Flying The Banner over Baltimore sports and beyond

If we were “branding” this, we’d call it ‘Korman’s Korner’ but since all we have to sell is local journalism and facts and truth in reporting, Executive Sports Editor Chris Korman of The Baltimore Banner returns for another free-form round at Costas Inn in Timonium on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. Some spring sports cleaning and cleansing with Nestor about the Ravens, Orioles, Terps and local coverage of the college NIL world and high schools sports. And how it all ties together with club teams and the recreation Little League world, where he hangs his hat and leadership. We made this one for the “stick to sports” crowd…

Nestor Aparicio and Chris Korman discussed the expansion of The Baltimore Banner, including the hiring of Andrew Golden and Kyle Williams. They highlighted the challenges of covering local sports, including the disconnect between Baltimore and DC sports, and the lack of interest in the University of Maryland. They also touched on the high costs and exclusivity of sports events, such as the Orioles game and the World Cup. Additionally, they discussed the impact of youth sports on local communities and the need for better high school sports coverage. The conversation concluded with reflections on the state of journalism and the importance of honest media.

Construction and Earthquake Concerns

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the construction zone at their location, mentioning the earthquake-like sensation caused by the construction.
• Nestor describes the discomfort and confusion caused by the shaking, initially thinking it was an earthquake.
• Chris Korman joins the conversation, mentioning the Maryland Lottery’s Maryland Treasures and the expansion of their team.
• Chris talks about the hiring of Andrew Golden and Kyle Williams, highlighting the talent acquired from other newspapers.

Expansion and Hiring at The Baltimore Banner

• Chris Korman explains the expansion of The Baltimore Banner, mentioning the hiring of Andrew Golden and Kyle Williams.
• Nestor and Chris discuss the impact of layoffs at other newspapers, comparing it to an all-star team being cut.
• Chris mentions the excitement about covering the Nationals and the open position for the Commanders beat writer.
• Nestor and Chris talk about the similarities between the Ravens and Commanders organizations, and the challenges of covering DC sports.

Disconnect Between Baltimore and DC Sports

• Nestor shares his disconnect with DC sports, mentioning his lack of interest in the Capitals and Nationals.
• Nestor discusses the historical connection between Baltimore and DC sports, particularly the Redskins and Nationals.
• Chris talks about the robust audience for Ravens fans in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County.
• Nestor and Chris discuss the lack of interest in the Terps, despite their proximity to Baltimore.

Challenges of Covering College Sports

• Nestor and Chris discuss the challenges of covering college sports, particularly the University of Maryland.
• Nestor shares his personal experiences with Maryland sports figures and the lack of media engagement from the university.
• Chris mentions the Washington Post’s shift in focus from Maryland to Virginia, affecting local coverage.
• Nestor and Chris talk about the lack of resonance with everyday sports fans regarding college sports.

Impact of NIL on College Sports

• Nestor and Chris discuss the impact of the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) on college sports, particularly the women’s tournament.
• Chris mentions the potential for college sports to become a second-best paying league, similar to the WNBA.
• Nestor talks about the challenges of covering high school sports, including the financial aspects and the impact on local journalism.
• Chris highlights the importance of youth sports and the significant investment from families and private equity.

State of High School Sports Coverage

• Nestor and Chris discuss the state of high school sports coverage, including the challenges of covering local high school games.
• Chris mentions the robust high school coverage operation in Pittsburgh and the potential for similar coverage in Baltimore.
• Nestor shares his experiences with high school sports coverage in the past and the current challenges.
• Chris highlights the importance of youth sports in the community and the need for better coverage.

State of Local Journalism

• Nestor and Chris discuss the state of local journalism, including the challenges faced by independent journalists.
• Nestor shares his frustration with the lack of access and recognition from major sports organizations.
• Chris emphasizes the importance of fighting for journalism and the need for honest media.
• Nestor and Chris talk about the impact of social media and the changing landscape of journalism.

Impact of Taxpayer Money on Sports Venues

• Nestor shares his observations about the Orioles’ new stadium, questioning the value of the taxpayer investment.
• Nestor discusses the lack of information and engagement at the stadium, including the absence of replays on the big screen.
• Chris mentions the trend of exclusionary practices in sports venues, affecting young fans and lifelong sports fans.
• Nestor and Chris talk about the need for better engagement and accessibility at sports venues.

State of Baltimore and Pittsburgh Sports

• Nestor and Chris discuss the state of Baltimore and Pittsburgh sports, including the Ravens and Orioles.
• Nestor shares his optimism about the Ravens’ new management and the potential for success.
• Chris mentions the challenges faced by the Orioles, including injuries and the need for better community engagement.
• Nestor and Chris talk about the importance of local sports coverage and the impact on the community.

Future of Local Sports Coverage

• Nestor and Chris discuss the future of local sports coverage, including the potential for collaboration between different properties.
• Chris mentions the excitement about the acquisition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and its impact on local journalism.
• Nestor shares his thoughts on the importance of local sports coverage and the need for better engagement with the community.
• Chris emphasizes the importance of honest media and the need for better coverage of local sports.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore Banner, sports expansion, Maryland Crab Cake Tour, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, youth sports, high school coverage, Orioles, Ravens, journalism, sports media, community engagement, sports ownership, stadium experience, sports coverage, local sports.

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SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Chris Korman

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are, Baltimore, positive, positively. Wrapping things up out here, Costas, I want to try to wrangle Pete and get him out here to talk about this construction zone. Man, my butt out here. Do we know? I don’t know. I really don’t know. All I know is I went to pee for the first time, because I’ve been in here probably like eight times since Christmas. And I haven’t Pete here because it’s cold outside and live close by, and I don’t drink that much when I’m here. And I went to Pete right before the show started, like, whoa, what’s going on out here? It’s like a whole construction zone. And then I started to do the show, and I had drew Van Landingham here from the OJ Brigance Foundation, and I had the feeling I’ve only had one other time my life of an earthquake, like my ass moved up and down, and I’m like, that an earthquake. And then I’m realizing, well, we’re on the second floor, and they’re doing construction, and then her and so my camera has shaken a couple times, and he said, no earthquake. Maryland lottery is doing Maryland treasures. There’s four of them. Everybody keeps picking the boardwalk one because it’s bright and orange. I don’t know which one you want. Chris Corman’s here for the banner. We’re going to talk about all sorts of things, including the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. But you’ve done, like, expansion things here in recent days and weeks, right? Like Washington first, I sent you a kidding text, and I’ll be the commander’s beat writer, yeah. But I mean, now that the Steelers jobs open, I definitely got to consider that, you know?

Chris Korman  01:21

Yeah, yeah. We’re still, we’re still trying to hire two more people for the DC expansion. We’ve, we’ve hired to Andrew golden, who’s actually from here, went to McDonough, grew up in Reisterstown, was working at the post. It was part of the layoffs. He’s come over. He’s been, I had shining

Nestor Aparicio  01:37

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on last week. Oh yeah. What

Chris Korman  01:39

a legend for the

Nestor Aparicio  01:40

industry, man industry,

Chris Korman  01:42

one of the all time greats, one of the one of the best

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Nestor Aparicio  01:45

newspaper writers, putting this many people of this caliber out on the street.

Chris Korman  01:50

It’s unprecedented, right? No, it’s like the all star team. It’s like the all star game gets played, and then they cut all those players, and they just become free agents. That’s literally what happened. You know? They just, it’s like the

Nestor Aparicio  02:01

homestead homies back in the day. Yeah, they

Chris Korman  02:03

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took the best of the best. So Andrew came over, and then we hired a just got announced yesterday, a reporter named Kyle Williams from the Chicago Sun Times. He’s been covering the White Sox out there. He’s going to come cover the Nationals for us. Super excited to have him. Starts April 27 the commander’s job is still open. So you know, if you’re serious, so we are, doesn’t own

Nestor Aparicio  02:25

them anymore. That’s true. But the way the Ravens run the organization, it’s like they took the Snyder playbook to some degree. So yeah, I

Chris Korman  02:30

mean, Snyder may have taken it from them. I mean, there’s, you know, so I’m not sure who, I’m not sure who invented it, but

Nestor Aparicio  02:37

yeah, it’s unfortunate, yeah. Oh, it is. It’s unfortunate being the editor of the banner, or we now we need a lot more palatable.

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Chris Korman  02:47

But now we see what it’s like down there. We see what it’s like in DC, and they’re like, are you guys coming? Can you come? Do you want to come? Who do you want to talk to? Here’s a phone number.

Nestor Aparicio  02:54

They’re a little different, a little, a little, I don’t know this. I mean, the commanders. And once I gave up the capitals eight years ago, after I was off the phone with Leon’s. This is Fredo telling me, after 40 years of being the only guy that cared about the capitals here that like, if I don’t need to talk about them, that I don’t, I haven’t watched the hockey game in eight years. So DC feels really far to me. Yeah, because I was capitals connected, right? I was more Terps connected before they started treating me like garbage and like and they are garbage. And then the N i l came in, and it is like irrelevant to me. Nothing Terps ever gets to me or no one ever reaches to me and says, Why didn’t you cover the Terps football game last week? So Luke and I just gave up on that. Now, the Orioles and the Ravens are obviously huge concerns here for both of us, sure, in the way we do things, but the DC part of the Baltimore Sun that I knew in the 80s and 90s, where veto was covering the Redskins, and we kind of had to cover the Redskins for the Ravens came even when I was on the radio. 9293 94 we didn’t have a team. I had the OJ Brigance foundation there, so we had the stallions, but the capitals and massen and me watching Comcast sports net and Brent Harris doing Raven stuff, and the Ravens programming being on there tied me to the Redskins and the Nationals through mass and through 21 years in the national it’s crazy, right? They’re dead to me, all of them. I don’t I can’t name two players on the Nationals, other than the quarterback of the Redskins. I can’t name five other like, there really is, this is not the Mets in the Yankees or the Dodgers and the angels. It really is a very, very separate audience. And I don’t know. I have a handful of Redskin commander fans. In my world, nobody cares about the wizards at all, the capitals, whatever flag they put down here 40 years ago. There’s still some remnants of that a little bit. The nationals have never been anything here. It’s weird how 38 miles that some jack wagon in New York would look at this and say, well, they’re the same market, maybe for. Buying advertising, maybe a little bit of that, but it’s really it’s become way further apart than closer. Even the rivalry of not liking each other

Chris Korman  05:09

doesn’t exist. Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. But what we found is that there’s a whole lot more Ravens fans down there than people probably realize. Okay, montgomery county and Prince George’s. I mean, I think that obviously the commanders were bad for a long time, and a mess of a franchise. And Lamar Jackson’s a completely electric player was before, right? Good here. So there’s, there’s that, you know, the Terps, the Terps thing is really interesting. I mean, that’s, that’s a mystery. We are always trying to serve the red light solve, right? Like, who somebody has to care about the Terps. And there’s, there seems to be a robust audience in Prince George. But like, I think to your point, people don’t know how to follow college level of

Nestor Aparicio  05:53

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arrogance that the University of Maryland has shown our community here for all of Eckman used to call it the university dc in the 70s. That’s a university DC down there.

Chris Korman  06:04

How many they certainly need to do more here.

Nestor Aparicio  06:06

How many times I’ve had Johnny holiday on and Gary Williams wrote me love letters 25 years ago, and every Duffner Vander Linden, those guys came to my studio in Towson. I have pictures of Ron van mark. Dufner and I are still friends in the real world, he does incredibly kind things for me all these years later. But I run into Gary Williams at the airport. He tells me to call his handler to get him on the show. And I’m like, Gary haven’t been on in a while, have you? I mean, like the personalization of the Terps in Baltimore, especially with having Queen play recently, and you know, the era where the booth era that really opened up things after Bob Wade, I’ve been here for all of it, they have been derelict in how they’ve handled the media here and how they’ve handled fan bases here. And the day that really changed for me was the day of the parade in Baltimore after the basketball championship. So I was here that night. I was at the Final Four game on Saturday, but opening day was Monday, 25 years man, long time, right? So they win, and they had that gathering, and we printed up signs to get into the paper and all that. Dude. There were like 400 people at the Terps championship basketball rally in front of City Hall, and the mayor, or she was City Council President, that her nephew was the star of the team, sure so, and he went to Calvert Hall, right? I watched the Terps win a national championship here that did not move any needle at all, and even the Orange Bowl when they played 25 years ago. So I’ve never, to your point, thread that needle that’s for them to figure out. But this is Baltimore, and it’s Maryland, and I feel like they are absentee and have been for a long, long time. Yeah, that’s yeah. Well, you see breaks when you write stories.

Chris Korman  07:57

Well, right, right, so we know. And I mean, honestly, when I was at the sun, I guess what? 16 years ago now, it was like, Wait, who’s who’s gonna click on this? Why are we not getting readers and then, and then the Washington Post, even before any of this happened, had moved their reporters off Maryland to always had a Virginia

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Nestor Aparicio  08:15

based thing to the post. Had to cover Virginia, Georgetown. Yeah, they

Chris Korman  08:18

covered things. Covered college sports, but, but, you

Nestor Aparicio  08:21

know, Maryland. But then you can see what people click on and say, well, people care about this, or

Chris Korman  08:24

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did they not care about this? And I don’t know if it’s that. I mean, I think there’s, I think the hardcore Maryland fans go to the recruiting sites, you know, and they are accustomed to paying for that and having their message board there, but then there’s just no resonance with your everyday sports fan wondering what’s happening with the Terps. And I had Keith Kavanaugh on here 100

Nestor Aparicio  08:45

years ago, Haney, when he was here. And it felt when I would listen to it, I’m like, I don’t I don’t know who’s into the recruiting news in that way, but this n, i l thing has been so oppressive for me at this point in my life that I didn’t watch March Madness. Yeah, and I have friends that were watching the women more than the men. The women have more appeal, right, than the men do at

Chris Korman  09:07

this point. Yeah, the women’s tournament has been more popular than the men in recent years. I mean, literally, and then you

Nestor Aparicio  09:12

get the fight between the keynote and launched Ailey. I mean, it even has a little WWE thing that carries over from the WNBA and the girls getting screwed, but not getting paid. Caitlin Collins, I mean, much bigger star than any men’s college basketball player maybe can ever be at this point, because they don’t stay longer. There’s no cultivation of any brand at college

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Chris Korman  09:32

stopping by and now they’re making money. I mean, we could get to the point where some of them stay a few years, because they literally might make more money than if they’re going to go to Europe or play in the D league, you know they like it may get to the point where college becomes the de facto second best and second best paying league in in the country, and the best option for 2122 23 year olds. So we. Get there, but we have a whole lot of lawsuits and changes. And, you know, Trump signed, signed an executive order that means nothing, literally nothing, right? It has no real it basically says, Follow, do this, but follow all the laws, and all the laws say you can’t do this. So there’s, there’s a whole lot of evolution that needs to happen before we get there, but it but it could eventually make some sense. You know, players, players will be on contract. You know, what a crazy concept, if you’re going to pay them, you give them a contract, you treat it the same way. You know, you get a two year contract, or you get a four year contract. And if you want out of the contract, you get a you know, like, this is not, we’re not inventing something new, right? Like paying athletes to do sports. Well, is a so next

Nestor Aparicio  10:45

week, free plug for Gary albernato, who helped me publish my first book. And I’ve known Gary 40 eagle in 1985 I’ve known Gary, right? He’s does his prep thing in his high school thing, and I’m

Chris Korman  10:56

really used to be with the

Nestor Aparicio  10:57

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banner I would date myself with you being younger than me, by the way. Chris Corman is executive sports editor of the Baltimore band. Editor of the Baltimore banner. Always love having Chris on the show, but he’s got kids and staff in Pittsburgh and Washington and Baltimore, ravens and liars luncheons and afternoon games and all that stuff. In my era as a high school writer with Sam Davis and and Kathy Frazier before that, and Mike Faribault and me picking all city softball teams in the 1980s and whatnot, and working for Jack and Marty and all the people at the sun and you were a sun person as well, from that side of journalism, either Bucks County, Bucks County, right? You’re the other county, Berks County.

Chris Korman  11:37

I’m from Berks County, Pennsylvania. Is that more country? Well, yeah, I don’t know it’s where Taylor Swift’s from. Taylor Swift, all right, that’s about so you’re more to a Lancaster, north of Lancaster, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  11:51

okay, so you were, I always thought you were northeast of Philly, but you’re more northwest of Philly. Yeah, more pots town, correct? Okay, sure, I’ve got my Robert Graham shirt. She asked me where I got my shirt to say, Vicki France. Where’d you get that? I said, I got it in Pottstown at the outlets, the high school. Part of this city has always been this interesting nut with city poly and count all Loyola and the black schools in the white schools and the MIAA and the state and Dunbar couldn’t win a real estate championship back in my day, like all of this antiquated Catholic League, all these things, hi Chris biker, the high school part of this was supposed to power up local journalism in that you’d want to see your kids name, see kids name in the paper, like all of that part of the n, i, L that comes from the pipeline, Gary’s joining me at Koco’s next Thursday. I haven’t talked about high school sports here in 15 or 20 years because, at because, as a radio guy in the 90s, it was my right arm to say, like I covered it. Keith Mills was into it, and Stan’s dabbled in it, trying to make money from the rich kids, and like the lacrosse community and all of that. I’ve done this 35 years, and I’ve dabbled in wrestling shows, auto shows. Look, all of this niche thing, high school is what feeds all of this. It’s where kids play. You’re wearing a little league hat, right? Yeah, and you’re leaving me today because you’re involved in some softball thing. Your kids play

Chris Korman  13:12

sports, yeah? Shining a couple.

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Nestor Aparicio  13:15

His kids were swimmers, and these kids play lacrosse, and these kids are soccer players, and they’re in the academy and they’re in all of this. I am so friggin lost on kids and sports and high schools and clicks and all of this, but I do know the money side of these kids camps and then what it means to high schools and pay high schools and private high schools, versus who the coach wants to recruit and give money to who’s on the girls soccer team. I am. I’m not interested in it, so I don’t talk about it ever. But it does feed into journalism. And what you’re trying to do at the banner in a local area to say, How did Parkville High School do, and why doesn’t the banner cover it, and how many humans we had at the sun 40 years ago, and how many humans Bal had an Mar had to put cameras out at Parkville High School for something so they would have B roll at 11 o’clock to make it feel like a community endeavor. It’s really, really hard, because you’re not funded for that, and you’re not community up for that, and opens a lane for an adonado to cover that sort of thing. But, man, high school was at the heart of what we did as journalists 40 years ago.

Chris Korman  14:28

Yeah, and we may get back into it. You know, we are actively having conversations. You know, obviously the post pulled out of their, you know, all met is an institution in, you know, not in deep, just in DC. But I mean, people like Kevin Durant, like these people

Nestor Aparicio  14:43

Post Gazette as well.

Chris Korman  14:45

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They have a robust High School coverage operation with the whipio, the high school league there is one of the best high school leagues in the country. Just incredible. That’s where everyone is in the region on

Nestor Aparicio  14:58

football Friday. Okay, but that’s never existed here in the same way that college sports has never been this factor in the way

Chris Korman  15:07

so different here because of the private, public split and the have not have and have not split, as you brought up, it is, it is different. But youth sports is a 40 like it is a it’s enormous, unfathomably large business, like, four times more money is spent on youth sports activities than going to the movies, you know. So, like families,

Nestor Aparicio  15:29

not to mention the hotels, the travel.

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Chris Korman  15:31

These families are there, you know, they’re building their lives around it. They’re going, they’re at hotels and and now kids hotels are putting in training areas and then, and, you know, commander’s owner, Josh Harris, like his big push, his big private equity push is to roll up youth sports facilities. He bought into Ripken, you know, he

Nestor Aparicio  15:51

flag football thing that we have managed to really make popular, right?

Chris Korman  15:55

Exactly. So it’s, we are, you know, it is a behemoth. And you just, we need to find a way to cover it, because it is, you know, it is important these people understand it.

Nestor Aparicio  16:07

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Yeah, I’m trying to understand it.

Chris Korman  16:09

It is so layered. Now, you know, it’s, there’s high school, there’s club teams,

Nestor Aparicio  16:14

there’s Saturday morning, Sunday morning.

Chris Korman  16:15

I mean, to your point, there are, there are soccer programs in Baltimore that if you make that team, you cannot go to high school. You are not allowed to go. You know, you have to find a different way to graduate high school because you are training all day. And those are the kids going d1 that’s what it’s taking now, and there are more. In fact, you have to be Michael Phelps, copper mine bought where to Babe Ruth, what’s the school over there named St Agnes?

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Nestor Aparicio  16:37

Okay, yeah, they bought that, and

Chris Korman  16:41

they’re gonna turn into a soccer academy. It’s gonna be, you know, you’re gonna

Nestor Aparicio  16:45

go there. No, it’s, it was the school that Babe Ruth went to.

Chris Korman  16:50

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Yeah, I can picture it, I just can’t remember the name. So it’s, you know, they that’s where things are moving, which is crazy, like I’m

Nestor Aparicio  16:59

doing all I can do to avoid the ravens and Orioles and I’ll pissed off. Chris Foreman is here. Well, you sit in the middle of this. I saw Jair Alexander issue some mea culpa the other day. You have reporters. You have young reporters. I hired half of the fan at this point, and Rob long and I mean, I had employees. I never, I always wanted my employees to be journalists. They really weren’t. They were more bartenders and taking phone calls than, like, trained journalists. You sent me a little smiley emoji at my April 1. Jason, lock and for a thing, lock and for and I, no offense to any of your journalists, or Kyle or anybody. Lock and for and I are the only trained journalists left, like literally left from the jack Gibbons era of the 80s and the 90s. That were trained by George Solomon, worked next to Tom Boswell, worked next to Ken Rosenthal, Tim Kirchen. All of you, you know all of these people that were real journalist journalists. And I’m like the bastard stepchild, because I didn’t go to Virginia or Syracuse or Missouri or Northwestern or the McGill medulla school, and I have Hyman on and he tells me, like, how robust journalism is and all that. I’m like, Dude, if it were that robust, I’d be competing with Corman, and I’d have my own sports thing, like the Pittsburgh live thing that that dude had up there before they threw him out. This is real simple, the Chad Steel’s and the and the Katie griggses and the Braun home, whatever her name is, never met her. They’re gate keeping journalism. And when I see the Diana Rossini thing pop last week about what journalism is and what it needs to be, and who gets access, and they’ve decided lock in four is not a real journalist anymore, and I’m not a real journalist anymore. The questions at these press conferences and what all of this represents, it’s passed me by. I’m 57 it’s never going back to anything that feels like journalism. But there still was a point on Wednesday where my organization only has one reporter, and there’s a game and a liar’s luncheon at the same time, and I’m at the game and there’s an empty press box seat next to Steve malesky, and I’m somehow not allowed to sit in it. And that’s like, okay. And that’s like, it’s okay to say we’ll allow Steve malesky to ask questions, but not Jason lock and for we’ll allow Luke Jones to ask questions, but not Nestor Aparicio. I We’re not getting a fair shake in that way, and there’s no lobby for you or me or anybody else,

Chris Korman  19:27

yeah, well, but we have to fight the fight. Right? I mean, it might not feel it’s not the way it was back in your day and then it wasn’t. We’re never going to have the same scale a number of journalists doing this, but we have to, those are, whoever’s left. We have to fight it, right? Well, that’s just the

Nestor Aparicio  19:42

toughest story that came up, right? You and

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Chris Korman  19:45

it’s, you know, and I know it’s hard for people to, you know, sometimes I make this argument, it’s like, well, it’s just sports. Why are you Well, I mean, first of all, the state spends a lot of money on these teams, and then the people here, you know, I view fans as constituents, right? Like they are, they are the people they are paying for the ravens, you know. Like Steve Basti may own the ravens, but like you, everyone else here makes the Ravens happen, right? And so therefore they there is a responsibility for the ravens to be accountable to to people. But this extends all the way up, right, like the, you know, we can’t get reporters in the Pentagon anymore. The reporters being put in front of Trump are fake, you know, then or or if they do ask a question, he dismisses

Nestor Aparicio  20:21

it in a way that, oh, he had a fake assassination that we’re still trying to like, literally, journalists up, right?

Chris Korman  20:27

So like, we need we like this is the First Amendment protects this. The first one is built for this to ensure that we can do this. And when private companies, or or whoever puts a stop on it, it’s not good. It’s it’s it should not be allowed, but we just have to keep fighting it.

Nestor Aparicio  20:51

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You mentioned the state’s role in this and the Civic money, and that’s really what struck me at the Oreo game. So I got invited to the Oreo game yesterday. I wouldn’t have gone, had Wendy. I love you. Thank you. Wendy Brown, fine from curio wellness and foreign daughter reached me on Tuesday, and you know, she lost her dad back in January, and they have these really good seats at Orioles games that Michael had had for a million years when he owned Neighbor Care and I sat in him. She always sends him to me when it’s 98 degrees and sunny, and I went to Yankee game two years ago. Had the greatest time with my buddies, and we hazed Juan Soto and Aaron judge, and, you know, yelling at the umpires because you’re that close. Then I went yesterday for the Diamondbacks game, and it’s not like I’m going to yell at, you know, Nolan Arenado on the on deck circle or whatever, and I took my buddies, it was hot as hell, and we got to get out there, and I got very into the All right, I’m here now, and I’ve watched what Melanie and Rob have told me about opening day and the scoreboard and the big scoreboard and the wonderful scoreboard, and how the scoreboard and the sound and the sound and the scoreboard and the truest and the club and all for the fans, I went out and I walked around just to kind of like vibe it out and look, it’s a Wednesday, it was 100 degrees. I saw lots of friends, which I love, is the part I love seeing friends and people I like. But I looked at that club and who was in it, who could be there? And I saw you, Ethan Giffin up in the truest club. I should have had him to, like, stick me shrimp cocktail. Would they throw him out? Are they allowed to, like, hand me cake? I don’t know. But I went and I looked at all of it, and I thought, have they made it better or worse? And I and I was there with Steadman the day it opened up. And here’s my observation. Don’t even say this to Luke on the air, because Luke doesn’t like talking about all this. We were talking more about the game and the relief pitching and who number 42 was, and what he was doing playing left field and, like, whatever. So, but this was my observation. And you’re a lot younger than me. I think of you as a contemporary, but you’re like, you’re young, right? How old are you? 44 you’re

Nestor Aparicio  22:41

my son’s age, all right? So we, you know, generally, okay, I might thought you were younger than that. Maybe you’re not gray enough yet. Chris, here’s what I thought sitting in the stands having gone to state that stadium every year of my life. In the beginning, good teams, not very many bad teams, lots of those horrible ownership with Angelos and what they would let atrophy and what they would fix so and what the state would pay for, and when they had a friendly relationship with the stadium authority, and when they went to war with everybody, and once the Ravens came to town and they wanted $1 on every dollar and all of that, all that being set aside, and whether the tax money was worth it and keeping the teams here worth it, whether Rubenstein hung out with Epstein, or not, or whether bashadis, whatever he is, I’m in the stadium. I didn’t pay to be there. Somebody paid a lot of money for me to be there. I mean, there’s a $500 day minimum, right? For those kind of seats, you know, bucket a quarter at least, is what those tickets got to cost, right? And the Magna mag, magnanimous, you know, relationship. I have to get these tickets, and I’m there. We’re we’re having a good time, and we had some crab cakes, and I’m looking at the big scoreboard, and everybody’s wearing a 42 so I don’t know who any of these guys are. Three of the guys in the lineup were just called up. I don’t even know who they are. The ball gets hit to the left fielder, and he bobbles the ball, and I’m BS in with somebody, and I missed the play, and I heard the good fall, and I saw him chasing like the bear news. They don’t even put the video up on this core board. They don’t even they spent all of this money on a television. I still have not seen the play, the outfield, play, the cost in the game. Bradish, fourth inning, whatever it was, I still haven’t seen the highlight of it. So I’m thinking, you got this big television. Now, I looked up for this giant television I wanted to know who the left fielder was, and they don’t even have the lineup up. They had this giant picture of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the middle. And I’m thinking, You did all of this. And I’m at the game and the weather’s on the scoreboard, and I’m thinking to myself, What? What have you done? Have you like, I just want to see the freaking replay of what just happened, and you refused to show it because it was not pro Oriole enough, which is the same reason the press box seat is empty, because I’m not pro Oriole enough. Like it’s bizarre to me, and they’ve done all of this stuff with the club and moving the little press box. I went up and looked at Rock Abaco, and he looked at me like he didn’t know me. And I wonder what seat was. Luke’s that’s empty, it’s the one next to malesky. So I found that out, and I’m there, and I walked through the bowl of the stadium, and the thing that struck me is how they tried to make the stadium so retro, because Janet Marie is a genius, and in the early days, the signs on the outfield wall had to be white, like the crown gasoline was white. The Bank of America was white. The Coca Cola ad was white, the Ford ad blue, white. All of it was to keep it so it didn’t look like a casino, or it didn’t look more than that. The biggest insult would have been it looks like a Durham Bulls game. It looks like the outfield wall at Spring training, or, like in the bad news bears with Chico’s Bail Bonds, right? The thing about that, it’s lost to me, and this is to my old guy eye, and I don’t care all. I care about Peter Lonzo. It’s the ball, right? But the experience of being there now is this colorful Budweiser red running across the ribbons and the flag. Oh, my God, you got to have the flag. It’s American a ball game. Everybody there is white. I noticed how white it was on Jackie Robinson day. I walked around on Jackie Robinson day and thinking, the whole thing is an homage to black baseball, equality, race, equal baseball and everybody there is white on Jackie Robinson day all these years later, the 40 twos were confusing as hell. They’re trying to do something nice and all that. But I’m a fan at the game, and I have no idea who’s on the field. I can’t even buy a scorecard because they don’t sell those. Like all of it is so different, but I love baseball, and I’m there for that, but I’m thinking to myself, we’re paying all this extra money for all this extra extra and what am I getting? That’s extra. And I don’t mean that be the truest lounge sense of the word. I mean that in the sense of the word, of you spent a lot of taxpayer money here, Katie, who is this really benefiting? And what about yesterday’s game, other than the fact that the team’s better, which is great, and they still lost. But I’m thinking to myself, what about this makes the beer cost more, and all of this other thing that really makes it better? And I don’t know that they, I don’t think they’ve hit the mark on that. And I That’s not me being mean to Katie. That’s me, like, really being an honest fan, journalist, citizen, taxpayer, to be there and say, You did all of this stuff. Is it really better? And it didn’t feel better to me, didn’t feel thoughtful. I mean, that’s,

Chris Korman  27:30

that’s throughout sports. I mean, that’s, you know, it’s, there’s certainly blame here. They are following the trends. And this is a real danger. You know, we’re talking about youth sports earlier. It’s this big business now. That means it’s exclusionary too. That means that there are a lot of kids. You know, our program is a rec program.

Nestor Aparicio  27:48

We built it up, by the way, building the kids at the game yesterday, because it was like, it was like kids screaming, screaming in the upper deck. Well, that’s, that’s good,

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Chris Korman  27:56

have young people there, because, because that’s the word like, I think that there is a there’s a serious problem with young kids not getting into sports, learning to like sports, and becoming lifelong sports fans. We don’t have that they don’t drink as much beers

Nestor Aparicio  28:11

that we did when we were I mean, they’re not at the ballpark to get bombed. That’s the six said to me that beers at the stadium are like five bucks for a certain Miller, whatever. And I’m thinking, well, nobody gets drunk at the ballpark anymore. That’s what people did in wild. Yeah, that’s what the Preakness was like, literally.

Chris Korman  28:26

That’s what I mean. Think about the Preakness this year. There’s, there’s less than, fewer than 5000 tickets available, and how many of those are already accounted for? Because, you know, Belinda will set aside. I mean, there are not like Preakness. It is a boot, it is a boutique bougie event this year that you are going to be lucky to go to. Think about that like that is, that

28:47

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is the people’s race.

Chris Korman  28:48

What, right? And

Nestor Aparicio  28:51

other day, talking about that, and he and I have talked every year for 35 years of radio of that, and I said, is, he’s not coming. And I’m thinking, like, here’s what I’m thinking, will it be fun? And that’s where I’m giving my day. I’m putting a hat on my wife. Are we gonna have a fun day? And that’s what I had to ask about. The oral game on Wednesday, I did not have enough fun. Thank you, Wendy for inviting me, but not the kind of fun where I write a check to do it again, or that I’m rushing back and I’m I really was trying to look at it objectively and say, Would my wife and I spent $35 next week to come down here and get a seat? Would it be fun for us, and I am definitely get off my lawn. I prefer the strike zone on TV. I prefer Ben and Jim Palmer. When the broadcaster good, they give me no reason to want to go back. And that’s sad and unfortunate to me, and it makes me want to fight less with Katie Griggs about my press pass, because, like, do I really want to go there and sit next to Steve malesky for eight, nine innings under an awning? Would that help my coverage if the manager is not going to answer questions after the game anymore, and your people are down there trying to ask the tough questions, and I got Luke down there, we’re all trying to ask tough questions of them, but I think the organization and the. Overall reach of how is this going to be successful for all of us as sports editors, guys who make a living talking about them? How can it be more attractive? That’s what in my heart of hearts. If I had Katie Griggs here and I wasn’t being mean to her, I would just say, like, tell me how you when you’re thinking about this and something of the Terps people, there’s

Chris Korman  30:25

some point like, I mean, I mean the World Cup, I assume World Cup games we packed right but right now, to get to step foot in a World Cup Stadium, you are talking 800 900 $1,000 to sit in the back row and watch tiny little people kick a soccer ball. You are talking $1,000 just to step into it. So watch Tunisia. Yeah, yeah.

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Nestor Aparicio  30:46

Like, because there were a couple Philadelphia game, you’re a Philly guy, I looked it up and it was like $829 on seeking for two countries that I’ve heard of, but like, they’re not going to move me to spend. If it was $80 to go up there, and 40 to park right, and 24 cheese steak, I, I don’t know who the

Chris Korman  31:06

customer M and T Bank stating was packed for messy, but that was, it wasn’t packed well, but you could it was, you know, they lied about, oh, well, they always, but, you know, it was, it was 60, 60,000 at least. And people very riveted. But 70 bucks, 80 bucks, 90 bucks, 100 bucks, depending on where you were sitting, you could get in. But these prices go to Qatar

Nestor Aparicio  31:30

and Switzerland for $244 in Santa Clara, if you want. Okay, but I did look to Philadelphia games, Ecuador. It’s $838 I said 829. $838 Ecuador and Ivory Coast is playing on June 14 at 6pm in the eagle stadium. And the lowest ticket is $838 for Ecuador and Ivory Coast. No bueno. And the Ecuadorian people have the ice people locking them up. So, I mean,

Chris Korman  31:56

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it’s a it’s, it’s a racket. There’s a real danger of this being a

Nestor Aparicio  32:01

mess ravens and Orioles. By the way, Chris Korman here and I got to get you out of here, because I got time restraints for you. The part where they went on the field, the Ravens have been good at that lately. The Orioles were good at that for a minute or two. I was bullish on the Orioles until I watched them play. Now, watch all the 40 twos running around and watch the injuries. I don’t feel as good about the Orioles playing playoff games in October, as I did three weeks ago, the ravens, though, this is a really tender point for the coaching thing and for what the new organization is going to be. And Luke and I are monitoring that, obviously, as you’re monitoring that this is an interesting year, and I think you and I talked about this privately, just like two new managers, new owner on the baseball team, trying to get his feet into this, the labor problem on baseball and all of that ravens run into Brazil and playing and new branding that’s apparently coming out momentarily. Hope it looks as good as that hat. This is an interesting time, and all of my traffic is up on Orioles and Raven stuff. I’m sure yours is up as well, because I do think people are I don’t know if they’re giving money to Shashi brown to get a PSL, or paying Katie Griggs money to run down and get a bobble head, but I know I was in here at 1130 this morning setting up that table. Five people were talking about the Orioles. These five people were talking about the Ravens when I just sat down. So I heard two tables, all men, but they were all talking Orioles and ravens when I walked in, great. Great. That’s what I think, great, because the Orioles were not that kind of going concern before. And the ravens are interesting as hell. I mean, just from how much they lie. Di Costa, The Crosby thing, the draft pick the offensive line, Lamar and his prime their new coach. This is, this is, eat this up as a sports fan, I

Chris Korman  33:46

think, right. Oh, it’s a great era. I mean, it’s, you know, there’s the storylines are incredible, like people got tired of John Harbaugh’s shtick. I mean, you’ve covered that a million times in your show 18 years with anyone is hard. Minter so far, says maybe even less than John, but I think he will acclimate to the role and figure out a way, figure out his own communication style. And I asked Luke, before

Nestor Aparicio  34:13

we did the segment, said, What did he say? He said nothing, yeah, absolutely nothing.

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Chris Korman  34:17

Fastidiously saying nothing. Most of the time.

Nestor Aparicio  34:21

That’s not good for business, yeah, but I

Chris Korman  34:22

think it’ll get, you know, you probably deserves a little bit of a period to acclimate. But it’s, you know, the storylines are great, the Ravens very well. Could, could be good. You know, this is not, this is not that much of a reset. You know. This is like, if they, if they do a few of the right things, like this team is right back in the race, and baseball, as you know is, you know, the injuries have been, been awful, but who knows what happens

Nestor Aparicio  34:49

8

if they here’s the weird thing with Rubenstein, other than him running around Epstein and Eric Eddie’s role in this that’s obvious to me and probably you, but not everybody else. He’s the guy. He’s the guy, right and but he is, he’s hiding, right, so that you. You, but the money on Alonso, the money on bisayo, the money on Boz, the notion that these guys are tooled enough to think they’re Steve Cohen and they may go in on gunner Henderson, just because they want to show their endowment to be large, that’s way different than anything I’ve seen in 30 years here, it’s way different buying a $19 million pitcher on Valentine’s Day who hasn’t been very good, but that they are trying to have, and I felt that way at the ballpark at least, hey, they’re trying to win. This is a better thing that they have on the field, because these rich guys at least realize they can’t serve dog meat, absolute dog meat.

Chris Korman  35:40

Right? To have any hope that gunner Henderson would stay, and to have the hope that if gunnerson, Gunner Henderson leaves the club you support probably did as much as it could or close to keep him, that is a new feeling, right? Manny Machado, by the time he left, it was like, Well, yeah, of course. Like, he’s not, he’s not getting supported. Like, we don’t blame him, you know, like, yeah, we’re going to be a little angry. We wish he would have stayed. But I get it like this at least. I think people will however it plays out. It’s going to feel a lot more like, well, Gunnar really just wanted to be able to go play in Los Angeles, New York, and we did all we could, the ownership, we trust that they actually made legitimate offers. I mean, I think we’re at that point now where we can, we can believe,

Nestor Aparicio  36:25

as opposed to 5 million years plenty for Messina, I

Chris Korman  36:31

think they’ve proven they’re a serious ownership group, which is, you know what you want

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Nestor Aparicio  36:36

as a fan, yeah, I would agree with that. They’re spending money. I wish they were more community centric in regard to how empty the stadium is, right? Because I saw how empty the stadium is, and you see it. We all see it. And I see the prices, and it was $35 to go to the game on Saturday night. And I see all of Katie’s work, even whether Katie wants me to see it or not. But they’re getting their letters from me. This guy writes letters. He is the sports editor of all things Baltimore, banner. How’s banner doing? I mean, I I hear all the hullabaloo about Washington. I saw Stuart Bain was still love to have on the show back new editors, different people. I follow on LinkedIn with you, but the Pittsburgh Post Gazette thing squarely, put your brand of journalism back in in the news.

Chris Korman  37:14

Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think buying the Post Gazette is, it’s great. Post Gazette is a wonderful newspaper had been there for a long time, really serves its community. So I think it fits with what we want to do. You know, there’s gonna be a transition period. We’ll see, see how

Nestor Aparicio  37:33

that goes. We got a million people in a river next Thursday night go market.

Chris Korman  37:36

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I mean, right? Like and it is fascinating how similar Baltimore and Pittsburgh are as places, you know, if you’ve spent time in both places like they are, there’s a lot about the cities that are, even though they’ve, you know, one of the greatest NFL rivalries of all time, I think the people are pretty similar, the places are pretty similar. And so I’m excited about that part. You know, I don’t know what level of collaboration we’ll have with the different properties. But, you know, I’m imagining us covering a raven Steelers December game with playoffs on the line and and having all that, you know, having their writers and our writers and all that experts

Nestor Aparicio  38:13

go wide, right this year, we’ll see it was your fault. Didn’t bust. Justin Tucker, he would have made that kid. There were a

Chris Korman  38:21

few people who made that comment online, just just a few. So, yeah, I think it’s fantastic. We are, we are so excited for it. And you know, this is all moving much quicker that, you know, I don’t think any of us when we joined, the banner is not even four years old. Turns four on June 14, so to think that we would be on the outskirts of DC while and covering DC sports and moving into Pittsburgh like that was not on the roadmap, but it’s a test. Well, there’s momentum to people caring about to your point, you’re

Nestor Aparicio  38:53

supposed to be an incubator for other places. So, yeah, it does make sense that it becomes a little more regional. But, you know, but I think it’s,

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Chris Korman  38:59

it’s showing like people care about journalism. I mean, you know, the response yesterday was like, great, we need journalism. You know, I think people are realizing, like, we need, I wake up every

Nestor Aparicio  39:07

day clown running the country. Lots of

Chris Korman  39:08

people don’t like, I mean, if the truth is about you, then you generally don’t like it, like, if somebody is telling the truth about you, but I think people are starting to wake up to the idea that, like, look, we just need, we need honest media that’s that’s trying to get to what’s real, even if that’s about somebody that I like, you know, you can’t pick and choose. You sort of have to have a level playing field where everybody is getting is being held to the same standard. And I think we have done that, you know, not perfect by any means, but we’ve done that

Nestor Aparicio  39:40

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here, and it’s, it’s spreading big truss,

39:43

right? Hopefully,

Nestor Aparicio  39:44

trust, that’s what it’s all about. Chris Gorman’s here, thanks for coming by. Man, I gotta get you out of here. What’s sharp hat? I want you get a lot local sports here.

Chris Korman  39:52

Yes, it’s the Koco’s. It’s our it’s our program. It’s a it’s a great little program. We have more than 260 kids this little. Show, yep,

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Nestor Aparicio  40:01

and that’s a real baseball hat. I hope it’s a baseball program.

Chris Korman  40:03

Yeah, it is. What position your kid play? Well, he doesn’t even play baseball anymore. He’s a big soccer guy. Loves soccer. He does club soccer, but I still work with the baseball programs. Break Your Heart as a parent. No, not really, whatever.

Nestor Aparicio  40:14

He loves my buddy, my buddy, Tom CAPP, he loved all sports, but he didn’t know much about hockey. And of course, his kid, I took his kid playing, dude, he almost made, yeah, he’s almost he was a professional hockey player. He like, lived in ice rinks in the Quebec and, like, like, literally, so as a parent, you know, whatever you I thought my kid was gonna love sports and all that, and sit in my PSLs forever. If you sat in my PSLs, I go you see the unveiling tonight. But instead, I’m gonna have to watch online. I hope it looks good. Which one do you want? Man? You want the heron? Do you want the Bay Bridge? Do you want the boardwalk? Or do you want the acid tea courses horses? A horse is a horse. Of course, of course. I sat with Dick Girardi, my journalism pal from the news American and the Philadelphia Daily News, we did 40 very angry minutes on the state of the Preakness and horse racing and whether So. Here’s the thing about the Preakness. The first thing I said, though, is, I’m taking the day like to do this. I could go to Vegas a little earlier. I’m going to Vegas anyway. Should I get an earlier flight and skip the Preakness? And the first thing I think is, are they going to have the Derby winner? Probably not, right? And if they probably don’t have the Derby winner, it’s nothing. It’s not, it’s not a thing.

Chris Korman  41:27

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I don’t know that. It’s, I don’t know why there wouldn’t be. I mean, if, if somebody, but it’s always been two weeks, but, and that’s been a

Nestor Aparicio  41:35

problem in my life, right?

Chris Korman  41:36

Yeah, but if it’s an owner who wants to chase the Triple Crown, I mean, there’s, I think what happened is the Triple Crown happened again. It got one again. And so it became less of an impetus to go do it. But I think now they will, and there are rumors that they’re going to finally move it. I mean, they should move it. It’s, it’s pretty brutal on on horses.

Nestor Aparicio  41:55

It’d be an interesting Memorial Day here, if it gets moved to Memorial Day. Well, that’s, that’s the problem. They could play it on Sunday or Monday and how they could market it. It needs to Preakness needs love, dude.

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42:06

Yeah, love a lot. Orioles and

Nestor Aparicio  42:08

ravens need love too. That’s why we’re here. Chris Gorman from the Baltimore banner almost said, Son, damn, don’t do that. The Maryland treasures and all of our friends at GBMC, I am walking on Friday. I’ll walk a mile in their shoes for sexual abuse and awareness stuff we don’t talk about here when you talk about more. Talk about more, it’s Friday at GBMC. And also far in the derms, the weather gets weird. Make sure you have your AC working, because you’re gonna, man, I sweat it out last night. Me and the kitty, whoo, the windows open. It felt like about 150 far in the derma is there as well as for plumbing. Back for more from Costas. I think Pete’s gonna come by and talk about all the rumbling out here in Timonium. My thanks to Kristen for all the guests here back for more on Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.