Anytime we can bring our favorite baseball folks together to discuss the state of the game in the fall as the playoffs begin and the leaves change, we’re thrilled. We loved having former MLB outfielder and Towson Tigers alum Casper Wells talking seams with our longtime baseball insider Allen McCallum to debate the Orioles state of the franchise and another gloomy MLB offseason labor mess at State Fare on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
Overview
The discussion assessed baseball’s declining fundamentals, the Orioles’ shortcomings, postseason strategy, and uncertainty around a possible work stoppage.
Baseball Concerns
- Allen argued that analytics are often misinterpreted, leading players to prioritize home runs over situational hitting, baserunning, defense, and game awareness.
- Casper supported a more intentional approach, describing how Miguel Cabrera used batting practice to develop opposite-field and situational hitting.
- The participants expect postseason baseball to differ sharply from the regular season, especially because of short series and aggressive pitching management.
Orioles Outlook
- The Orioles were criticized for repeated defensive lapses, weak fundamentals, inconsistent player development, and insufficient run production from internally developed hitters.
- The group identified the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Brewers as credible postseason contenders based largely on pitching depth.
- A potential work stoppage could give Orioles prospects more development time, but it would further damage fan confidence and baseball-related businesses. Will the league and players reach an agreement before the 2026 season is disrupted?
- Look up the date of the Jeffrey Maier incident and arrange a baseball game or outing with Allen to commemorate its 30th anniversary. (@Nestor Aparicio)
Baseball Fundamentals
- Debate over analytics, situational hitting, baserunning, defense, and mental errors.
- Examples from Eddie Murray and Miguel Cabrera illustrated deliberate batting-practice approaches.
Postseason Strategy
- Short playoff series create urgency and make pitching depth especially important.
- Heavy postseason workloads may contribute to pitching declines the following season.
- The Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Brewers were discussed as strong contenders.
Orioles Evaluation
- Criticism focused on defensive judgment, fundamentals, player development, and inconsistent offensive production.
- The team’s recent struggles have reduced enthusiasm among fans and raised questions about the front office.
Labor Uncertainty
- A possible work stoppage could delay or cancel games and affect ticket sales, sponsorships, and baseball communities.
- Orioles prospects may benefit from additional development time during a stoppage.
Additional Conversation
- Casper discussed his insurance work at Heller Kocs.
- The program transitioned from baseball into Nestor’s archival music journalism and upcoming conversation with Richard Abrahams.
Nestor Aparicio 0:00
Welcome home. We are WNSTAM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We’re positively into segment two. We are at State Fair in beautiful Catonsville. 21228. Where life is great. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland Lottery. I have the Raven scratch offs and the Kiss Face Bird. Allen gets one. Casper’s already got one. Only one per customer. Casper Wells is here from Heller KoC’s, former big leaguer with several teams in the big leagues as we get ready for the playoffs. Alan McCallum signed up for this early on. I thought this would be a great marriage. I thought you guys had done radio together, but I wasn’t sure.
Allen McCallum 0:33
I didn’t bring a ring, but you know,
Nestor Aparicio 0:36
pull your mic up so I can hear you. I kid. Yeah, act like you’ve done this before. Alan McCallum and I met 31 years ago, but we’re about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Jeffrey Mayor game. You, me, Scott Garso, sitting together out in right field. Cash already did a segment with us with Zach Dermer from Farnham and Dermer. They are our sponsors. They are the comfort guys, making me more comfortable. I look good in this, right? You’d wear this, wouldn’t
8
Allen McCallum 0:58
you? Absolutely. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 0:58
you’d wear it because you actually insure Farnham and Dermer and Helico’s. right? Absolutely. You know the quarter
Allen McCallum 1:04
zip is a whole thing on the internet now, right? Social media. This
Nestor Aparicio 1:07
might be the first one I’ve got. I don’t think I own another quarter zip.
Allen McCallum 1:10
Very nice to
Nestor Aparicio 1:10
pull over. I mean, my rush thing goes all the way. You know, I’m I’m a full zip guy. Right, right. So I’m, you know, I’m getting older now, and I didn’t shave today. I
Casper Wells 1:17
got the heavy vest here. I just go with the vest, short sleeve. I got like a. You’re former biblical player. You wear whatever the hell you want. You know
8Nestor Aparicio 1:23
whatever you need to do. You guys were kidding me about the sound of the show and this new this roadie caster. If you it sounds bigger and ballsier out at AM 1570. I have this setup. I bought this like three years ago and it cost a couple five 600 bucks. And I’m like, all right, it’s gonna get rid of the headset mic. I’m gonna get it. I got it last year. I went to the Maryland party, which is a big Vegas thing at the Win, and they wanted me to do Baltimore positive math there, and I’m very appreciative. So I flew out with my briefcase and all my stuff, and I got out there and I plugged into the pool AC.
Allen McCallum 1:58
Right. It
Nestor Aparicio 1:58
completely fried my $650 roadie, came back, sent it off to the shop. $100 later, they sent me one back. It was in a box. This this incident happened in May of last year, so a year and a half ago. They sent it back to me in like July or or August. It sat in the box. Like I never took, like I never opened the box, the box that the box came in, the shipping box, and it sat there for a year, and I went back to my old girl, you know, with the knobs, yeah, yeah, you know, plug in and all that, because it felt like that’s not going to get fried by some because it’s a computer. This thing’s a computer. The other thing’s like a tank, you know what I mean. So I I sat with my tank for the year, but what really happened is down at Fadeley’s, my headset thing’s falling apart. It’s a little $20 thing. I can buy it, and I’m and it fell apart, and it screwed up one of my segments, a fishmonger’s daughter, three weeks ago, and I’m like, all right, I’m done with this. I open the board, I put it together, and I’m like, “Why did I spend 600 bucks on this? It looks like a disco, doesn’t it? You kids would like this, right? It looks like like I can show it. I’ll show it right here just because I’m talking about it. But it looks like a disco. This thing here looks like it literally looks like you can dance on it. Yeah, my one-year-old
Casper Wells 3:18
daughter would be poking all the lights and everything. All her all our toys look like that.
Nestor Aparicio 3:21
I say to Jr. You know who’s my engineer. I’m like, do I dance on it? Do I? I don’t. I don’t know what it does. I’m afraid to touch it. I don’t know how to touch any of this. I just know how to make this work. But I’m glad we sound better. So there’s your little insider business. Alan McCallum’s been doing it on AM radio here for me for 31 years, and I wanted to pair you with a real big league ball player because neither one of us, the black guy and the Hispanic guy, don’t get press passes from the Orioles anymore. And I like how far the game has gone and changed. And we talked defense for an hour. You sat there eating chicken and waffles, talking about it. Where are you on the state of baseball right now in in regard to playoffs and watching next week and being involved in this and the Orioles? Because someone asked you if you were still watching. You’re like, well, you know, it’s been a tough summer and drudgery and all that. But you’re one of those guys that would have gone last night for the last game because you love it. You’re going to miss it when it’s gone.
Allen McCallum 4:11
Of course, I will. I mean, I love I love the game. I mean, I remember 15 years ago you saying, I’m driving and I’m listening to you on the radio, and you said, “Who wants to watch the Padres and I don’t know the Diamondbacks or something? He
Nestor Aparicio 4:25
might have been on one of those teams, but that’s okay.
8Allen McCallum 4:26
On an August, on an August night when they’re both out of the playoffs, like who’s going to watch that? And I, I like raised my hand in the car, like I would, you know, I’d watch the game. So yeah, I’m excited. I mean, it’ll be interesting, but the fact that the I watched the Houston Astros and the Seattle Mariners last night, and the Astros absolutely needed that game because they’re they were I think they were at 500 at that time. They’re trying to win the American the American League West. No team in the American League West is over 500, none of them, and they they the guy Josh Hader who they spent an exorbitant amount of money on. Couldn’t throw a strike, and it’s late in the season. Who knows what happened? Whatever, but they had they took the lead in the 10th inning on a triple with one out. Guy standing on third, they couldn’t get him in, and then Hader couldn’t throw a strike. And I’m like, yeah, I see why you why why everybody in this division is under 500, so the game is certainly not what it was, and we can debate that forever. But I like to see
Nestor Aparicio 5:31
crisp baseball in October. All the things we talked about, like well-pitched games, two-one games, fast games, you know, smart games, smart baseball. This is the time of the year for smart base. Let me tell you.
Allen McCallum 5:42
Let me tell you this, Nestor, and it’s weird because, aside from you know the John Smoltzes and the Jim Palmer, there are a few great players who are doing play-by-play now. But but a lot of this the the positions that get taken up by by former players, I think should go to broadcast because I think the game would sound better, with the with the notable exceptions. That said, on a lot of social media now, they’re doing clips of podcasts where former baseball players, athletes are talking like all the smoke baseball, and I’m listening to stories that I’ve never heard before. One of the stories I’ve heard a lot of things that just absolutely light up my brain. Will Clark was talking about watching Eddie Murray in his prime. They’re going to play the Dodgers, and Will Clark is like, “I want to watch this guy take batting practice. And he says he goes out and he’s watching Eddie, and for the first round, he’s hitting horrible balls, ground balls, first base, second base. I mean, just taking horrible swings. He’s like, “What’s this guy doing? And in the second round, he comes back and he’s just hitting rope after rope after rope all over the field into the stands, what have you. He goes up to Eddie after he’s done. He’s like, Eddie, can I ask you? I mean, you you got a great swing. What were you doing early on? He’s like, I was practicing hitting ground balls to first and second, runner on thirds to drive them in. Not worried about getting a hit, trying to get, trying to drive the runner in, and it just it lights up your brain. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Milwaukee Brewers do that to some degree, but do you think anybody on the Baltimore Orioles practices doing that? Does analytics account for that kind of skill, expertise, thought, and detail in the game. You were talking about defense earlier and how it makes things up. And you’re, Nestor, you’re absolutely right. A lot of the defensive mistakes the Orioles have made don’t go into the the record book because it’s mental lapses in judgment on a baseball is baseball like Q, and the Orioles have have failed at that for basically two and a half years. Yeah, the
Nestor Aparicio 7:47
Elias administration has failed with that. I mean, just ideologically, absolutely. That’s that’s probably the issue.
Allen McCallum 7:52
And we’ve talked about analytics a ton. And again, I don’t have a problem with analytics. I have a problem with the way they’re interpreted.
Casper Wells 7:58
Well, baseball, baseball like base running errors as well aren’t properly.
Allen McCallum 8:02
So I ask the question all the time. I’ll ask it again. If you tell me that analytics says is trying to find the best path through the game, and what you take from that is we are going to have every player concentrate on the least probable thing to happen, hitting home runs in everything they do. How does that statistically make sense to be the best outcome for a team? And if you watch the Orioles play, I mean, Gunnar Henderson’s trying to hit a home run all the time. Never cuts down on his swing. And in the moments when he’s been the most successful this year, it’s been the times when he is trying to make some adjustments, but that just doesn’t happen enough. So, as a result, you look at the guys for Elias that have come up through the system through Elias, and they can’t hit. You go back through the last few years when they were successful, and I was thinking, who drives in the runs for this team during that time? And it was Anthony Santander, and you know, I didn’t appreciate Ryan O’Hearn enough when he was here. Ryan Ryan O’Hearn got a lot of big hits for this club, a lot of them. Last year, Ryan O’Hearn and then Ramon Loriano drove in a lot of the runs for the team when they were scoring, and in this year, you look at it, Alonzo, and then CES came has come in and driven in runs, and you know I Mayo hits
8Nestor Aparicio 9:27
home runs at least. Mayo hits yeah home
Allen McCallum 9:29
runs, and of all the guys, Jordan Westberg was the guy that came out of the system that seemed to get big hits for this club, and he hasn’t been. They’re flying the missing man formation for him, so there are a lot of things that are missing on this club, and I guess I applaud them for showing up for the last few weeks to make a run at 500 or postseason or however you want to define it. But I mean, there’s there’s a lot of failure that has occurred in baseball as a game of failure. We all know this, but. It it comes down to fundamentals, approach, and and psychology from the the front office, and and I I will never stop thinking about Eddie Murray hitting the ground ball to the right side as a as a matter as a full round of his batting practice, trying to highlight and and become an expert at a part of the game that no that few people don’t think about.
Nestor Aparicio 10:24
Casper, you agree with that? Modern day, I mean, like philosophically, going from one organization to another, one hitting coach another. How many different types of advice did you get, and how much of it were you like you’re you’re full of crud, but then you do it that way and find oh maybe that guy’s a genius. I mean, you you had the best and worst batting coach in your mind, right? You you know the really good ones and the ones are like that guy stunk. I don’t know how he got a job, right? Literally.
Casper Wells 10:49
There’s a little less guidance on teams when I was like, say on the Tigers, right? With some of the guys we had like Miguel Cabrera and you know Victor Martinez, Maglio, they kind of let them run the shop. I mean, even some of the the rookies, I might give him a little guy, and it’s like, oh, we try hit and run on this one. But you know, thinking of again talking earlier, I talked about leading by example, and I might have mentioned this story before, but just Miguel Cabrera, I mean, he would just literally see how deep he could hit the ball, and he try to almost hit the cage in the first couple rounds, to see like where his contact point would be in the strike zone, then he’d work his way back. He would barely ever pull any balls in BP. Everything would be like center field and over. I mean, I’ve seen him hit some of the first balls I’ve ever seen a center field target field in an inaugural year. He would hit. He would hit it up in the stands that are like above center field. I’m like, I don’t even know. I don’t even know balls go up there. Skydome, you know Rogers Center. He’d be hitting balls over, you know, over the hotel rooms, like up there, like in center field, like just mammoth shots. But he just always worked that side of the field, and it translated in the games. He’d roll balls over, but he’d be getting runners and getting RBIs in. And and I saw, I heard a statistic on the radio about Pete Alonzo, how he’s leading the major leagues in opposite field home runs. Yeah,
Allen McCallum 12:04
you know, I mean, it’s clear why he chose Camden Yards, right? Right. I’ll say, yeah, because going to Fenway, those probably 12 of his home runs are caught at the wall, and at Camden Yards, he clearly has enough power to hit to the left, and he can knock those balls out like like nobody’s business to run the field.
Casper Wells 12:20
Sure, and I can attest to that. I mean, I played with it in the Tigers at Old Comerica, you know, not Old Camera, but Camerica before they move the fences in, and Safe Go field before they move the fences in as well, and you know, center field out there. I mean, things get lost, especially in in Comerica Park. But I was in the minors. I always tried on hitting my my approach is go to right center, and I would hit balls, you know, try to hit power that way because that’s how you generate the most power. And then pulling it is just hitting an off-speed pitch out in front a little, or getting a two-seamer and just meeting it out in front. But ideally, I want to stay center. The big bar part of the ballpark is where I had most success. You can see Pete, you can see Pete Alonso doing that. Obviously, Camden Yards. I remember hitting batting practice there and just hitting line drives out to center field. That that’s very shallow for that part of the ballpark. I’m like, wow, this is this is a great ballpark to hit in. But I remember going to Yankee Stadium and hitting, not hitting the ball that great to right field, and that thing’s going out of the ballpark. But yeah, it is a mindset as well. It gives you it gives you confidence when you can see the ball that much deeper, you know, see off-speed pitches that much sooner because you know you have more time to react. And
Allen McCallum 13:24
so, so you you say that a couple of years ago the Orioles, you know, was Mount Baltimore, right? They they put the wall so far back and so high, and they talked about the mindset of the right-handed hitters really being impacted. Mount Castle, Mount Castle, absolutely. So I mean, when you’re up against an obstacle like that, particularly right-handed power hitter. I mean, how does that impact your psyche as you’re you’re trying to figure out how to hit in the ball?
8Casper Wells 13:47
Tremendously. I mean, I remember days like either in Chicago when I was at the White Sox, where Comerica Park it gets cold there. You know, start of the season, and it’s just it felt like a graveyard in center field. I’ve crushed balls of center field, and I’m like, okay, that’s gonna get over their head. It’s just one out
Nestor Aparicio 14:03
there in center field. I’m just saying, but every time you say Cabrera, I’m thinking that’s my people. You know, Aparicio’s still the only Venezuelan in the Hall of Fame, the only Venezuelan in the Hall of Fame. Cabrera’s next. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I look to see Cabrera’s 28. 23 was last year. First 28, I guess you’ll be eligible, right? Is that right? No, you retired
Allen McCallum 14:25
two years ago.
Nestor Aparicio 14:26
I thought I think it was 23. So hold on here. I want to be right about this because I thought 28 will be the year. Retired in 23. So 28. So
Allen McCallum 14:35
28. Yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 14:36
28 or 2028? voting for 29. You have to be retired
Allen McCallum 14:39
for five years, so in
8Nestor Aparicio 14:41
’08 he’ll get
Allen McCallum 14:42
to be
Nestor Aparicio 14:43
’08 around. I don’t think one of the other maybe 28 go one hand to
Allen McCallum 14:46
’29.
Nestor Aparicio 14:46
Okay, so be ’29. Some are ’29, probably. Either way, but he’ll be the next one. So I mean, so I I love hearing that. I love hearing good stuff about him as well. Yeah, I’m gonna get a crab cake with Miguel Cabrera. That’s what I want. There’s a
Casper Wells 14:58
lot of Venezuelans on the. On the team I was on,
Speaker 1 15:01
you played Venezuela, didn’t you? Didn’t you tell me? And I
8Casper Wells 15:02
played, yeah, I played rock. I was at the
Nestor Aparicio 15:04
first time I met you. You told me Casper Wells is here. Alan McCallum was here. We’re at State Fair. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, and Farnham and Derby. Oh, we have a new sponsor, Rosedale Bank. Just come on this week. They are sponsoring our 28th anniversary at my Musik Memory Bank, and Richard Abraham’s gonna be here, dude. I got he’s a music guy. I got the coolest stuff at the end of this segment. I want to break out for you because stuff you’ve known me 31 years and you haven’t seen this stuff, so you’re gonna dig it. Okay. But I want to stick to baseball, playoff baseball mindset, getting into it all day long. To be announced game times tomorrow. The short series, the short track, the buy, all of that, all that plays into next week. And I would say, for me being old and even older than you, Alan, I do remember the five-game ALCS, NLC. I’m not old enough really to remember when there was no NLCS, ReLCS. And then I remember the wild card coming in and the four pack. You know, back in ’96, ’97 when we were doing that. He and I were together when Alomar hit the home run in Cleveland that put the Orioles through. And I love playoff baseball, but it’s really weird in the modern era because it’s it’s it’s its own game for pitching, for how it’s managed. It’s not at all like the regular season, and it’s such a scramble, and it’s so urgent when you lose Game One next week. I was saying, hey, great! You could win 101 games. You you lose game one with your ace. You’re in a lot of trouble next week or any week thereafter, right? So it really becomes a different kind of game this month, even differently than the seven game Oakland A’s LA Dodgers World Series of 50 years ago. Well, and
Allen McCallum 16:38
and you know, I know we’re talking about the postseason, but if you just look at teams the year after, like the Seattle Mariners have, I think people would agree have some of the best pitching talent in the game, and their pitchers have really struggled. Same thing with the Toronto Blue Jays, and the way that pitching is handled in the postseason now, where you’re up all the time, you throw it. You guys throw it at a drop of a hat, and other guys get left off. So your top guys get used up, and just got to impact them in the coming in the year following. And I think that you see that more often than not. And maybe the Dodgers, for whatever people think about the talent of the Dodgers, maybe the best thing is that they just have an over. They are they let guys stay on the IL for a couple months, so that they don’t pitch the whole season. Right for teams that have to pitch their guys the whole season and then abuse them in the in October, that’s going to kill them. And then the Dodgers, you have guys that that haven’t had a full season. They go out in October, and they have enough sort of power in the arm, so to speak, to get through it. What do
Nestor Aparicio 17:48
you think, Casper?
Casper Wells 17:49
Yeah, playoffs
Speaker 1 17:50
baseball.
Casper Wells 17:51
I’m glad that they got rid of a single game elimination. Baseball’s tough, obviously. Like just playing one game, I’m like, man, you can’t. That’s tough in baseball because any pitcher can just show up one day and then and put those put those bats to sleep. So we’re not getting a problem with
8Nestor Aparicio 18:03
that with football, right? Football single game elimination. Think nothing of it. Baseball feels like heresy, right? No,
Casper Wells 18:08
you can’t. You need a series in baseball because because good pitching beats good hitting. It’s just a it’s just a rule in baseball. I mean, that’s just that’s just fact. And you know, football is more of a team. Say total team sport, but but yeah, I mean there is some truth to. I didn’t really think about that until you mentioned it, as as far as like the pitchers being used the year prior in those two teams specifically, you know like Toronto and Seattle having them kind of fall off. But you can
Allen McCallum 18:36
track it if you go back in in years, the teams that you will see teams fall off after that year, the postseason year, because going through October really crushes a pitching staff.
Casper Wells 18:47
There’ll probably be some strategy, like you said, putting guys in the IL, preparing them for the playoffs. Like the Dodgers can do that because they know, like, oh, we’re going to be in the whole playoffs. Yeah, well, the
Nestor Aparicio 18:55
Yankees do that every year too. Yeah, I mean that’s been going on here for 30 years in the American League East with the Orioles, where the Yankees put name any star that was making $20 million at any point. They put him on the IL. Aaron Judge put him on the IL in May. Wake him up in July. See, oh yeah, he doesn’t feel good. Put him back down again. We’ll bring him back. Just as long as he can play next week,
Allen McCallum 19:15
right?
Nestor Aparicio 19:16
Literally, as long as he can play next. Judge
8Allen McCallum 19:18
legitimately hurt this year. I mean, I don’t think that. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying,
Nestor Aparicio 19:22
like, as long as you have him now, and as long as they show up,
Allen McCallum 19:25
right?
Nestor Aparicio 19:26
Who has the best pitching right now, Alan? I mean, who do you expect to win? If if the best pitching is going to win, is that the Brewers at this point? I
Allen McCallum 19:32
mean, they’ve got the top guy. I don’t know if you’d say that they have the top pitching in general. I mean, I would say that the Dodgers still just because they have so many guys they can sort of mix and match not necessarily one to one but they have enough top arms that they can get through it. Mesroski’s obviously the best out there. The Yankees have a great pitching staff. They’ve got a great pitching staff, and so do the Red Sox. So I mean, if you’re asking me who can get all the way through, I’d say New York, Boston, and Los Angeles are probably your your your top top teams. With Milwaukee, if they can get enough out of if they can sort of ride their top two guys, suddenly they have they’ve got a shot.
Nestor Aparicio 20:15
Boston, man, quietly right. They had that big streak back in June when they won for a month, but like we didn’t talk about them last off season at all, and they spent a bunch of money. We’re like, we’ll see, we’ll see. The young guys got to come along or whatever. They’re in the playoffs, and it’s been kind of a quiet resurrection for the Red Sox for me.
Allen McCallum 20:34
Their offense is sort of surprising, but their pitching. I mean, I think I’ve said this a few times. Every pitching move I wanted the Orioles to make in the last two or three seasons they’ve made from Crochet, Sonny Gray, Ron Hair Suarez. I mean, all these documented. I mean, you’ve been on
8Nestor Aparicio 20:49
the air here for three years. Every those were your guys. Those are the guys I wanted the
Allen McCallum 20:52
Orioles to go get. So, and they don’t even have Crochet right now. I mean, he hasn’t been right all season, but they’re pitching. So they would
Nestor Aparicio 21:00
kill the Orioles if the Orioles had spent all that money on Corbin Burns a couple years ago. It would just just that’s what I mean about big market and small market. And I haven’t even talked. Alan Casper’s here. Let’s get to the Orioles in the off season a little bit because I want to do some rock and roll with Richard too. But this is going to be the strangest off season. I have a former player here, player associate. Did you ever involved in any work stoppage, did you ever not report March, April, your years in the big leagues? No, it was it was peaceful.
Casper Wells 21:26
Yeah, but there was
Nestor Aparicio 21:27
always a threat of war as a player. You knew that, right?
Casper Wells 21:30
Yeah, I mean the the last CBA was kind of it was a little before I was what was the what would have been? What year would that have been?
Nestor Aparicio 21:38
I don’t know year to year. I remember I remember the wars. Oh, one. I remember how upset I was. Four years ago, five years ago, we had Alaska. Five years ago,
8Allen McCallum 21:46
three or four now, right?
Nestor Aparicio 21:48
You and me and Moeller were doing a show together. I walked in and did. Yeah, they just
Allen McCallum 21:51
signed.
Nestor Aparicio 21:52
Yeah,
Allen McCallum 21:53
it was four or five years. Well, we’re all going
Nestor Aparicio 21:54
to wait for that day next spring because that’s where we are again. We’re at that place where they might play, they might not play. I can’t imagine selling tickets for the Orioles or selling sponsorships for the Orioles or waiting around wondering whether they’re going to play or I’m going to play. I certainly, as a fan, I’m not sitting here holding my money, but I’m thinking if I’m a season ticket or if I’m Alan holding tickets up in 336 and they want to get my 2400 bucks for my tickets next year, nah, yeah, not not now. I mean, right? So I don’t know how they’re going to conduct business on or off the diamond in any way, and for this organization they need a lot of both. So you said they literally do. In
Allen McCallum 22:30
your last segment, you were saying how do the Orioles get better with a work stoppage, and the answer is, and and you’ve highlighted this as well that the young guys in the minor leagues, the Anthony Iinsens and such-they’re going to play, and those guys will accumulate more experience. And assuming there is a work stop, which I think we can all assume that’s going to happen, whether it’s the full season or not remains to be seen. Those guys are going to get better, and by the time they play again, whether they’re in the big leagues, I don’t know, but they’ll be closer, and the Orioles have suddenly some legitimate pitching prospects that will be closer to ready to help the club when this comes to an end.
8Nestor Aparicio 23:11
Well, I certainly hope that it’s not the war that we all think it might be. And I talked to Casper an hour ago about players’ mindset. I can’t fathom the players are going to say, “Yeah, that cap looks good to us. I don’t. I don’t think there’s any point, and I don’t think that Rubinstein and Araghetti would believe that-that we’re billionaires. We’re just going to leverage these guys. And I think that that’s the part of 35 years into doing this. That’s the part that frightens me as a fan, and for the business, and for the city, and for Sarasota, and for all these communities that have invested in baseball, including my city, that just put 600 million. That that the fact that the place has been empty most of the year, and their soul feels empty, and people the people who love it like we do are pissed enough to not want to give them money or even go down there or wave at them, and then they’re gonna like have an industry issue that’s gonna disrupt it further, and if they’re going to come back and play Mike Elias here again, you saw the fire Michaelias sign that’s all over the internet today from the one of the 3000 people that were at the game last night.
Allen McCallum 24:10
I was at a game with Mark Messina. It was against the White Sox, I think. So that was a July, July or August, and they were they were losing, and this guy, for three innings behind us, was going fire Mike Elias.
Nestor Aparicio 24:26
Oh no,
Allen McCallum 24:26
fire Mike Elias! I mean, it was everybody was just dying because it was it was. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 24:32
Rubenstein wrote a new book, right? Yeah, he praises Elias in it. I think it’s probably hard from the fire Elias the day after his book comes out, praising his general manager, just finished in last place again. So, but right
Allen McCallum 24:44
now they’re not in last place. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 24:45
well, they will be by the end of the week. Who knows?
8Allen McCallum 24:48
Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 24:49
selling insurance. Casper Wells is here, former big league ball player. Alan McCallum, my baseball insider for life, and eating chicken and waffles and eating eggs and bacon. We’re out here at State Fair. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. Alan, you got. Yours, Casper has his Richard Abraham’s going to be here. We’re going to do some rock and roll. You’re a music guy, right? You’re a music guy, Casper, right?
Casper Wells 25:05
I like music.
Nestor Aparicio 25:06
You should connect it. I don’t know your country, your rock, your ball player. What do you? You’re a rock guy, I think, right? No. Yeah,
Casper Wells 25:12
I grew up on like alternative. Like, look, like Nirvana. I grew up in that era. Obviously, hip hop. This one hip hop was great in the era I grew up. You know, Biggie Smalls over there. I mean, I grew up in that that whole scene in in New York, wearing Tim’s, listening to Wu Tang. I mean, that that’s kind of the era I grew up in. I don’t I don’t really listen to hip hop anymore. I don’t understand a lot of the the new age hip hop compared to what I used to listen. Look, jets are
Nestor Aparicio 25:36
over your shoulders, so you know you could be yeah. And I love I love
Casper Wells 25:39
8080s music is is is my thing? I love it. So you’ll you’ll have that. I’ll have that on.
8Nestor Aparicio 25:44
Like give me like the ran the ran 80s or what kind of 80s? Poison ’80s. That leopard. What kind of ’80s you talking about? You had your Van Halen Road like like your Van Halen. You know, like Van Halen. Yeah. All right. So like 5150, Sammy Hagar, that kind of thing. All right. So are
Allen McCallum 25:57
you pre 1984 or or or I was born in
Casper Wells 26:02
1984. Okay, so just a
Nestor Aparicio 26:05
well, this album came out in 1984. A little high infidelity, little should have seen by the look in my eyes. So I I brought today. I brought today my this was my eighth grade old dude. This is my eighth grade notebook that I bought this at the Harmony Hut at East Point Mall, and it is it is contained since 1984, all of my clips from my early part of my career. So here is my front page Janet Jackson concert review from 1988, Here is my story from 1984, Actually, actually was 18. There’s a Rhythm Nation right there. Okay, Rhythm Nation. This year is Triumph, who is coming back to the Baltimore Arena. I’ve had both Rick Emmett and and Gilmore on the show. This is from the News America, not the Insult. 1984, 42 years ago. Here was my first ever interview when Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith called at the News American in September 1984, and I wrote an Aerosmith piece for the News American, so I brought all this. This is my kiss. This is when I interviewed Paul Stanley in 1984 on the Animalized tour at the Civic Center. These are my real clips. Carmine a piece. He had purple hair at the time. I remember. Yeah, Pete Snyder, Twisted Sister. Yeah, Twisted Sister. We’re not gonna. There it is, right there, Twisted Sister. I remember being
Allen McCallum 27:28
five or six years old, and Kiss had a TV movie where something at a an amusement park, and they were like, they’re basically playing the Scooby Gang, trying to solve a crime in a in an amusement park, and just
Nestor Aparicio 27:42
meets the Phantom of the Park. Yes, come on, dude. Right, it’s the worst movie ever made. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Allen McCallum 27:50
I was just-I remember being a kid, just being fascinated by like, what am I? They invented the bad
8Nestor Aparicio 27:55
tomatoes thing with that. Did not understand
Allen McCallum 27:57
what I was watching. This-you
Nestor Aparicio 27:59
play for Chicago, right? White Sox. Yeah.
Casper Wells 28:00
This is
Nestor Aparicio 28:00
the band Chicago right here. Walt Persader did an interview. I got the whole broadsheet here. This is Monday, march 4, 1985. You were not born, right? What year were you born? 8484. All right, so you were alive. So this is the magazine section. I was on the front page. I was 16. I was 16 years old when I had this byline, and Richard and I met when I was about 11. And Richard and I were tight, tight during this era when I was the early part of the music critic. Richard and I drove down to Bob Zerflue’s office at the Capitol Center and told him we needed review tickets. Damn it, we needed them, and we got them too. And Tracy knows we got them. This is one of my all-time favorites. I’m gonna drop the mic on this one because I’m going to bring Richard up. Richard and I camped out for concert tickets. Richard was my first Jewish friend, being a little squat, 12-year-old from Pikes from Dundalk. Took me to mom’s house. Arlene’s making me eggs and bacon and making me lamb chops and making sure I was properly hydrated. But this right here is when Jimmy Page called the phone.
Speaker 1 29:00
Hello, there’s a collect call for Nestor from mr. Jimmy Page. Will you accept the call? Yes, from London. And hello, love. Hello, love. So David Bowie said that to me. Hello, love.
Allen McCallum 29:14
Nice.
8Nestor Aparicio 29:14
Yeah. So Jimmy Page, I interviewed, and then I interviewed Robert Plant as well. So all this is going to be good. I ripped Whitney Houston, I ripped David Bowie, I ripped Elton John. You
Allen McCallum 29:25
ripped Whitney Houston.
Nestor Aparicio 29:26
I ripped her ass. Front page. Hold on a second. Let me find it for you. I ripped the new kids on the block, and I got picketed around the block. Do you remember that? Do you remember the new kids on the block girls? All I have all the hate mail. I have all the letters. I have it all in a big envelope from all these young ladies, new kids are in dire need of musical discipline. You like that? I wound up golfing with Joey McIntyre later in life. He’s such a great guy. If I’d
Allen McCallum 29:51
known you’d rip with Whitney Houston, I’m not sure we’d be speaking.
Nestor Aparicio 29:54
This is the Amnesty International concert where I met Sting, and this was the last show. Police played together. We went to that show together up in Scranton. I found the picture of you in your underwear in the hotel room in Scranton. I’ll talk. Wearing the live eight shirt. I’m not sure. I forgot to bring it. I forgot to bring it. But nonetheless, Richard Abraham’s is going to be here. He’s been one of my best friends for 44. Did we meet at Billy Joel, or we meet at the who? Billy Joel was Billy Joel? Billy Joel. We met Billy Joel on the Innocent Man tour. We camped out for tickets. We got tickets in the eighth row. Is it
Allen McCallum 30:26
the Civic Center? No,
Nestor Aparicio 30:27
Capitol Center. We we met at the Rice down D R C.
8Allen McCallum 30:30
What year was that?
Nestor Aparicio 30:32
That was 8083. 8384, 84. January 84. I came there
Allen McCallum 30:37
like 8889, something like that.
Nestor Aparicio 30:41
Well, there was a point a little later on in life when Billy Joel called the show. So Billy Joel, this is my this my cover piece after Billy called, and you can hear this whole interview, 51 minutes at Baltimore Posit. So it’s all up there. 28 years I’ve been doing this crazy thing called sports radio at WNSD. 35 years I’ve been doing sports radio, but before that, I was a decorated, and I can prove that I was decorated because Depeche Mode called me. Why you new wave 80s, Depeche Mode? Is that you? Let me take you on a trip around the world and back. Oh, all ever wanted? Yeah, oh, Robert Plant. There’s my Robert Plant in there right there, and because I oh, I’ll drop the mic on this. So when I was a boy, I idolized Kevin Cronin from Mario Speedwagon and Don’t Let Him Go and Riding the Storm Out. And then Kevin Cronin called me in February 1985. I was 16 years old, and Survivor too. This is Survivor. I the tag that Jim Peterick called. So yes, this is my my old ish. What do you think?
Allen McCallum 31:43
You might have idolized him, but you’ve been trying to you’ve been chasing the look of Getty Lee since the day I since the well. If you want the Getty Lee
Nestor Aparicio 31:48
interview, it’s somewhere in here. I’ll find that. It’s
Casper Wells 31:50
a lot of Eye of the Tiger. 1986
8Nestor Aparicio 31:52
year in review.
Allen McCallum 31:54
Good Lord. I
Nestor Aparicio 31:54
ripped David Lee Roth, and they put him on the cover, and I praise Stevie Winwood, and there he is, right there. So January 219. Which one? What interview was that? He and I were together with Getty Lee. Okay, you’re coming on next. Richard Abrahams is next. Casper Wells Ander, tell me what you do with insurance so we can get you some business. You and Brian and Steve.
Casper Wells 32:14
Yeah, Heller Koew’s work in the property casualty business insurance sector, but we we cover anything: personal home and auto employee benefits. Give us a call. Life insurance, everything that you need for your business needs, we we can cover both personally and and for your business. Hellercoast.com is a website. Call directly into our office and and tell me you want to speak with. We talk baseball
Nestor Aparicio 32:38
with people if you do business with. They come and have a coffee with you. You go talk ball. We’ll talk
Casper Wells 32:41
baseball. Yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 32:42
Casper Wells, former big league ball player out here with State Fair. Alan McCallum. 30 years. What day was the the Jeffrey Mayor incident? Was like october 10 or something like that? I
8Allen McCallum 32:52
have to look it up.
Nestor Aparicio 32:53
Whatever day that is, you and I should go out and reminisce. We should do something. We should watch a ball game together that day. Done. All right. Alan McCallum, love him. And Richard Abrahams is next. Richard’s only been on the show a couple of times over the years. It always involves rock and roll and bad behavior from our youth. I do not know what my mother and father were thinking, sending me off to Reisterstown Road Plaza in the middle of the night in 1983, camping out for concert tickets to see Billy Joel. But I’m glad I met Richard. We’re back for more. We’re at State Fair. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. Our friends at GBMC and Farnin in Dermer. More ahead, more rock and roll, because I like it.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
