When Nestor received an email from Elon University professor and author David Bockino about his local role in a 1997 television football picks show called “Beat The Pros” with Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor and the NFL architect of the 46 defense Buddy Ryan, he agreed to tell the whole story for the first time on the air. The stuff you remember when you think you’ve forgotten everything…
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sports, week, lawrence taylor, gambling, mike, baseball, people, baltimore, playing, lawrence, loved, day, media, lt, book, buddy, warren, years, ryan, game
SPEAKERS
David Bockino, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T tous, Baltimore. Am 1570 we are Baltimore positive. Oh, this is going to be an interesting one. We’re doing crab cake tour and the oyster tour. You may find this after all, that’s over. People reached me in all sorts of ways in a very social world. And LinkedIn, Instagram. Once a week I get something like my eighth grade English teacher writing me a letter that she found me on the internet, 42 years later, and I found my yearbook, some weird stuff that was last week. This week, a professor reached me, and I must be doing something right or wrong. Least it wasn’t a lawyer, but this guy’s writing a book in some way on gambling in the last century. And I’m like, No no, no no, I never gamble. That was the guy with the press pass that, like I never gambled. And he’s like, No, no no, you you did a television show with Buddy Ryan and Mike Warren and the great Lawrence Taylor, and I’m like, yeah, how do you know that? Did you watch my documentary? And turns out, all the videos are up on YouTube. I put them up years ago. Me probably 15, when I didn’t when I had a YouTube channel, I don’t know what else to put up, so I put up stuff that I had on VHS. So I’m gonna welcome David bacchino, and he is an associate professor at Elon University, I believe that’s in North Carolina. Last I checked, he reached to me. He was more than willing to play this little game where he wanted to talk to me for his book. And I’m like, Well, I don’t know that I’ve ever told these stories on the air, but some of it played out. I’ve been on the air 33 years. If people remember 1997 I dragged Lawrence Taylor and Buddy Ryan out to the barn in that year, but David, thank you for playing along, and thank you for asking me whatever you’re going to ask me, because I’m not going Mean Gene or Kay fable on this one. I have no idea, really what you’re doing, but I’m happy to participate as long as it’s legal and, well, it’s been 26 years. 27 years, I I don’t know, but I’m happy to answer whatever questions you have. You’re one of those poking around journalists, guys, it’s trying to tell the truth. You know?
David Bockino 02:04
Well, I appreciate you having me on Yeah, you know, you start studying sports gambling, sports betting in the United States or and around the world, and you you go down some pretty weird corners, and you get to some pretty weird places. And sometimes it’s really interesting and sometimes it’s kind of mundane the story. So I discovered these clips when I was looking into magazines in the 1970s this explosion of college football and pro football magazines that started coming out that had a lot of advertisements for what you would call touts, right people who are selling their picks, which has come back a lot right now with legalization. You know, just six years ago, North Carolina just went legalized with sports gambling this
Nestor Aparicio 02:45
I put some extra Brill cream in my hair and rolled it back. So call my one 900 number. I got the lock of the week for you. It’s my five star lock. It’s only available if you call 900 do we cheat them in Al, I’ll give you my pick. Is that good? I never did
David Bockino 03:05
that. They were a dime a dozen, and you’re doing it exactly right. They’re all the same. They all guaranteed their picks. They lied about their percentages. And then you started getting the more honest ones who were like, Listen, if I can get 60% you could. You should come swimming with me. So went down that road, you start going down the road of the these individuals, and you get to one individual named Mike Warren, who’s slash Mike Lasky, who’s still around, in some ways, and still poking around. And I think his
Nestor Aparicio 03:33
son is still on my Facebook page, and we have a lot he’s one of our guy, Mike, Mike Warren, Mike Lasky was doing this. Probably was he before it. I don’t know his history, to be really honest. I can tell you some things I know about the hotel and the Eddie Murray baseball and you know some of that, that that, oh, yeah, but I don’t, I forgot about that in the real world, yeah, yeah,
David Bockino 03:53
he owns Eddie Murray 500 so that’s, yeah, that’s something that you guys would be really interested in. I, I forgot about that. But, um, 1970s is when he popped up. There’s this magazine called game plan that I was I was going down a hole with, and so my books basically tracks the history of sports betting. Kind of makes the argument that sports gambling has been an essential component to the rise of the American sports industry, rather than an inconvenient tangent to the American sports industry, and I, I come up with several reasons to support that argument. It goes back all the way to the 1800s at the beginning of Basecamp.
Nestor Aparicio 04:28
It existed to be gambled on, not it existed to be a nice little competition between Massillon and Canton, right?
David Bockino 04:37
So that’s that was one of the first, the first controversial games, but yeah, and you know, I’m not the only one who makes this argument. If you guys know, John Thorn is a official MLB historian, he made the same argument in a book about 12 years ago that was sort of pushed under the rug, not pushed on the rug. That’s a bad term. But
Nestor Aparicio 04:54
baseball, or in regard to football, or in regard to American sports, in
David Bockino 04:58
regard to professional. Sports, he said, so people were gambling on baseball in the 1860s 1870s led to the LED to excitement, led to the interest in the game, and then it evolved. And people got interest for for other reasons but the Shoeless
Nestor Aparicio 05:12
Joe thing and the Pete Rose things just like it’s, it’s timeless and ageless. Gambling on this, right? I
David Bockino 05:19
mean, the amount of information there is about the 1919, World Series. Is, it’s almost sad that people still relitigate the whole thing. Dude, I
Nestor Aparicio 05:28
had a guy on that did a 1200 page document last year on shoeless show. Swear to God. Like, I think you know this, but like, I’m blown away the more I this. Peel back the Cliff’s Notes right on that, that that was a century plus ago. And now all of the teams here, after all the years of thinking you could bet under the stands in Wimbledon in Europe and whatever, but the unlocking of this in America, where we are now, it’s changed my industry. I mean, Super Bowl radio row, I did 27 of them. If you were a gambler walking around there, they would have thrown you out now it’s the only way you get in.
David Bockino 06:03
Yeah, absolutely. It’s it. The about face that the industry has done is it’s not surprising, considering how much a lot of these people just love money, and this means new money, but, um, it’s it’s kind of startling how quickly it happened. And it’s interesting, because no one really knows where this is going to go in 1020, 30 years, and that’s sort of the point in the book, is to look at the past in order to see maybe what could happen in the future. I recently wrote a book about the history of the sports media larger industry called game on and it tracks, you know, from 1921 the birth of radio, all the way up to our present day, talks about the personalization of the fan experience, also for a general audience, I don’t write a lot of academic stuff, and so this is sort of a tangent off of that sports gambling in particular. So so it’s great. So I’m studying all these touts, and I’m going through Warren’s history, which is fascinating, and I’m not quite there yet, and he’s real great at misdirection. And I get to this show called beat the pros, and it started, I think, in the 1980s and me and Nestor went back and forth on this. I saw it on USA Network and in the 1980s and I think it only lasted there a little bit, and then, apparently, it was revived in in the late 90s. And I don’t know how you were asked to host. I don’t know where they found you. I know you were working in the sport industry. And so, yeah, I would love to hear just more about that. And, you know, I was a Giants fan in the 1980s so to CLT there, I mean, that guy’s, you know, a legend. And so yeah, I’d love to know how you got involved with that whole thing and what your experience was like. Okay,
Nestor Aparicio 07:39
so it involves a guy from Jersey. It involves a Mets fan as well. A guy named Steve Hennessy was my partner in the 1990s he’s my business. We sort of developed the whole thing together of wnst. This was pre NST. So my memory of it is being in 1997 and that is absolutely true, it was not 98 I had wnst in the spring of 98 so in this late summer, it was a hot day. My wife will tell you, I have a memory like Mary Lou Henner. So watch out for me, because I’m literally, I’m I have pretty photographic once I go back into that place. So I was approached by Steve Hennessy, my partner’s, like, that’s kind of weird. Phone calls the guys producing the show. It’s like, it’s a gambling show. And keep in mind, football had been here a year 96 is when the NFL came back. Ray Lewis, John Ogden, Vinnie, Testaverde, March of Broda, Marvin Lewis, all of that before Billy got here. So and they weren’t very good. You know, they’re playing Memorial Stadium. PSLs, all that was going on. David Modell and art modell were here. I was doing a really successful afternoon drive show based on baseball. Right the Orioles moved into Camden Yards in 92 strike. Strike happened in 94 Maryland had a guy named Joe Smith. Was really hella player. So during that period of the strike, 9495 and then we got a football team that we were never going to have. I worked at the newspaper in the 80s trying to steal a team. Steal a team. We were going to get the Cardinals. We’re going to we weren’t getting a team. Nobody really believed we were getting a team, other than the governor and the legislature that put the money aside and said, See that parking lot over there, one day there’ll be a football team. And I’m, yeah, right, right. So I’m, I was on the radio and I said I would run through the streets naked if we ever got an NFL team, because I was just convinced that they weren’t gonna allow it. The Redskins were just was not gonna happen here. So team happens. It’s a miracle. It’s 96 the Orioles are really good 96 and 97 if you remember this, it was a real like this year, a going concern, where every day there’s David Wells and there’s, you know, Roberto Alomar and Raphael Palmeiro and Cal Ripken. And, you know, Ripken thing happened in September 95 we stole the football team in October of 95 and then in 96 they play. And now it’s 97 so I’m on the air as. Nasty Nestor buying a afternoon talk show that was really successful. I mean, bubweiser, bubweiser Miller and course, were fighting about who could get in on my show, right? So Steve was my business partner at the time. He and he was a huge Giants fan and a huge LT fan, and he said to me, I got a phone call about you doing a television show. And I’m like, Steve, I’ve never done televisions. I don’t think that matters. They, they like this guy listens to you, these people listen to you. And they, they want to see if you want to do it. And I guess I work cheap, right? Like, I mean, and I was a little off the beaten path. There was a guy named ace casciati that you can Google who worked at NFL films, who literally provided NFL footage for this show for six weeks, until the Joel Tagliabue. Then it wasn’t Roselle, it was Tagliabue until the lawyers got a hold of it right. And then that all because ace was coming down from New Jersey from NFL films to give it credibility, and Ace did a historical piece in there about football every week, and he worked hard on it. I mean, like it was a real thing early on. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t really know. I don’t know. I got to know ace later, because two years later, I got brought to NFL films by Sporting News, radium, one on one sports with Brian Baldinger, I did a show with Merrill, Hodge, Jaworski, Greg co sell. Before anybody knew who Greg was, they were the host of the show. Susie culber, they hosted that show, and they would do my show, my national show, because I did the show at exit four and Mount Laurel and NFL films. So ace would come in, because I knew ace then from two years before um and Ace was a great, one of the greatest historians in the NFL. I’ve ever met a guy who knew more about the NFL, in the history of the NFL than I mean, he was up there with anybody with Sable. He worked next to sable every day for 30 years, right? So he just knew a lot of football, and he was a great guy, um, and he was a part of it until they wouldn’t let him be anymore. And I’m sure it was gambling the league, like all the things you’re writing about, right? So the call came, and I don’t know, I did it for whatever, 200 bucks a week it was like. So we did it out of Sheffield Studios, which still exists. Oh, man, as the crow flies, from my radio station three miles. I was broadcasting them from the Sheraton and Towson, and I would drive up Delaney Valley Road. And I could give you some funny stories about that show, but I went and I sort of interviewed there’s a guy named Will Schwartz, who’s still very alive, and produced a local legend here, a guy named Dan Rodricks, who’s been 50 years, been the columnist for The Baltimore Sun. He did a play about his life, and will directed it, and I came this close to having will on the show last Christmas, and he couldn’t do it, and I had Jan on instead. S, C, H, W, a r, z will, good man. He was a channel two producer, W, M, A, R, who was, I think, in charge of putting the show together, right? I mean, he, he was the executive. He was the television guy. He was the guy in the booth. And I’ll be honest with you, it was, I had never done television. I was a newspaper reporter who did, fell into radio with Kenny Albert. You can go watch my documentary and learn about all that. I fell into radio by accident. All I ever really wanted to be was a sports writer. All I wanted to do was be a columnist, right? And I left a paper, 9192 now I’m on radio, and I got this television thing, and I’m like, and I had done some segments on TV with Marty bass in the morning, being the sports wacky guy. I had long hair, then I have it now. But I got rid of my hair in like 94 and I was cleaned up for the show that you remember. They called me in August. I went up to Sheffield studio and met Will Schwartz and Mike Warren. They told me buddy Ryan and Lawrence Taylor would be here come by and do it. There was no audition. There was no nothing. I had never done it in my life, in my life I had never done before, and I could show you the week one. And the wildest thing happened, Dave, by the way, David bockino is my guest. I’m his guest. He’s doing a book, and I’m telling old war stories. In 1997 I went into Sheffield that day, and Warren Lasky, however, whatever you’d like to me to call him, I laskey’s name, that’s what I would call him. If he walked in, I’d say, Hi Mike. How are you? But I haven’t seen Mike, and I think I’ve seen Mike once since 2000 or since 1997 and it might have been like at a ball game or something, and a football you know? I mean, I saw him. My last check didn’t clear for the 1618, weeks. Whatever it was, the last paycheck I had, I didn’t get paid. So whatever it was, 200 bucks, 300 bucks for it wasn’t much, but it was, you know, 1997 it was what it was, who was paid. It was a check. Dude, I don’t know, whatever the whatever, whatever the service was, I guess, beat the Pro. I don’t know. You know, since 27 years ago, man, like some of this, I remember some. I
David Bockino 14:57
don’t know. I know. I know. I’m wondering, like the production company or. If it was like a, well, what
Nestor Aparicio 15:01
happened was it was gonna be on USA Network. Yeah. And it kind of got thrown off at halfway because of the gambling thing. And then it got put on b e t, which Warren thought was great, because it was like, bet B, E T, B black, or Team B, E T, it’s we bet on it. He, I don’t know that he associated with jet and ebony or anything like that, but I do okay, so I’m telling you stuff. Nobody’s ever asked me this stuff, so that’s why I put you on the
David Bockino 15:25
air with it. Jiggered your memory. This is good, so I but
Nestor Aparicio 15:29
I remember going up there, and I’m, I’m young, but I’m a stupid young I was 2829 you know, 2829 I’ve been on the air six years doing radio, and I had a shtick and a huge audience and, like all of that, but, like, there was something different about TV. Anytime I did it, I would go after the ballpark. This guy’s always had those wet nipples in their ears and the little juice box on the back. This is before the internet, right? They had camera guys and this and that, and they had boom mics, and they had just had all this stuff that came with them. And I was always happy to not have to shave through my hair, even when I was young and sexy, like, so I went over there that day, and they had, he had a makeup artist that shaved me down and got me tight so I didn’t black shadow like, like Richard Nixon. And the woman that day, I have really sensitive skin, and the woman gave me this product that I still, I swear to God, I use it to this day like to this day. I use that when I shave as a post shave healer, because I felt like I was going to bleed on the set, and all that heat comes down on you, and you sweat and suit on I looked, you know, I tried to look the part. And the wildest thing happened. We got there and Buddy Ryan shows up, and it’s buddy effing Ryan to me. I was a season ticket holder for the Eagles when he was the coach, right? So this is buddy Ryan, and then Lawrence shows up in a limo that they sent him down from Saddle River, New Jersey, where he lived in his house. Up there they would Mike would send a limo every week to get him. And you know, you can go watch the tapes. There were times he was sober. There were times he weren’t, we wasn’t, um, one time he fell asleep in the middle of the show. But I always held it together. And the wildest thing buddy lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and he would fly in from Louisville on Southwest Airlines, and Mike would send the car down to the airport and get him, and he would come up, and Lawrence was limo ing, and then training after that, then they would train him. He was late one week, because, you know, it was Lawrence in 1997 right? I mean, you know, like, you can Google all that, I don’t need to tell you, I liked Lawrence a lot. Lawrence liked me a ton. But buddy Ryan loved me like loved me from the minute he met me. And I mean, I mean, I mean that, like, in a way that I from the minute I sat down with Buddy Ryan, we had bagels, because Mike would over. He had enough food there for 40 people. Like, it was just so much food. And there were, like 10 of us, Hennessy came to meet. LT, get some shit signed. You know what I mean? Because Hennessy was just like, I’m gonna meet Lt. Forget your show. I’m gonna meet Lt. So Hennessy came every week for like, a month or two just to hang out with LT, and then he kind of got bored with LTP, and, like, just Lt. But lt was magnanimous. Lt was always great to me. Lt loved me because I carried the show if you watched it, but buddy Ryan, I was on the set, and we’re taping, and so it’s not live or anything. I can f off, you know, whatever. I don’t, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never done this in my life, and I’m on a set with this guy, Mike Warren, who, you know, I seen him his name in the in the USA Today, for 25 years. I didn’t, I knew his name was Lasky. I mean, I was on to Part of you know that this is a gambling show, and Kevin Byrne didn’t like it, you know, but didn’t throw me out because of it. Thank you, Kevin. But then, you know, said you can’t be doing that. And I’m like, it’s a television show. It’s my chance to do television, do a television with LD buddy Ryan. So I didn’t get thrown out or anything. And I was about to buy our radio station here about six months later, but I did that show for whatever 15 weeks. I mean, it wasn’t I showed up every Tuesday, Wednesday night. It was like, you know, at eight o’clock at night, seven at night. Then we moved it to an afternoon for a couple of weeks. But there was only 15 days of my life. It was like the Billy Crystal, was it? You know, the play he did about every Sunday, I did every Tuesday or Wednesday for about 1516, weeks. And buddy, from the minute we got there, just loved me, you know, like and it was, and it reminded me of like him as a coach, and if you he loved you as a coach. He just loved you, and he loved me. He’s like, Oh, you’re an old pro. You’ll be, you’re gonna be doing this the rest of your life. He said, because the first time I sat down was pissing myself. I mean, I’m sitting there and I’m like, welcome in to beat the pros. And will Schwartz had the had? I had never read a teleprompter in my life, in my life, whoever, and I’m reading a teleprompter on this set with Lawrence Taylor and Buddy Ryan doing this television show that was going to be seen. On USA Today network. And then buddy did the show one week with me and Lawrence. And then they all came out to the barn. I had pictures of all that. We had beers, and they wanted me to promote the show. And then I, you know, people thought it was the greatest thing ever that I’m hanging out with Lawrence Taylor on television every week. Um, but it was what it was. It was a goofy little gambling show, you know. I mean, I, you know, for my audience’s purposes. I don’t know a whole lot more, but it’s, do you remember so cocktail story, Dave, I
David Bockino 20:27
haven’t watched like, a full episode. I’ve only seen like 92nd clips, two minute clips. Do you remember what you did? Like, what the show, what the format was?
Nestor Aparicio 20:36
Oh, absolutely. 100% I have, I have all the tapes. If you really want 30 minutes, it’s a 30 minute show, and it was, it began with this goofy dude, and it was just And then, and it was welcome in to another week of beat the pros. But today we’re gonna be picking the games and talking football point spreads and big screen right to my left. Oh, the call it the greatest, the architect of the 46 defense, buddy Ryan and my partner, Lawrence Taylor. And of course, for last 20 years, this guy’s picked spreads. You’ve seen him in USA Today, the great Mike Warren, Hey Mike, how are you? Hey guys, tough week. How’d you do you did well, okay, how’d you do again? Lawrence did pretty well against spread this week. And Lawrence would always be like he’d always have his head down like this, if you watch any of it. And Lawrence would always talk about the Florida teams being too skinny and too light and getting overwhelmed. That was always his thing. We can, we can knock the Florida teams in the mouth because they’re too light. So and he Oh, he had the dangling, he had the dangling. Lt in all of it, right? So it was a welcome in. We would it was like an entertainment show. Dave So yeah, Warren loves the movie, A Bronx Tale. Okay, okay, man, you I’m telling you shit out. I barely remember, but I have all the video. I have them all on videotape. Greg Landry over Blue Rock, can I think I have a little digitized bro, they’re just big files. They’re not mov tenure, but I have every one of them if you want to sit and watch the show, um, we would do three pro games, three college games. We would throw it around. We talk, you know, like everything it’s on television now, like every, every time I put on ESPN News Live is 123, Fox Sports, this, CBS, that peacock this, they’re all doing picks. I mean, pig poppies got the hose, LeBrons, and he adds, this is 1997 so 1997 we would do that. And then we go to a commercial. And the commercial was one 900 Mike Warren wins, Mike, it was an infomercial where the commercials and some of the Chiron was called the one 900 now that rolled underneath. We had a Chiron rolling underneath. It was the Wayne’s World era of, you know, cable access TV, and we would go to a commercial. During the commercial break, I would throw to this other segment. Mike had a fascination with A Bronx Tale. There was a guy named Eddie the mush in the movie. Are you familiar with Eddie the mush? Yeah, I haven’t seen Broxton 20 years. Probably, though I’ve never seen it, because I don’t see movies. My wife would tell you that long time, Eddie the mush was a character in in the movie, okay? Familiar with this? He was the guy at the bar taking the numbers, right? He was a, he was a struggling guy on the streets of Brooklyn. He was a, except that’s who he really was. Yeah, Mike Warren found a guy in New York that knew the guy, knew the actor, knew Eddie to mush, okay, and he went to the bar that Eddie the mush lived that every day of his life at the bar, and he sent the film crew there to film Eddie the mush make, making his picks. Eddie the mush makes his picks on our So Eddie the mush is, God, I can’t, dude. I didn’t even, but I didn’t even think about this until we started doing I knew this segment was going to be good. David paquinos, here I am his guest. He’s my guest on the show. He’s doing a book on weird stuff. And I’ll let him tell you more about the book a minute. I’m just trying to give you as much as I can remember while, um, you got me, uh, put the cook in the kitchen, is what you did. I think, um, yeah, I have nothing but fun memory. And Mike, if you watch this, you owe me a couple 100 bucks buy me dinner or something. I still love you. You know what I mean? Like, it was, it was a beautiful experience for me. I ate a lot of bagels. Um, Mike owned at the time, um, what is now the pier five hotel, uh, he owned it for whatever period of time. And he gave me and my girlfriend a beautiful suite one night for Halloween. And I scored big. And it was, you know, like I remember, I wore a bill clinton mask because he was the president. My wife was, my girlfriend was, uh, was a Monica. It was a Halloween gig back in the in the 90s, but Mike, Mike was good to me. I don’t, you know, and his, his. Son made a movie that you can write about too. It was, it was a movie on John zeman’s band, and it wasn’t the 30 for 30, but it was a movie I have to get the it had a name, and it wasn’t the producers that was Zero Mostel, but he made a low budget movie that his son made and released at the Senator that had Ed Asner in it. Ed Asner played the role of John Zeman of the band leader, and his
David Bockino 25:31
son’s name, Lasky. Yes,
Nestor Aparicio 25:33
yes, he was, he was, and he still, I’m still associated with him and his friends. I could find him quickly. I think he made, he made a film, you know, sort of a beef film in the late 90s, maybe straight to video, or maybe kind of, but it was some Ed Asner came in for the premiere of it. And, you know, I had Ed Asner on the show, who loves sports, Lou Grant, and the journalist, to me, loved all that. But, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t I don’t know what else to
26:04
tell you.
David Bockino 26:05
You know that Lasky was associated with the psychic friend stuff?
Nestor Aparicio 26:11
Oh, my God, yes.
David Bockino 26:13
Oh my god. Okay, that was because that’s where he got broken that off, right? Yeah? So, yeah, no. So when, like some I don’t know the day 9089, 88 Dion Warwick, you know, the most successful got
Nestor Aparicio 26:26
that about him until you just told me, Oh, my god, yeah, he and Kia were on speed dial. Oh, 100% mean that was always say to him, yeah, keep smiling, keep shining. No, you can always count on me. Oh, sure, you know. So, you know, I always loved Dion. Yeah, we had fun on that set. And it was, you know, it was light and, I mean, I’ll be really honest with as long as Lauren showed up sober, it was a better experience. But he was never it just was out of it when he wasn’t sober, he just wasn’t good on the air, but the show itself, like I looked forward to it, I was bummed when it kind of went away in some way, because it was fun. I’ve never hosted a television show other than this one of any, you know, distinction, in any way, I always dreamed of being the guy that they Johnny Bravo back when I was young and sexy to be the next Jim Lampley, but it didn’t work out that way for me, but, but it was a really cool tape for me to have. And when I got syndicated Sporting News, I got TV gigs on Ms. You know, I was a, I was a guest right set up to be the guest on another show or whatever, but I never hosted another show in my life. It’s the only television show, and I’m really proud of it. 27 years later, I think, you know, like, if you watch it, it’s a younger, funnier vert. You can laugh at me, or whatever they did a whole I got one more thing for you. Every week I tried to get a different sport coat. Okay, so I’m 29 years old. Didn’t have any, like, money, but I bought, you know, I was the king of the $49 sport code at value city back in the day, and it helped me get girls. I was single, too, so I wanted to look nice. Want to look GQ in the 90s, hanging out with the baseball players football, they all look dressed nice, you know, look nice, right? So I had different jackets every week, and I wore the same black turtleneck underneath, so I didn’t have a tie. I didn’t want to look that formal. And it was late 90s. It was kind of the vibe suspenders were in with, with Larry King and, you know, whatever. So I was just doing what I saw on television. I wanted to be like Chris Berman. I wanted, you know, whatever you saw on TV. And every week, my welcome backs were very abrupt, and sometimes they would wake Lawrence out of whatever the flavor of the week was, right, and, and I’m very abrupt now, like anybody would tell you, welcome back. You know, I do this welcome back thing, right? The last week of the show. And Warren was like a fun guy. He would bring cake, he would celebrate birthday. He was just, you know, he was that guy. He like, the week of my birthday, he had a cake and made a big stink about it, and we made a stink on the air, and he shot off streamers, and it was kind of fun, right? The last week, he and will Schwartz played a trick on me at the end of the show, at the end of the end of the end of the series, the last thing we ever aired, I’m sure it was trying to get paid for. They put together this montage of me doing, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, and waking everybody on the setup in different jackets. So I go from orange to yellow to blue to red to white to Yeah, to dad, to dad, to dad. And they did this 32nd montage, busting my balls, because that’s, you know, it was a great experience. And I’ll give you the real gift in all of it. I saw Lawrence, uh, at the Miami Super Bowl. So was that that was 2019 right before this, right before the plague, it was 20. So I and I saw him in on radio row, gave me a hug, took a picture, remembered me. It’s the first time. I’d seen him in 25 years been in a room to be with him. Buddy Ryan, obviously is deceased. Buddy was an enduring figure in my life, and still is through Rex and Rob. Rob’s coaches here now, even though I’m locked out Rob, I have pictures of me and Rob and Buddy and Rex when nobody knew who they were at the Super Bowl. When the Ravens won the Super Bowl, you know, Rex was like a fresh out of Oklahoma guy. Nobody really knew who he was, and his brother with the wild hair and all that. I had pictures of them because buddy loved me. And the next year, March of Brody got fired 98 and in February 99 Brian got hired. January 99 Brian got hired. And when Brian and Brian has been my partner for you know, we’re friends and partners for life, really, and on behalf of living classrooms, Brian bought part of my company. And when Brian became the coach, he kept Marvin Lewis, but he he brought Rex Ryan in to bring elements of the 46 defense. I wrote about that my first book, but Rex came in as, like, his first NFL job that wasn’t running around for his dad in Arizona, um, Brian brought him from Oklahoma into coach. And from the minute I walked in the building, Rex, Ryan was looking for me, Rex, like my old man told me I got to know you you know, like, and then, you know, Rex did my show for years, and now Rex is on TV and doesn’t know me anymore, but, um, but, you know, I with Rex and Rob, and Buddy Buddy was a special guy. I mean, Buddy Buddy was a really neat guy, you know, he’s, he was a neat guy to spend time, right? Not the legend of him. I mean, I’m not starstruck. Maybe I was the first five minutes he liked that. I wasn’t starstruck. He liked that we were just dudes, and so if anything else, yeah, I have nothing but fond memories of other than a couple 100 bucks. Lasky, you better buy me a steak or something. I don’t know, you
David Bockino 31:52
know, if I talk to him, I’ll make sure that I I’ll remind him of that. You
Nestor Aparicio 31:56
know, it was, it was a great experience. Yeah, I saw him today. I probably buy him a steak, honestly, because it was, it’s, it’s a cocktail story that has you chasing me. Tell my audience exactly what you’re doing. David bakino is my guest. He wanted me to participate in his book and tell some story. Did I do it? Did I give you what you needed, or I gave you way too much? Yeah,
David Bockino 32:15
I wanted, I wanted the the history of the show you did it? Nestor, Aparicio, sports media for a living, and I teach about it for a living. So my last book was about, was game on, you know, history of the sports media industry. And I got a new book coming out. It’s not going to be, it’s going to be a little bit but it’s called over, under, and it’ll be out in probably a couple years, maybe a little bit less, but it tracks the history of the sports, sports gambling in the United States. And this is a small piece of the puzzle, but the small pieces are usually the most interesting. So
Nestor Aparicio 32:46
I wish I had more to give you, you know, I mean, I don’t, you know,
David Bockino 32:49
I don’t need more. No, no. This is, you know, it’s 15 really tawdry details
Nestor Aparicio 32:53
of Lawrence Taylor’s, you know, personal escapades that are are legendary into their own right, but probably none that I would care to chronicle here right now. I sure would make any of us look particularly good, but
David Bockino 33:06
you probably don’t know the answer to this, but I’m curious to see what Tagliabue thought of Lawrence Taylor participating and Buddy Ryan participating in a show like that, or if it was so short that they didn’t really care, because, you know, the NFL has been against any, you know, they’ve sort of, you defined
Nestor Aparicio 33:29
ace Cas, if he’s alive, he could tell you more about how they shut down the NFL films, part of that, which is pretty obvious, right? And Eddie, the mush, I’m sure, is, he was, you know, 70 years old then, I don’t know, but, like, I’m trying to think of the NFL part of it. I mean, it was a gambling show, and they just didn’t want the logo. They didn’t want highlights, they didn’t want markings. Lawrence, the year before, had worked for TNT. When he retired, Lawrence was doing Sunday night football and didn’t it wasn’t very good, right? I don’t know that he was cleaned up enough to be able to do it. And I remember when we got the team back in 96 we played a very famous Sunday night game in October in Indianapolis. The Baltimore team went to Indian. Jim Harbaugh was their quarterback, Ted marchibroda Was their coach. Sarah goose was on the Colts at the time, and lt was on the sidelines that night, and he was in the press lounge because he was a media member. And I was there that night as a media member. But we were six weeks into having a franchise at that time, and he was doing Sunday Night Football, which was a new thing, man, right? It was the, it was the B team. Was the Thursday night game kind of sort of a den, um, but he was on that team for one year, and then this next year, I think this might have been his agent trying to keep him on TV. You know what? I mean, like, look, there weren’t 57 channels then doing sports, right? It was just, and there weren’t internet shows. And, I mean, we have to put our heads back to Mike Warren having. Money to be able to get his little studio chef field. He probably, probably didn’t cost him a lot to do the show. I mean, I guess he was given Lawrence five grand a week and but, you know, to fly him in or whatever, I was making a couple 100 bucks. I don’t, I don’t know the UPS. I don’t know that anybody watched it, right? I don’t, you know, but I guess it caught the attention of legal on Park Avenue. I’m sure that we didn’t do it again the next year. You know what? I mean? You have to talk to Mike about that, or will Schwartz, they would know more, because I didn’t know the business of it. I was, you know, I was a kid having fun hanging out and talking football on Wednesday nights and being able to go on my little radio show and say, I do this television show with Lawrence Taylor, buddy Ryan and but it was now that I think back, from a business perspective, was a little slow. Little slippery, that it moved from one to the other. I remember ace getting shut down. I mean, they were doing everything to do shut it down. I mean, probably serving Mike letters of all kinds behind the scenes that nobody knew about till, you know. I mean, maybe I don’t know. I really don’t know.
David Bockino 35:55
I mean, they did that for decades. It’s just kind of there. That was the official stance from, you know, Rozelle on so
Nestor Aparicio 36:05
can I have you on my show for two minutes? Let me put your sports media journalism thing, because I am an interesting case study here. I’ve had a journalism career for 40 years, and I’ve now been blackballed. Or is it brown, bald when you’re Hispanic? Okay, I can say this to you as we speak, as we’re taping this. My media organization. I have an FCC license for 26 years. I’m in business with the federal government. I’ve an accomplished journalist, by any standard or stretch. I’m on the air every single day. I’m out in social media. I have 100,000 followers that I can prove. No one listens till I get shitty, and then everybody hears that’s kind of the way it’s been for 30 years. Um, but I got thrown up on the football team. There’s a fascinating part for me that if I had any of your students, I’d lure them out of your classroom and say, this isn’t a business you want to be in unless you want to kiss the ass of PR directors and work for the team, because at some point this is going to be a monopoly. It already is. I mean, so today, the Orioles are playing an afternoon game at Camden Yards, $2 billion team, a $5 billion team. This practicing an O and two teams practicing to play the Dallas Cowboys in the greatest stadium on Earth. They just both got $1.2 billion in dual funding for the two stadiums here, the football teams already started to spend that money baseball teams trying to figure it out the new business operations. Gal Katie Griggs was on massen, literally last night talking about it, the futures media, sports media. And I would tell this to Mark Hyman when my colleagues, who now runs University of Maryland and the poet center. I don’t where’s the job? Where’s the gig? You know, I used to be the job provider. I provided jobs to 1520, people that made careers of doing this in this marketplace that sustain Odyssey radio, who work for massen or they’re all getting funneled money from the teams or the league in some way, which restricts what they can say. But also, there is no more real Baltimore Sun. That thing’s dying up. They’re all paywalled out. They if the click rates of stuff that’s on the Baltimore banner, because they don’t have any subscribers, because people don’t want to subscribe, I’m paywall free, so they’ve banned me today. So my reporter, my Caucasian reporter, has to decide whether he’s going to cover the baseball team or the football team, and if I go out there and say I’m from wnst, they won’t allow me in. I don’t know that if I hired you, whether they let you in, or if I hired a girl named Sue or a mule named Gus, I don’t know, but they don’t allow me in um, it’s a hell of a precedent. I’ve had the station 26 years. I’ve broken no rules. I know all the rules I could wallpaper most of your university with my press passes. Over 40 years, I have boxes of press passes from every sport all over the earth, all over the country. Name the sport College, pro hockey. I was a pro hockey Writers Association guy for 10 years. You know, I covered baseball for 24 years, till they threw me out. No six. So like I am gravely concerned about your space and the people you teach. And not only where is the job coming from when it’s not Comcast sports that or Fox Sports net, where is the real job coming from when the teams are going to say, you either work for us and keep your mouth shut, your gene and you work for WWE, and we’re all K Fabe. We all sign non disclosures and work for you know, Peter Thiel, or we’re going to have real journalism in this country. And, yeah, I mean, that’s a larger issue, but it if I were lecturing your class, I’d have one hell of a story to tell them. Dave,
David Bockino 39:50
yeah. So, so my the sports media that I teach over here is a little bit different than the traditional sports journalism class. We have a sport management department. Mean within our school communications. So when I talk about sports media, I’m talking about the holistic setup of sports and media and the convergence of that. I don’t disagree with you at all that the kids who want to pursue sports journalism are looking at fewer and fewer jobs, whether it’s the client of the news industry, the local news industry that can consolidation. Once
Nestor Aparicio 40:19
you get that job, you will not be allowed to do it. You will be intimidated. You will be treated like everything that Khashoggi went through, except at the end, you know, I mean, you’re gonna you’re gonna be forced out of the industry. You’re gonna be shamed. You’re gonna be put off in the corner. If you ask the coach why Lamar ran the ball 16 times and why he wasn’t at practice on Monday, which is a pretty staple. I think I see met stuff on the wall behind you. Is that strong? Who’s that? Celebrate that? Ray Knight, what is going on back there in that Sports Illustrated? I
David Bockino 40:49
believe that’s the ball going through buckner’s leg on the bottom. And that’s Mookie, all right, smookie. And that’s right. No, you’re right. That’s Ray Knight right above him.
Nestor Aparicio 40:59
You know, crossing told you had a pretty good memory, you know. So
David Bockino 41:02
that’s I was, you know, I grew up on Long Island, so I was, I was the 86 million people
Nestor Aparicio 41:08
on Long Island reading five different newspapers and five Phil mushniks and five anybody doing talking George Steinbrenner on the back page, for crying out loud, right? Like all those people would just be banned if Jim Dolan had his way, right? And there’d be facial recognition on the way in so they could, he would put facial recognition on your big screen so you couldn’t watch the Knicks on TV if you were a journalist, right? Like, literally, that’s where this is going, honestly, really,
David Bockino 41:35
that’s where they Yeah, I mean, I’m a big Charles Oakley fan. That guy’s not allowed in the garden anymore. So did you
Nestor Aparicio 41:41
read the piece about the lawyers? So if you’re a lawyer, and you bring any action, as an example, if, if a vendor in Madison Square Garden trips on a banana peel and hits his head, and you’re the lawyer and says, it’s a $250,000 injury, it’s not a $20,000 settle. Yeah, and you have season tickets for the Rangers, or the Knicks, or Billy Joel or whatever, you know, ELO this week, which I almost went to. I love the garden. Uh, probably won’t let me in after this gets out in AI, but that’s okay if you didn’t let me in FM, I’ll I can’t get in a sphere either, probably, although I don’t know the laws in Nevada, but if you’re a lawyer, there was a lawyer representing a case that was just against them. He got facially recognized, had his tickets taken away. They wouldn’t let him into the Knicks game because he was bringing action against them. I mean, like we’re in a different level of what they can do to journalists. When you’re the Baltimore Ravens or the Baltimore Orioles, even if I have a season ticket in the front row of the upstairs, even if I had a PSL, which I did, the amount of haranguing and the bullying that I received as a media member, I’m the only media member that’s ever been banned. I’m the only media member that’s ever had been chased out, literally, systemically here in Baltimore, and they’ve gotten away with it, and they’ll continue to get away with it, and it sets a precedent for what they can get away with in town x, with journalists y and media entity Z. And it really concerns me, bro, for what you’re teaching in people and what the future is going to be for whatever the sports journalism industry used to be sure,
43:21
yeah, yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 43:22
When’s your book come out? It’s
David Bockino 43:25
going to be a while. This one’s going to be wild. My, my last one came out in April, though. Check that one out. Game. Where’s
Nestor Aparicio 43:30
your book? Tell me plug plug your book. I want to
43:32
buy it. It’s called hold it. Yeah?
David Bockino 43:35
How sports media grew up sold out and got personal, billions of fans talking to
Nestor Aparicio 43:43
you about this book, like, why are you not on my I would love to talk to you about that book. I’ll send you one.
David Bockino 43:49
Send me your address. I’ll send you a copy. No
Nestor Aparicio 43:52
to digital me. And I would love to have you come on and Professor me about what I need to know. What I would be telling my grandkid if you were in your class, because I don’t know what to tell young people. I mean, I’ve got 40 years of doing this, people call me all the time and they’re like, hey, my little Johnny wants to go to to Syracuse and be Bob Costas. And I’m like, I don’t. I don’t know what to say to that kid, Dave. I really don’t.
David Bockino 44:16
I think this, this book, takes a little bit of different stance. It talks about the rampant personalization, how sports fandom now has become so so crafted to the individual, where we’re looking at our own highlight reels, we’re gambling on our own games. We’re we have our own fantasy teams, and it’s in stark contrast to what was happening in the 20s, 30s, when it was more of a collective thing. And you know, it started, obviously 79 was a huge turning point with the with the birth of ESPN and just all the outlets now, everyone, every student I have, has a different sports media diet, and there’s is rarely you can talk about the same thing. You say, Well, yeah, my guy got 20. I lost that fantasy match by 20 yards. Or my parlay lost because the piss. And didn’t get over 89 points, whatever. And you wonder about where fandom is going. And you know, you go to a stadium and it’s everyone’s got their phones up. Everyone wants their own personal moment, rather than just enjoying the collective experience of the Orioles winning a game or the Mets winning a game because they wanted to be theirs. And this personalization has really become something that I’ve thought a lot about in the last few years, especially with young people. And you wonder where sports fandom is heading with that continued personalization of the sports fan experience. And that’s kind of what the book tracks from radio all the way up into Jose Canseco fighting a bar stool intern, which is sort of where the book begins, and people gambling on it.
Nestor Aparicio 45:41
Well, for me, I was the agate clerk at the sun and the news American in the 80s. I’m about to do a 40th anniversary with these guys from Hearst publication called sports first that begat a whole bunch of legendary sports was before the national came in the late 80s was more of a national version of USA Today. Sports and I was the scoreboard page editor, and that was the beauty of for my dad to take a constitutional in the afternoon and look at all the box scores, all the standings, all in one sheet, all in one place. And now it’s even if you just want loop leaders or stats from baseball or get it. It’s so specialized, and it’s so it the Wide World of Sports used to bring me skiing, the Harlem Globetrotters. This, that, some Olympic, this, some Olympic that, some basketball, this, different games soccer. Now you’re and especially for the kids to play it. I mean, I’m in, I’m in Baltimore, where they’re trying to get baseball over again, right, like the Orioles back and they’re good and whatever, this is a lacrosse community. And I hate to break that to anyone that lacrosse owns this community, from boys and girls mainly white, but certainly anything, it’s not just affluent anymore, and the sport itself, like, how do kids even come to baseball if they have lacrosse stick when they’re six and they’re playing lacrosse in February, March, April, May, June, there’s not that baseball heartbeat here. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s just one sport, one place, one town, whatever. But you take that over the life of all this, I am worried about how some sports are going to survive being too niche, too niche and in over their heads. Maybe baseball’s one of them financially, I’m talking about where they’re going to find their revenue.
David Bockino 47:23
Yeah, baseball is a fascinating thing because, you know, it ceased being a national sport. I think several years ago, we kind of lost that. It’s very local sport, but it still does pretty well in the local networks. You know, it’s, it’s the, obviously, the regional net situation is a disaster. But in terms of popularity on a local level, where places have baseball teams. Baseball is doing fine, and baseball is doing okay, and there are players, I think, I think you’re probably from a Baltimore perspective. You go down to Texas, you go down to Florida, you come down to, you know, Mississippi, people are playing baseball, and kids are playing baseball. They’re playing a lot of it, like you said, all year round. So we’re going to have the baseball players, but just yet, different regions are going to break off and do their own thing. And that’s part of it, this sort of cleavage of the sport experience. So it’s where
Nestor Aparicio 48:10
the Miami Marlins are going to get their revenue when no one goes right and and how, how hard it is to win, and when you start to win the price point. Because we’re getting to that here too, where people like playoff tickets just came out here. People are like, I don’t know about that, you know? I mean, how much for a baseball game? And so there is a little bit of that, David, I appreciate your time. You’ve been incredibly generous in allowing me to tell these stories and being a great guest. David bacchino is the Associate Professor at Elon University, and he is an author, and I want to talk more about your book. So please, uh, anytime reach to me. I love talking about this, because I’ve lived. It’s all I’ve ever done. As they would say, it’s all it’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, and I’ve had to adjust, you know, through all of it, too, and talking about things that are more than taking phone calls from angry sports fans. And I think the one thing for you teaching the sport business side and people going to work for sports teams. I say it’s the kiss army. It’s just the big fan club. It’s just the big fan club. And the voice of the teams is uniquely K Fabe, you know, in every way and the way they make fun of the other teams, the voices of the brands are what’s interesting to me, and what younger people see and feel and hear in those voices, because I love the Baltimore Ravens, because it said Baltimore on it, not because I wanted to bet on it, or because I needed a Ray Lewis fascination or an autograph. It was all about my hometown and provincial in the same way that Bama was about bam and Auburn was about Auburn. And, you know, it’s territorial pissings and tribal and like all of that, but tribal based on community, not tribal based on I’m a raider fan because I like silver and black, and they’re a global fan club. You know, these are, we’re playing cowboys this week. They’re a global fan club. Lamar is trying to make the Ravens a global fan club, but that’s what the NF and you see that in Brazil, and you see that. When the NFL is over in Europe, which I’ve seen in Wembley, I mean, they’re selling sort of war colors and gambling. That’s what. They’re not selling provincialism in the NFL.
David Bockino 50:11
No, not anymore. I don’t think they have been for a while, but they it comes off at that some, sometimes, but it’s, yeah, it’s a fascinating sport, professional football. Appreciate you. Man, you gotta
Nestor Aparicio 50:22
go teach kids. Man, I could see he’s got to go Tara volcanoes out of here. He’s an Eli I could talk sports media with really smart people all day long. I’m Nestor, a Baltimore positive. Thank you. Appreciate you immensely.
