As the silence from Annapolis continues and the “negotiation” between the Maryland Stadium Authority and John Angelos enters the 11th hour with no Orioles lease at Oriole Park at Camden Yards for 2024, Nestor Aparicio updates Dennis Koulatsos on the facts he’s learned about the deal and “Memorandum Of Understanding” that would disband the Maryland Stadium Authority and gift a whole bunch of valuable land and full power to the Angelos family.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
stadium, year, tickets, game, dennis, oakland, franchise, great, baseball, governor, talked, john, orioles, baltimore, nestor, baseball game, red sox, ravens, wife, selling
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Dennis Koulatsos
Dennis Koulatsos 00:02
Welcome back. My next guest is Nestor Aparicio always doing great things here at Baltimore. Positive Nestor. You know, I’m a big football fanatic. And baseball isn’t my strong point. But now, we’ve seen some accolades for the Baltimore Orioles. We got a rookie of the year we got Executive of the Year, we got Manager of the Year. So they would all be awards, except the the World Series. But you also brought to my attention a story about the the Oakland A’s moving. So I want to hear more about that from you.
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:31
Well, I mean, I’m, I’m into the stadium thing I’m having Tom Kelso on again this weekend. You know, the Ravens don’t play for 10 days. And then they play one game and they don’t play for two weeks. So it’s really we’re going into an interesting time here where this deadline here is at the end of the year. And it’s because there’s a deadline, because they had a two year lease, they signed the two year extension. So that that expires at midnight. New Year’s Eve, right? So we’re up on six weeks here. I don’t want to say the governor’s running for me, but he’s not running toward me. So yeah, we wouldn’t
Dennis Koulatsos 01:06
be standing still right. It’s still it’s not the same as running towards you. You standing still you’re losing ground. And I’ve talked to some folks around town they’re convinced that the oils have been sold. It’s just a matter of before the announcement. I haven’t seen anything. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything, but that would be great news for for
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:24
the beds nothing I can report as anything that I know to be factual or even rumor Rama or that, that John would ever let the thing go. But ultimately, it’s his mother’s team. But they’re on the same team. I think it has so much more value after they hoodwinked the government. I think John’s been so entrenched with Westmore to get another 300 million whenever you get away with 400 million, whatever you get away with, right. And that’s what I’ve been reporting on. But the backdrop of this Dennis is great, because when Thursday morning before the Ravens Bengals game, were dropped that the MLB owners have unanimously voted to allow the age to go to Las Vegas now. I’ve been doing this a long time, right. So I mean, I go back to the early 90s When we were the rich team and we had Camden Yards and Camden Yards was new. And you were you were going to take your your girl out to a banquet there and an evening of dancing there. And it was gonna be the best Steakhouse in the city. And you’re gonna look out over the field, and you’re gonna have weddings, they’re like, oh, I don’t know what happened to all of that. And that’s I’ve talked to the Maryland stadium authority about boobs barbecue being sold 365 days a year like chaps where you would just go down there and have lunch and have the kids run around the field and feel good about the organization, you know, just in a general live, work, play all of that stuff that John talks about here. And I mean, Dennis, I’m taking away deeper dive into this. There’s a parody clause, anything that’s given to John must be given to Steve, the whole thing begins with they did a study. And they said, how much will the stadia cost to maintain over the next 15 to 30 years when a sliding scale? You know about all this to mean your company sits on land and trying to you know, evaluate where we’re going with our business and what we’re going to need to make toilets flush, you know, 40 5060 year old stadium doing repairs, all of those things. They came to the grand conclusion it was $1.2 billion of bonds sent off by lottery tickets, right. And they went to the legislature, they pushed it through without having any debate. There was no civic debate about it. It was on Hogan’s watch Republican administration in a democratic state in a city that’s been forgotten sort of by that part of the government to give 1.2 million from my understanding of this is when Tom Kelso went into Larry Hogan and said, We’re going to need $1.2 billion Hogan who’s a Republican looks and says, How much like the US both the stadiums only cost 500 million when we did this 30 years ago, we’re going to earmark for billionaires so they can make more money. And this is just to make the toilets flush, right like this isn’t we’re not building anything. We’re not building structures. There’s a parking lot there. You know, eminent domains coming down the line I’ve been warned by everybody about that, that these houses you see behind you know and houses in front and and where they keep the money which is the reserve building all that is in play, as well as brambles thing at the harbor, which I spent an hour talking about this week when the crabcake tore down a family so all of this is intertwined for the future of the city and there’s nothing more Baltimore positive to me. I’m at the football team beaten the Bengals lose into the Bengals, how they’re gonna play against the Chargers. That’s wonderful. Lamar bring another championship. That’s great. The Orioles winning three worlds it’s great, but what does it mean for the community? And I went down there This summer and I saw how depressed the baseball franchise is as a franchise. I mean, the night they clinched, there’s 25,000 people there. I mean, tickets are eight bucks and nobody wants to go blame it on crime, Playbill, Fox 45, whatever you want to blame pricing, I mean, how much more can they charge? I mean, when they can’t get what they can get, right, the Ravens given tickets away. Bengals are in town, it’s less than face value, right? Like it was the same. It’s never more than face value. Tickets are $22 against the Browns the other day, I was on StubHub, I mean, I I was on SeatGeek. I know what’s going on. I sat in those tickets and ate them and had to give them away and I get offered him sometimes. So like, I’m trying to figure out the value of all of this. And then I wake up on Thursday, and the Oakland A’s are gone. And then I realized the Oakland Raiders are gone. And then I look into the Golden State Warriors are gone, right? And I look at my childhood and say the Baltimore bullets were gone. And the Baltimore Colts were gone. I can pull my my, my belt buckle out and show that so by the way, can I can I make a joke just for the week. My wife just got back from a she’s on her way back from Paris. She’s not here yet. But she will be by the time you hear this. And she went to the Colts Patriot game. The morning game Sunday morning with Nils the man who saved your life and the Colts one. You’re gonna love this. I said to her, I’m like, You got to witness one more cults victory this year than I did in 1982. Oh, was that right? I mean, that
Dennis Koulatsos 06:24
is the truth. That is the truth. Who cares about the Colts but I do care about the people of Oakland. I’ve never been to Oakland but Kevin lost football and baseball that go back to Reggie Jackson basketball,
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:35
but they can take that they can take the train over and watch their basketball. That’s like for three times the price of course. You know, that’s insane,
Dennis Koulatsos 06:42
though, but I remember Reggie Jackson with the Oakland A’s. I mean, to me, it’s an iconic franchise. I get they need they want to put a team in Vegas. But why the A’s? Nestor?
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:51
Well, I mean, I could pull up pictures on my Facebook of the last time the Orioles played there. And what it looked like, there was nobody there. I mean, it’s just Dennis, it’s just been an unbelievable thing to watch the deterioration of when they quit on it, right. It’s like anything else. Right? When when you quit on it, you know, that’s when it’s all over. Right? Like the community kind of quit on it. The owner kind of quit on the community, the owner, and that’s where you really have to think about this. I’m gonna pull this up for you then because I had this out. Well, you have to give me a permission to share but but but nonetheless, the stadium there is in such disrepair. I was there last year. I mean, I was there a year and a half ago and I think going to that stadium. The first time I walked in that stadium was I’m just really trying to think the first time because it might have been the day the AFC Championship game. I think it was, I think it was the first time I walked in that stadium was the day that David Modell and I held up the trophy and we went to the Super Bowl. So it’s 23 years ago. I don’t think it was there. Before that. I posted this. I saw the best baseball game I ever saw in my life in my life. And I saw I mean I was at A’s Orioles playoff games in 1974. Catfish threw it was one nothing game Palmer you can go look these games up via blue all of that stuff. The game and I was there when labor hit the home run at the launching pad. I was there when Joe Carter hit the walk off and Philly to me, excuse me, Toronto to be I mean, I’ve seen amazing baseball games I’ve been to. I was in the locker room when the Braves won. You know in Atlanta. I’ve seen great, great baseball things. The best baseball game I ever saw was a playoff game between the a’s and the Red Sox in Oakland in 2003. My wife Lynn was game five it was a clinch game. And it was Barry Zito and Pedro Martinez. And this is 20 years ago, Dennis right. So it’s 2003 in that stadium that they had built mount Davis, they built all those seats up there. But don’t we re Bachman and I went to the AFC Championship Game there when the Raiders won. When they beat the Titans. They beat him shorts with Rod woods the next year in the rich Gannon year. Then when they got their ass kicked by Tampa, right, we were at that championship game. Ray and I were in Mount Davis sitting up top in the Titan seats. Jimmy shorts left us the tickets. I wasn’t wearing wearing these colors, but I was wearing black because you don’t get killed there if you don’t. But so I’ve been in that stadium a million times. And that day my wife and I saw that incredible baseball game there. 2003 there were I literally Dennis, I was with Julio and his father was still alive. God bless him. He loved baseball, and we sat on that bridge. I wanted to take the the subway, and they were too good to take the subway and I take the car and like we’re gonna sit on the bridge. My wife peed in a cup in the back of the back of his car. Getting there Do we get there? And you just pull up in park? It’s game five to Knockout Game was like, five in the afternoon game. So it was like an eight o’clock East Coast game. I mean, everybody in Boston, it’s getting 90 share in Boston, right? The Red Sox hadn’t won the World Series yet. It was oh three, it was the height of Schilling Martinez. Oh, my God. I mean, it was, you know, there was the Red Sox, right. Pull up the stadium had, I could look the attendance up of the game, but they’re lying if they said there were 20,000 people. They’re like they’re lying. And my wife and I bought tickets. You were a Red Sox Yankees Red Sox fan. And there were 4000 Red Sox fans there that lived in the Bay Area, right that were just like the Red Sox are playing a knockout game. My wife and I walked up to the box office, I wouldn’t worry about tickets. I knew we’d get a ticket. I walked up. I said, you know, what do you have? Oh, we have seats. These are eight rows behind third base. How much are they they were like, I swear 18 bucks or something. There was they were like giving the tickets away. And they couldn’t get anybody to sit in them. And my wife and I went sat in them. And we saw the best baseball game I’ve ever seen. It was the game where Johnny Damon got knocked out in the outfield. And it was the crotch shot game with Miguel Shahada. It was the last game to how to play with the A’s and then he became an oriental right after that. It’s a really, really great, great, great baseball game. It’s like a three to one final or something. But it’s just an awesome game. strategy. We had great seats. So I remember sitting in that stadium seen these great baseball games, great football games, championship games are all it’s all over with. It’s all over with now they’re gonna move the team. And this grease is John, This empowers John more to say, you know that there is a chip, that if we’re not getting what we want, and Baltimore will threaten to leave will like all of that all that MOU was a joke. And the governor knows that his people know that. And they’re doing everything they can do to pacify him the same way that for 30 years, people have done things to pacify his father. They got him $600 million. Dennis, you know, I mean, like, they got exactly what they got $600 million, and it’s not good enough to get the least on Bashar he’s already signed. But if this isn’t good enough, and then he’s now he’s in on the new Maryland stadium authority and on Westmore, whom he wrote chapters for West Moore’s book years ago. So there’s all of this relationship that I didn’t realize existed. And if they agree to do this, if Wes agrees to this, and and and and Brookley ermine and the people and, and Annapolis in general, all of our elected officials go down there and agree to sort of double the money for what they just gave them a year and a half ago, because it’s not good enough. Now Steve’s gonna get all this money. And there’s everything and I’ve said this the bill call, there’s everything but a plan. Like, show me what you’re doing with the money. And worse than that the worst part of this, Dennis, is that John is looking to get rid of the oversight. He’s looking to get rid of the Maryland stadium authority and have all of this money gifted to the Orioles to create their own shell construction companies and potentially screw it up. I don’t know. I mean, I I don’t know. So you’re hearing the exact opposite. If you think John’s getting out. I I’ve heard nothing to the Stryver to John’s digging in and that the governor’s digging in and that the commissioner has bigger fish to fry. The commissioner spent Thursday morning voting to move the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas. And they’re trying to get the stadium down down to Tampa and Baltimore’s on the backburner. They just want 100 games. What could go wrong here? Except that are they selling tickets? Are they selling skyboxes Are they are they like what are they doing? And they’re they don’t have a lease. I keep saying they don’t have a lease on January 1, and people and we’re all blinded by the football team, right? Like football teams doing well. And even when they’re not doing well, we’re but this is important. This is really, really, really important. And I just want people to keep their eye on the ball because this Oakland thing opens the door. They don’t move franchises and baseball man.
Dennis Koulatsos 14:04
They added a second time I think this century it’s happened. It’s not well, the Nationals
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:08
right would be the case, but they didn’t know what to do with the expos. And I go back in the late 90s. Talking about great guests I’ve had on the show that you don’t know I’ve had on the show. I had the governing body on my show regularly. Jesse Ventura did my show several times in 1999 2000. I can see that I can see that. He was the governor of Minnesota, and they were trying to contract the twins. Yeah, they’ll google it. They said we’re gonna get rid of these two franchises. And the governor of Minnesota lost his mind, by the way, but he lost his mind. And he came on with me very soberly, like you know, he can be when the wrestling sticker was the governor’s neck and he came over me many times is we’re not letting the word Not letting majorly it’s pretty good. We’re not letting Major League Baseball, take our franchise from Minnesota. Now we’ve got a long history with all the Homer hanky we’re going back to Tony Ilieva. We’re going back to Bert Blyleven. We’re going back to the Rod Carew, the roots of baseball here in Minnesota. So is that pretty good?
Dennis Koulatsos 15:21
Just good. But there’s got to be massive pressure on the governor, though, not to allow franchise to move on his watch. Whether you’re West mortals
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:31
aren’t leaving tour that that’s the thing that’s fake here, right? There’s no leverage. They’re not going to leave Baltimore, no one is in on John angelos, and no one in Major League Baseball is going to have his back to move the franchise when there’s $600 million sitting on the table. And Camden Yards and a stadium that’s built and ready to go and a government that’s ready to run it. And he’s trying to overthrow the government’s oversight of all of it. And it’s done the parking lot. And once the absconds, the parking lot in the warehouse, and he owns it all. And it’s his to do whatever he wants. What are we gonna get the shoddy, that’s equal value.
Dennis Koulatsos 16:09
Right. The other side, he’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:11
asking for things I don’t know that the government can even give him you know what I mean? Like, Well, maybe
Dennis Koulatsos 16:15
he wants to open up a bunch of steak houses, restaurants, etc. Who knows?
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:19
Who knows? This was the big lie from the beginning because he inherited all of that his father inherited a franchise with no Washington, no television network. 3.6 million fans, Cal Ripken. Brooks. Puig, my cousin Frank just goes through the list of what they had. They had Alomar, they had key, they had wells, they had Erickson they had like they had Palmero, even though nobody wanted him who the hell would want him but I would say that this franchise in the future for the franchise and where they are in their winning games. They’re not even marketing. You mean that the marketing is looking at our manager to you’re looking at our executive? You’re looking at our rookie of the year but like, have you?
Dennis Koulatsos 17:04
But that’s not their MO they haven’t marketed
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:08
buying tickets, or are they doing a Winter Carnival? They can’t sell tickets to games because they don’t have a stadium the plan meanwhile every concert is putting their thing on sale for November next year trying to get you to buy two tickets to Green Day to make your kid happy for Christmas and spend $20 Too much you know like the concert industry is out in front of all this trying to make holiday gifts Black Friday gifts and it’s like a black friday Live Nation will have by four get to free for REO Speedwagon and, and Loverboy or whatever’s going on. And the baseball teams not selling tickets, like I don’t. They’ve never run the business, right? Like I mean, I have Marty Conway on all the time, we talked about the unorthodox way that their tickets aren’t on sale, they don’t have a lease, the owner disappears. He’s in Nashville, he’s fighting with the governor, the governor’s doing anything he can do to appease him, including some really crazy stuff, like busting up the Maryland stadium authority and giving John more money and land that he would then have to promise to Steve and there’s nowhere to park. Like what the legislature went down and blindly got you $1.2 billion. And that’s not good enough. I mean, it’s insane. Dennis, I don’t know what else to say, hey, go Ravens. There you go. Ask
Dennis Koulatsos 18:18
for the sun. You might get the moon Nestor appreciate you. You come in on your insight in regards to the matters that people are looking to sweep under the rug. So thank you for pressuring me bring them to the surface.
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:29
Can I say one more thing just on the baseball side. Geddy Lee, you familiar Geddy Lee, you know from rush. I’m seeing him this weekend. So there will be a report on your show my show our show all next week. We got crazy week next week. Thanksgiving, right. You know, I’m doing the crabcakes we’re Pappus on Tuesday. I’m going to be a Coco’s on the 29th. I’m at the BMA on the 30th at gertrudes with Dan Rodricks. I’m so looking forward to that. We’re up at Hollywood casino on the first Hollywood casino on the first Tom Kelso, the former Maryland stadium authority chairman is going to sit with me and attempt to through an index like we’re going to sit and do this as a thing. I’m going to plan out like a real term paper to say this is this is MSA for dummies. This is the Oreos in the Ravens lease in the future downtown Baltimore, and the stadium these franchises and we’re gonna go soup to nuts to try to educate people, because my thing was, if you heard my thing was back and forth, and then we’re going to do a little piece here this week, just brushing up on what Westmore what that thing was back in September, the MOU. We’re going to talk specifically about that. So I’m I’m getting into all this. But Geddy Lee is auctioning his baseball collection and he’s touring and he’s written a book on it parents. His parents met in Auschwitz in a concentration camp and escaped death and he is a product of that. And it’s taken him his whole life. I knew that because I mean there’s some songs that refer that and read sector aids and things like that. But he’s he’s doing this tour, and it’s just it’s been a weekend. to it and I’m really into it because it’s the intersection of baseball and rush it’s great you know
Dennis Koulatsos 20:05
thank you for sharing my brother’s a big brush fan with that we’ll take a next break here 1570 Am Who state We’ll be back right after this
