. We need that again, Adam Jones, I
mean, we need somebody out in front of it. And I feel like, all right, they
bought themselves relevance for a couple of years in some way above and beyond
baseball people to try to get the city engaged in it, because the city is different
when a baseball team is doing well, 162 Yeah. I mean, it changes the
conversation around here in the summer, June, July, August, come on, Parkville
and Dundalk crabs on the newspaper. We don’t have newspapers anymore, beer and
the ball game on John Shields 
21:03that
transistor radio, Casper Wells 
21:06he’s got
to be excited to, you know, not going to test being a right handed power
hitter. Cannon yards is a great ballpark to be hitting the ball in. I mean, you
could blast, blast the baseball Nestor Aparicio 
21:15your
air. It was and I moved the fence back to Utah. I mean, Casper Wells 
21:19no, it’s
good even like it at the right where he’s he’s gonna have Nestor Aparicio 
21:22some
fun. Something true. Now, I think it’s playing more like the last year was more
true than it had ever been. I was friends with Mike Messina. One of the reasons
he went up pinstripes was, like, 364 in the gap. What, you know? I mean, it was
a pop fly for you to come in here. You loved hitting here when Casper Wells 
21:40it was
right, it was great fun batting practice, for sure. Yeah, what fun Nestor Aparicio 
21:45if
you’re a pitcher, though, no nothing but, but, I mean, I think that was a real
challenge for them to grow arms or buy arms that my buddy Denny Nagel went out
and pitched in the thin air out in Colorado, made a lot of money, but didn’t
like his era. Same thing with Mike Hampton, a lot of those guys, right? So
picking that spot and picking your place, that’s why I thought it was so
crucial that Pete Alonso picked Baltimore, even the money, and, like all 150 5
million, to get you a lot of places, to get John and I back some ways, eating
crab cakes and then why? But for him, I think it’s important for him to pick a
place where he can be successful, right? I mean, that’s whatever. He can add
money instead been a man, right? The fact that he picked here, I think it’s a
sea change that that that’s a it’s a major moment for me as a life for
Baltimore guy who’s watched all the bad things happen here, to think like, all
right, maybe we are going to have a World Series here. Because I haven’t felt
like Casper Wells 
22:39that’s
working to give him what he what he what he got anyway. So, I mean, I feel
like, you know, he’s in the gut, got the best offer, but also he gets a chance
to be, you know, the face of the the Orioles now, offensively in the and he’s
just kind of, he’s gonna relish that. I hope he rakes, man, yeah, I think he
will. Nestor Aparicio 
22:56All
right, John shields, you I gotta get him John Shields 
22:58back. I
gotta go stir that crab soup. Casper Wells 
23:02You
listen? A cauldron Nestor Aparicio 
23:06off here
in two minutes. But, okay, this sweet potato and carrot soup, top with roasted
sweet potatoes, is on a special menu. John Shields 
23:12Yeah, it
was just, it is so good you could take a bath Nestor Aparicio 
23:16party.
Winter, sweet thing. So Casper Wells 
23:18one
thing I one thing I make you brought up, like, the nostalgia of, like, you
know, your family and having something. So for Christmas, we’re Lithuanian, so
we’re Eastern European, right? So, so we always make stuff called vinaigrette
this. It’s like, it’s got like, beets, potato, egg, pickles in it, and it’s
like, purple, you know, and we eat it. So that’s something that you just got my
memory. I need to make that just for my mom’s mother, on that side of the
family, just to just kind of bring Nestor Aparicio 
23:40that
back the Lithuanian liquor, the viticus, or whatever they call Casper Wells 
23:43it, we
don’t I mean, that’s not anything I partake. I used Nestor Aparicio 
23:47to talk
about this John on the show. I used to talk about this ray Bachman. And
listeners would start to bring hooch by Yeah. They would bring this Lithuanian
hooch. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like it was called, yeah, whatever it was, I had bottles
of it laying around a radio station because I mentioned it on the air and all Casper Wells 
24:06like,
Lithuanian Absinthe, right? Like, yeah, Nestor Aparicio 
24:11Lithuanian
people are calling the show, and they’re like, I’ve been drinking that for the
holidays. I’m gonna bring you some. And Odette Ramos, who’s always here, she is
the Councilwoman of this area, and another person that really wanted me to do
the show with you before I knew you were my cousin because of the vegan crab
cake. Her husband, John Spurrier, DJ red locks, married into the Puerto Rican
family. He makes Coquito every year for Christmas. He boils it all down, lives
right over. In fact, text him, he’ll stop pub. He gives it to me in a little
bottle. So anybody want to send hooch my way for the holidays? Hooch for the
holiday. I love you, John, thank you for having me. Man, it is always a
pleasure to be here. Speaker 1 
24:50So nice
meeting you. Nestor Aparicio 
24:52We’re
baseball as the baseball the hot stove heats up, pitching, right? What’s that I
love beats and pitching, right? You. Pitching, Yeah, always. I’m always here,
Mr. Rubenstein, here’s all I’m trying to do. We’re gonna sign off from
Gertrude. So brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery with candy cane
cash and her friends at GBMC, who helped kept me alive, John shields has been
keeping me alive with his very, very spirited online little they do. They smell
like Santa. Yeah? Listen, that’s good. That’s, it’s my daughter’s gonna love
this. It’s gonna be a John Martin hates when I call him sniffers, but I’m
sniffing it right now. It’s great. It smells like Christmas. It’s beginning to
look a lot like Christmas. I am signing off here. We’re gonna be a Planet
Fitness on Monday, wrapping things up for the holiday. Luke’s in Owings Mills,
right up until when Santa comes down the chimney and hopefully brings a
Festivus for the rest of us. I am Nestor. We’re W NST. Am 1570 Towson,
Baltimore. My thanks to Casper wells, my thanks to John shields. My thanks to
Dan Rodgers, to John Hoey and to Councilman Mark Conway for stopping by and
being a part of Baltimore. Positive. We’re back for more on AM 1570 Towson,
Baltimore, happy holidays. Everybody. Eat more sauerkraut. It’s good for you.