Leonard Raskin and Nestor take a walk down World Cup memory lane at WNST in Baltimore and beyond

With the Orioles on the skids and school out for the kids, we’re all glued to the World Cup and many have developed the red, white and blue pitch fever while the U.S. Men’s squad is winning and the host country is aglow with The Beautiful Game from sea to shining sea here on a holiday weekend. Leonard Raskin and Nestor take a walk down World Cup memory lane at WNST in Baltimore and beyond…

Nestor Aparicio and Leonard Raskin discuss their experiences with the World Cup and sports. Nestor shares his history of attending World Cup games, including a memorable encounter with Norwegian fans in Baltimore in 1994 and attending games in Germany and Japan. Leonard emphasizes the importance of long-term investment strategies and shares his own experiences with sports, including watching the US soccer team and attending games. They also discuss the high costs of World Cup tickets and the excitement of attending games, with Nestor planning to attend a Germany game in Foxborough. Leonard provides investment advice, stressing the importance of long-term planning and not being overly concerned with daily market fluctuations.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Schedule Janet Marie Smith as a guest on the show to discuss Dodger Stadium and her role in preserving it.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Encourage his wife to take Monday off and attend the Germany–USA World Cup game in Foxborough to experience the event atmosphere.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Prepare and air a special radio segment on December 13 celebrating his 35th anniversary on radio, including 10 additional notable moments beyond the NST era.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Upload and share the 2006 World Cup videos (including the games in Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen) with listeners.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Tell his wife immediately after the show to take Monday off and go to Gillette Stadium for the Germany–USA World Cup game to experience the event without needing a ticket.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Locate his working CD drive and find the 2006 World Cup video of him and his wife singing with Swedish fans outside the stadium.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Save money specifically to attend a future World Cup event in person.

World Cup Memory Lane and Baltimore Positive

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Orioles’ game in California and upcoming events like the Maryland Crab Cake Tours.
• Nestor talks about his plans for the summer, including visiting the beach and attending a show with Sammy Hagar.
• Leonard Raskin shares his experience at the beach, watching the Orioles’ games, and his routine with his dog.
• Nestor and Leonard discuss their preferences for sports and snacks, with Leonard mentioning his preference for caramel corn over snowballs.

World Cup and Soccer Talk

• Nestor and Leonard discuss the World Cup, with Nestor mentioning the ease of betting on games and the long hours of sports coverage.
• Leonard admits to watching the US soccer team and mentions his lack of interest in soccer otherwise.
• Nestor shares his excitement about the US team’s progress and the upcoming game in Santa Clara.
• They talk about the impact of the World Cup on other sports, with Nestor mentioning his recent Father’s Day activities and his love for Dodger Stadium.

Dodger Stadium and Baseball Memories

• Nestor and Leonard discuss their experiences with Dodger Stadium, with Nestor sharing his memories of attending games and concerts there.
• Leonard shares a story about attending a conference in Anaheim and playing catch with Jim Abbott.
• Nestor talks about the magic of baseball and his desire to visit Dodger Stadium before he dies.
• They discuss the unique experiences and memories associated with attending games at different stadiums.

World Cup Fever and Soccer Experiences

• Nestor shares his history with the World Cup, including attending games in Germany, South Korea, and Japan.
• He recounts a memorable experience in 1994 when he met Norwegian soccer fans at a bar in Baltimore.
• Leonard and Nestor discuss the excitement of attending World Cup games and the unique atmosphere of international soccer events.
• Nestor talks about his experiences with the US national team and attending friendly matches in the US.

Investment Advice and Financial Planning

• Leonard provides investment advice, emphasizing the importance of long-term planning and not getting too caught up in daily market fluctuations.
• He explains that activity in the market does not necessarily lead to wealth and that a well-constructed portfolio should be left to grow over time.
• Nestor shares his own financial strategies, including saving money and finding affordable travel options to attend events like the World Cup.
• They discuss the importance of financial planning and the benefits of having a well-managed investment portfolio.

World Cup 2026 and Future Plans

• Nestor expresses his excitement about the upcoming World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and his plans to attend games.
• Leonard and Nestor discuss the potential for attending games in different cities and the unique experiences each location offers.
• Nestor shares his desire to attend the Germany game in Foxborough and the importance of proximity to the action.
• They talk about the impact of the World Cup on the host cities and the economic benefits of hosting such a large-scale event.

Reflections on Soccer and Sports

• Nestor reflects on his journey with soccer, from his early days in Baltimore to his experiences attending World Cup games.
• Leonard and Nestor discuss the evolution of soccer in the US and the growing interest in the sport.
• Nestor shares his love for baseball and his memories of attending Orioles games with friends.
• They talk about the importance of sports in their lives and the unique experiences each sport offers.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Leonard discuss their future plans, including attending more sports events and traveling to new places.
• Nestor shares his excitement about upcoming concerts and events, including a show with Sammy Hagar.
• Leonard provides final investment advice and encourages listeners to plan for their financial futures.
• They wrap up the show, expressing their gratitude for the listeners and their excitement for the future.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and we’re into a week here. We’re up late with the Orioles out on the West Coast in California. We will be at Green Mount Station in Hampstead on Wednesday, doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tours. All presented by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. The horses have been the most popular one. I don’t know why the bridges or the mollusks and the crustaceans are not. Certainly for me, I’m looking forward to get down the beach later on this summer as well. We’ll be at Green Mount Station on Wednesday. Big show, Luke’s coming by. Casper Wells, former big league ball player, stopping by Howard Shares, stopping by Great Crab Cakes. Orioles played for Anaheim. We’ll have, we’ll have a lottery scratches. Also brought to you by Farn and Dermer. They are the comfort guys, and our partners at GBMC. I’m wearing my freshly minted Raskin Global shirt here. Letter Raskins down at the beach, speaking of reaching the beach. You, you know, I always say here, you let’s see, you’re you had to cross the bridge and pass Blackwater to get to the beach to find the horses, but you’re up in the Delaware side of things, dude. I send you down to this beach house, you have all of this excess money, you have nice, and you sit and watch television all weekend at the beach. What are you doing? Why are you watching so much sports right now? What are you doing? So,

Leonard Raskin 1:19
so, so I’m at the beach doing some good R and R, and the good news is the O’s are on the left coast, so when they’re on late 10 o’clock games, I’m done with the beach, I’m done with dinner, I’ve had my dumpsters, I’ve had my core brothers, you know, I’m I’m back at the back at the house relaxing and waiting for the dog to do his take his nightly walk, that I got to take him out at 11. I’m all about the frozen

Nestor Aparicio 1:48
cruster, to be honest with you, dude. If I weren’t Delaware, I’d be at Fenwick Ice every night, getting one of those giant ones with a snow cap on there. That’s what I, that little trailer, I’m doing that.

Leonard Raskin 1:58
I’m not a big snowball fan, you know. That’s all

Nestor Aparicio 2:00
right. Well, you don’t know what’s going for the Core

Leonard Raskin 2:02
Brothers. I’m going for the Core Brothers and the Fishers. I’m all about caramel corn. Anyway, watching the Luke over the

Nestor Aparicio 2:10
weekend, like you could sit and watch sports because of the World Cup, and I said, I said to John Martin that you could bet on all of this so freely and easily, and put five bucks on Ecuador, if you want. You know what I mean. If you’re having a good, if you really are that casual gambler that’s just putting five or 10 bucks on a game and kind of having a good time with it, this could be a good time on the World Cup side.

Leonard Raskin 2:34
Yes,

Nestor Aparicio 2:35
golf over the weekend, Orioles all night, like it is been like an 18 to 20 hours sports day, here the last five or six days, if you wanted

Leonard Raskin 2:45
it, could be. Yeah, so I watched the US soccer, I did that, and I’m not a soccer fan, let’s be clear, but I did watch the US, so I saw that game, and a tidbit here and there of others, nothing that’s not on the highlight.

Nestor Aparicio 3:01
Well, it’s made the turkey game like anticlimactic this week, that they’re through now. You wanted to get through, they’re gonna play in Santa Clara, but all that being said, we’re in a whole different level of oxygen, dude, because you know I had the weekend free, and you saw I shared some Father’s Day stuff, and I’ve been doing all of this Dodger Stadium, pouring my heart out with Luke. Now, have you been to Dodger Stadium before?

Leonard Raskin 3:23
I have not. That’s a place I have not been yet.

Nestor Aparicio 3:26
On a bucket list, or no?

Leonard Raskin 3:28
If I get there, if I get there, not a big listener stands a beautiful place.

Nestor Aparicio 3:34
Do what I did last year, find a concert you liked, and find when the Dodgers are home, go to the Hollywood Bowl, and go to Dodger Stadium, and then you know, then you can go out to Santa Monica if you want to chase Three’s Company, or you can go to, you know, you can go to Inglewood, whatever, you go see Brady Bunch’s house, whatever, LA.

Leonard Raskin 3:54
No, I’ve been to LA plenty, just never been to Chavez Ravine, or whatever they’re calling, because you don’t really

Nestor Aparicio 3:59
want it to go, right? You don’t just

Leonard Raskin 4:01
know it just wasn’t a thing. It’s not that I, you didn’t watch it on

Nestor Aparicio 4:04
TV all weekend and have Jim Palmer talk about 19. Oh no, I was definitely,

Leonard Raskin 4:08
definitely watching, watching the O’s. I think they should have swept him, sadly an error in the ninth on the on the first game, or we just swept them, but it was a great series of baseball, and the O’s are pitching, the O’s are hitting, and what’s bad about that. And now we go to Anaheim, right? I never know their name, the LA Angels, the California Angels, the Los Angeles, Anaheim of Angels. I don’t know what the party Moreno

Nestor Aparicio 4:34
angels,

Leonard Raskin 4:36
right, whatever they former show

Nestor Aparicio 4:37
a Ohtani angels,

Leonard Raskin 4:38
right? They’re now the Angels, and so that we’ll see how we do against the Angels, the formerly Trey Mancini Angels, right? What has been there was there for he came up for a week.

Nestor Aparicio 4:51
I haven’t kept up with them. I just want to make sure Trout’s still on the team. By the way, he’s up at the worst stadium and the best. You do not. Need to go to Ana. Don’t plan your trip around going to a baseball game in Anaheim. You’re better off at Disney World. You’re better off.

Leonard Raskin 5:05
I’ve been there. See, now I’ve been there. Why? Okay, let me tell you this.

Nestor Aparicio 5:10
Conference at Disneyland. Let

Leonard Raskin 5:11
me tell you a story. I had a conference in Anaheim. It was near there, and one the day trips that you could take was a bus over to the stadium, and this was this was cool. Play catch with Jim Abbott.

Nestor Aparicio 5:29
What?

Leonard Raskin 5:30
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 5:31
you played catch with Jim Abbott.

Leonard Raskin 5:33
Yeah, so he was there. Here was the deal, he was there at the stadium, and he did a 20 minute talk about his life and career, and then you had, we’ve

Nestor Aparicio 5:44
discussed this before, and then we

Leonard Raskin 5:46
got to do a Q and A, and then we got to take batting practice in the cage under the stadium, and go out to the field, and there was, you know, he was out there, and it was just the coolest thing ever, it was very cool, and

Nestor Aparicio 5:58
then listen, you know how into certain ads I am right, didn’t

Leonard Raskin 6:02
see a game

Nestor Aparicio 6:04
guys that I’ve idolized, whether it’s Tony Quinn, whether it’s, you know, whoever my relationship with Joe Flacco, or whatever, or but as far as great accomplishments, and

Leonard Raskin 6:15
oh my god, could there be anything?

Nestor Aparicio 6:18
Show a Ohtani, you could put him there, you could, Bo Jackson, you can take any of the athletes, what Tiger Woods did in golf, what Gretzky did in hockey, or you love a vegetable, whatever. Yeah,

Leonard Raskin 6:28
yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 6:29
dude, Jim Abbott,

Leonard Raskin 6:30
stunning.

Nestor Aparicio 6:31
There might not be anything I’ve ever witnessed anything

Leonard Raskin 6:36
comparable. It’s unbelievable. I mean, when he, when he would throw a pitch and then flip that glove off of what the stump that was his arm and flip it onto his hand and he can feel his position. Yeah, if you want to

Nestor Aparicio 6:52
teach kids something, right, like teach them about, like, if you want to give a five year old kid a book, tell them that Jim Abbott, what they can or can’t do, whether right, whether my cut-off finger would be an impediment for me to get to the big league. Life,

Leonard Raskin 7:07
like you’re kidding. I mean, I remember when he played, and I’m sure you do, teams would try to bunt against him, thinking he couldn’t field his position. The guy didn’t get to the majors, not being able to field his position. He, he threw a no hitter.

Nestor Aparicio 7:23
That’s a great story that you went there to. I mean, I have nothing in Anaheim, other than, I mean,

Leonard Raskin 7:30
we had lunch. It was, and you know, this was an open..

Nestor Aparicio 7:35
it’s not a place I would recommend you to go to watch a ball. That’s here,

Leonard Raskin 7:38
Nestor. Let me give you the stats. There’s probably 500 maybe three to 500 people at this conference, right?

Nestor Aparicio 7:44
Okay,

Leonard Raskin 7:45
and and it was a morning bus trip to Anaheim, spend the morning batting practice, hang out with Abbott, listen to his story, and then have lunch. He had lunch with us, and he was just open, just hanging out for a few hours, and you know, toured the stadium, tour the locker rooms, and all that. There were like 10 of us that went, that’s including spouses and kids. It was 10 of us. We had a private audience with the guy for four hours. It was magnificent. He was incredible listening to him, and then, and just seeing him was, was all it was just, we go

Nestor Aparicio 8:26
with, you know, baseball, and, and the magic of baseball, by the way, Leonard Raskin is here, Raskin Global, he manages the American Dream, and you know, part of this is put enough money together, you get to do cool stuff, and go, you know, like, I hope I have enough money to see Sammy Hagar this weekend, and get a beer at the Heritage Fair in the beer garden on Sunday, but you know, for me, with you know, doing special things, and, and like all of that, I think Dodger Stadium is one of those things. I’ll have to, yeah, I’ll just say this, Leonard, and because we grew up in the era where we never played at Dodger Stadium, right, so it was only on this week in baseball, only in the 1977 World Series, or only in the 19.. it was at 80 or 8080, was 80 all-star game, I believe it was the 80 all-star game. Steve Stone out there, so I would just say all of these members, my dad and I went to a game there in 1985 that sucked. Pitch on Sunday night, I almost got a home run from Jody Davis, Keith Moreland at a bomb that night for the Cubbies, so I have this Chavez Ravine thing, and I always try to impress the people like when I do special things.

Leonard Raskin 9:30
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 9:31
like I saw Def Leppard, I know you’re a Def Leppard guy, yeah, they played a quarry in Sweden. Look it up last week, look it up, I’m telling you, man, like I try to get these concerts and these weird things in weird ways and unique things that write something that’s a unique memory, Dodger Stadium to me. And when I get Janet Marie back on, and I will, she helped, she didn’t help build it, she helped preserve it, but I just want to do, like, I let me write that down, I gotta, I want to get. Linda Carter on, because she just gave 10 million bucks to, but if I can’t get Wonder Woman on, I want to get Janet Marie Smith on, you know. So I got us to write that down, so I remember she’s

Leonard Raskin 10:11
the premier baseball architect.

Nestor Aparicio 10:13
Yeah, and, and like Dodger Stadium is her baby. I heard during

Leonard Raskin 10:17
the during the game on the weekend, I heard Palmer, they were talking about, she should be in the Hall of

Nestor Aparicio 10:23
Fame. Damn right, she should be in all that.

Leonard Raskin 10:25
That was quite the statement. Let me get on that. Thought that was a good.. I want to get

Nestor Aparicio 10:28
on that. Listen, if you go to Baltimore Positive, there’s a search button up there. You know what I probably should do is have Raskin Global sponsor the search button, is what I should have. You know, at Baltimore Positive, that’d be great idea there. I’m coming up with the.. it’s summertime, and I’m selling, you know, so I’m coming up with ideas. I’m an idea guy. My AI things help me, but nonetheless, if you search up there, Janet Marie Smith and me and my name, or Baltimore Positive, or Double United States, yeah, you will see tombs of conversations. We’ve talked about Dodger Stadium, and she is Dodger Vice President, Janet Marie Smith. Yes, that’s great, and Canopy, and all the stuff, and how they’ve wrecked Ira Ball Park, which looks like a dungeon behind home plate. If you really look at it, she built Camden Yards and Fenway Park, and Sarasota. If you’ve been to Sarasota, I bet we’ve all been to Sarasota, right? The Dodger Stadium thing, and if I can impress, because I didn’t do enough selling, the loop

Leonard Raskin 11:19
haven’t been there

Nestor Aparicio 11:20
on it. We don’t play there much, and I just thought this weekend was really magical in a lot of ways. Being up late, I fell asleep on the Saturday, and but Palmer talking 66 World Series, yes,

Leonard Raskin 11:34
against Koufax

Nestor Aparicio 11:35
in that stadium, where it feels the same way. Palmer admitting that the day he pitched, his mother was in the upper deck, and she was afraid of heights, and he had to get her moved down, and just like what he remembered from that day, from 60 years ago, I wasn’t born in 1966 right? So I have no recollection, everything I know about it is this incredible lore with my last name, or the last name, and with my father telling me about being at the post office and putting the envelope in with the money order, trying to get tickets from the Orioles. You have it postmarked, and just.. and I have all the ticket stuffs from my dad. I still have them in a box in the back, you know? I have them. You’ve seen the course. So, and Father’s Day this weekend had me rummaging through a lot of that stuff that all those Capital Center tickets you and I did two summers ago, so like I don’t know, I, I’m, I’m romantic about Dodger Stadium, and when they get to play there on the final weekend, probably ever, when Palmer’s going to call games from there, you know what I’m probably gonna play here next year, or whatever. There’s something about the way the stadium looks and feels that is like every postcard, every picture. And I want to give you this, because I wrote this down for Luke, and I didn’t bring it up. And this is what was amazing. Did you see all the empty seats on Father’s Day on Sunday up in the left and right field wings,

Leonard Raskin 13:01
sure, sure.

Nestor Aparicio 13:02
Do you know why their seats were empty?

Leonard Raskin 13:04
Do they sell them?

Nestor Aparicio 13:06
I went on the Stub Hub, and I went on the Ticketmaster, and I went on the Tick Pick, and I wanted to click, and I went on to Seat Geek. I went on to all of them.

Leonard Raskin 13:14
Yep,

Nestor Aparicio 13:15
tickets were $94

Leonard Raskin 13:20
for up there,

Nestor Aparicio 13:22
for up there. I looked at it. Honestly, it was some Father’s Day promotional thing, and they gave away – they gave away a bobble head the other night. Was it the Shaquille O’Neal bobble head? It

Leonard Raskin 13:41
was monkey monkey bets.

Nestor Aparicio 13:42
They gave a Shaquille bobblehead away too, because they were giving Ben McDonald a hard time about not being there to get one, because he and Chakra buddies. Yeah, I was there. I got a bobble head last year. Janet Murray left me tickets, and I got a bobble head about pitcher, but nonetheless I was a little like, why are those seats empty on Father’s? Like, the Orioles aren’t a draw. I wonder how much it is. And I thought, well, it’s got to be a $40 ticket on the roof at Dodger Stadium. Yeah, but

Leonard Raskin 14:10
even, you know, games, a lot of money, it was a lot

Nestor Aparicio 14:13
of money, like little stick, not a little, like a lot of sticker shock. And I’m thinking to myself, of all the things you can do in Southern California. I have 100 things, and I’ve already mentioned five. I’m not even mentioning getting the Mac at Mac, not Mac, Mahi Mahi at Duke’s down on the pier, Huntington Beach. Words, everybody’s Republican down there, so you’d feel comfortable in Orange County. So, I mean, but like anywhere in that area, there are tourists to Hollywood, great restaurants, things to do. A million, I’m, I haven’t been to the Troubadour, and I haven’t been to the Whiskey, and I need to go, and I hadn’t been to the Hollywood Bowl till last year, which was dumb of me, right? Roger Stadium is still the best thing to do, even at that price, maybe not at that price, but it is still the best thing to do, and if you watch baseball weekend and you. Love watching the Orioles went out there. I would tell you, go to Dodger Stadium before you die, do that. Got

Leonard Raskin 15:05
to do it, put it on the list. All right, been to been to Fenway, been to Yankee Stadium, been to Wrigley. Have you been to

Nestor Aparicio 15:15
Kansas City?

Leonard Raskin 15:16
I’ve been to Kansas City.

Nestor Aparicio 15:18
All right, I love that stadium. Yeah, they’ve wrecked that, because the fountains and stuff were beautiful there. You were at the championship game in Oakland for football.

Leonard Raskin 15:30
Oakland, no, never went to Oakland. That was the only game that year I didn’t go to, and one of the only ones in the playoff runs that we haven’t gone to, because I figured with my, with my verbose fandom, I might be knifed in Oakland, so I skipped that one. You might have died there that

Nestor Aparicio 15:48
day. I was there, I

Leonard Raskin 15:50
would, I would have, I would have done something for sure that would have not been good for my future. It was

Nestor Aparicio 15:56
intimidating, I will say that chapter Purple Rain One on that whole experience, do that,

Leonard Raskin 16:03
but Dodger Stadium, I had to get there. I’m with you 100% Well, this is why

Nestor Aparicio 16:08
I tell people to follow you and having your money managed, so that you can put a little scratch together to make that Rush concert that I made out there two weeks ago. So I did that instead of going for baseball, because I have pictures of me eating Dodger dogs, I don’t have a picture of me and my dad, but I do have the ticket subs from that day in 1985 with Rick Sucker, that we drove up from San Diego, parked the Dodger Stadium, listen to San

Leonard Raskin 16:35
Diego, I’ve been in San Diego, so yeah, man,

Nestor Aparicio 16:38
like there’s some of these ballparks that I wouldn’t tell you. Hey, I would tell you, seeing a football game is just Seattle.

Leonard Raskin 16:46
Yeah, yeah, soccer game there the other

Nestor Aparicio 16:49
day, Seattle in that football stadium. I think that football seems a special building. And now that the US has won there in that way, there’s a memory for that stadium that I think, if you also socks, also kind

Leonard Raskin 17:02
of funny that the FIFA, the most ethical moral sports authority in the world,

Nestor Aparicio 17:10
mafia,

Leonard Raskin 17:11
yeah, took off, made all the stadiums take off their, their names,

Nestor Aparicio 17:15
names, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, they said

Leonard Raskin 17:17
I heard, and I don’t know if this is true or not, I heard in Boston, wherever, not Boston, but New England, they had to put tape over Gillette on every seat in the stadium. That’s what I heard,

Nestor Aparicio 17:34
you know. It’s not outside the realm, you know.

Leonard Raskin 17:39
Job is to put tape on every seat. Here’s

Nestor Aparicio 17:43
where with the Germany thing, right? Like, Germany’s playing up there this week. My wife had her life saved by a German guy playing. She’s up in New England. No, tickets are $1,600

Leonard Raskin 17:54
Oh, you’re not going.

Nestor Aparicio 17:55
No, it’s not even a knockout game. They’re already through. How about the

Leonard Raskin 18:00
Scots? How about the Scots drinking Boston dry,

Nestor Aparicio 18:04
completely dry?

Leonard Raskin 18:05
How funny is that? Talk about, talk about amazing. And you know, I don’t care what you say, not you personally, but anybody says about this country, man. You listen to these people that have come over here and are here for their first time in their lives, seeing the United States as soccer fans, the they’re going wild, they’re running around,

Nestor Aparicio 18:28
they’re running around, they are

Leonard Raskin 18:30
Walmart, they’re freaking out about Walmart, they’re freaking out about Buckys, they’re freaking out about the size of the food. I saw this Japanese guy going crazy over something he ate that was just ridiculous. I mean, and Scottish, the Scots just drinking Boston dry. It is so funny to see all these people. I mean, I knew the America, the soccer was a draw. I knew it’s a draw, and the World Cup is a thing. I had no idea how many people from outside the country would actually make the trip and come to see their country play, but man, they are standing up. There are fans from all over the world. There’s a part for me,

Nestor Aparicio 19:10
in all honesty, right? I did not go to Philly last week. I played to Philly for USA Turkey, and they’re playing this week for Friendly, about eight years ago, maybe, maybe 12 years, it was 12 years ago, before my wife got cancer, I think it was in like 13. We did a bus trip up to do US Turkey, and we filled the bus with US soccer fans. We had a great day. Yeah, because I used to do that all the time, and you know, I guess I’ve gotten older, and it is what it is, and the tickets are what they are, and it’s just a pain in the ass, different. It’s a different world, right? I want to tell my wife next Monday, Germany plays the 32 they’re through. Yes, they are going to play in Foxborough.

Leonard Raskin 19:54
Yep,

Nestor Aparicio 19:55
I want to tell my wife, like, take the day off, go down there. To pay the 100 bucks to park, right? Just walk around, you don’t have to get into the stadium, you don’t have to go to the game, probably. I would think that the party to participate, to go to Philly and participate with a bunch of people from Ecuador or Ivory Coast, right, or wherever it is,

Leonard Raskin 20:17
these people are coming, they’re here and they’re loving it. Yeah, and

Nestor Aparicio 20:21
I even saw this, like, Germany played last weekend in Toronto, yeah, and I saw, like, I’m like, wouldn’t that have been fun, and that Toronto stadium is a little soccer stadium right off the side of the freeway, and the QB W on the way up there, but I love sports, Leonard, it’s built my life, right, like I’ve waited 3432 years to this World Cup to come here, and all that. I’m not immersed in it at all, you know. My wife’s like, ‘Are you watching? And I’m like, ‘I just don’t have 14 hours a day this month. I’m doing other things I can’t concentrate on. Watch,

Leonard Raskin 20:53
not the, not the whole thing, but I was, I was doing some other stuff, and I had the.. I don’t know who they were playing, Brazil, somebody, and I said, I said to Kathy before the game, they’re gonna beat him 10 to nothing. Yeah, it was Haiti,

Nestor Aparicio 21:07
it was like eight to nothing, right, six

Leonard Raskin 21:08
nothing, whatever it was. But at least for me, at least that game parts of it were fun to watch, because they were moving the ball and they’re scoring, they’re exciting as hell. I can’t take back and forth nothing, nothing. We’re finished. What do you mean we’re finished? It’s nothing, nothing, we’re finished. Well, the

Nestor Aparicio 21:25
Argentina tickets are 2000 bucks, the Brazil tickets are 2000 bucks, the German tickets are 1500 bucks. So, when it comes to these premium teams, one of my dearest friends in life, Scotty P from Amicis, he’s a big Dutch fan, he went down and saw the Netherlands, played Japan in the first game in Dallas. Uh, my buddy Ron Cassie was at a game in Philly. I have friends that have been at these games. I’m going to get Corinthian at some point. Um, it’s a shame that our city didn’t get to participate, but it’s not giving the raping of government that’s gone on by these criminals at FIFA. I mean, really, like, what’s going on has been horrific. But that being said, it’s only here once, it’s once in your life. I am going to encourage my wife to go to Anakin German next week. It’s also

Leonard Raskin 22:13
really surprised, I didn’t, I didn’t know this, you know. First of all, it’s up to what, 32 teams, so that’s why you have all this. No, no, no.

Nestor Aparicio 22:22
It’s no, no, it’s more than that, right?

Leonard Raskin 22:25
32 countries,

Nestor Aparicio 22:26
it’s more than 32 It’s 64 to start with, isn’t it?

Leonard Raskin 22:29
No, I don’t think it’s 64 How many teams are in the World Cup

Nestor Aparicio 22:35
in 2012 I don’t even know. I’m an 82

Leonard Raskin 22:39
It’s 30, it’s

Nestor Aparicio 22:40
48 It’s 48 right now, 48 Yeah, I knew it was bigger. It’s, it’s always been 32 it’s always been 48 groups of

Leonard Raskin 22:48
four. It’s 4040 stadiums to play these games. Well, that’s why

Nestor Aparicio 22:54
they’ve done three countries. That’s why they’re in Mexico. Well, they’re in Mexico, so Iraq and Iran can come in without getting bombed,

Leonard Raskin 23:02
without being allowed to come in. By

Nestor Aparicio 23:05
the way, the kid holding up the backpack, good on him.

Leonard Raskin 23:09
Didn’t see that

Nestor Aparicio 23:10
the Iranian player held up a backpack for a child’s back, didn’t see

Leonard Raskin 23:16
that.

Nestor Aparicio 23:16
Yeah, well, it’s because it’s not on Fox News, but it’s not like it happened in Mexico too, like I’m just saying, well, this is this is the American jingoism you’re not getting when we’re bombing these, we’re blowing up these people’s kids, and then telling them they can’t come the country to kick a soccer ball, like there’s a lot of, there’s a lot. Well, Trump’s going to be dancing around with Messi, or whoever wins, I guess, wherever, wherever

Leonard Raskin 23:40
the final is. I don’t know. You think it’ll be messy winning? Well, the finals in LA,

Nestor Aparicio 23:44
right? What final New Yorker final? I have

Leonard Raskin 23:47
no idea. See, I gotta.. I would imagine I’m a mess palace. This is how

Nestor Aparicio 23:51
ignorant I am. Palace,

Leonard Raskin 23:53
wouldn’t it be in that palace in L in LA? It’s gotta be in LA.

Nestor Aparicio 23:56
They make more money there, right?

Leonard Raskin 23:57
That, that huge.

Nestor Aparicio 23:59
By the way, I drove past there last week. Have you been there?

Nestor Aparicio 24:02
Yes, I was there for the Super Bowl.

Leonard Raskin 24:06
Oh, right. I saw

Nestor Aparicio 24:07
Eminem play in there. I saw, I saw your boy Joe Burrow, think he was gonna win a Super Bowl.

Leonard Raskin 24:12
That’s right, there you go.

Nestor Aparicio 24:13
No, I drove. You haven’t been there yet?

Leonard Raskin 24:16
No. Oh, dude, that’s

Nestor Aparicio 24:17
that song to see.

Leonard Raskin 24:20
I’ll get to Brazil before I get to LA.

Nestor Aparicio 24:22
That’s something to see. Would you go to a soccer game if I had a ticket in Philly next week for two countries you didn’t care about at all?

Leonard Raskin 24:33
If I go to see a World Cup game, sure.

Nestor Aparicio 24:36
How much would you be willing to pay for something you didn’t care, even though the experience would be exemplary,

Leonard Raskin 24:44
I’d have to be a great game.

Nestor Aparicio 24:47
So, this is where, like, I can tell you,

Leonard Raskin 24:49
hi, I went

Nestor Aparicio 24:50
to World Cup games. Okay, I’ve attended World Cup games. Do you know this in oh six that I went to Germany?

Leonard Raskin 24:57
Yes, I think we’ve talked about.. well, this is

Nestor Aparicio 24:59
kind of a neat thing. Thing too, because over the weekend I went rummaging, my wife’s out of town with her father, was Father’s Day weekend up in Maine, living the big life and doing all that, looking for bears and blueberry pie, so and Bahaba, so I went rummaging this weekend, looking, and I wrote down what I was looking for, I was looking for some Dodger Stadium history, and most of that’s out on the internet, but the World Cup part of this is I don’t know when you started listening to my show, for real, real, real, and really were in on the NST experience, and our what we’ve done, one of the most amazing things we did, and it wasn’t one of our 25 stories of glory, and I may extend this because I’m about to celebrate my 35th year on radio, 1991 december 13, 1991 I walked into a studio with Kenny Albert, and soon after that, Jerry Coleman at AM 1230 I’m going to celebrate that on december 13, 35 years. I’m going to add 10 more things that we’ve done up and beyond NST, things that have before NST happened, or you know, as NST people think NST died the day that, you know, Glenn Clark and Drew left here 12 years ago. Fair enough, whatever you think, right? Rob Long and Jeremy Conn are over at 1057 Hey Rob Long’s in the dugout every night, WNSD is alive everywhere they are, but 35 years of doing this one thing that we did not, that I’m really proud of, that we were a part of, and this really speaks to Steve Hennessy. So, if anybody sees Steve Hennessy, this was as much his baby as my love of soccer. Okay, so I never loved soccer as a kid, I never kicked a soccer ball, my dad loved the blast, even though it would be so unlike my dad. The love, my dad loved the energy of Baltimore and Kenny. My mom loved Kenny Cooper. Oh my god, my mother, if she, if my dad would have given my mom a hall pass, Kenny Cooper was it. Seriously, more than Bobby Vinton, more Nickel, Humperdinck, Kenny Cooper. My mom loved Kenny Cooper, and Kenny Cooper knows my mom loved Kenny Cooper. So soccer didn’t make it past, let’s just say the city line, where Patterson High School in Dundalk, man, we played baseball. We didn’t play lacrosse soccer. We had some kids, Kelly Rockler, Victor Carl, my sock, I mean, so many Italian kids that came from Highland Town, the Polish kids, maybe immigrant Greek kids, soccer, right? But no, not no, but we played baseball where I’m from, right? So soccer was not a part of my the vocabulary, okay? So I went on the radio on december 13 1991 and in and the World Cup came here in 94 Okay, so blast 9192 still a big thing. Kenny Cooper still sticking it, but outdoor soccer was the base, and I covered the bays for real, for real, at the Evening Sun. I mean, I covered PD Corinji, I covered, you know, the coaches that came from the islands, Philip Jowell, all of the down at Dubs, Rob Ryerson, Darryl Darryl G, all of them, Darrell Simpson playing on the on the US soccer team, all down in Columbia, Howard County, Oakland Mills, they played at the UMBC Stadium before. There was a lot down there, and all of that. Okay, so I just want to get my soccer background, because when pure energy comes on, we’ll talk about it, because you’re falling in love with this World Cup thing, and this concept that the US is playing next week at home in a World Cup game on our soil. I’ve been dreaming this dream for 32 years. Okay, so why would I go party? I don’t care so much about inside. In 94 it happened here, and I can’t say I was connected to it. I mean, I can’t say that I realized that Saudi Arabia was playing at RFK Stadium, or that I, it’s Scotland Play, or Iceland. Somebody played RFK, had a couple of games, Drew went to a couple of them. Pete Corring, people I knew went to those games.

Leonard Raskin 29:09
Sure,

Nestor Aparicio 29:09
I did not go to those games. Okay, I didn’t realize they were happening. And it’s, it’s amazing. I’m wearing the Raskin Global blue and white. This is my God’s honest truth story, and I’ve told it maybe three times on the air ever. I used to go drinking with Mike Messina after Oriole games routinely, 9293 94 It was my friendship, his brother, all events with the same age, right? So, in that era, you remember wherever you were in 9293 stadium was full every night, 48,000 people, 94 This is right before the strike, and this is before Davey Johnson got here. So, then Angelo’s just bought the team, it’s right after the All-Star game was in 93 Cal’s in the middle of the streak, so in 1994 and I don’t know the date, I can look it up, but Messina and I and David. Ghee were drinking, and I asked Mark if he was with us, and he doesn’t remember. I said, “Mark, you would remember this. We were drinking on the outdoor deck at Hooters outside, and we heard a rumble at well after midnight, like 12:31am because the games didn’t end till 1030 they were right. So, we were out at 1am drinking Molson’s, because that was Moose’s favorite, and we would walk back up to the stadium. We were never drunk, because we would drive home, right, but we were having a couple of beers and watching late night baseball, and watching baseball tonight, because Messina was obsessed with baseball. He was Mike Messina, right? So, it’s a summer 94 There’s 50 people at Hooters, maybe 35 left from the game at 1am We’re closing the bar down. We know all the girls that work there. We, you know, I did my show there before game. Somebody’s like a family family. I knew that General, it was a safe downtown, was safe. Sometimes Brady Anderson would walk over because he lived where I lived at Arbor Gordon. Sometimes Brady would walk over, he wasn’t a drinker, he would get like an orange juice or a pineapple juice, but sometimes he would just come and watch baseball and hang out with us, right? Does he live there? Right. We heard a roar, Leonard, and we’re like, what the hell is going on, and it sounded like a rumbling of humans,

Leonard Raskin 31:26
right,

Nestor Aparicio 31:26
late at night.

Leonard Raskin 31:28
Yep,

Nestor Aparicio 31:28
and the Cap City Grill, I think it was called Cap Grill, whatever that bar was, that was Swenson’s, was the bar out on the promenade, if you remember,

Leonard Raskin 31:37
sure,

Nestor Aparicio 31:38
and all of these people showed up, and their faces were painted blue and white. They were the Norway fans showing up at one in the morning. They were playing at RFK, I think, and basing in Baltimore, staying at the Hyatt, or, you know, at the Sheridan, or whatever, right?

Nestor Aparicio 32:00
They knew nothing about baseball. They had no idea. They didn’t know Mike Messina from Law, you know, like at all. They were just painted up and, and drunk, but not obnoxious. I mean, they were not. They were, they were drunk up that Norwegian guys all over here with blonde hair and blue eyes and Pretty Wives, and they were wearing flags, and it was summer, was warm. I remember them shirtless in some cases, and they were just drinking beer, and they sat at our table, and Messina, being the Stanford-educated, you think he’s an introvert, but he ain’t. We just sat and talked to them about what the hell they were doing here, and they told us they were Nerve A Nervay, and then I got a Norwegian girlfriend later, and I understood things a little bit better, but we ran into a World Cup fan group,

Leonard Raskin 32:53
crazy,

Nestor Aparicio 32:54
and we, and Moose, and I were like, what does that have to do with March Madness? Can you, is it a golf ball? Is it, you know, like, we had no, I had no desire to go to RFK, so that’s where I was with soccer in 94 The women win in 96 right? Brandy Chastain, yeah, sure. 98 we went over to South Korea, we went to the France, and I bought a jersey, and we got our ass kicked by, like, Iran, if I remember correctly. Oh, two. I tried to talk Scotty P. This is how I got it. This is what really.. hold on. There was a friendly at Memorial Stadium. The United States played a friendly before the 90 eight cup in 97 the US played Ecuador at Memorial Stadium, and the US men’s national team lived in the Towson Sheraton. Sampson was the coach. There’s a picture of me kissing him. He’s wearing a US jersey. Freckie, John Hart’s Tob Ramos, all came to my studio at the.. I’m leaving a big thank you for letting me indulge. Because if I don’t talk out loud, I won’t even remember this, because I want to tell this story the right way.

Leonard Raskin 34:22
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 34:22
they all came to my studio and left behind all of this stuff. I took my son to Memorial Stadium that night for the friendly, he was like 12 at the time, and we fell in with the US national team. That’s what happened, and I bought the jersey and they got their ass kicked in 98 I tried to talk Scotty P into going to South Korea and Japan with me in oh two, we were gonna go, gonna go, gonna go, go. I had a travel agent, we didn’t go. And then they went on the tear, and when they went on the tear, they beat Mexico at four in the morning. We threw a party at the Kiss Cafe. I had NSD then. We had hundreds, I’m talking like five. 100 people, and about 50 Mexican kids wrapped in flags that walked down from Broadway to go to the Kiss Cafe, and we literally, with Victor, who owned Kiss Cafe, which is now the Outback Steakhouse in the Cannes Company, you know, to we beat Mexico, we drew with like Ireland or somebody, but that was when we went on the tear in oh two, and I found all of the newspaper clippings from Paul McMullen. We opened the Hub Cap In at 7am because they were open for eggs and bacon in the morning, and we watched them play Ireland, I believe, and then beat Germany. I’m making this up. I have to go and look it all up. We, they lost to Germany, excuse me, Oliver Kahn, and they got knocked out of the 16, but they won the 32 and when they won the 32 it was at seven in the morning in South Korea or Japan, maybe he’s in Nagano. I’m either way,

Leonard Raskin 36:02
right.

Nestor Aparicio 36:02
We were all up in oh two, and I got the fever. I got married in oh three, and I begged John Dow, who ran Winter Distributing and Bubweiser, my primary sponsor, whose name was All Over Everything. I begged him if he could get me, he was going to give me tickets in oh two in Japan, and I, and I couldn’t find anybody to go with me, and oh, two, and they went on that tear, right?

Leonard Raskin 36:24
Yep, yep,

Nestor Aparicio 36:25
you know, six. I’m running the radio station, you know, all of that. My wife and I went, and we based in Amsterdam for 12 days, and we went to the Germany World Cup. I never told you this.

Leonard Raskin 36:37
Nope, nope. We went to

Nestor Aparicio 36:39
Dortmund. I’m going to put the videos up for you and everybody else. We put, we went to see Sweden play Trinidad in Dortmund, and we went to see the US play the Czech Republic, and they got their ass kicked. They gave up a goal 30 seconds in and gave up another in the third minute, and they lost three nothing to the Czech Republic in Gelsen Kirchin, which is in Nor is really close to where Neil’s, you saved my wife’s life’s from. And then, how much do you got any time? You have a minute. I’m

Leonard Raskin 37:11
good, I’m good. Go ahead.

Nestor Aparicio 37:12
All right, so you want to know, miracle of all miracles, by the way, Leonard Rask is here. You want to talk about taxes, give your tax tip real quick. You sure.

Leonard Raskin 37:20
Well, I just want people, we’re talking about investing, you know, to do all these great things. The only thing I want to say to people, this is so important for people to know. As an investor, if you are an investor, your goal should be to create wealth long term in your portfolio, it shouldn’t be to look at it every day, and the reason I’m easy to do, you

Nestor Aparicio 37:46
get obsessed when it’s on your app, right? Yeah, you literally do, right?

Leonard Raskin 37:49
Exactly, but the reason I bring this up now, as it, as a for instance, is there’s so much going on, and the news is so fast and furious, and you could look at everything going on every day and make changes, and the thing I want you to be clear about is activity is not control, and activity does not bring wealth, it destroys wealth, if your portfolio is constructed properly, and your plan is in good order. You don’t need to be

Nestor Aparicio 38:25
a day trader,

Leonard Raskin 38:26
right? A memo of understanding in Iran. Who knows what’s going on over in Europe? SpaceX goes public, you gotta have it. You know what’s going on with Nvidia, the news of the day, you should consider noise of the day, and your portfolio should be planned for the long term. And I’ll relate it to what we’re talking about, you know, the soccer team, the game is usually not won or lost in the first minute, it’s it’s 90 plus minutes of play, and your portfolio is there for the rest of your life, and you gotta, you gotta manage it as such. If you’re worried about what’s going on, you shouldn’t be in the market, and you shouldn’t own stocks at all. If you’re too scared, and if you have a long-term horizon, you should own a great mix of great companies around the world, because that’s what you’re buying, and you should let it do its thing. And over time, you’re going to create massive wealth, and you’re going to have so much access that what you’re going to be able to do is go to Germany, you know, go go see a World Cup game wherever you may want to see it, or go to Dodger Stadium to see the O’s. These are things that everybody has the opportunity to do. You just need a little bit of money to start. You don’t need a lot. I

Nestor Aparicio 39:46
love that. These segments have turned into

Leonard Raskin 39:48
Let It Go,

Nestor Aparicio 39:49
really cool stuff I get to do because I have five cents extra, and I’m an eternal cheapskate. You know what a cheapskate I am? You literally do. So, in fact. That I’ve experienced all of this stuff is because I, I saved nickels at various points in my life, and you know I’m not very good at it either. You manage my money, but I should be a billionaire, but instead I have stories.

Leonard Raskin 40:12
I was gonna say, you also have figured out how to find a cheap flight, how to find a decent hotel, how to find a great event, and people think you got to be rich to do these things, and you don’t. You just have to find the dude. I did my

Nestor Aparicio 40:29
tastiness thing last summer. Everything on there was like under 15 bucks. Everything had been the best things in life that you can eat, right? You can go to New York and get pizza for four bucks. You don’t need to eat, you know? You don’t need to get the rib shop, you know what I mean. You

Leonard Raskin 40:42
could, you could fly up there, you could drive up there, you could take the train up there, or you could take the $3 bus.

Nestor Aparicio 40:50
I’m telling you, the experience that I’m trying to tell my wife, that I’m going to tell her when we get off of this, I’m gonna literally, she’s my first reach when we get done, is listen, take Monday off and go down to Foxborough. You don’t need to go into the game, have the whole experience of being at the World Cup, and if you’re for the price of a parking spot, dollar

Leonard Raskin 41:10
ticket,

Nestor Aparicio 41:11
and maybe you get lucky, and I tell you what, proximity is power, and if there’s anything Tony Robbins, anything you got taught by going down to the Super Bowl in oh one when you had to give up your furniture for your wife, his proximity’s power, because if you’re not there, you’re not getting in.

Leonard Raskin 41:25
That’s right. That now

Nestor Aparicio 41:26
let me give you my World Cup thing. Oh, we let it rat give me, get, how do people reach to you? Are you doing these seminars this summer? Giveaway, not at the moment.

Leonard Raskin 41:34
Hunt out, hunt out L Raskin at Raskin global.com Find us on Facebook, find us on LinkedIn, our website, Raskin global.com Lot of great information, and an opportunity to meet with us, and just have a chat. You know what’s going on for you. Make sure that what you’re doing is is in check, it’s it’s moving in the right direction, you’re not making crazy mistakes about things.

Nestor Aparicio 41:58
All right. Well, I appreciate you giving me the latitude, because I haven’t, I haven’t done a lot of radio this week. I was over at Sorrento’s last week, by the way. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Crap Cake Tour, and our friends at the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, Fernand, and Dermer – they’re the comfort guy, sending us out on the road. Planet Fitness has got me outfitted, looking, feeling good right now. On, if you have a young one in the high school range, where Leonard was about five or six years ago, free workouts all summer long at Planet Fitness. If your kids in high school, any Planet Fitness year, you can work out with my wife over Timoni, if you want. If you’re up here in the area, your kid could have done that, because you live right in the area. So, okay, so World Cup, what what had happened was in oh two, it was, it was transcendent, it was transcendent, and I wanted to go, but I wouldn’t have been over there for the 16 anyway. I would have been over there picking the games in the early sites, and one of you know, I would have seen South Korea and Japan 15 years before I saw it, right? But Scotty P couldn’t go, don’t want to throw him under the bus, but even though he went to see the Netherlands last week, and he saw Japan without having to go to Japan, even though it’s better to go to Japan. He knows that too, but in oh two, we threw these parties at the Kiss Cafe because he didn’t have a liquor license, and it was three. The game started like 320 in the morning, so we couldn’t put it anywhere, but this guy had a cafe, Victor. Anybody in their Victor in the Kiss Cafe, we’re going back 24 years ago. Absolutely, so that we got newspaper coverage, television coverage. I think Jamie Costello came down at seven in the morning at the Hub Cap. If I asked him, I think Gar So might have been there, but either way, we threw the only parties. Okay, so in oh six, I want.. I was obsessed with going to Germany, I was obsessed with going. We stayed in Amsterdam because it was cheaper. It was, we had a car, we could drive in and out. It was love. We went with our friends Ken and Meg. It was, we had a little flat in Amsterdam, right on the single. It was great. So, what happened was, Bub Weiser was my sponsor, long time, so they’ve been my sponsor for 12 years at that point,

Leonard Raskin 44:02
right.

Nestor Aparicio 44:02
John Dow got me tickets through Anheuser Busch. It was, I got like a form and a catalog, and of course you couldn’t get the US ticket for the Italy game. US played Italy in Kaiser Slaughter in the knockout game. Okay,

Leonard Raskin 44:18
yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 44:18
for like big, like this upcoming game, and it was in the south of Germany, really close to the Italian border, like three hours from the Italian border, near Austria, right, and I couldn’t get a ticket for Kaiser Slaughter, and it was going to add more expense to the whole expedition at that time, and Jen and I, we had gone to Brazil and to Argentina for the Rolling Stones in March and April, and I had had a really bad knee, and my knee needed to be cut on. I had knee surgery on june 18, 2,006/20 anniversary. On my knee surgery, and I spent those two weeks in Europe hobbling. I had a flap on my knee that was loose, Condor Malaysia with Michael McCrary had, and I felt like I got stabbed every five feet walking through Portman and Gelsenkirchen. I needed the special medicines that they had over there in Amsterdam, and especially the beer in Germany as well. So, but nonetheless, I was over there for that fortnight, or whatever, and we went to games, and I had, honest to God, Leonard, I had the brochure out, and we were with Ken and Meg at my condo downtown in 2006 or like January, we had all our flights, we were going to go to Amsterdam, and then figure it out, right? Get a car, figure it out. Berlin is a long way from Amsterdam. Munich is a long.. I mean, and I had no interest in Germany at that time, right? I just didn’t, you know, I mean, right? I just didn’t, you know, like to spend time in Germany. It was way expensive, way expensive to get rooms and like all of that. But we had a.. we had a flat for like 10 days in Amsterdam, and between the two of us we could afford, and it was fine. It wasn’t overpriced, it was like regular pricing. We got an apartment, you know what I mean. It was normal, we didn’t get scalped, nothing like that, right? We went over on Iceland Air, save money, the whole deal. So could have bought tickets for any of the games, they weren’t outrageous like they are now, like we could have seen Brazil play for 200 bucks, you know what I mean, under 50 bucks, whatever. And I had the whole brochure, and because of the dates and the proximity, and when we were going to be there, and Ken and Meg went back early, and we stayed like another week, Jen and I just stayed alone, we had the flat, we, we just stayed, and they went their way. We went ours. They went and did things we didn’t do. We went to, but Jen and I did our anniversary in Jamaica. I’ll never forget this. We went over in February to Jamaica for a week, and tickets went on sale. You’ll really appreciate this, because it involves Sting, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Will Ferrell. They did a Rainforest Cafe Rainforest show in New York at, at the only time I’ve ever been to the, what’s it called, the Carnegie Hall. I’ve only been to Carnegie Hall once.

Leonard Raskin 47:19
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 47:20
and we scored tickets on the Ticketmaster drop at 10 o1 on a line in Jamaica in an office of a manager where we had no business getting these tickets for 65 bucks that we got in the last row of a charity event to see Sting and Billy Joe, so we took the mega bus up to New York to go to that show in, I want to say it was late April, maybe early May. We had a one-nighter in New York, we’re young, sexy, you know, 2006 We’re heading to Europe to see the World Cup. My knees a mess, and we’re doing all of this fun stuff in the beginning of our marriage, and we went to see Billy Joel. We left, we walked out. We had dinner, and it was a New York restaurant, like a New York restaurant is, where the tables are real close together. And we had an 1130 dinner that you could only have in Manhattan on a spring night, or you could only have on 51st and Seventh Avenue. And another couple ordered this giant dessert, and we flirted with the couple saying we’ll help you eat that if you can’t eat it all, and we started talking to them late at night. We’re the only ones in the restaurant. It’s one in the morning, they’re trying to throw us out. We’re eating dessert in this Italian restaurant, and we start talking to this couple, and the guy turns out to be an executive vice president of Philips International, Philips, the television people,

Leonard Raskin 48:42
yeah, yeah, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 48:43
and he said, “I’m going to World Cup next month. He said, “We’re going to the World Cup next month. We couldn’t get tickets to see the US play Italy in Kaiser Slaughter. And he’s Leonard, he said to me, “I have tickets, how many you need? And I said, “Well, they’re $2,000 on the black market, right? See the US play Italy, and he said they’re free. All you have to do is show up. I will give you two tickets. My center pitch in Kaiser Slaughter.

Leonard Raskin 49:15
How great is?

Nestor Aparicio 49:16
And I said, but, but, but our flight’s back, Jen and I are like, we’re gonna fix the right, yes, yes. Over desserts at 130 in the morning. I met Paul Simpenetti. You can look him up. His daughter, I believe, went to Towson. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s still on my LinkedIn, no longer works at Phillips, but he was a part of taking, you’ll appreciate this, the Phillips charity initiative in the oh six World Cup. He took firefighters from all over the world to honor 911 He took firefighters from Lower Manhattan to play soccer. I have pictures of he and I outside of Gelsenkirchen and. Kaiser Slaughter, with the US national team. So, if you indulge me for a moment here, Leonard, I will pull up my Facebook. I did a little search here. Can you see this? I want to make sure you’re seeing what I’m seeing here. This is my World Cup history. That’s me in Philly with a fake World Cup. This is me in Dortmund. These are Irish guys, their team didn’t make the World Cup, I don’t think they came over anyway. But there’s me in the Super Jersey, right? There’s Jen and I, and Kaiser Delson Kirchin in oh six. This is us in Kaiser Slaughtering at the Italy game, by the way. Wow, Hitler gave speeches in this.. this is sort of the Lambo field of Germany, was built like 1910

Leonard Raskin 50:42
crazy.

Nestor Aparicio 50:43
This is me in Philadelphia at the Turkey Friendly, wearing my night. That’s that’s a 1998 jersey, by the way, for people hating it. There’s me and Tab Ramos in the studio with early Ravens flying B. This is 1997 I’m sure that’s a 97 Oriole schedule on the wall there LG and I’m wearing a Ravens Roos 31 and that’s Tab Ramos from the 98 World Cup team, there’s Jen and I in Gelsing Kirchin the day we got our ass kicked by cut by the Czech Republic, so I went through the World Cup roller and I just started to see every time this is this is Ken Agent Orange and Hockey Meg at the World Cup in OS in oh six with us in in that’s in that’s in Gelsen Kirchin that was the dome that we were in that we got our ass kicked that day so I have a little bit of a history here with the World Cup in trying to get World Cup things and World Cup happenings happening, so

Leonard Raskin 51:48
I’m convinced you got to find a way to, here’s

Nestor Aparicio 51:51
me in the empty room back in 22 when we were supposed to get the World Cup here and didn’t get it. This is the empty room of the press conference of us not getting the world, so I’ve been on the world car. You

Leonard Raskin 52:02
better get there this year. You better get to something.

Nestor Aparicio 52:04
All I want to do is party. I don’t need to go inside. I think the party outside is what I really dressed

Leonard Raskin 52:11
again and see the US team out there.

Nestor Aparicio 52:15
All right, you’ve inspired me, which is what you try to do anyway, right? You’ve inspired, you’ve inspired me to save my money, so I can go to the World Cup,

Leonard Raskin 52:24
or see whoever’s playing in Philly.

Nestor Aparicio 52:27
This is where it gets political between you and I, because, like, the one thing that really sickens me is how mafiaed up the FIFA people are, and have always been, from Russia to Qatar to what’s going on here. Absolutely, and there’s a part of that that that’s why I’m not giving it a month of my time, but I really

Leonard Raskin 52:44
give it a cheap day. Let’s find a cheap day. I,

Nestor Aparicio 52:47
honest to God, would say to my wife, I would fly up to Providence and meet you on Monday just to walk around Gillette Stadium in this sea of German awesome, and you’ll end

Leonard Raskin 52:57
up in the game. You’ll end up in the game.

Nestor Aparicio 53:00
You think, right? Right, me.

Leonard Raskin 53:02
I think I think they give you a press pass.

Nestor Aparicio 53:05
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I got in to.. I can’t think of a ticket. I’ve been a lot of Super Bowls. There is no ticket tougher than an Italy World Cup game in southeast Germany or southern Germany in the Rhineland against the US. That day we walked into that stadium an hour and a half at it. I videoed this. They were saying I had video of all of this, you have inspired me to go out. I, you know, why I don’t know where it is. It’s, it’s on CD drives from six. I have to find my working CD drive to find all of the video of us singing with the Swedish fans outside

Leonard Raskin 53:58
inverted

Nestor Aparicio 54:00
with me in the Sweden hockey jersey, gotta keep it. Leonard Raskin is here, man. This is back when I had money, Leonard, back in oh six. Back

Leonard Raskin 54:10
there, we go, there we go. Get some more.

Nestor Aparicio 54:13
All right, there you go. Leonard Raskin is here, he’s Raskin Global. You can find him out on the front of Baltimore, positive. And have you caught World Cup fever yet, Leonard? Or no. I’m

Leonard Raskin 54:22
watching. I’m watching, I guess I’m watching the US. We’ll see if anybody else is worth seeing.

Nestor Aparicio 54:26
Still not the

Leonard Raskin 54:28
goals. I like it. No, it’s not hot.

Nestor Aparicio 54:30
I am Nestor.

Leonard Raskin 54:32
There’s the Chuck brothers in Florida. How about that?

Nestor Aparicio 54:35
I saw Rick Tockett behind a bench last week, and I just can’t get over 40 years later. You know, what happened is, air

Leonard Raskin 54:41
crazy, crazy.

Nestor Aparicio 54:42
I am Nestor. He is Leonard. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore Orioles are up late. We’re at Green Mount Station on Wednesday. Luke is out doing what Luke does, and Sammy Hagar is in town, which means I might not be sober this weekend. Mas tequila 5150