This past Tuesday began a new chapter in my life and my media career. I’m glad you’re reading this and hope you plan to join us and stay engaged in the next phase of WNST’s evolution as my personal Baltimore radio and sports journalism brand expands and goes “old school.”
I’m very proud to own a local business that connects other local businesses and that serves my hometown and Baltimore sports fans all over the world. And I’m eternally grateful that you’ve supported me over the past 16 years.
As you might have heard at 5 p.m. on WNST.net & AM 1570, I’m going back to the basics here at the radio station but continuing to evolve with the best ongoing civic conversation about sports ever created in Baltimore. I’m now in my 31st year of “talking sports” with the community I love and I’m very appreciative to have a chance to take you along on my next journey.
Upon announcing earlier this week that we’ll be changing our WNST radio format I thought it would be better to expound upon some of the reasoning and spirit of my decision because I’ve seen the internet chat rooms and the scuttlebutt from my wife’s bedside at Johns Hopkins Kimmer Cancer Center this week and, quite frankly, I haven’t read anything that is even remotely close to accurate. And, somehow, even when I write the truth while my wife spends her 55th night in a hospital room over the past 167 days, it somehow gets twisted into something that paints me as a villain.
First, let me restate that over the past six months my wife has been battling leukemia and the side effects of a bone marrow transplant where an anonymous donor from Germany saved her life.
Do yourself a favor and read his letter to her here.
My family and our personal happiness and the prosperity of WNST – my life’s work and my sole investment on earth – is paramount for my survival amongst a ruthless bunch of corporate monoliths in the media space in Baltimore.
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My love/hate relationship inside the media circle – and all of the fallout of awfulness and polarization – comes with the disappointment in the way I’ve seen the industry (and large parts of the implied integrity of the inner circle) deteriorate over the past 30 years.
All I ever wanted to do with my life was write or talk about Baltimore sports. That’s why WNST exists. I wrote nearly 4,000 words last week trying to explain why I do what I do and that still didn’t suffice for some of the nastier folks who are looking for some deep, dark secret about my intentions for my own well being and prosperity.
Somehow, saying that you’re “looking for happiness” is now subject to scrutiny and outrage? That’s insane, but then again, nothing shocks me anymore.
This all started with me wanting to get a press pass in Dundalk in 1984 and working at The News American and The Evening Sun before venturing solo into an already dinosaur AM radio business model in 1991 and a world where the political machinations and advertising world are so perversely incestuous, it’s as much of a miracle that WNST exists after 16 years as it is that my wife’s life was saved by an anonymous 21-year old donor in Germany.
I covered the long odds for our survival in last Friday’s blog.
WNST exists because of the local businesses and their owners who have supported me and my endeavors, events and spirit. It exists because my audience has
