It was a late night weekend of baseball from Chavez Ravine with results impressive enough to make Luke Jones and Nestor think about what might be. Or maybe not? Either way, two out of three for the Orioles at Dodger Stadium en route to Anaheim has kept the season alive and the signs of life are apparent if not permanent.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ successful weekend at Dodger Stadium, highlighting their victories and key performances. They praised young players like Trey Gibson and Brandon Young, who have shown promise. Despite the wins, they noted the team’s inconsistency, emphasizing the need to maintain momentum. They also reflected on the historical significance of Dodger Stadium and the 1966 World Series. The conversation concluded with a focus on the upcoming series against the Angels, urging the team to build on their recent success and avoid a letdown.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend the sports broadcasting camp session this week where Luke will speak to aspiring young broadcasters.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Appear at the ensemble baseball emergency gathering at Green Mount Station in Hampstead on Wednesday at 4:00 pm before the Anaheim game.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend the Green Mount Station event on Wednesday with Scratch and Maryland Lottery.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend the Heritage Fair on the Fourth of July.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Participate in the upcoming Fenway Park trip that is now within 30 days.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Consider inviting an executive or general manager to the show to discuss potential changes in the Orioles’ front office.
- [ ] Wear the new Planet Fitness black-and-white shirt at the upcoming sports broadcasting camp session this week.
Orioles’ Successful Weekend at Dodger Stadium
- Nestor Aparicio discusses the Orioles’ successful weekend at Dodger Stadium, highlighting victories and quieting key players like Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.
- Nestor mentions his busy weekend, working on the 3.0 version of Baltimore Positive and an upcoming app with Dennis O’Donovan.
- Luke Jones shares his perspective on the weekend, noting the excitement but also the inconsistency of the team.
- Both Nestor and Luke reflect on the importance of winning two out of three games, especially as the team approaches the halfway point of the season.
Personal Reflections and Team Performance
- Nestor and Luke discuss their personal experiences during the games, including falling asleep during the games and recording them for later viewing.
- Nestor praises the Orioles’ performance at Dodger Stadium, particularly the love for the stadium by players like Pete Alonso.
- Luke highlights key moments from the games, including Trey Gibson’s performance and the team’s comeback efforts.
- Both Nestor and Luke express frustration with the team’s inconsistency and the need for more consistent performance.
Challenges and Opportunities for the Orioles
- Nestor and Luke discuss the challenges the team faces, including injuries and the need for young players to step up.
- They reflect on the importance of winning against the Angels to maintain momentum and avoid a disappointing end to the road trip.
- Nestor emphasizes the need for the team to focus on competitive baseball and not get distracted by other events like the World Cup.
- Both Nestor and Luke express hope for the team to build on their recent success and maintain consistency.
Historical Context and Personal Connections
- Nestor shares his personal connection to the 1966 World Series and the significance of Dodger Stadium for him.
- He reflects on the historical context of the Orioles’ success and the impact of players like Jim Palmer and Louis Aparicio.
- Nestor discusses the importance of preserving the legacy of the 1966 World Series and the role of Jim Palmer in that legacy.
- Both Nestor and Luke acknowledge the historical significance of the weekend and the importance of maintaining the team’s connection to its past.
Future Outlook and Team Goals
- Nestor and Luke discuss the team’s future outlook, including the importance of winning against the Angels and maintaining momentum.
- They reflect on the need for the team to build on their recent success and avoid the inconsistency that has plagued them in the past.
- Nestor emphasizes the importance of competitive baseball and the need for the team to focus on winning games.
- Both Nestor and Luke express hope for the team to continue their success and maintain a positive outlook for the rest of the season.
Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home, we are W N S T A M 1570 Tass Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, you know. I’m trying to say W N S T because the damn AI keeps saying W N S D, and I’m like, you know, it’s like when Muller taught me to say county instead of county county, so I’m working on that. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. I’ll be working on Carroll County. I’ll be in Green Mount Station in Hampstead, not Hampden, where I was the other day doing yoga. It’s all brought to you by our friends at Planet Fitness, our friends at GBMC, keep me alive and well, and of course, Farnham and Dermer, and that’s on Luke Jones’s chest. Luke, I got a new Planet Fitness shirt here that I’m going to wear. It’s just plain black and white. It’s summertime. I just want to remind everybody out there, because Luke’s going to be speaking to some young whippersnappers who want to be us later in life at the sports broadcasting camp this week, that if you do have youngins of that age, you know, 1415, 1617, and you want to get them out of the house, get them in shape, Planet Fitness free around the corner, work out my wife all summer over at Timonium, and I do appreciate the shirt, shirt looks good, looks regal. This is a reminder to Kristen over GBMC and all my other sponsors that it’s time to freshen up the gear around here, like our friends at Farnham and Dermer, who I got a new shirt for you too, Luke. It’s not the orange one, it’s a different one that I got shipped over from Zach. So, hey, quite a weekend at a Dodger Stadium, right? Not, not too shabby. Victories, blowouts, quieting Shohei Ohtani, quieting Freddie Freeman, further quieting the quad and other things of Mookie Betts, even hit him in the face with the ball. Good weekend at Dodger Stadium. You know, I’m home alone all weekend, up all night, plotting the 3.0 version of Baltimore Positive, and our forthcoming app, and all of these other things that I’m doing out in the cosmos with AI, and my dude from Profit Com, Dennis O’Donovan. Good baseball weekend, and bravo for keeping the season alive, and making me have to stay up late and making you have to appear with Casper Wells and my pal Howard Chair for an ensemble baseball emergency gathering before the Anaheim game at 4pm at Green Mount Station in Hampstead on Wednesday.
Luke Jones 2:35
Yeah, I mean the weekend felt weird to me as much as anything else. I mean, in some ways, in some ways, and I don’t want to make it out to be that winning two out of three amounts to much of anything, unless, like, I keep saying, they have to keep winning up. I’m really at a point now, as we’re almost to the halfway point. I keep watching, obviously, I cover this team, obviously, but it’s one of those things where, until you get back to 500 like we can keep doing this song and dance, where they’re back, and then they’re not back, and then they’re back, and then they look good, and then they look terrible, and then they kind of look okay. But it was an exciting weekend, right? I don’t know how many people stayed up late Friday night. Full disclosure, I fell asleep, and Kevin Brown’s, oh no, when the ball got away on the last play, I fell asleep Saturday night. I’m not gonna lie,
Nestor Aparicio 3:26
Saturday night caught him up with Nala, and it was, it was over, you know. So, once the cat joins you at 1015 it’s over, you know.
Luke Jones 3:33
It’s for me, it was over. As soon as I said, you know what, I’m gonna watch the rest of the game in bed, you know, put it on the TV in the bedroom. The thing is,
Nestor Aparicio 3:40
you can tape it, which is what I did, for sure. 322 in the morning, which is when I always wake up. If not to pee, then at least to watch the Oregon, and then I watch it after that. I mean, it was kind of fun watching Palmer all weekend. I thought, I mean, and I just have.. I mentioned I love Dodger Stadium. Have I mentioned that once or twice? Yeah, and like the Orioles
Luke Jones 4:00
love Dodger Stadium over the weekend, for the most part. Pete Alonso
Nestor Aparicio 4:03
loves Dodger Stadium, right?
Luke Jones 4:05
Yeah, so I mean, it was, it was a very weird weekend, in the sense of Wednesday night, or Wednesday night, Friday night goes the way that it did, and they’re down early, three nothing. You’re thinking, oh, okay, like Trey Gibson’s in over his head, he settles in and does a pretty nice job. After that, bases
Nestor Aparicio 4:22
loaded thing was a nice solution. Sure, absolutely.
Luke Jones 4:24
I mean, that, that’s that was one of those moments where you say, okay, if Trey Gibson figures this thing out over the next year in the way that Brandon Young has. It reminded me
Nestor Aparicio 4:34
of Greg Olsen in Oakland that night, back when you were real young, and you know, one of those one
Luke Jones 4:38
of those checkpoints where you look at the maturation process a little bit and say, hey, you’ve done this and you can get out of a jam like that, but you look at Friday night and Gunner hits the home run, Alonzo hits the home run, they tied in the sixth, Jeremiah Jackson, who’s barely played of late, but a two-run single, and then Helsley’s just a disaster in the ninth. Inning right, and the defense, I mean, Tyler O’Neill’s charged with the arrow on the game losing play, although I still kind of feel like Bisayo needs to get in front of that ball there, but they lose, right, and you’re thinking, oh my gosh, they had this comeback, and you’re really wondering, at that point, is this just going to be a disaster of the weekend, is this when they fold up shop, and, and they’re just going to get their feelings hurt, and they win the next two. However, Saturday night’s game, ninth inning drama again, where they kick the ball around, and you know, Mayo, not it wasn’t charged as an error, but certainly a play he could have made. The Tavares error was just inexplicable, but in your canoe, great job getting out of the jam at a jam that he had nothing to do with creating, so they get the win, and then Sunday, I mean, they just jumped on Sheehan early, and they just beat the pants off the Dodgers on Sunday. I mean, they hit the ball, and Brandon Young was solid, you know, what, four different home runs: Kauser, Taylor Ward, Pete Alonso, Blaze Alexander continues to hit, and you know, Sunday was as emphatic as convincing of a win as they’ve had all year. So good series win. I’m not going to sit here and be dismissive of the act of winning a series against the Dodgers. That’s that’s good, but we’ve also seen this team play well, and then immediately not play well, and that’s where I kind of look at it and say, all right, if you want to finish off a road trip and feel pretty good about yourselves coming home, don’t lose two out of three to Anaheim now, right? I mean, the last thing you want to do, but
Nestor Aparicio 6:32
yeah, I’m writing jokes here, and it’s sort of like, you know, when you want to win two out of three at Dodger Stadium, make it count, make it in October, you know, right now it’s just, it’s just, it’s a weekend in LA, and I tell you what, it’s the kind of West Coast road trip now that you could put a bow and an exclamation point on to come home and say season’s alive again, and the Nationals are in town, and the bobblehead, or the weekend, or whatever they’re doing with the flag, or whatever, whistling the national, whatever the hell they’re doing this weekend, playing competitive baseball is to your point. You always put that front, I mean, as you should. That’s where the light needs to be. Competitive baseball, right? At this time of the year, they did that over the weekend, and I know not everybody stayed up all night at Unique Clove Field, and you know, with all of it, but I don’t know, it was a good, it was a good baseball weekend, and you know, the whole 1966 thing, and I got to tweet at Jim Palmer for forgetting Louie, by the way, and forgetting Frank Robinson played the 1961 World Series as well, so kind of I was like hanging on the conversation between Brown and Palmer, and I thought that that was something that even when I fell asleep on Saturday night, I woke back up, and I don’t know, there’s such lore, dude. I mean, I wasn’t alive in 66 but it begat me, like, you know what I mean? Like, my parents got married that summer, I would, you know what I mean, like Louis was here the whole deal, and it means something to me. The 66 World Series thing means something to me, and hearing Palmer kind of come in and out of it at various points over the weekend, I just, again, dude, it’s a television show to me, so I’ll talk about it like that. Like, so we talk about American Idol, what happens on the stage to me, part of it’s what Simon Cowell said too, and you know, like watching this for nine hours over the weekend, in the middle of the night, kind of in a weird time in the afternoon on Sunday, when the golf thing’s going on, all the World Cup’s blowing up all over the place, too, like when I’ve gone in, I was at Cooper’s the other night, having a late night, you know, Columbia’s on, I was at, you know, the Germany things happen in Scotland. It’s a lot of, lot of soccer happening out there, but to keep the focus on the Orioles, the Orioles need to keep the focus on the Orioles, especially when they’re playing at freaking midnight. You know what I mean, and their rookie pitchers screwing up early on Friday night, you feel like 99 and you come out of it on Sunday night, or you went boating over the weekend, or you went to the beach, or you did something, and you just didn’t stay up, you’re just following the score, and maybe you didn’t watch a pitch over the weekend, which is, that’s also cool too. It was kind of a weird weekend to be following it to some degree, especially if you’re watching soccer all day long, dude, betting on it, bat, bet, bet. Can’t wait to get to John Martin at the end of this month to figure out the sports wagering, because I, I just see sports everywhere in a way that only the World Cup, I think, can bring it. Good weekend for them, but I don’t know who’s awake at 1145 tomorrow night, you know, watching it, but I know that we can all get back into it at 7o’clock on Friday, when they get back home, if somehow, some way, they start to think about breaking out of broom on a really bad team on the West Coast.
Luke Jones 9:49
Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say that. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and be dismissive of if you quote only win two out of three, because again, the way this team is, they’re just as likely to lose. Out of three over the next few nights, right? I mean, I’m not.. it’s just what we’ve seen. I mean, it’s who they are, but if you can sweep and get back to two under, which is since early May, is kind of been their high watermark, right? I mean, they haven’t been
Nestor Aparicio 10:15
all-star break at 500 right? Like, I like.. but that’s.. you’ve got to make your move, that’s where it was, even in April, right? In eight, sure, at any point, if we were saying, if they were going to have Westberg not make the plate, Holiday missed half of this, Henderson stink, Eph, be gone, Helsley be injured, Kittredge be injured. Let’s just keep going through it, Mount Castle out, I mean, just all the names we could just sort of throw out now. Ruchman has had issues, you know. Once again, getting hit, like to say 500 at the all-star break would be that’s oxygen, and I think you and I’ve mentioned this on and off. It’s harder to mention it when they’re eight games under it, really.
Luke Jones 11:02
I hear you, and that’s where I kind of view the weekend. I’m at the point now where if this had happened a month ago, you’d be hearing me talking way more about, okay, here you go, here you go. I’m way more in show me, right? I mean, look, the Miami Marlins won a game, won a series at Dodger Stadium earlier this year. Right? I mean, I’m just throwing it out there. Cleveland won a series of Dodger Stadium. Atlanta, who’s been really good all year,
Nestor Aparicio 11:30
but the playout was fun Sunday. I must say, no, no, like, I mean, it’s only one win, but confident spruce to leave you to your point, you’re the teacher for the sports broadcasting kids. Hey, look at what you did, kids. Look at how good. Look at what you did at Dodger Stadium. Now, dream a little bit of being an 88 win wild card team that catches fire that won’t be intimidated if you have to go back there again,
Luke Jones 11:54
right? And that’s, and that’s where there was almost a sense of annoyance about the weekend, because you look at it and you say, hey, that looked pretty good,
Nestor Aparicio 12:04
like Sunday’s performance
Luke Jones 12:06
looked good, you did that against the defending world champions, right? Why can’t you have any level of consistency that approaches that, right? And I’m not saying 100 wins, I’m not saying be the best team in baseball, but come on, you know what I mean, like that, that’s there was there was a little bit of that for me, if I’m being honest, you can do it, you
Nestor Aparicio 12:25
can do it,
Luke Jones 12:26
but it’s just, but it’s more so, why can’t you do that more often, right, because it did look really good on Saturday and Sunday, it looked good Friday until you know the ninth inning, I mean they had a late inning come back on Friday, so so that’s that’s a little bit more where I am with this, more so than being overly encouraged by it, but sweep the angels, right? I mean, like, we’re not talking about the angels, are bad, and you know, I mean, they’re, you want to talk about teams, we’ve questioned the direction of where the Orioles go from here, and Elias, and all kinds of different things of ownership, all kinds of different things about this organization, but you look at the Angels. I mean, my goodness, you want to talk about listless? I mean, that’s about as listless as it gets in terms of where the heck they go. I mean, okay, they’ve got a future Hall of Fame player, and Mike Trout, who’s still under contract for the foreseeable future. We saw
Nestor Aparicio 13:20
their best player all weekend. Sure, exactly. And that’s
Luke Jones 13:23
what I mean, right. So, so, by the way, if
Nestor Aparicio 13:26
I’m going to go on about Dodger Stadium, I got to get some cheap shots in for the Anaheim Stadium. So, I’ve got, I’ve gotten my comedy year for the end of the routine, so I’ll bring that up. But it’s the worst stadium.
Luke Jones 13:36
But my point is, just with this, I mean, if you want, if you want me, or anyone, forget about me. If you want anyone who’s watching this club to really start to say, okay, maybe this is a little more of who you can be, then go to go to Anaheim and sweep the Angels. I mean, that’s just where I am at this point, like this. This constant, all they get up to two or three games under 500 and then they fall back to six, right? Or they, you know, they fall to seven, like they did Friday night. That’s why I kind of said, like, they need to get back to 500 See, I think they’re
Nestor Aparicio 14:08
always going to kick the ball around, but.. and that’s what makes it hard, right? Where they pitch and they hit well. I’ll hear that. Sure, you know what I mean. And
Luke Jones 14:16
I’ll
Nestor Aparicio 14:17
even hear that the young guys in Gibson and Young are coming along to keep them afloat, which is amazing, which is amazing. Like, if you and I would have talked in March about these two guys that Brandi, they’d be 10 and two in games that Brandon Young starts. Yeah, like, and the fact that he’d have 12 freaking starts to begin with. How many games under 500 are they? And you’d say no, they’re 10 and two in his start, right? It’s not because of him, and they’re still under five, like exactly right, that that is the, that’s what’s
Luke Jones 14:46
frustrating.
Nestor Aparicio 14:47
You know what, dude, I was thinking about this on Sunday, like, because you and I almost did a segment on Sunday night. You didn’t want to do it, by the way. Happy Father’s Day. I haven’t said that to everybody, everybody out there who’s.. I hope everybody had a great time with their fathers, but I’ll. Or kids or daughters, whomever you, whoever you were with, had a good time. I was going to say to you, you know, the whole notion of like keeping this thing together and in check, and wherever it is, you were the optimist, like two weeks ago, feeling good when they sort of picked themselves back up again. This was sort of a weekend where, like, I can sort of dust off and find the charm, and also say Alonzo’s on pace that 42 home runs or something, right? You know, I mean, so some of these guys that it got a slow start and things weren’t so good, heating this thing up and finding the Brandon Young’s to say, all right. Who are going to be the surprises? And this is what I was going to say to you on Sunday night, and we’ve done this because I did write this down. You always say that’s the beauty of baseball, dude. That’s what makes baseball awesome, because sometimes Mookie Betts bobbles one, right? Like, literally, right? Yeah,
Luke Jones 15:57
I mean, that’s what makes it baseball, but it’s also that’s also my argument right now, for let me see what happens in Anaheim. Then, no, because, because I’m just.. because that was me, to your point, that was me two and a half weeks ago, very much being encouraged about where they were, and then they lost what, eight of their next 12, or whatever it was. So, when you start to
Nestor Aparicio 16:17
feel like they’re running at a time on the trading deadline to figure out what they are, is that what you’re thinking, because they’re only chasing the top wild card team, which is like right around the corner, right? I mean, because they all stink, and you’ve written about that at Baltimore Positive. We talked about that,
Luke Jones 16:32
yeah. I mean, to a point, but for me, it’s just I just want to see them look consistent, right? I’m not, I’m not looking for them to play 100 win pace baseball. I don’t think they’re that, because of what you just laid out with the defense and the other, the other team,
Nestor Aparicio 16:49
29 to 31 outs, almost every night. I mean, my goodness, and this is
Luke Jones 16:54
where I’d be remiss, because we talked about Trey Gibson, we talked about Brandon Young on Sunday, no, I was going to talk about Saturday. Trevor Rogers was phenomenal, and they came that close to completely throwing that game away too. And it’s just
Nestor Aparicio 17:11
Tyler O’Neill can’t throw the ball, Henderson can’t. I put that more on
Luke Jones 17:14
Visaya, though. I saw
Nestor Aparicio 17:16
you, yeah, that wasn’t any good. I’ll be honest, the manager criticizes him. Holy hell, we’re gonna have World War Three with the kid who’s guaranteed $78 million
Luke Jones 17:26
He was more critical of Hell’s, I mean, the fact of the matter is Hell’s Lee walked walk guys in the middle of that issue. I mean, that was really the back breaker there, but, but even just Saturday, I mean, they get Trevor Rogers looking stuff-wise, looking as good as he looked last summer. I mean, that’s what he looked like. He, the velocity was ticked up, you know, ticked up a little bit. It was getting swing and miss. I mean, he was really good on Saturday, and they came that close to blowing that because of their defense in the ninth inning. But you know, you got the
Nestor Aparicio 17:55
Angels in the Nationals this week, and the pitchers are pitching well, and the bats are going well. How about a five in one, you know? Be by the time we get together next Monday, and I’m talking about Sammy Hagar and the Heritage Fair and the Fourth of July. Like, literally, how about you know we’re degree mount station, we’re doing on Wednesday, brought to you by the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, and Farnham and Dermer. The Comfort guys keep me comfortable all week, you know, like, how about a five and one? How about a five and one against these bands? Kind of my point. Well, I would say this: be careful, careful, the National, they hit
Luke Jones 18:31
the ball, man. If you’ve seen what they’ve been able to, they’ve scored runs. I mean, there’s no doubt about that
Nestor Aparicio 18:36
channel.
Luke Jones 18:37
Well, not.. I don’t either. But yeah, I watch. I watch MLB Network, right? So, White
Nestor Aparicio 18:43
Sox are better than anybody wants them to be.
Luke Jones 18:45
Yeah, I mean, it’s you never, although they, they actually came back down to earth over the weekend, they lost three straight, but, but yeah, I mean, and that’s that’s my point about all this, like, look, the Dodger series was fun, I mean, the ninth inning, Friday night and Saturday, I guess it was dramatic, you know. They, they still won. It felt like they lost, but, but it was a fun weekend, right? And you saw all these different things that, you know, I mean, Colton Cows are a big game on Sunday, right? Trevor Rogers looking great Saturday, like things that you were hoping to see all year that surfaced, you know, that like showed up, and you see that, but we also just saw that stretch recently where more of that happened, and then they fell right back down after that, and that’s why I kind of said I’m not, I’m not even being facetious here, it for me it feels just as likely that they could lose two out of three to the angels as you know, feeling as heartened as, as you did about the weekend, right? And how fun Saturday and Sunday was. So, I don’t say that to be flippant, but we also have to be realistic. I mean, this is who this holiday
Nestor Aparicio 19:54
are around, and that’s part of it. Let’s bake into this. We keep talking. And it’s very clear, by the way, Luke Jones is here at Baltimore. Luke, if you’re just following us out on the radio or in podcast landia, there we’ve just done a half an hour with how awesome the pitching is, and how awesome it is to see Alonzo on a 40 home run pace, and and the good things, but boy, the holiday Rochman thing, they’re going to play, they’re gonna play a little bit here, like it feels like a little spell that’s two one ones, right? You mean, like, yeah, you say Ruchman and Holly, there’s part of the cast here, they’re not really part of the cast, they, they’re two Peyton Manning’s, they, they’re supposed to be,
Luke Jones 20:35
because
Nestor Aparicio 20:36
they better be.
Luke Jones 20:37
Oh, Ruchman has been much more of that guy this year, right? I mean, he’s, he’s for as much as we’ve been disappointed about this team collectively, which is that’s why I need
Nestor Aparicio 20:48
him in there,
Luke Jones 20:49
right? Right. No, so the point I was trying to make, he, I agree with that, Jackson Holiday, in a big picture sense, yes, of course, I’m not sure Jeremiah Jackson’s much of a step down from the Jackson holiday that we’ve seen right, that we’ve seen right now in the here and now, not not talking about what Jackson Holiday could be five years, right, ball gets hit in that
Nestor Aparicio 21:10
direction, and or appearances, and or I’m getting you five at bats tonight, and what’s the outcome of that? It’s not that holiday really is Roberto Alomar. It’s that he might be.
Luke Jones 21:23
It’s the upside, right? It’s, it’s, it’s the perception of him. Whereas, I mean, we talked about it the first month of the season. I mean, not so much in May, but in April, Jeremiah Jackson did an admirable job filling in, right? I mean, he hit what, five home runs, six home runs, whatever it was, and over the first month of the season, but your point is well taken, because you now have Ruchman on the concussion IL. That look, could he be back in a week? Sure, he could be back in a week, and it could be totally fine. Watch
Nestor Aparicio 21:54
Brian Roberts do these games, and I know what it does to a coach. You never know,
Luke Jones 21:58
right? You never know, it could be fine. This could be way more. Hey, we’re going to be erring on the side of caution here rather than trying to push through something. Look, I mean, you mentioned Brian Roberts. How about more recently? Look what happened to Heston Kerstad a couple years ago, at a point when he was really starting to look the part. He gets beamed in that Yankee series, and he’s never even come close to looking right ever since, and I’m not saying it’s just because of the concussion, just, you know, you just never know what’s going to happen, so yeah, you do look like it, look, look at that, I did see an interesting note after Sunday’s game, it was Posio’s fourth straight game catching, he lobbied the play to catch on Sunday, day game after a night game. I like hearing that. I liked hearing that, especially in the wake of everything that happened, right? And we didn’t get the whole story right. The truth is somewhere in the middle, as far as what Albernaz said, you know, wherever Bisayo was with these issues. I think there’s more to it, but point is, you want that to be as harmonious as possible moving forward. You don’t want that to be a problem. You don’t want to have your manager and someone that you’ve identified as one of your pillars over the next 5678, years to not be on the same page, right? I mean, they don’t have to be best buddies, but you don’t want it. You don’t want them to be at odds, so the idea that, well, the feeling
Nestor Aparicio 23:24
would be with this Albernaz want what’s best for Bisayos careers, and part of that is Besayo is already a made guy, and I think we’ve gone through this, that can be a thing, right, that that is a thing, that is a 21 year old, that is the thing that is not a thing, that is for
Luke Jones 23:42
everyone. I mean, some, some players, you don’t have those. It is, it is, it is. I disagree, but I’ve never seen it
Nestor Aparicio 23:48
not be when you get the money. I mean, the money. Cyndi Lauper wrote the song. I mean, if I were writing a book, everyone’s like, I would, I mean, a lot of people are, but when you go into it, and me being on the outside, not even allowed to ask these guys questions in English or Spanish, and judging it from the outside, it’s very easy to say it’s hard to motivate a young man when you’ve already given him the money. I like it’s just that is, but all that being said, to your point, you want him to be the tryingest, hardest, working hardest, youngest, most attic guy, and you want that every minute of every day, if you’re Albernaz, right? And I don’t, all that gamer, and him trying to get that out of him, you want Posia to be in the Hall of Fame, not in the Hall of Rich,
Luke Jones 24:34
right? Right, or just the Hall of Good, you know, already in the Hall of
Nestor Aparicio 24:37
Wealthy, I mean, like, literally, and yeah,
Luke Jones 24:40
and there’s, there’s something to the idea, you’re talking about someone who was a catcher himself when he was a player, and there is a little bit of that, it’s the same way that you talk about, you know, Father’s Day was Sunday, you know, that father who might be on the hard on the son, who has all this potential in the world, is intelligent, you know, is talented. But doesn’t apply himself right, and and let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that that’s what this is entirely by any stretch of the imagination, but I think there’s a little bit of Alberna is looking at Pasayo and saying I think you can be great, but you need to do x, y, and z in order to become great, right, so I think there’s some of that working at work, and look, if it’s done, if it’s coming from a good place, if it’s not something where there’s an ax to grind or anything like that, and again, like, I don’t understand, you know, I see some of the fan arguments, you know, that whether we’re talking Pro Bestio or whatever, anti Albernaz, like I don’t think he’s trying to pick a fight with them randomly or anything, I think some things have probably happened behind the scenes, where they want to see something that looks a little bit more consistent, right, in terms of whether it’s attitude, effort, whatever it might be, there it is, different habits, different ethos, because we know we believe in your potential, we know what you’re capable of, capable of that is being available six nights a week to go play baseball, right, and, and you know, doing things the way you need to do it, right, and taking care of yourself, whatever it might be, but hey, Bisayo had a good game on Saturday, Sunday he called again, you know, again, that was fourth straight day, instead of having Sam Huff behind the plate, I would assume we’ll see Bisayo DH at the very least, in Anaheim, in the opener, I would think you know, I don’t think you want to. I love the kid, but you don’t want them catching 567, days in a row, that’s extreme in the wrong direction. But was just good to see that, right on the heels of how awkward that was. That was good to see. I like that, even with Friday night, where I thought he, I don’t think it was an effort thing, I think it was a positioning thing, where he needs to understand when O’Neill makes that throw, and yeah, it’s coming in hot, but it’s not like it was extraordinarily offline. Take one step up the third base side and make sure you get in front of it and knock that ball down that way, the winning run can’t score, you know, at least make, make the Dodgers earn it in that spot, that was more my argument with that. So, but you know, again, going back to this team collectively, it was a great fun weekend, right? Took two out of three from the Dodgers. I’m not going to be dismissive of that in terms of what the weekend was, which was a fun weekend, but do you want it to just be a fun weekend, and you look back at a pretty nondescript, irrelevant season, and say, oh well, they took two out of three from the Dodgers in late June, that was fun, or can you build on this and start establishing some more consistency, and really start, really start beating the teams you’re supposed to beat, and get yourself back to 500 and then a little over 500 and then at that point we’re talking about a much more interesting trade deadline. I’d much rather be talking about the trade deadline in those terms rather than, okay, are they going to sell? If they are, how much are they going to sell?
Luke Jones 28:01
If they’re going to sell, do they really want Mike Elias being, you know, more extreme with me? You know what I mean, like I don’t want to have that conversation again. We did that last year, that’s not fun. But at the same time, I also am not going to sit here and, and blow smoke if they’re five games under 500 a month from now, really thinking that they should be buyers and be trading assets for, for what, and we’re gonna say we’re
Nestor Aparicio 28:25
three games off the wild card, I understand,
Luke Jones 28:28
but, but also, if you have six teams in between you and, yeah, but you don’t
Nestor Aparicio 28:31
stop trying if you’re Rubenstein and Eric, I understand, I mean, I think they’ll go all in, I think if they’re on the edge of the cliff, they’ll go all in, because Elias will look at it as the only way to keep his job. Rubenstein and Araghetti will say the stadium’s empty, let’s go for it. If we’re just three games behind, we’re open for business. And then you have a guy who’s going to get fired plundering the organization at that point, who boy have really infuriate lock and four. I might have to get him on the show. Yeah, so say
Luke Jones 29:00
in that spot, an exec, a GM’s looking for his next look. If, if we’re to assume this could be it for Michaelias, he’s also assumed that. Let’s assume that that’s fine. Let’s assume he’s also not going to want to sabotage himself, right? You’re not going to like sit here, not
Nestor Aparicio 29:17
saying that. I’m just saying, whatever, those jobs, they’re not the decision of the future ethos of the organization, they’re the, they’re the decisions of the past ethos of the organization, because it will not be the future ethos of the organization, of course, unless you hire Jesse Minter to work for both of the other guys. Luke Jones is here, he is Baltimore. Luke, we are, we’re into the soup here this week, and you know it’s not – there’s no football to talk about. We have an all-star game around the corner. We have, I mean, they’re even doing the Heritage Fair a week early to accommodate me on the Fourth of July this week. We’re going to be at a Green Mountain Station on Wednesday. I’ll have Scratch also in the Maryland Lottery. Um, everybody, the horses have been really popular, these acidity courses, summertime. I thought that the Bay Bridge would be more well, there’s traffic on the Bay Bridge, but it’s all brought to you by our friends at GBMC and Farron and Derma. I’m wearing my freshly pressed Planet Fitness shirt, and I’m a pretty good job, almost beach condition here as we go to California. Dude, I wanted to move the conversation off of the team, the pitching, by the way, Bradish in the first night. We’ll see how the rest of the series goes. Nationals at home this weekend, beginning on Friday. I don’t know what Bob will head there giving away. Let, let Kevin Brown tell you about that in the middle of the night, but speaking to Kevin Brown and the broadcast over the weekend, and it’s always interesting for you and me, because when you’re in our WNST seat now down the third baseline, you don’t get to watch the broadcast, and certain nights, like Ben McDonald, they’ll do something funny, or they’ll say something, or something interesting, or something incorrect, or I spanked Jim Palmer the other night about my cousin, but like on a weekend where you get the presentation in the middle of the night, where are you on the going to Dodger Stadium thing with me? Because I have this Fenway Park thing, and we’re now, we’re inside 30 days on the Fenway Park trip that you and I are sort of planning that I’m not sure that you’re really going to do, and I’m letting the cat out of the bag now that we, we have a 24 hour Fenway Santapios pizza encore dessert, legal seafood, clam chowder, run on the tee, Dodger Stadium. Is it like, is it something like you don’t even have? Is it just too long on a plane for you, dude? I’m trying to get it.
Luke Jones 31:38
No, I just haven’t done it before. I mean, it’s like this trip
Nestor Aparicio 31:42
when you see Dodger Stadium in Anaheim, is that something you have interest in? I almost took you to San Francisco and San Diego last year, like I’m just trying to vibe out the Dodger Stadium thing now that it’s over with. We’re going to Anaheim, because Anaheim’s the absolute worst. Yeah, 35 miles, there’s no juice for Anaheim.
Luke Jones 31:59
I mean, there’s no juice for Anaheim whatsoever. I’d
Nestor Aparicio 32:02
rather take you to Huntington Beach to the pier, take you to Duke’s. The only juice for Anna Tuna,
Luke Jones 32:06
the only juice for Anaheim would have been if Ohtani was still there, right? And now he’s at Dodger Stadium, anyway. So, no, I mean, Dodgers, I’ve never been there. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to go there. I mean, it’s obviously, especially with what they’ve been over the last seven eight years, specifically, and having won three World Series, two in the more conventional set sense, you know, putting the COVID truncated year aside. I mean, it’s, it’s the atmosphere, and you know how many people were there, you see Chavez Ravine, you see all the parking around the ballpark. I mean, like, it’s.. it is, even though it’s been fixed up and changed and modified and all that. There is still that sense of what it was when the Orioles played in the 19th dude. It’s awesome. I went
Nestor Aparicio 32:57
last year, I went.. I didn’t even want to go, and Janet Marie, I told this story to somebody on the show, maybe it’s Raskin recently. I feel
Luke Jones 33:06
like you told me on air, maybe I’m not sure.
Nestor Aparicio 33:08
Janet Marie invited me. We were out there to see The Who, and Joe Perry at the Hollywood Bowl, and I think we mixed it with another trip. I don’t know what the heck we were doing. We were going, we were doing something else. It wasn’t Albuquerque, I don’t even know, but either way, and like I wasn’t going to go. I wanted to go to the Whiskey, and I wanted to go to the Troubadour. I’ve never been to either one of them, and there were a couple, like nondescript bands, not bands that were my bands, playing there, and Jen’s like, you’re being idiot. Jamboree invite you to dodge. Shame, she won’t share. She wasn’t there. She had to leave town, so she didn’t get to show me anything, but she, like, left my name at the speakeasy in right field, and I got to walk in and feel like Bugsy Malone or feel like Jack Nicholson for a minute. And I don’t, I don’t know, dude, that place is like magic to me, in a lot of weird ways, for me, with memories I have of eating hot dogs there when I was syndicated 27 years ago, doing my show from Staples Center, all that stuff, but like watching an inning with Kelsey Grammer, eating sushi with Larry King, my wife getting a selfie with LL Cool J, me talking to Davey Johnson, and him actually being nice to me, you know, in some sort of peaceful way with the Team USA on the field. I have, I interviewed Brian Roberts on the field that night. I think, like, I like, I have all these Dodger Stadium memories, couldn’t take a Neil’s there, you know, Janet Marie, she’s shown me she’s given me three different tours and three different eras of the stadium as it’s come along. I just think it’s, it’s a thing everybody should do, and I want to speak up for Jim Palmer for one minute, because everybody knows how much I love Jim Palmer. I mean, like, for real, my wife knows, trust. Anyone that’s ever worked for me knows everyone loves
Luke Jones 35:02
Jim Palmer at this point, you know what I mean, like I really
Nestor Aparicio 35:05
love Jim Palmer, though. You know what I know? No, I
Luke Jones 35:07
know I was just saying I agree with your sentiment. Yeah, I mean it’s it’s Jim Palmer. I mean he’s literally sitting there talking about stuff that happened 60 years ago that he was front and center, I mean, he outdoored Colfax
Nestor Aparicio 35:23
to talk about this, because I just think it’s special, man. I don’t want to get weepy, although I could, and I might, but like he lives, he lives 10 minutes from Anaheim, and he lives, he lives out there, and how many more three packs at Dodger Stadium is he going to be front and center on the broadcast up in the middle of the night watching Shohei Ohtani play, watching whatever Gunner Henderson’s going to be, and whatever Jackson Holiday and Sam Bisayo, whatever the next, because he’s not going to be around to call it, if Sam Pasayo turns into who’s the catcher from the Royals, uh, Salvador
Luke Jones 36:03
Perez.
Nestor Aparicio 36:03
Yeah, if he turns into Perez and he’s here 14 years and they win a World Series, and he becomes that sort of guy for the organization, Jim’s going to be 90 years old. You know what I mean? Like,
Luke Jones 36:14
yeah, I mean, we have to be realistic in terms of just him calling games. I’m not talking about anything beyond that. It’s probably not going to be doing it that much longer. Well, that’s what I’m saying. Exactly, me. Oh, it was like a love last
Nestor Aparicio 36:25
chance to be at Dodger Stadium that weekend. It was kind of a love letter series in that way. As much as it was around, I would have asked him where he sat as a kid in Dodger Stadium. I would ask him where he was during the 59 World Series. Like, there’s so many things I would have done with him over this weekend, the Kevin Brown, I don’t know, like to Kevin Brown, the, because he’s not really an Oriole fan, he’s not an Aparicio, he hasn’t grown up like my father, my pop, I’m talking about my Dundalk father, he loved the 58 Colts, and you know, he carried Lord Del Bracy off the field after, you know, he told me these stories in a mechi and the goal line and Johnny, you and Lenny Moore, and like all of that, but dude, my dad, the 66 Orioles, I don’t know about your, your dad, but my dad with the 66 Orioles, now I was born in October of 68 I was born the day after the 68 World Series ended, and the riots in Detroit happened in the middle of my birth at the Church Home Hospital in the city. In case I ask, I really was born here, but I, the 66 World Series, is it’s something that it’s about to pass. You can’t really talk about it, and you’re like a historian who’s watched all the films, you’re the nerd that was up all night, Barney. You didn’t experience it, neither did I. I could talk about it historically speaking. Next thing to experiencing it was growing up in the early 70s with my father and all of the neighbors and all the older people in my life, and then hosting radio in 1991 It’s my 35th anniversary coming up on where, when I went on the radio, was 23 years old. The only way to identify with older people and to have an audience is Nasty Nestor, and not be related to Louis Aparicio, and I never ran from that, but I never like said, ‘Give me free pizza because I’m related to Louie, or give me an entree point, or I don’t know that I ever really had a sponsor here in all of the years I was here, because someone loved Little Louis. I don’t, I never traded off of that, I never wanted to trade off of that, I wanted people to listen, because I knew what I was talking about, and because I had integrity, I wasn’t going to lie to them, but the Louie thing, and the 66 Oriole thing, and the family I grew up in, and where I was, man, the 66 Orioles were, forget 6970 71 because there was some heartbreak in there, certainly heartbreak in 79 for me, 83 all that baseball has become with the new stadium and modern ownership, and how lousy 43 years has been the 66 thing, the only time you get to eat off of is when you go to Dodger Stadium. It’s the only time you get to eat off of it is when you’re talking about Buc Pal or Jim Palmer, Louis Aparicio, the only guys that are left that are alive, right? Like literally, it’s the only time you get to eat off of 66 and they, and they got to eat off it in the middle of the night, over the weekend, they won, they won big, and all that, but man, the Palmer thing was special. I just, I want to say that I don’t get to say that much. I think Palmer and Ben McDonald, this era of color, and it’s no offense to Brian Roberts or anybody else when they bring them in, it’s just Dave Johnson, whom I love. It’s just not the same, and I think this was a really.. it’s tragic that it was destroyed by Greg Bader in regard to putting a leash on what they can and can’t, saying being honest and being critical and being with the fans instead of with ownership, you know what I mean, and we’re going to learn the difference of that in the off season, but Palmer and.
Nestor Aparicio 39:59
At Dodger Stadium for a weekend on the 60th anniversary, they should have given everybody home awake a bobble at 2o’clock in the morning or something, but the 66 Orioles, if we let that pass, you know, as an Aparicio, as a baseball legacy, as the six, as Dodger Stadium being just they still play in Dodger Stadium, right? I mean, like, and it’s still fundamentally because of Janet Marie, even the unique close sign up there looks like a 1966 shutter sign that there’s every part of it has been thought through, and then I walk into our ballpark and it looks like an effing dungeon behind home plate, and they’ve destroyed what Janet Marie built here, and it just makes me shake my head, and I don’t know what to say, and they’re wasting these final this encore, I mean this long free bird of Jim Palmer in his 80th year at Dodger Stadium, I just think it, you know, there’s such beauty in Oriole baseball and such magic in it that is lost on Katie Griggs and Mark Fine and Don Roback, and certainly lost on Rubenstein and Aragon through all of this, because the presentation of all of it and the Dodger Stadium part of it, for me, I don’t know, there’s a lot of things they could have done on the 60th anniversary this weekend on television to do all sorts of telethon up all night, fun, magical, let’s throw back for the really old farts that might only just be taping it. I mean, I don’t know how many people remember the 66 If you remember the 66 Orioles, throw me an email, Nestor Baltimore positive.com if you’re listening, if you’re out there, and you have a memory like my dad’s memory of being at the post office at the corner of El, my dad would never pass that post office at the corner of Eastern and Folcroft and El Reno, actually Gus Ryan, and right by the circle, and my dad would always say we lined up right there around the corner to the circle to put our envelopes in for the 66 World Series tickets, and that he got tickets for the early strip, and that his best friend had game six and seven and didn’t get to use them, you know. So, like the stories of the 66 World Series, anybody has them, I want to hear them, because I would have been up all night, if they had let me in the booth, peppering Palmer about growing up in Southern California, and what led him to baseball. He talked about his mother taking into games, mother being in the upper deck, dude. That, that was the best shit, man. It’s cool, the best. It was the best. Well, it was just great. And
Luke Jones 42:38
this also lends itself to what I wrote on Friday, going into this series, you’re talking more in terms of the history and Palmer and all that, and I agree with all that, but it also, for me, was the Orioles came into the series six games under 500 right? And Saturday actually marked the two year of that, you know what we talk about all the time, right? Cost being at Casa Sin, and knowing the Orioles finished up that series in the Bronx, but keep in mind it wasn’t just that Yankee series, it was the Phillies series over the weekend at Camden Yards, where there were 43,000 people there all three games of that series, and the Phillies had the best record in baseball at that point in time, the Orioles had the third best record in baseball. So, and look, we know how the rest of 2024 went, so it didn’t go down and be, and wasn’t remembered in this way. But two years ago, when that series was going on, there was talk about 1983 and how fun this was, and both
Nestor Aparicio 43:37
packed that we had Phil Divers, there were Phillies fans everywhere, I did my show from Solancha that I remember it,
Luke Jones 43:45
so that’s where I was kind of saying, in terms of what we saw this weekend, everything you mentioned from a historical perspective, yes, they still could have done those things, but for me, what would have added to it would be if the Orioles were playing more like they did two or three years ago and were right there, even payroll disparity, you know, payroll discrepancy aside, which applies for just about anyone. The idea that you could have had two heavyweights going toe to toe at Dodger Stadium, that would have been fun as well. But we know how the last two years have gone, and that’s again, it’s not just this weekend, it’s not just this year, it’s the last two years of what’s happened with the Orioles, and what’s happened specifically in this Michaelias era, where I say, okay, good series win against the Dodgers. I agree with you, it was, you know, reminiscing. I mean, the Orioles, they came so close on Saturday to having their first shutout at Dodger Stadium since Palmer in in game two of the 66 World Series, outdoing Koufax, Sandy Koufax’s last game, you know, last game, he literally retired a few weeks after that, so
Nestor Aparicio 44:52
I couldn’t get enough of it, is all I’m saying. It’s still my anniversary on this, and I’ll let you even wrap on this. If there’s anything you want to say about the Angels, but they go from Dodger Stadium, and I’m assuming Palmer’s going to call the games because he lives five minutes away from Anaheim, right? Would assume, like, to Anaheim, where there’s just, you know, if you remember the 79 Orioles, you know, and Frank Tanana, like there’s nothing there, but they stole Bobby Gritch and Bob Baylor and Fred Lynn and Reggie Jackson, and just all of that. Rod Carew, you go through all of that. We stole Don Aussie, actually we stole Fred Lynn, but either way,
Luke Jones 45:32
bring your own energy, because my point is
Nestor Aparicio 45:36
they had something at Dodger Stadium, which only they have, which is, we won. It’s a 60th anniversary gym, like they had all of that to now, like, oh, it’s Monday night, and it’s summertime, and the kids are out of school. And I look, I hope they come back, I hope they give us more reasons to talk some base show on Wednesday, and we get the Green Mountain Station, right?
Luke Jones 45:55
No doubt, I mean, build on this. This was a fun weekend, it was, but for me to sit here and wax poetic, said it’s the mark of a turnaround. We’ve talked, we’ve, we’ve been down that road over and over and over. Let’s see it stack it right, if you can get a sweep, especially, but at least win a series. Don’t come home after losing two out of three, and then, then, then it’s almost a mockery again, right? Oh, well, you won a series against the Dodgers, and then you lost against the Angels, typical Orioles, right? Same old Orioles, maybe don’t try not doing that, you know. And then people can come home and, you know, show up at the ballpark. You figure a lot of people will be there over the weekend with the Nats, and you know, there’s not saying it’s a lot of juice, but there’ll be a little bit of juice. But give fans a reason to get excited again, and they need to build on that. The weekend was fun, two out of three from the Dodgers. I’m never going to sit here and say that’s not a fun thing, but if you want it to mean something, man, you need to start really building on this thing.
Nestor Aparicio 46:53
Going through my top 10 Dodger Stadium moments, got a picture with Bruce Kulick right before he did the national anthem, there he played with Kiss, that was a big deal. My wife and I got a selfie with Tommy Lasorda late in his life. That’s pretty cool. We talked about pasta, you know, nothing better than that in Brooklyn. He is Luke, I am Nestor. I love my Planet Fitness shirt, so thanks for that. And if you have youngins out there, get him in the gym here this summer, it’s free. It’s Planet Fitness. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. We’re Baltimore Positive. Stay with.



















