Local author and Towson media professor Ron Snyder shares more memories from his book on the Baltimore Stallions and the two CFL Grey Cup years in the mid 1990s and invites folks to his new documentary screening and discussion on the team’s football impact on Baltimore sports history. It premiers at Towson University on September 24.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baltimore, stallions, nfl, ravens, cfl, colts, ron, fans, great, harvey, journalism, team, reporters, sports, football, vancouver, orioles, oj, gave, play
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Ron Snyder
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. No, I am not growing a playoff beard. I swear I’ll shave at some point before Labor Day. We’re going to be doing the Maryland crab cake tour a ton in September, beginning of September 4, we will be at Cocos in in laraville with Mark Viviano, the retired Ball Coach. Mark Viviano will be joining us to talk about K Fave media. I have lots of old media friends joining us here this week. Greg able is going to be on from able communications, if you’re familiar with the old free the birds, we’re not going to take it video back in 2006 that would make you a young, old timer. We’re going to Maryland lottery tickets to give away at Coco’s. And then on the fifth we begin the oyster tour, brought to you by friends at Liberty, pure solutions, as well as Jiffy Lube MultiCare. We’re going to have 26 oysters in 26 days, in 26 ways. We’re even going to change the logo from the 25th crab cake or cupcake to a crab oyster motif for our 26 years. So join us in September. We’re going to be eating oysters all over the area as the couple things happening. Orioles, independent race, pitching, hitting the ball. We’ll see Luca let us know about that, kicking the football off on the fifth in Kansas City, against the chiefs, the defending champions, against the defending AFC number one seed, but we played some other football here about 30 years ago. And I want to pay tribute to my late great friend Harvey Myers, who was with me in Vancouver for the gray cup. And I get all my years mixed up, but it was the 94 gray cup. This is my this is back when I was a real media member, not like anymore, like Luke’s a real media member, and I’m not. This is when I was a real media member. This is a officially licensed. It looks kind of fake, quite frankly, it is official as a CFL media from the gray cup in Vancouver at wwlg. I want to thank Jim Hampson for getting me there and Harvey Myers, the late great Harvey Myers, for Palin around and drinking a lot of labs, as I remember it up in Vancouver, this guy wrote a book on the Baltimore stallions, the CFL, the CFLs, and the nights that they rocked it out of Memorial Stadium. And there is a winding going on at the University Union over Towson University with See, I knew him as like, sort of recovering journalist, and he’s worked in the private sector, in the public sector, but I like it best when he’s Professor Ron Snyder and author. Ron Snyder joining us here, live via satellite. You won’t let the CFL thing die, will you? Snyder,
Ron Snyder 02:39
no, it’s just such a unique time in Baltimore sports history, and it’s really great story to tell.
Nestor Aparicio 02:45
Well, tell the story. Let’s go, what are we doing on the 24th
Ron Snyder 02:49
well, on 24th they were at Towson University at 6:30pm we’re going to have a premier viewing of a complimentary documentary of the book that I wrote a few years back highlighting that two year period in Baltimore sports history. You know, you mentioned the Ravens getting ready to kick off. You got the Orioles in the pennant race. You know, 30 years ago we had a baseball strike. There was no baseball team. We had no NFL team in town. The Ravens were still two years away and a Canadian Football League team captured the hearts of Baltimore. Sports fans everywhere. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 03:28
I was on the radio for that. I remember Jim Spiros and Bob Leffler. It is funny to me. When I found my I found I have tickets. I have Show and Tell for you here. So this ticket here, it’s versus Las Vegas inaugural season. It was Friday, October the seventh, 1994 um. So this was after the give the Baltimore the ball game was this the season before, when they were Becky Mackey got his ring. I was in 93 so this is October 94 and the ticket was 03, lower. So three lower was like right over the dugout, on third base and but, you know, Bob Leffler, they were always trying to sell it, put it over. I know Bruce Cunningham still around, and we’ve lost Tom Maddie from that period of time. But those play, I know Don Matthews passed away recently. So Pringle sharper Danish, you know the names of the players. Tracy am all of the names of all of them. I remember all of them. And obviously I remember OJ berdance, who’s still with us, being the guy who really was in my studio a lot. OJ used to be sort of the player that would go around town and hang out and talk to me down at the old Lord of Baltimore hotel in 1994
Ron Snyder 04:43
Yeah. I mean, those are just names that for I was 16 years old at the time. You know, that was my first team, you know, ah,
Nestor Aparicio 04:51
that’s why you won’t let it go. Okay, same as me won’t let the Houston Oilers go. Okay, I got it, you
Ron Snyder 04:58
know, when you know, I was six years old. And the Colts pulled out in the Mayflower vans in March 1984 and we went a decade with football. I mean, I was a Dolphins fan growing up because we always got the dolphins games. I was a huge Marina fan and the mark brothers and those guys, because they gave us the dolphin games every week. You
Nestor Aparicio 05:16
know, was your dad, mom, dad, football fans.
Ron Snyder 05:19
Yeah, both my my mom was when she was a when she was alive, but my dad’s, you know, down in Florida right now. He’s a big Ravens fan, and he loves the the
Nestor Aparicio 05:29
dog. When you’re six years old, I see I’m, I’m older than you, right? So I was 17, I was working at the paper. When the May flowers happen, I have a different experience with the Colts, you know, I, went to colts games, Burt Jones, like all of that and that you went to, not a Terps game. It was, it was a stallion or CFL was the first year,
Ron Snyder 05:52
yeah. I mean, yeah. And I think that’s part of what that great story is. You know, they, they, they came in, they wanted to be called the CFL colts, the NFL Suze at that point, then we were pissed at the NFL, right? I mean, you know, we lose the Colts, you know, they tease us with like the Cardinals coming to town and maybe the Rams. And then, you know, we had this expansion effort, and then, you know, Charlotte came first, and, okay, that’s a new market. And then they went with the Jaguars, and that really kind of ticked us off, right? So I’ve
Nestor Aparicio 06:24
had this Baltimore Colts belt buckle all my life. Ron, I keep it on my belt, but I have a lot of belt buckles. But this is an original. It’s this. It’s a 1971 buckle, but I don’t remember my life not having this. It came on a black belt when I was a little boy, and I’ve had it my whole life. And you know, that’s sort of the original sin for all of this, right, like, and for anybody associated with the ravens, who’s of the age, you remember what a gift the Ravens were here, right? They came in your adolescence, correct?
Ron Snyder 06:53
Absolutely, I was a freshman in college, so I literally went my whole childhood without NFL in town. And, the CFL team kind of came in. And again, I’m a sports fan, but I’m also, you know, a sports writer, a journalist, a media professor. And you know, when you think about that period in Baltimore sports, from 1984 to 1980 1996 It has everything you want from a sports story, right? You have, you know, the devastation of losing the Colts, you have the frustration of the NFL turning the backs on us, and you have this CFL team coming up, Canadian football, right? And this team, all they did was win, right? They come in, they they play this weird brand of football that we were unfamiliar with, with three downs and a wider field and 11 players, and they were blue collar, right? These guys weren’t making millions of dollars. They loved football, just like, you know, the the John Mackey’s and the Johnny unitases and the Tom Matties. You know, they lived in the community. You know, they were there at the schools. They were there at the bull roast. You know, they they supported the fans, and we supported them.
Nestor Aparicio 08:03
They came on my radio show. Yeah. So, I
Ron Snyder 08:06
mean, it was different time, and you know, it’s just got all this element. Then they go and they go to the gray cup. The first year they win the gray cup in 95 in between. Right as they’re getting ready to go to the gray cup, art modell famously announces that they’re coming with Paris Glendening, that they’re coming to Baltimore, and the Browns are gonna become the Ravens. They win the gray cup, they come home, they have this little brief celebration at the Inner Harbor, and then they’re gone. And we never hear from them, you know, again, they moved to Montreal. It was a sad ending to a team that gave us really everything that we asked of them, right? They were they were winners. They were in the community. They gave us football after a decade away, and it was affordable football. It was a family friendly and it was fun. I mean, it was fun and and again, not only that, they gave us a bridge between the Colts and the ravens, They taught us as football fans, how to tailgate, how to cheer. You know, I know it sounds silly, but you know, we we didn’t have football, you know. So we had to learn again, how, you know, we also had to show, you know, the NFL and the rest of the country. Baltimore is the city that put football on the map. You know, the NFL is the NFL today, because the Colts beat the Giants in 1958 right? And, you know, I just always felt like this was a great story to tell. I started writing the book in 2018 the book was published on March 13, 2020
Nestor Aparicio 09:39
I remember that day we all did that wasn’t, yeah, the day that
Ron Snyder 09:43
the world shut down. So not the best timing for, you know, book signings, book tour. So, you know, it never really got a chance to share this story out in the public. And I started thinking, like, Man, this would make a great 30 for 30. And I said, You know what? I’m just going to do it my. Self, you know. And I went and I reached out to all these players and fans and reporters and and we pieced together a 30 minute documentary that kind of tells the story. It goes from, you know, the time that the Colts left to the time that the Ravens arrived, and tells about everything that happened in between. We’re going to have a retrospective. We’re going to have a panel discussion at Towson University. Jim Spiros is going to be there. Chris Armstrong, who was the team’s top wide receiver, Irv Smith, who was their top cornerback, we got Bruce Cunningham is going to be there. Was the radio play by play guy. He did the narration for the for the documentary. And we’re going to have John Zeman there from the, you know, the long time sports historian and the and the Colts and ravens band president, who’s been there, you know, who’s knows as much about sports as anybody in in town. So it’s going to be a chance to kind of check out the documentary, talk about this period in Baltimore sports. Reflect a little bit. And those that are interested will have copies of the books, uh, available for sale and signature Baltimore stallions,
Nestor Aparicio 11:11
charm City’s forgotten champions can happen September 24 at 630 in the University Union cinema. That sounds so fancy. Ron Snyder’s my guest. He’s the author of Baltimore stallions, the brief, brilliant history. That’s great, brief and brilliant, because it kind of was history, the CFL champion franchise, man, I have my my press box passes here. This is my working media pass. This is back when I was a real media member and and by the way, Mike Gath, again, who I know, you know. Well, piled on right away on my social media. First of this is his handwriting when he had to hand write me out because I didn’t have, like a full pass in 94 but in 95 I graduated to a full I was a little chunky, chunky monkey back in 90 that was a nice sweater, though, back in 95 big bad and blue I, you know, so I love, you know, part of them that was total Bob Leffler. I promise you, that was Bob Loeffler. But people like Mike Gath, again, who I worked with, with Scott Garcia, and Keith Mills, a channel two in 1991 92 and then he’s running this. Then he runs Preakness and Pimlico, um the the alums. Bruce Cunningham went on to, you know, ravens, Fox, 45 sports. All the years of doing that, Tom Maddie went on to call a Super Bowl in Baltimore on the radio right. And OJ Brigance, and you talk about these players, they were all trying to make the NFL right? They were all trying to catch on and be where Warren Moon was at that point. I mean, they had that bright star that in 1994 OJ Brigance, could sit in my studio. They could say, hey, look what Warren Moon’s doing. You know, like Warren Moon’s going to go to the Hall of Fame as a Canadian footballer, and that was about race. And I had John Eisenberg on talking about that about six months ago, the other good professor in town, he wrote a great book about quarterbacks, but the league and the way the game was played, and the run and shoot and the openness of the game that parts of the NFL were emulating at that point, played into how a Tracy ham could be more like a Lamar Jackson, and also the fact that a mike Pringle could be more like a Dave maggot in that NFL world to be a scat back kind of player, Greg Pruitt, whatever, in that era, but oj, oj, went on to play in the NFL, to play in Super Bowls, played with the rams and no Super Bowl, and now has had this incredible disease and has shown himself to one of the most courageous, they said, the ED block Courage Award. I mean, rename that. OJ, you know, for me, I mean, I’ve never seen any more more courageous, but my friendship with OJ beginning with this, but OJ, story alone as an intrinsic part of this, being a guy who played in gray cups, won championships here, went to Miami and played the NFL for Don Shula. Or was it Jimmy Johnson? Man? Jimmy Johnson, then Jimmy Johnson, yeah, and then came back here and won a championship with Brian, and has made a life here and has become, you know, for all of the heroes we’ve had here, whether it’s Johnny you or mogaba, anyone you choose to Michael Phelps, Cal Ripken, whatever OJ story is, it crosses the lines between not just humanity and health and life and all of that, but these two football teams and the football experience, the fact that OJ was a part of this. And there’s a chapter in Purple Rain, one that I wrote a decade later about him being a champion, and then what his life is represented all encompassed in, you know, he was a part of all of this,
Ron Snyder 14:48
yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, he helped bring and football back to Baltimore, and he helped reinvigorate many Baltimore fans, and he was just as a. Amazing as a player, as a for the fans with the ravens, as he was with the stallions. And you know that team, you know, they had 16 players in 96 try out good NFL tryouts. They Josh Miller was the puncher on that team. He went on to have a career, and the NFL won a Super Bowl with the Patriots. You know, so many different sharp or donish went and played six years in the NFL. Mike Pringle went on to, didn’t quite make it in the NFL, but went on to be the greatest running back in CFL history. Jim pop, the general manager of that team. You know, when, when, with the team to Montreal, won a bunch of great cups. Wow, I
Nestor Aparicio 15:39
would not remember that name. I haven’t heard the name Jim pop. And, like, if you would have said who was the general manager, I’d have been like, well, I don’t think it was, Don but, like, I, you know, I was a kid. I was 25 years old, on the radio. And, you know, as I remember it, they didn’t really, you know, they only wanted to be on Bal back. And you know what I mean, like, it was one of those things where, like, it was all I could do to get a free ticket three years onto the radio back then to go to their game. So I didn’t go to every game I was in the locker room. I will tell you, I met one of the Baldwin brothers in the locker room when they were shooting. Homicide here. Or was it homicide? I guess it was homicide, life on the street during that Richard Belzer. I met Richard Belzer underneath the Memorial Stadium because they were celebs going to the stallions game. Because the stallions games were, you know, 30, 40,000 people there. Most like, there were a lot of people who
Ron Snyder 16:25
went to those games. Yeah, there was, you know, they averaged over 30,000 both, both years they were here. You know, they that first year, especially, you know, when the NFL sued them, and they didn’t even have a name, you know, they were the Baltimore cflers. And of course, the other fans would yell, you know, your Baltimore CFL, and everyone yell, Colt, you had the big wheel out there, you know, spelling out C, O, L, T, S, and, well, the Orioles
Nestor Aparicio 16:46
had a strike in 94 and didn’t finish the season in 95 they stunk, right? But it was the Ripken. It was the Ripken year, you know. So the Ripken games were something in that September. But this is the team that went to gray cups in November 94 in the middle of the baseball strike. November 95 in the middle, quite frankly, I mean, art was on the cover of Sports, illustrated kicking the dog, I believe within a week of the great cup. Oh
Ron Snyder 17:12
yeah, exactly. We’re getting ready. They were in the playoff run when the announcement was made. And it was, I always use the analogy. It was kind of like, you know, the old girlfriend that that cheated on you didn’t treat you very well. You know, you went and found a new girlfriend, and that old girlfriend comes knocks on the door and says, I’m sorry. And Baltimore was like, Okay, we forgive you, you know, because you gotta remember, there was a lot of animosity to the NFL. There were people that had search that said, you know, screw Tagliabue, screw the NFL. I mean, those were, you know, we were kind of done with the NFL many ways, because we’ve been through losing the Colts. We’ve lost out on getting another team to move here we
Nestor Aparicio 17:52
did with December the fourth, 1995 is the cover of art, punching the Browns art modell Sucker Punch Cleveland, but the city is fighting back. It was the the cartoon of art punching the dog on the cover, December 4, 1995 when was the gray cup that year? I’m gonna have to look
Ron Snyder 18:13
at November of 95 so it was November 95
Nestor Aparicio 18:16
so this is a week after we win the gray cup right here in Baltimore art modells, and there was a big dispute, you know, I could talk to Viviano forever about that, as well as John Zeman and Cunningham was, you know, Garcia were chasing these guys around. There was a movement that Cincinnati and Cleveland and we weren’t going to get the team for a number of years. And there was stuff going on about art trying to get the team here. It wasn’t like a done deal at that point. And Spyros, I’m sure, would speak to like, they weren’t really sure the team was coming here till, like, January, but they were killing artists in Cleveland at that time, right? And
Ron Snyder 18:53
even people in Baltimore were happy the NFL was coming back. But you gotta remember, there was a section that we’re like, No, we don’t want to do to do to Cleveland with Indianapolis did to us. We don’t want to be that that city.
Nestor Aparicio 19:03
This is after they won a championship within the same week. I mean, it was a crazy Baltimore Sports Time. It really, and this is God, 10 weeks after Cal Ripken, right? I mean, literally,
Ron Snyder 19:14
right. And, you know, we’re, you know, they literally created a bridge for us. You know, you think of of the darkness in Baltimore sports prior to the um, prior to the stallions, right? And we lose the Colts, the Orioles, you know, win the World Series in 83 by 88 they’re losing, you know, 21 straight games start the season. You know, you can read about that in my other book, a season to forget the story of the 1988 Orioles, you know, which was another down period, there’s a, there was a concern that the Orioles were going to leave and go to DC, before Camden Yards came around, you know. And then Governor Schaefer and the legislation, you know, got the stadium at Camden Yards. They kept the funding, you know, through, through the lottery for a stadium, for a football stadium, which. Was that funding and for that stadium, which was eventually led art modell to come to Baltimore, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 20:05
and, you know, the whole history of Camden Yards and the $1.2 billion that we put in there, this was Spears trying to make it. And, you know, from Spiros standpoint, to come in and be a part of this for a couple of years. And I know he’s been the restaurant business. I see him on Facebook. I haven’t talked to Jim Spiros much in my life. He did not do my radio show. I don’t have old tapes of his hopes and dreams and what I he just didn’t do my show a whole lot back in the day, and he wasn’t this was short lived, man. It’s just this thing happened in two years and was over with. But that period of time, he provided a mailing list for the National Football League, right for the give the Baltimore the ball people, like, he literally built it this thing and said, Here are they’re your customers. Now I have to leave. Like, what a weird thing for him,
Ron Snyder 20:50
yeah? I mean, it was a whole, yeah, it was like a supernova, right? This and it was a perfect storm, right? The NFL turns his back on expansion for Baltimore. You have the baseball strike. You have the this Canadian Football League, the CFL was struggling at the time, you know, they, they wanted the US expansion, in part because they wanted the expansion fees, you know, and and both Birmingham, right, Birmingham, Memphis, Las Vegas posse. Everyone looks at what they did, you know, up in, you know, what the Raiders are doing up there, as far as fans and Vegas as a sports town, you know, posse was about 25 years too early. You know, Vegas wasn’t quite ready for professional sports at time. It was kind of a, they were kind of a laughing stock. You know, you can Google some of the issues they had there. You know, we the Shreveport was the other team.
21:41
The
Ron Snyder 21:43
first team was actually 93 Sacramento. Was from the Old World League of American football, and they kind of came over, and then they eventually moved to San Antonio in 95 and when the stallions were kind of done, you know, it was kind of the domino that kind of said, you know, if it’s not going to work in Baltimore, it’s not going to work anywhere in the CFL. You called it the the US experiment, and it ended after 95 but it was just, you know, you think about it. From a you’re a long time sports journalist, right? Think about everything that this story has, right? It has everything. There’s no, there’s no there’s no things about gambling. There’s no things about next gen stats. There’s nothing. This is just pure sports. It has everything that you want as a sports fan, as someone who enjoys a good sports story, again, from from heartbreak to frustration to success to heartbreak again, right? I mean, it kind of came and they went, I mean, it was, I don’t think it could ever be done again.
Nestor Aparicio 22:47
He is Ron Snyder. He’s doing some CFL conversations and a beautiful documentary to film. They’re doing that on the 24th over at the Student Union in in Towson, and bringing folks together. And the book is available as well, if you want to get a little it’s a prequel. It’s a Ravens prequel. Is what it is. Ron, right,
Ron Snyder 23:07
absolutely, you know, it’s kind of, again, it, it kind of highlights that, that that time leading up to, you know, from the when the Mayflower vans pulled out to an art modell arrived, you know, it kind of tells that that story really, between 84 and 96 and everything that kind of leads up to it. I think the documentary turned out well, I think we’re going to have some fun. There’s gonna be some memorabilia for people to check out and kind of take a trip down memory lane. And it really for a new generation of fans who may not even be aware. I tell people all the time, we had a Canadian Football League team here, and they’re like, wait the championship. And they want to, so you’re trying to. And even people that I knew from
Nestor Aparicio 23:46
and they got screwed in Vancouver when I was there, tell that, yeah, I know that’s true too. They should have won the game at BC Place.
Ron Snyder 23:54
Yeah, there was, there were some controversial calls. There
Nestor Aparicio 23:57
canneries are going on. Canadians, Lucas aglia hits the
Ron Snyder 24:01
38 yard field goal at the end. Actually tracked him down. The guy kicked the field goal for BC, that year I was on the field when he hit it. He was, he was featured, and he was real, you know, real nice, and talked about, you know, the legacy of the stallions to talk to some Canadian media. And it’s interesting, the Canadian fans were not happy that the US expanded. And we’re like, already saying, Well, you guys already took our took baseball. I mean, the Blue Jays had just won two World Series in a row, but they didn’t like the fact that America was coming in and taking over their game. But, you know, the funny thing is that kind of time kind of heals all wounds when, you know, when the book came out, there were a lot of Canadian fans that kind of looked now back fondly on those teams, the stallions. And there are fans out here in Baltimore that are still to this day, go up to the gray cop every year. They wear their stallions gear, they carry their stallions flag, and they go up there and they represent the stallions. Even 30 years later, it’s crazy.
Nestor Aparicio 24:55
Well, I would say this about the gray because you could not have segwayed that. Better for me, Ron, almost like, like we scripted this, but Harvey Myers, the late great Harvey Myers, who owned the Emerald tavern, and I wrote about him. If you want to read about Harvey, if you loved Harvey, or knew Harvey, or ever drank a beer at the Emerald tavern, where I still I’m going to be drinking one with the the cultivated in a couple weeks, probably singing some songs over on Harford Road, Harvey and I got on a plane with Jim Hampson. We were on the charter. It was an Air Canada charter at a BWI to Vancouver. It left on Thanksgiving night, literally six o’clock. I left my family Thanksgiving, and we flew landed at Vancouver at midnight on the West Coast, and spent three and a half days doing the world doing the gray cup thing. And you mentioned towns changing and places changing, like Vegas, Vancouver was like Harrisburg. Then it was just this small little place. And now you go to Vancouver, it’s skyscrapers, all the Pacific money is there, all of that. Vancouver is just a really hotsy totsy, Manhattan looking place, and it wasn’t then. And Harvey and I walked the streets. And the gray cup, every hotel had a headquarters. So the Saskatchewan Rough Riders were here, and the other Rough Riders were over there, and the ottawas were over there, and the, you know, in the Toronto Argonauts people were over there. And we went hotel to hotel, Weston here, and the Royal York there, and the you know, whatever. And you collected pins, and everybody gave pins. And these are like, let’s start with this. Getty Lee’s Canadian. Canadian people are good people, as I pointed out with Steven page earlier this month. And Barenaked Ladies, good people, Canadian people. My man, Barry trots, between my hockey background and the Rock and Roll background. And Canadian people are nice people the way we should be. So anyway, walking around, always Canadian people, and they’re all nice, and they invite you in. Hey, we I brought some food from Saskatchewan. We have some elk. Would you like some toasted elk? Would you like some, you know, like, so we just went around and Harvey, you know, Harvey’s like, hey, so it was a fan celebration. And Ron, I’ve been to 27 Super Bowls, you know, the big one. And even going back then, I had been to Super Bowl then I had been to Minneapolis, and had been, I’d seen the fan experience as it grew from them just throwing a fan experience into a convention center, into it being this week long extravaganza, and every iteration of media day and parties and all of that, the gray cup was legit. You know? It was legit fan, fan to fan, not corporately bought off in any overt way. It was. You said that the stallions taught you how to tailgate, how to be a fan. That was one of the great, authentic fan experiences I ever had, was walking around Vancouver with my friend Harvey.
Ron Snyder 27:58
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a fun experience, and that’s what I
Nestor Aparicio 28:01
that’s what I think of when I look at his past. I wish I had more pictures from that week. Ron, yeah,
Ron Snyder 28:05
it was time for cell phones and things like that. You know, I actually, I think what makes the documentary kind of fun is, is that most of the images, you know, utilized outside of, you know, interviews in this were from historical pictures. And a lot the fans sent me, you know, they said, Oh my gosh, you’re gonna tell the story. I have this picture. I have this picture, I have these pictures from the games, and it really kind of gives it a genuine blue collar feel to it.
Nestor Aparicio 28:32
Well, I’m sending a note to Greg Landry right now from Blue Rock productions and tassel transfers, who did my documentary. He is Harvey’s son in law. He’s married to Harvey’s daughter, and, like, I’m texting him right now. I’m like, you find Harvey’s pictures from Vancouver. I damn well better get them, because we, we met a lot of girls that week. Me and Harv, we had a good time, and had a I did not go to Regina, right? And I didn’t, because the NFL was coming here. Like it was right after Cal Ripken. It was like, you couldn’t get the Regina. You know what? I mean, it wasn’t like non stop flight to Regina, Saskatchewan. And apparently it was like 20 below and 50 mile. It was, that was a horrific day that they won the work with the great 50 mile
Ron Snyder 29:11
an hour wins. There was even concern whether be able to play the game. And, you know, again,
Nestor Aparicio 29:16
it was an ice ball. Was a true ice ball. And
Ron Snyder 29:18
it was like, Baltimore flipped the switch right the minute that the NFL said they were coming back, you know, they were forgotten. The stallions were relegated to inside the paper. If you go back and look at the Sun paper from 9495 which I did a lot of, just to kind of see what the coverage was like. It was just like ravens breakdown. You know, there was special sections and position by position breakdowns, and columnists and, you know, just everything that you would expect from an NFL coverage of a major metropolitan paper was given to the CFL. I mean, they were treated like, you know, the ravens are now, I mean, but again, as soon as the Ravens came, you know, there was, this wasn’t enough room in Baltimore for a Canadian Football League team and a and a. The NFL team, and they gave us everything we asked for. And again, they went to Montreal, and the cop team in the CFL right now is the Alouettes. They were able to come back about 10 years ago. They had a reunion here at Towson University. They all kind of came together, but the fans have not really had a chance to kind of get together since then. And I’m hoping again, I’m hoping some fans from that era come out, and I’m hoping, you know, some fans of the current ravens come out, and just kind of see what we have, you know, appreciate what we have. Because there was a time we weren’t sure we were going to have anything we were we questioned whether we were even going to be a professional sports town, and the stallions kind of gave us that opportunity again. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 30:46
this has been a little reservoir memories for me. I i found a tape couple years ago when I’m looking through all my crap, and I made a tape, you know, cassette tape of Irv cross in my studio when the CFL was coming to town. He was an early investor and very involved in it. And dude, Earth crossed, you know, NFL today, you know Phyllis George and Brent Musburger sitting in my I mean, Earth cross sat in my studio for two hours telling me stories about football and CF and was eloquent and a wonderful man. And so I have these stories, because I’m trying to think of how the stallions enriched my life. Here. I’ll give you the last story, and then I want to talk to you about journalism and what you do. Ron Snyder is over Towson University. He’s a prof. He’s a former journalist, recovering also you’re working in the other sectors of life, but also teaches young people about journalism, and has this incredible he also writes good wrestling books, too. I’ll let him promote that the next time. Talk about local wrestling and Gorgeous George and all that good stuff, and Bruno Sammartino and Billy Graham’s feet on the ropes now, and they’re both gone. But I would just say, I think on the gray cup, I went back to Vancouver and I saw you too about 10 years ago. You know, I flew out there and I went to BC Place, which is where I was for this great cup, and this wearing this pass that day. And it’s weird all the football and the field goal and how pissed everybody was in the locker room. They felt like they had, you know, they felt like they got jobs. I mean, all the stallions players felt that way. I was in the locker room after the game with that and but all I remember that day, and this speaks to my rock and roll heart, Ron, you’ll appreciate this is the halftime entertainment was Tom Cochran and Red Rider doing lunatic fringe. And life is a highway. So all I could remember when I was in there, I was in the dome to see you too, and I’m all geared up. I’m like, What do I remember about being here? I remember Tom Cochran, the great Canadians singing life as a highway. So get on out on the 24 support Ron and his work. It’s over to Towson union. Video, Bruce Cunningham players, symposium, all that good stuff, autographs. I like all that. You’re a professor job at. Tell me what you do on that side, because I have young people reached me all the time. And as a band journalist, as someone that put my whole life into this, and now I’ve had my name sort of run through the mud by the Orioles and the Ravens is not professional enough. Can’t you know, whatever the word on the street is about me, when people come to me, I say, I think journalism’s dead, and it’s terrible, because I think sports journalism, because you really work at the pleasure of the owners. Otherwise, you’re me, you get thrown out. And I find that to be very unfortunate. It’s
Ron Snyder 33:27
transitioning. It’s definitely different than, you know, I came up as a newspaper reporter, you know, there’s, I always have concerns about newspapers, because they’re the ones that have the boots on the ground. You know, TV does a lot of great stuff, but typically, you know, the new local reporters, the newspaper reporters, the ones are at the zoning board meetings. They’re the ones at the Board of Education meetings every week, not just when there’s a big issue. They’re the ones that are telling you the things that hyper local level. And there are some great reporters still in town, you know. And the banner is doing a lot of great work. I have a lot of friends that I came up with that are at the banner the sun is still has some some good reporters, but it’s transitioning and,
Nestor Aparicio 34:14
well, when journalists compete in the old days, you won. I don’t know that that’s really the case anymore, given that the line between what is journalism and what is lobbying, quite frankly, you know, on behalf of whatever your cause or issue or belief is that that is we’ve really it’s blurry for all Americans.
Ron Snyder 34:36
I mean, the big concern out there, from a journalistic perspective, is, is that there’s so much information out there, which is the best thing and the worst thing, right? You know, people now, in many cases, not everyone. They look for validation of their own beliefs versus confirmation of facts. You know, the great thing about journalism today is, is that while there are less traditional. Um, reporters out there than than in the past, there are more reporters out there. You know, there are people that can create their own brand. There are independent reporters. There are great organizations like report for America that are trying to place reporters in areas where there are news deserts. There are people trying to fill the void. We’re trying to figure out what the future of journalism holds. The banner I mentioned earlier is out there. They’re doing some great journalism. They’re taking a different approach. The sun is still out there. But I think the biggest concern that I have when it comes to journalism is not so much on a national level, but on the local level. Who’s going to be there at the zoning board meetings, who’s going to be there tell us that the developments coming into town, who’s going to be there to tell us the nuts and bolts of the of the Board of Education meeting? Well, think about
Nestor Aparicio 35:49
healthy Holly, just, you know, in a very, I mean, that’s a mayor of a major metropolitan city that you took journalism to out that.
Ron Snyder 35:57
I mean, journalists just tell great stories, and we, you know, we need more of that. You know, I came up as a print reporter, but I’ve also tried to evolve throughout my career. You know, I learned about digital reporting when I got laid off from the old Baltimore examiner, I was like, oh, what’s the social media thing? And what’s this patch, right? And, you know, what is his website reporting? And then I kind of got into this, because this document came back, because I wanted to learn about videography. I wanted to learn how to keep up with the times, you know, because as a as a journalist, those who don’t evolve, you know, are going to be left behind. You know, again, I don’t know what the future holds for journalism, but there’s always going to be a need for the need for information that people desire for information has never been stronger. The biggest issue that journalism has today is, how do we monetize it?
Nestor Aparicio 36:53
Ron Snyder teaches the young people over Towson University, and he writes good books on raslin as well as the CFL, his book has now been memorialized into a documentary. September 24 They’re all gathering over Towson union. Last thing. Tell people how to get there and what to do. And on September 24 bringing people together, just sign up and come, yeah,
Ron Snyder 37:14
yeah, you could come up the the Tickets are free to the University Union. Third floor, beautiful theater. It wasn’t there when I was there when I was there as a student. It’s kind of cool to see that there seats are limited. So you know, again, hopefully everyone that wants to check it out will be able to we’re gonna again, we’re gonna have the documentary, we’re gonna have a book signing, and we’re gonna have a panel discussion. There’s gonna be memorabilia for people to check out, a chance to meet some old stallions players and talk about an era of Baltimore sports. It’s kind of unique anywhere.
Nestor Aparicio 37:47
John Zieman is a place that I need to be. Ron Snyder, the good author and the good professor over at the Towson University, Ron, thanks for coming on. Congrats and all your career changes, success and all that always see you and your boy out doing good things. And it’s a great time to be a sports fan, with the Orioles and the Ravens right now, certainly, and high, high expectations. After 33 years of doing this every day as the local bartender, I’ve not seen these level of expectation from the sports side. So these are the good times to be a sports fan.
Ron Snyder 38:16
Absolutely, I’m, I’m looking for a, hopefully a World Series and a Super Bowl this year. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 38:20
all. That’s all the small expectations you think. This is Pittsburgh, 79 Ron Snyder, the good historian of all things sports and teacher and keeper of the flame for journalism for all of us. Ron, next time we get together, I’m going to shave. I feel bad that I look this grizzled, but it just lets you know that I’ve lived a long time and lived well. I am Nestor. We are wnsta in 1570 Taos in Baltimore, you never stop talking Baltimore positive in that crab cake and oyster tour, we got rolling soon. You.
