Sportswriter and historian Joel Poiley returns from his adopted homeland of Tampa to help Nestor assess the state of the Baltimore Orioles at the All Star break – and what happens next in what feels like another lost season at Camden Yards.

Nestor Aparicio and Joel Poiley discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ performance and management issues. Poiley highlighted the Orioles’ struggles in player development, citing a scouting report on 2021 draft pick Mayo. He criticized the team’s defensive capabilities, noting their 196 batting average with runners in scoring position. Poiley also questioned the credibility of management, including Elias and Araghetti, and expressed skepticism about the team’s future. Aparicio shared his frustration with the new ownership group, led by David Rubenstein, and their lack of community engagement and genuine interest in the team.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Share the ‘Spirit of 66’ Hofburger interview video on Facebook (and publish it on the website) once received from Joel.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Post photos from past Ed Block events at St. Vincent Center (with Sam Lamantia) on social media after the Monday morning segment honoring him.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Investigate and report on the recent incident involving Chad Steele and media treatment if it has not already been reported elsewhere.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Schedule and conduct a follow-up August appearance with Joel Poiley on the show to discuss Free the Birds stories.
• [ ] Resend the ‘Spirit of 66’ Hofburger interview video to Nestor for potential use on the show.

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Baltimore Positive

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning events at Fadley’s, Fishmonger’s Daughter, Coco’s, and Pizza John’s.
• Nestor discusses the Orioles’ performance and the decision to end the tour due to the team’s decline.
• Nestor mentions the Maryland lottery scratch-offs and the Maryland Treasures giveaway at Fadley’s.
• Nestor introduces Joel Poiley, a Baltimorean who moved to Tampa and is a longtime sports writer.

Joel Poiley’s Baltimore Roots and Milford Mill High School

• Joel Poiley shares his high school experience at Milford Mill, mentioning classmates like Alan McAllen, Terry Beck, and Brian Jordan.
• Joel recalls his first Orioles game in 1963, where he learned baseball etiquette from his dad.
• Nestor and Joel discuss the Mighty Millers and Joel’s baseball experience under Dave Wright.
• Joel shares a story about Milford baseball’s success after Brian Jordan joined the team.

Joel Poiley’s Sports Writing Career and Orioles Observations

• Joel talks about his longtime sports writing career, covering baseball in Florida and his book on Tom Matte.
• Nestor and Joel discuss the Orioles’ performance and Joel’s frustration with the team.
• Joel mentions his upcoming trip to the All-Star game and his role as a media member.
• Joel expresses his concern about the Orioles’ player development and the lack of readiness of their players in the majors.

Elias and the Orioles’ Player Development Issues

• Joel discusses the Orioles’ draft picks and the challenges they face in player development.
• Joel shares a scouting report of a high school player, Mayo, and his observations on the Orioles’ draft picks.
• Nestor and Joel discuss the systemic issues within the Orioles’ organization and the lack of credibility of some players and management.
• Joel mentions the inconsistency in the Orioles’ performance and the defensive mistakes made by the team.

Orioles’ Management and Ownership Issues

• Nestor and Joel discuss the lack of credibility and performance of the Orioles’ management, including Elias, Araghetti, and Rubenstein.
• Joel shares his skepticism about the Orioles’ player development and the lack of progress in the organization.
• Nestor expresses his frustration with the Orioles’ management and the lack of genuine interest in the team from the new ownership group.
• Joel mentions the inconsistency in the Orioles’ performance and the lack of a clear plan for improvement.

Attendance and Corporate Support for the Orioles

• Nestor discusses the lack of corporate support and attendance at Orioles games.
• Joel shares an anecdote about a local business owner who was asked to buy all 81 games to keep his seat.
• Nestor and Joel discuss the impact of the new ownership group on the team’s performance and fan engagement.
• Joel mentions the inconsistency in the Orioles’ performance and the lack of a clear plan for improvement.

Historical Context and Comparisons to Past Ownership

• Nestor and Joel discuss the historical context of the Orioles’ ownership and management, comparing it to past owners like Peter Angelos.
• Joel shares his thoughts on the current ownership group and their lack of understanding of baseball.
• Nestor mentions the mistreatment of fans and media by the new ownership group.
• Joel expresses his concern about the future of the Orioles and the lack of a clear plan for improvement.

Joel Poiley’s Book on Tom Matte

• Joel introduces his book on Tom Matte, highlighting Tom’s life and contributions to Baltimore sports.
• Nestor shares his personal connection to Tom Matte and the Ed Block Courage Awards.
• Joel discusses the historical significance of Tom Matte and his impact on the Baltimore community.
• Nestor and Joel discuss the importance of local sports heroes and their contributions to the city.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Joel discuss their final thoughts on the Orioles’ performance and the future of the team.
• Joel shares his plans to continue covering the Orioles and his hope for improvement in the organization.
• Nestor mentions his upcoming trip to the All-Star game and his continued commitment to covering the Orioles.
• Joel expresses his appreciation for the opportunity to discuss the Orioles and his hope for a better future for the team.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call this mothership Baltimore Positive and Positively All Star Game Week around here. We’re gonna be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour on Friday at Fadley’s at Lexington Market. It is our final Fadley’s appearance of the summer, because the Orioles look like they fade, and beside that, we’ll be at Fishmonger’s daughter in Catonsville next month with our Fadley’s family as well. I’m wearing my Costa’s gear. We’re getting back out there. We’re at Coco’s in early August. We’re at Pizza John’s later on this month. We’re gonna start the party at Fadley’s down at the down at Lexington Market, the original as the Royals are in town. We’ll have the scratch-offs in the Maryland lottery to give away the Maryland Treasures. It is summer long, be at Mako next month as well, down there in August, crossing over the Bay Bridge, which this guy has done several times, but not lately. He’s more the crossover the Gandy or the Howard Franklin or some of those bridges down in the Tampa area. He is a Baltimorean who escaped under the hood about three decades ago, moved down to Tampa, was a longtime sports writer, there has inked a book on Tom Maddie to keep his Baltimore roots alive and his Northwest Baltimore alive. Were you a Milford mill guy? What, what high school did you go to?

Joel Poiley 1:10
Yeah, I went to Milford. Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 1:12
Alan McAllen went to Milford. My dear friend Alan McAllen, who I’m saying I’m a little older,

Joel Poiley 1:16
family love out. I graduated in 75

Nestor Aparicio 1:20
Okay, who else? Who else went to Milford, right? Like

Joel Poiley 1:26
Terry Beck, T Beck, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 1:28
Did Brian Jordan? He went to.. Yes.

Joel Poiley 1:30
Well, the funny story is.. I want to throw a name at you. The I played baseball for Dave Wright, who coached all over the county. I knew Dave

Nestor Aparicio 1:39
Wright.

Joel Poiley 1:40
Yeah, so the joke was Milford baseball was never any good until Brian Jordan got there, which was like nine or 10 years after I graduated, and then they won a state title, but when I was there, we were like 500 but we had fun.

Nestor Aparicio 1:56
Yeah, well, you know, the Mighty Millers, I wrestled there once, I lost, I remember. Joel Poly is here. Joe Poili is our defending champion of all things Oriole baseball. He actually watches the Orioles from afar and goes back to what was your first Oriole game as a kid? 60s,

Joel Poiley 2:11

60. I remember, yeah. My dad took me, I was six, August 5, 1963 It was the game Mantle got his ankle or leg caught in the center field fence trying to catch a Brooks Robinson home run. We’re in the upper deck, I’m clapping, and my dad says, “No, you got to stop. You have to show reverence for a great player. So I learned about baseball etiquette right there.

Nestor Aparicio 2:38
Well, you know, when the soccer guys go down during the tournaments, not always like it was with the Mick. Like, I guess the point is, I mean, you’re a longtime sports writer, you covered baseball in and out of the game, spring trainings down in Florida all these years. You keep up with me, you said you’re one of the 10 people in my life that when you get pissed with the Orioles, I hear about it all day. You, Pat Schroeder, Alan McCallum. I’m just trying to think, all the people that will just randomly, Joey, knock, send me a, they suck, they’re still ishy, you know? I get the memes from the major league movie, all of that. I’m going to the All-Star game next week, as far as I know. I’m a real media member next week. It’s true, Major League Baseball, they like me. They really like me. I’ll be there on Monday and Tuesday researching the 2030 All-Star game that we’re going to be getting here. The labor stop, it sits behind all of this. You see the empty stadium from down in Tampa, where you are, Joel, and I know you watch him six nights a week, and I know, like, you get them the way I get him. Ben McDonald, Jim Palmer comes in, whatever you want him to be good, you’re getting older, you’re semi retirement, so you really want to enjoy this part, where like 43 years, you want them to win, but like you sent me very astute insider sports writer, been doing this all my life, sort of observations, having watched Joe Madden and everything going on in Tampa. Where are you? I mean, I want.. I want you to give me the heartbeat, because you know, I like talking baseball with people that like baseball. I wish we had more to talk about here, but you sit and watch Luke and I.. where are you in this outfit? Joel,

Joel Poiley 4:11
a couple things real quick. Is two 2030 definite for Baltimore? It’s gonna happen,

Nestor Aparicio 4:17
just trust me on that.

Joel Poiley 4:19
Okay?

Nestor Aparicio 4:20
WNSD tech service yet, but

Joel Poiley 4:22
okay. My

Nestor Aparicio 4:22
sources tell me, how about that? Is that good? My sources tell me good enough

Joel Poiley 4:26
for me, bro. Yeah, it’s great. I was 26 the last time the Orioles won a World Series. That’s how crazy this is. I’m here’s what I want to do today, Nestor. You know, we can talk about the players. I’ll throw some numbers out there, because you know, always do my research before I come on, but I want to take a hard look at Elias. I was reading something just before I came on. How the Orioles kind of right in the middle of the pack for every draft pick that Elias has had that has made it to the majors. I have a good friend down here who’s like a. Part time scout slash analytics guy with the Rays, but you know he’s like us, he understands analytics, but he also understands that a lot of it’s just superfluous BS, and he’s telling me this is the inside view of how Major League Baseball and other organizations view Elias and the Orioles, they can’t develop pitching, and fundamentally, when their guys get to the majors, they are not ready, and what also perplexes a lot of people, and it’s kind of interesting too now, because Hyde is in upper management with the Rays, they just don’t understand how when our kids get to the major, so many of them fail and fail really badly. And look, I’m glad Cowser has had a good month, but you know, in the overall, he’s won. I’m going to read you a scouting report of some guy, and I bet you’ll be able to figure it out. This was a high school scouting report from this kid, big power bat, tall, rangy, bad feet, bad hands, strong but inaccurate arm. Who do you think that is? I can tell you the year he was drafted, if that helps. 2021

Nestor Aparicio 6:22
is that Mayo? I don’t even know.

Joel Poiley 6:23
Bingo, bingo, you got it. Yeah, all right. Yeah, crush. That’s not bad.

Nestor Aparicio 6:28
That was literally the guess.

Joel Poiley 6:29
Good. Yeah, no, crushed it in high school. Typical Elias draft pick. You know who they’re looking at in with the number seven pick now is kid Drew Burris from Georgia Tech, big strong center fielder, great power, supposedly good bat to ball skills. You know, he’s highly rated. There’s there’s something systemically wrong with the organization and the way they develop players. Look, I’m glad Cal’s back in the organization, and taking this bigger picture overview, although the whole wonkiness of him not talking about it, you really think he’s

Nestor Aparicio 7:09
doing anything? I mean, all of this, I mean, Luke and I got into this off the air over my peach cake before we did this segment, because we’ve spent two hours on a holiday week, he’s going on break next week. I’m doing the show at Faith Lee’s this week. We took an assessment of all of this, but when we got off the air, I got profane, as I’m known to do, and work blue, and I just, I just ripped their asses from top to bottom off the air. I mean, rip them personally, professionally, in every potential way I could rip them from Rubenstein, Araghetti, Griggs, Rovak, Fine, Elias, Albernaz. I mean, I don’t have, I don’t have anything good to say about any of them on a personal level, as a human, as a fan, as an Aparicio, as a media member, as a guy with a credit card, as a guy who’s a mass and subscription holder, as a guy with an FCC license, as a guy who’s had a media credential taken away from him by the other creep 20 years ago, celebrating the 20th year, like all the way through, I look at all of them, and I’m thinking, Who’s really good at what they do,

Joel Poiley 8:28
right?

Nestor Aparicio 8:29
Who’s come at this from a other than Ben McDonald?

Joel Poiley 8:34
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 8:35
maybe Kevin Brown, and I don’t trust Kevin Brown, because he can’t be honest, he works for Greg Bader, so like when I can’t trust the broadcasts, when I’m listening to W B A L, and I know that like if somebody doesn’t leg out a triple, they’re not allowed to say that, and everything has to be in bloom for them when they’re 10 games under 500

Joel Poiley 8:58
right?

Nestor Aparicio 8:58
My credibility is not going to me and Lock and Fora, I’ll throw Luke in there too. You know, our credibility is not going into the can, but where is the credibility for any of these people, from Elias through, and to your point, even the credibility in the players? Where’s Henderson? What is Ruchman really? What is Posio really going to be? Is holiday really a one one cowser is a first round pick, like, is there anything, anything about this that’s in bloom to use a Nirvana song, and literally to say, is any of this good enough, or does it, does it trend in the direction that you’d say I have to keep this, even if it’s Jackson Holiday. Do I have to not deal in by the end of the month? If somebody else gave me three other pieces, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have Elias making the decisions now. But then again, I don’t have any confidence in Araghetti and Rubenstein to replace him, so I am. Fuddled by all of it, because I’ve never seen anything like it. Joel, I can’t identify anything, anything about it that’s good, anything, nothing.

Joel Poiley 10:11
Well, when other organizations are telling you that too, that they look at what’s going on and they don’t understand it. I mean, they see some talent that’s coming into the organization, but they’re excoriating everything that goes on in the minor leagues. If you’re gonna call

Nestor Aparicio 10:28
Pete Alonzo an asset, you paid $150 million for him, that’s not a bargain, and you couldn’t deal him tomorrow morning if you tried. So it’s already a bad deal, because you, you couldn’t trade him and get anything back, maybe you just be lucky to take the money, and that’s part of spending the money, right? That Araghetti and money bags, mr. You know, I have a bobble head and I hung out with Epstein, and I don’t want to talk about it, but that didn’t really happen, and I’m married, I’m on a boat, because I’m a billionaire, big boat on a yacht, that’s who these cats are, and it smells it, Joel. It just feels it. It oozes it here, and you’re down in Tampa, where they’re still trying to do end-to-hand combat to try to, like, get a stadium and pretend that they’re not carpetbaggers, you know, that they’re a local entity for the South Florida area, you know, whatever, like the Orioles, they don’t feel like anything to me locally. They have no soul at this point.

Joel Poiley 11:28
If there was an ownership group that knew anything about baseball, Elias would have been gone, probably in May when they began to sink again. Maybe they had given, would have given him one more year coming off of last year, but the more I look at this guy, here’s how I look at Elias. When he took over in, what was it, 18, you know, fall of 18, a long

Nestor Aparicio 11:53
time, eight years,

Joel Poiley 11:55
I thought he was the right guy for the job, simply because he was young, energetic, it was going to require 80 hour weeks. He came from two good organizations, St. Louis, Houston. You might not like what went on in Houston with the cheating, but they went from 300 lost seasons in a row to six straight consecutive ALCSS, two World Series titles. They knew how to draft develop, although they went about it a little differently, because they signed some free agents. I happen to really like AJ Hinch, too. I think he just got caught up in that cheating mess. But okay, so Elias comes in. You knew he was going to bring in all his analytics geeks. He got the international thing going, but the only piece from it is Bisayo, you got a bunch of 16 and 17 year olds down there in the Dominican that we don’t know anything about, and they’re years from showing anything. I mean, that just shows how far away the Orioles were when he took over. But you remember that

Nestor Aparicio 12:55
famous sign on the door in Korea? Yeah, Orioles aren’t allowed, no Orioles. Do you remember that sign? It’s

Joel Poiley 13:02
hilarious, it’s, but I question his. I hate the way he works around the margins, and you’re right about Alonzo. There, when it’s not a team that would take him, because my friend with the Rays was telling me he’s 32 he’s he’s having a great year, but you can already see he’s slowing down hitting fastballs, that’s why he hits everything to the opposite field, but yeah, he’s having a good year. I’m not going to deny that, but the whole thing with you, look at their player development, and you know how I got a great quote about holiday, I’m going to resurrect Casey Stengel when he took over the Mets in 1962 he had an 18 year old catcher, one of the great names in baseball, Greg Goosen, Greg Goosen, 18 year old catcher, and the media asked Casey, well, what do you think of the kid, and he said, well, he’s 18 and in 10 years he has a chance to be 28 well, that’s my view of holiday. He’s 22 and he has a chance to be 23 I don’t see one thing about that kid that is one one, and my friend and I were talking. He said he’s, you know, and this is what he sees, but I see the same thing on unathletic, no arm, terrible batting approach. But then we were talking more generally, and he asked me, Why do guys fall off the cliff? Why was Adley so bad for a year and a half? What’s up with Gunner? And you know, I, Gunner, I’ve told you, I just think Boris got to him in the off season, and because his swing is the same, but all he’s trying to do is jack the ball. I mean, it was nice that he hit that sac fly yesterday, the opposite field, but everything about this team and this organization is consistently inconsistent. I mean, six and 14 in one run games, we all know that if you look at their record from about mid June,

Nestor Aparicio 14:59
holidays hitting one. 87

Joel Poiley 15:01
yeah, mid June until now they’re about 25 almost 30 games under 500 That’s not just close to 500 that’s lousy baseball, brother. And yeah, defensively it’s the

Nestor Aparicio 15:13
worst team I’ve ever seen.

Joel Poiley 15:15
What’s that?

Nestor Aparicio 15:16
It’s defensive defensively, it’s the worst team I’ve ever seen in an Oriole team. Now I’m saying, like, because the Orioles valued defense the first 45 years of my life, even when they stunk when Mike Hargrove was here, and Limazilli and Mike Flanagan, they wanted Mike Bordick at shortstop, they cared about because of the Belander Aparicio Ripken way, like all of that, like Paul Blair, all the things you’ll talk about, where philosophically the Oriole way began with Belander, might hit 195 but we’re not going to kick the ball around because our pitchers are going to be great, and the only way we can keep our smoltses and Glavins and Maddox is to catch the ball. You can’t, you can’t give 32 outs a game away, and they do that on the routine. They, you know, a night when they have two errors is a night when they’ve made five mistakes, right? Like mistakes. different,

Joel Poiley 16:24
and like you say, a lot of those mistakes aren’t even in the box score. They don’t back up the right base, they throw to the wrong base, they don’t show up as you know physically, but that’s why they can’t win more than three freaking games in a row, brother, because you know they’re going to make so many defensive mistakes that even like yesterday, I mean, they didn’t make too many mistakes and was a shame to waste Bradish’s effort, but when your defense is that bad, you’re going to make enough mistakes that you can’t sustain a long winning streak, and it’s a joke, I mean, even bad teams went four in a row once in a while, but that tells you just how consistently inconsistent they are. Here’s another stat for you. About two weeks ago, I think it was in the Orioles were playing the Angels, who were terrible, you know. And then they botched that last game of the Angels series. As bad as the Angels are, they hit about 250 with runners in scoring position, the Orioles hit 196 and two outs. The Orioles hit 196 with runners in scoring position in two outs. Look, I didn’t expect Adley to get a big hit yesterday in the ninth, although would have been nice. He’s having a nice year, but people were forgetting he’s missed 1/3 of the games. I mean, it would be nice to see his stats if he had played 80 games. They’ve played what, 9192 games already, but they have so many problems internally I believe that need to be fixed. I mean, you, you mentioned you don’t know how much Rip is really doing. I’m just glad that they’re using him more. I mean, you would know more than me, supposedly. I mean, I read that article in The Athletic by Brittany and Rosenthal. I mean, it looks like he’s taking a holistic approach to this, but how much of what he’s saying are they using? I mean, you tell me.

Nestor Aparicio 18:16
I don’t know. I can’t ask them. I’m not a real media member, Joe. And even if I were, Luke assures me they would hide from me, and I know they would.

Joel Poiley 18:24
They wouldn’t. That’s half the problem.

Joel Poiley 18:26
Yeah, they would have kicked me out too, brother, because I hate packed journalism, but I know after games you need a quick quote to fill out your story. I would have requested, like, five one, the

Nestor Aparicio 18:37
printing presses that don’t exist anymore,

Joel Poiley 18:39
right? Like five minutes with Gunner and five minutes with Elias, and I would have just asked them what fans want you to ask, and I mean, you can see when Elias gives you that 15 minute presser, you know, every couple months, but you notice how he’s hiding now, he’s not in the stands, you don’t see him, I just. there’s just so much about that organization that leads you to it. Just feels cowardly to me,

Nestor Aparicio 19:06
and it feels corporately cowardly, and showing up and doing PAB of waves, and then hiding, and the stadium’s empty. I mean,

Joel Poiley 19:14
it is. It’s fun,

Nestor Aparicio 19:15
real. It really is. I mean, I went to lunch two weeks ago with someone who owns a local business, who’s a real baseball guy, his kid plays ball, he’s a real baseball guy, and he’s got enough money that he could afford to buy tickets that he wants, and he was into their 13 game plan, 10 rows behind home plate for 20 years at 15 grand a year, you know what I mean, like, you know, four tickets a game for four for 13 games, you do the math, it’s 52 tickets, right? You know what I mean, times $150 it was 15 grand, whatever it was, right? And they said to him, you got to buy all 81 or you can’t have that seat anymore, and all 81 was 90 90,000 it was, it was like that, right. He’s like, well, then you’re just not going to get my 5014 grand anymore, and he didn’t get like, and it reflects that the emptiness of the bowl of the stadium reflects the lack of corporate support, the lack of real support, and the way they have treated me, and what I can’t get across to the people in Middle River, and my friends from Dundalk and Essex, who think it’s funny that I’ve been shat upon like that. That’s cool. It’s not cool. It’s not. It was never cool when Angelos did it, and when I, when the Angelos thing happened, as I’m doing the 20th anniversary for either birds. The real reason it happened is I was exasperated by saying, why do you mistreat people? What, what is it? It’s like Trump, like what is it about this that is so attractive that you would mistreat your fans, and or you would mistreat Jim Palmer, or that, that the that, and they’re both dead now, but that Angelos would mistreat Brooks Robinson like I don’t, I don’t understand the arrogance of it, but if you’ve met Michael Arrogance Eddie, oh, I just came up with that. Hello, I’m making stuff up as I come along, newspaper guys already got it. I met Eric Eddie, he was one of the most arrogant humans I’ve ever met in my life. I mean, he’s there on opening day, he’s shooting videos for himself, buying beer for everybody. That was totally a put on, like the whole thing’s a put on. The whole thing’s like a Johnny Bravo, like Sherwood Schwartz came in to direct an episode of Gilligan’s Island, and telling everybody where to stand and when to hit the punch line, and when to get the pie in the face, and like,

Joel Poiley 21:41
right,

Nestor Aparicio 21:42
this is, there’s nothing genuine about these people that have bought the team, the people running the team, the woman that they brought in, that they’ve imported to get this all-star game, she can run around and parade that around, beginning next week, and the thing’s going to hell, and I’m sitting here witnessing it, and I’m Baltimore positive, be positive,

Joel Poiley 22:04
right.

Nestor Aparicio 22:04
Well, positive is being honest, and being honest is what I’ve been doing for 35 years, and this is worse than it’s ever been, because the confidence level of Angelos was whatever it was,

Joel Poiley 22:17
right?

Nestor Aparicio 22:18
People believed in this guy, and he made a bobblehead of himself, and he’s run like hell from Epstein. He stopped going to the games. This guy’s a fraud, and I was told that before he sat in the seat. I was told by someone who knew him, ‘Beware of David Rubenstein, he is not going to make a very good baseball owner. He’s an egomaniac, is what I was told about him, that he’s buying this as an asset, he, he, he buys things and sells them. He’s a toy collector of the Magna Carta. He likes collecting toys, and when this toy is shiny, it’ll be good for him. When it’s not shiny,

Joel Poiley 22:54
right,

Nestor Aparicio 22:54
it’s, you know, he’s mr. McGoo and off on an island, and that’s where it is. This is a, an ownership crisis for a civic asset that we have put $600 million into fixing their scoreboard and evicting the press from the press box to build a lounge, an airport lounge that people don’t want, that no one wanted to buy. I like, I don’t have a good story. I’d love to put season ticket holders on my airwaves right now, who are happy, who would sit here and literally tell me what’s good about the new ownership and the new this and the new. The only one talking good about the concessions is Melanie Newman and Rob Long, and I’m sure I’m sure they’re being paid to do that. So I like all of it. Is I did say something good about their concession. I bought a Heritage BBQ when I went out there. Brisket was delicious, but it was a one day. It’s a pop-up. It’s true.

Joel Poiley 23:49
Yeah. Well, you’re looking at the attendance, I mean, because I follow that too. Yes, they draw better on weekends and probably when they have promotions and bobble heads, but I think you’ve said this. I see crowds on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – 2526 27 If they were playing better and they were any good, and the people felt invested, those weekend crowds should be 3536 30, need

Nestor Aparicio 24:14
to be

Joel Poiley 24:15
sort of 40. They must be close.

Nestor Aparicio 24:18
I mean, Steve Pashadi once said something, and this is in his billionaire arrogance, but you can go back and look it up. Back when somebody asked him, how much money he was taking from the team might have been Drew, I don’t know. It was 20 years ago, it was 2000 maybe post Billick, but right around that time, 789, 10, maybe even when Billick, when he, he, you know, gave Billick a cold shoulder in 4345, whatever that was, whatever it was, he said, we have an obligation to make profit, we have an obligation to be profitable, and I thought to myself, because I own a business, I’m like, yeah, that’s. I tried to explain to Bob Haney and Rob, like those guys were here, like, hey, if the Orioles don’t pay the bill, I can’t pay you, right? Yeah, you know, that’s why Rob Long was holding the Free the Bird sign up 20 years ago and isn’t anymore, and I’m going to be resharing the 20th anniversary Free the Birds, not because I want to, not because I’m doing another one, I the headline Joel is for Katie and for Rubenstein, I don’t care enough to do Free the Birds. I put a lot of effort into Free the Birds that summer, a lot of effort,

Joel Poiley 25:29
a lot of money too, and I’m

Nestor Aparicio 25:30
not, I’m not printing up t-shirts, I’m not, you know, why? Because no one cares, no one cares enough to walk out on them, they’ve already walked out on them, and that’s that’s the sad part, that’s that’s really, and they don’t even know it, and they’re, you know, if Katie’s got a resume out the door to get the next job, and boys and Barry, or wherever it’s going to be, and take her team with her team of experts out of town experts, and Mark Fine wants to go work for another creep like the UFC guy putting cage fights out on the lawn of the White House, like to me these are just bad people, and I, and I’ve been treated poorly by them, and so have a lot of other people, and I don’t know how they’re going to come up from that, Joel. I don’t know how they’re going to come up and get oxygen when the time comes, and people have to reach for their credit cards and pay for this again. I don’t know who’s going to pay for it again. I really don’t.

Joel Poiley 26:24
We couldn’t wait to get rid of Angelos and my I had so many gripes with him too. But let’s go back to what, 9697 he had the best manager in baseball and the best GM, you know, Johnson and Pat Gil, and he ran them out of town, and that’s when things went south for what the next 14 years. They were terrible. Then

Nestor Aparicio 26:45
Messina was next, right? And then, then they couldn’t get pitched. I mean, we can go through, like, I wrote books on that, you know how. And when I wrote the book, people read that like a guy like Adam Jones, who I wrote that book for,

Joel Poiley 26:56
yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 26:57
could not believe how Angelos behaved like Donald Trump, like he was a maniac. I mean, Angeles was was maniacal in the 90s in how he behaved with owning the team, the fax machine, the drunk late night phone calls to Peter Schmuck and Tom Boswell, just on and on and on and on and on and on, the shit he talked in the paper about everybody, about Bud Sea, like just in general, when people read it, and it’s the New York Times, and it’s, you know, how bodily writing about it at USA Baseball, and who was the baseball writer at the Times, and I’m forgetting his name, the legendary baseball weekly writer there, but this is all written, all written in their words, you know what I’m saying, and I can’t. This new group has not in any way embraced Baltimore, and these, and they’re going through these tough times. This is an ownership crisis for this group over the next month, and then on top of that, the labor deal, and I don’t know that there’s no sign that they’re up to the task right now.

Joel Poiley 28:12
When we were talking about a couple months ago, what did I call Rubinstein? I said to me, he comes off very disingenuous, I really dislike people like that. Where, when you’re talking with them, and it’s like they’re looking through you, it’s like I’m better than you, I know more than you, but they’re not listening to you. And just from what you know, my family and friends up there have told me, and you know, I listen to Lockhart and other people up there too, they don’t get it at all, but like you said in the beginning of the segment, I mean he’s out gallivanting around, it’s just a commodity to him, so we couldn’t wait to get rid of the Angelos family and look what we got. Well, that’s taking

Nestor Aparicio 28:56
us long to catch on, you know what I mean. I mean, the opening day, I’m locked out of the press conference. They send a PR guy to me to get me to emote, like I sat with him for an.. I cried, Joel, I cried on the club level, telling this guy my story and how much the Orioles meant to me, and he admitted to me that he didn’t know anything about baseball, he didn’t even understand it, and the next time I heard back from them, six weeks later, where he’s reading off of a memo that Greg Bader sent him to read to me, to tell me what a piece of manure I am, what a prick I am, and how unworthy I am of a media pass,

Joel Poiley 29:34
and hearing that from other people, I mean, this is, this is,

Nestor Aparicio 29:37
this is 26 months ago now, and now he’s whistling the national anthem, and has made it no Rubenstein’s writing a book on his ownership already, because this guy’s a part of it, the Whistler, like these from top to bottom, these people have been frauds, I don’t know any other, they’re not getting a nickel from me, other than the cable TV. Me, that my wife sinks into our Verizon account, and we Verizon, everything here, because they help us feed our family too. But, like, I like, if I had the $20 a month plan, I’d pull it. Everybody, you know, I think, yes, everybody gave them 99 bucks, that’s on the BAM, you know, that’s on the show, right? Like, so I don’t know that they’re gonna, I don’t know how many people are giving them 20 bucks a month to pull their revenue, that if they lost 20,000 subscriptions next month, because people are just like, I’m done, for they’re not going to get three more months worth of my money. They have no off season plan. The television network is a joke. They’ve divorced themselves from the Nationals, but they haven’t fixed anything. I don’t see any revenue. I, Joel, I’m just.. I’m worried about this. I’m worried about this more, way more so than I was 20 years ago, in regard to what it’s going to be 20 years from now, but I’m not writing about it, I’m not caring to free the bird, you couldn’t pay me to do free the birds this year, literally, there’s a sponsor wants to give me 100 grand right now to run free the birds the next three months, I would say to that sponsor, we can’t get anybody. Nobody hates these people, they’re irrelevant. Who hates David Rubenstein? What are people stabbing the bobble head, like stabbing the wallet, like you know, like I like, like he’s a non factor, and the team has become a non factor. No one cares enough about them or believes in that they’re here to save the city, or that they’re going to save tourism, or they’re going to save Phillips in the harbor, or people are going to fill up the hotels, or the Yankees fans are going to come, or the Red Sox fans are going to come. Like, I mean, I don’t even know what they have to hang their hat on, bro. I really don’t, you know. And I know I’m rambling, it’s four three, but I’m pissed off, beyond I’m past pissed off. I, I was pissed off 20 years ago. I don’t even know what I am. I’m exasperated the way Jack Gibbons was with me when I was a kid.

Joel Poiley 31:51
I have a lot of friends up there that are exasperated, Nestor. I mean, they’re already telling me this was mid June. Hey, can’t wait till Raven’s training camp starts. I mean, that’s how tuned out people are. I mean, all I can say regarding Elias is he’s one lucky dude, because, like I said before, if anybody in that ownership group knew anything about baseball, he would have been out. I mean, he’s on his third manager, the

Nestor Aparicio 32:20
philosophical thing, right? Yeah, we don’t, we don’t draft pitchers, we don’t draft defense, and then the players we actually draft are hitting 194 and 188 in the big leagues, in their 20 big 2526 27 year years, right? Little, they hit,

Joel Poiley 32:34
they hit a 450 foot home run once every other week, that’s why we like them. I don’t get it, other than I’ve taken a hard look at Elias, and I’m wondering if he’s just one of those guys. He’s very smart, I think he’s a Yale grad, grad, maybe he talked his way into a job, and then he kind of moved along, and then, you know, he made some friends, especially when he got to Houston, and he speaks very well, but it’s all double speak and coach speak and GM speak, like three weeks ago or whenever. It’s disingenuous,

Nestor Aparicio 33:08
is what it is. The very reason he goes

Joel Poiley 33:10
out, then the team goes out and loses four in a row, which I thought was hilarious. I just don’t have any confidence in the guy anymore, so you know, bad ownership, bad GM bad farm system bad development going on guys getting to the majors and some of them when they get there they plateau ie Gunner, ie Adley cowsers like this may ocean in our day, man, he would have never made it out a double A. There’s just no way. So that’s what you got. It’s a shame they’re wasting some of this good pitching. I mean, just to get back on the field a little bit, but none of it will matter because they can’t catch the you and I like

Nestor Aparicio 33:52
you’re like an old fart. You’re fun because I could play like name, I could play name association, I could say Jim Fuller and you could say Drungo Hayswood, right? I could say Jim Traver, and you would say Ken Gerhart, going.. I knew that I could say Craig Worthington, and you would, you know, like we could play this game

Joel Poiley 34:15
when Gulliver..

Nestor Aparicio 34:16
I could say Matt Wieters, and you could say Adley Rochman.. I mean, I.. you know, and all of it doesn’t add up, and look, I’m not, because my last name’s Aparicio, I don’t need to pimp out Brooks and Frank and Paul Blair, Jim Palmer, and Hell Rogers did a good enough job for all of us doing that last year with his play, but, like, in a general sense, I’m not pining away for anything, I’m pining away for a few things, by the way, Joe Poili is our guest here. He is a Tom Mattie author, longtime sports writer. If you’re familiar, P O I L E Y. Hold the book up. Talk about the book.

Joel Poiley 34:48
There you go. Oh, that’s about came out a couple years ago. It’s doing very well. It’s basically about Tom’s life, but it starts out with that controversial playoff game. Him against the Packers in 65 and takes it right up through the end of his life to 10 years. He was with the Ravens, the wristband. Oh, well, yeah, it’s on the cover, and basically how much he loved Baltimore, and all the stuff he went through with Irsay, and basically how he was pretty instrumental with helping the Browns come to Baltimore because of his friendship with Modell, and just what an icon in the community he was. So, if you like old cold history, old NFL history, you’ll like the book.

Nestor Aparicio 35:34
And if you Google my name and Facebook, I told the.. I’ll cry telling it, I’m not going to tell it, but Tom Matty, the great Lenny Moore, and I want to give a shout out. I want to get.. I got to give some love here. I told you I saw your book in the window with Gentleman’s Gentleman on John Perot. We lost Sam Lamantia this week, founder of the Ed Block Courage Awards many, many years ago, and actually today is his burial, as we literally.. it’s in five minutes. We’re doing a morning segment on Monday. I couldn’t be there this morning to support Paulie and his family, so I just want to give some love. I’ll share a photo later on. I have some photos of me and Sam during our Ed Block days up at St. Vincent Center with the children playing football up there in March. Every March we did that for years and years. I was their community spokesperson at the turn of the century, wore a lot of tuxedos at Martin’s West, and a lot of football players on. So I just wanted to say that, because Tom was also Tom’s pictures all over the walls. He and Sammy, I mean, I ran into Tom a lot at Sam’s place. I mean, gentlemen, gentlemen was a real sort of hub for old Colts players for a long, long time, so, and their pictures are all over the wall there, including Joe Herman and Johnny, you, and like all that stuff, so, but to the Orioles, and this is where I am, and I’m not bleeding hard that it has to be perfect all the time, but it, it’s just been really, really poor. This new ownership group has been really, really poor, and it’s not me being a jerk saying it, everybody’s saying it now, except them, and the Empire, and the Emperor has no, no clothes at this point, because, like, this is an ownership issue, and this way I keep going back to Luke, and to every fan, every listener, it’s Albernaz, it’s the players, it’s a liar, it’s Katie Gray. No, no, man. No, no, no. These are billionaires. They went into this, they came here, they did the PAP a wave, they talked the game, they brought Calvin Hill, they are Grant Hill, they brought, you know, Kurt Schmuck. They look, you own the team, man. The buck stops with you. We gave you $600 million to fix up this crib here. You’re supposed to be in on this. I’m not going to let that go. I, I’ll hold Elias accountable and Albert, so what’s going on the field? But these people have shown no spirit to have a local plan to, you know, do anything other than grease off politicians and pat everybody on the back and do their little symposiums and rich people rooms where they’re trying to get donations and trying to affect this and affect that to get more property and more land tiff that tax this and like all of that great How about you be good community partners start with that because that’s where the whole thing started 75 years ago with a nice Jewish dude that owned a brewery who wanted to do good things around here and give the city something to cheer about and sell some beer, you know what I mean, like that’s not what this is, that’s not what this is.

Joel Poiley 38:33
You gotta, you know that video I sent you, Spirit of 66 where Sterling interviews Hofburger after they beat the Dodgers, you got to look at that and put it on your site, because after the initial padding on the back of Hofburger, Hofburger makes the statement that John

Nestor Aparicio 38:51
Sterling,

Joel Poiley 38:52
yeah, very

Nestor Aparicio 38:53
young, John Sterling, okay,

Joel Poiley 38:55
yeah, I got stories about John, his, my best friend across the street, his mother, David John. He used to call

Nestor Aparicio 39:02
the show all the time, and then I have tapes of me and John Sterling when he passed away, but he used to do my show all the time. He loved Baltimore. Yeah,

Joel Poiley 39:09
oh, he did. He and Carl Vellus were like this, but on that video, Hofburger makes it a point that I owed something to the city, I wanted to give back to the city, and that’s why I bought the team. That’s why I signed off on the Frank Robinson trade, even though I knew it was controversial. You go back and listen to it, that’s a true owner. Look, I’m basically an outsider, but it hurts me quite a bit when I see what’s going on out there, because I’m like you, I don’t see how this gets better. It’s when you have people that detached and people running the show that aren’t doing the job, and the people that

Nestor Aparicio 39:52
own it don’t know

Joel Poiley 39:53
it. The

Nestor Aparicio 39:55
bad news about Chad Steele, honestly, is how awful. He is at his job, and how awfully is it treating people? The worst part is his boss likes it and doesn’t care. Sashi Brown sanctions it, and Steve Bashadi overlords it. They like treating me like shit. They’re proud of it.

Joel Poiley 40:19
They’re

Nestor Aparicio 40:19
proud of it, ask them when you see Chad Steele, ask him how proud he is of treating of.. I don’t even want to say out loud what happened here in the spring, but something’s gone down here that I’m gonna report if it doesn’t get reported, because it’s outrageous. It’s outrageous what’s going on with the media here, and what these power brokers and these billionaires that own these two franchises, what they’ve done to people like me and Jason Locke and Ford and everyone else along the line, while the Vivianos and the Schmucks and all those people, Connolly, all those people are just gone, and then when, when, when crazy stuff happens in front of Jeff’s Rebecca and Jameson Hensley, stuff that they know is unethical and wrong. They don’t report it because they’re afraid, that’s what they know. The reporters,

Joel Poiley 41:07
I can tell in the post game, they know it’s wrong.

Nestor Aparicio 41:10
I’ve been thrown out.

Joel Poiley 41:11
Yeah, as I’d say it’s

Nestor Aparicio 41:12
wrong if they were thrown out. I don’t even like Jerry Coleman, everybody knows that, but if they threw him out, I wouldn’t think it’s right.

Joel Poiley 41:19
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 41:19
I wouldn’t find an excuse to make Chad Steele the good guy, because I don’t like Jerry. I mean, it’s silly.

Joel Poiley 41:26
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 41:26
I mean, they’re billionaires getting tax breaks, asking us for $20 for a beer and $300 for a ticket, 50 bucks to park. Come on, man, this isn’t, this isn’t the philanthropy that Rubenstein talked about two years ago. This is a fleecing, is what it is. It’s a civic fleecing by these arrogant, out-of-touch billionaires who mistreat the media, the fans, anybody that’s in their way. They’ll mistreat them, that doesn’t write them a big enough check. Period.

Joel Poiley 42:01
They even hired a manager that fits right in with them. I listened to a lot of the post-game interviews just to get called up. Our Naz was very highly thought of within the industry, because, again, my friend who works with the Rays said, “We, you know, they knew he was going to be a manager someday, you know, because he was in their system, he never made.. I think he didn’t make it past double A, but he was your typical catcher, you know, brainy guy, knew a lot about the game, but I think he’s very disingenuous too, and I can tell when the media is asking him questions, he gets that Boston snark about him, like Costa asked him beyond

Nestor Aparicio 42:41
prickly, he’s he’s a guy I don’t want to know. I watch him on TV and think

Nestor Aparicio 42:46
that guy and I would go nose to nose, that guy would burr up and say something shitty to me, and and I would say, what, I’m older than you, pal, I’ve been around here a while, treat me with the respect I deserve, the respect that I would give you the respect I give you, getting in my car and coming down here and doing my job against all odds, when your people don’t let me in and try to professionally deter me from even watching your games, when it’s all I’ve done to feed my family all my life. I burr up at these guys big time, Albernaz and I would not get along. I like, I look at it and say he has no respect for what I do for a living, nor does it, nor does Elias.

Joel Poiley 43:28
Yeah, you can tell, I mean, because Andy and a lot of those guys are trying to do their job, and he just takes their questions and turns it around like somebody asked him about Gunner moving, moving within the lineup, and he said, “Yeah, I moved him from two to one. Hahaha. You know, if I was there, I would talk

Nestor Aparicio 43:51
into the fans,

Joel Poiley 43:53
being you’re not

Nestor Aparicio 43:54
talking to Luke or me or somebody you like or don’t like. You’re not talking to Melanie or Rob or people you have in your pocket, or your coworkers, or whatever, you’re talking to the people buying the tickets, you’re talking to the people buying the donuts. Be respectful,

Joel Poiley 44:11
and the thing is, you still wonder if he’s making these calls. I think he’s a terrible manager. I mean, if he’s the one taking out Trey Gibson after four innings, and trying to get 15 outs with a mediocre or worse pen, that makes no sense. Why, if I was there, I would ask him, why are you not moving Blaze Alexander up and Gunner down, because you don’t want to hurt Gunner’s feelings. That’s a bad lineup. I mean, that’s getting down. Well, whatever happened with Posia a couple weeks ago was very unseemly

Nestor Aparicio 44:43
for a rookie manager with it with a young player, and okay, I woke him up. You seen his numbers lately? He’s a better player. Okay, great. So

Joel Poiley 44:53
did you read something where a lot of times when Pasayo like makes a hard out or. Breaks out, he cries on the bench. I mean, this is a very immature.. I read that a couple weeks ago, very immature 21 year old, and they’re trying to make him a catcher, and I don’t even think he’s that great defensively. He’s a DH first baseman in the making, except the first base is blocked for the next five years, but no, I don’t like the way Albernaz comes off, and I just question a lot of his moves, but I wonder how many of them are coming from Sig and Elias.

Nestor Aparicio 45:28
Yeah, and they would cover free. I mean, I just don’t feel like I’m getting any truth, any, any, you know, like as a fan, as a media member, like. And that turns you, yeah, you want me to invest in this? How about you? Just, I give you a lot of time, don’t bullshit me. How about that? You know, Joe Poili is here, he’s written books, he’s a longtime sports writer in the Tampa area, but has all sorts of Baltimore roots, and and is one of the 10 people in my life who beats up my phone every time something really awful and stupid happens with the orders, which it happens a lot, and and look, football season’s around the corner. I will return to you after the all-star break, after my experience at the there. And look, they are going to get an all-star game here. I think that’s going to be the take out of this within the next week or two. Though she, she will come back from Philadelphia, Katie Griggs, with an all-star game in her bag to give to their Don Roback and their sales team for a work stoppage, and I don’t think any of them understand that we, we understand it because we’ve had history with it, and knowing that there’s no bottom, but I don’t know how the bellies are for this current group of players led by the Bryce Harpers and the Verlanders and the Scherzers and those guys to fight with this group of billionaires who have leveraged a lot of money. Your Rubenstein likes to act like he’s like the richest guy on earth, and everybody talk, oh, he’s so rich. Well, then why was he looking for partners to get to buy pieces of this,

Joel Poiley 46:53
right?

Nestor Aparicio 46:53
You know what I mean, like he’s moving money around, he spent too much money on it. It’s clearly not, it’s not pumping off money. This isn’t the National Football League. We got to sing for our supper now. We actually have to have fans and subscribers, and people actually have to come and buy stuff like the NHL. Like, they actually have to buy tickets and beer and stuff in order for us to make. They have to subscribe to our lousy app and network that barely works half the time. Couldn’t even get the games on. Three, you watching that night? They couldn’t get the games on.

Joel Poiley 47:21
Yeah, I mean, this

Nestor Aparicio 47:22
is a joke. I mean, like, I’m going through things that have really happened, and all that they do is ban me from asking them questions to answer them. It’s insane, dude. So, I mean, and they’re toiling toward last place at this point, which I hope it doesn’t bottom out, because I don’t know that they have a problem solver, because you could say, well, if it bottoms out, they’ll get rid of Elias, and

Joel Poiley 47:43
I think he’s safe, I really do, because there’s nobody there to have the oversight to say, dude, what are you doing? I mean, call, he can go into any meeting with our Getty or or Rubenstein or any of those people, and explain his way out of this mess. I believe I think if there was somebody who knew enough about baseball, they could question him, hold his feet to the fire, and the proof is in the pudding. The results aren’t good. Hey, let me, let me leave everybody. Eric Getty

Nestor Aparicio 48:17
is going to be the decision maker, and according to everyone I know who’s been in contact with him, including me,

Joel Poiley 48:26
right.

Nestor Aparicio 48:26
Good luck with that dude. There’s a reason this guy’s been hiding, he’s a handful, and he is going to be the prime mover of this franchise. Michael Araghetti will either sell this or dive in and roll his sleeves up and become mr. Big around here, and that’s going to happen. He is running it. He is running the team. Michael Air, nothing’s happening there without him saying the Rubenstein, “I like that” or “I don’t like that” or “I think that’s because Rubenstein doesn’t have any ideas. Right? We, we’ve been through this. He doesn’t really know anything about baseball. It’s clear, right? Araghetti thinks he knows something about baseball. It was probably really dangerous, quite frankly.

Joel Poiley 49:07
I mean, you think he would sell the team possibly if it just doesn’t line up with it monetarily. They’re not having any

Nestor Aparicio 49:14
fun, and they’re not making any money.

Joel Poiley 49:16
No, no. Yeah, I

Nestor Aparicio 49:17
mean, if they’re not having any, do you think they’re going to have any fun in the off season during this work stoppage, it’s not going to be any fun for

Joel Poiley 49:25
them. No,

Nestor Aparicio 49:25
here’s two things they’re not going to do in the off season: win a World Series or control the work stoppage. And you know what those guys like more than anything, with the reason they locked me out, they love control, controls everything, controls their game, and they’re not in control of whether they’re getting on the field next April or not at all, they’re at, they’re in their worst nightmare, they’re in a room with 30 other pricks just like them, trying to beat up other millionaire pricks and debase them and say, you’re a relief pitcher, what are you worth, you’re basically

Joel Poiley 49:59
profits. Yep, yeah, yeah. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 50:01
that’s always that’s where it was 40 years ago when it was George Steinbrenner fighting with these guys. George Steinbrenner had some money and liked himself and had a country club membership. These people are on a different level, Cohen, Ruben, these are billionaires. This is an Art Modell, and

Joel Poiley 50:17
no,

Nestor Aparicio 50:18
Peter Angelo’s rolling into some, some tobacco money, these are guys that collect the Magna Carta, and then talk about philanthropy. I mean, literally, I mean it’s a different grade of human we’re dealing with, where Beshadi started as that guy and is now graduated 20 years later into being this arrogant off the yacht brick in Florida who’s disappeared and doesn’t want any part of everything he said he was going to be involved in when the marriage started back when I bought the PSL, right? Like, literally, those promises are long since dried up.

Joel Poiley 50:51
Look at that video I sent you from 66 I’ll resend it to you and watch that interview with Hofburger,

Nestor Aparicio 51:00
share it out on Facebook, and I’ll share it. How about that?

Joel Poiley 51:03
Okay, can I say one? I have one other

Nestor Aparicio 51:06
party shot. Joel Poili is here from Tampa. Go ahead, Joel.

Joel Poiley 51:08
This isn’t really a parting shot, but this is for people up there who follow the team and don’t understand why they can’t win more than three in a row. Brooks Robinson was a 267 career hitter. You look at his box score a lot of nights, you know, one for four, but he didn’t strike out. Ask Terry Crowley, who the best clutch hitter from the seventh inning on in any game ever was. Brooks was not a good fastball hitter. He lots of times would get overpowered by the big pitchers of the day, whether it was Nolan Ryan, Sam McDowell, Bert Blyleeven, Lindy McDaniel, I know these names don’t mean anything to most people, Dick Raddatz. If the game was on the line and you had the tie run or the go-ahead run at second, he’d shorten up by a quarter inch and just hit these worm-burning ground balls barely over the pitcher’s mound, barely over situational

Nestor Aparicio 52:02
hitting, literally situational

Joel Poiley 52:04
squeaking between a diving shortstop and second baseman, not getting 200 feet into center field didn’t matter. Game tied, Orioles win. His teammates meet him in the

Nestor Aparicio 52:16
locker room, even when he’s young, and say he’s a winner, he cares about us winning,

Joel Poiley 52:22
right? Part of the

Nestor Aparicio 52:23
game is gone from that with hit and run, and situationally, right? Sure,

Joel Poiley 52:28
yeah. And people wonder why the Orioles can’t win more than three in a row, and you look at that little LOB stat in the box score, you know, one for 12, zero for eight, that’s why,

Nestor Aparicio 52:40
and they don’t catch the ball very well

Joel Poiley 52:42
either. You’re right, I was trying to think of a worse defensive team, maybe the ADA team with the illustrious like Jeff Stone in the outfit, Rick playing third base

Nestor Aparicio 52:56
team that lost 21 games in a row. So we are

Speaker 1 52:58
scrubbing, but other

Joel Poiley 53:00
than that, I can’t think of a worse defensive outfit than this one. I mean, that team

Nestor Aparicio 53:05
had two Ripkins in the middle, like they could catch the ball. I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, they look.. I’ll let you go on this, but you’re really an old fart. You played Stratomatic baseball

Joel Poiley 53:19
and all star baseball, Stratomatic

Nestor Aparicio 53:23
baseball, you graded the play. I tell Luke this all the time, Tom Capp and I, and Charlie Kilgore, all my old friends. We played with Johnny Raff, we played Stratomatic baseball with the dice. We had a league back in the 80s, and that was a.. I was chasing girls, drinking beer, and still playing Stratomatic baseball. It’s how much I love Stratomatic baseball, so 8788 89 I had a league at my house, we would all blow on the dice and come over, have some beers, you know what I mean? It was fun. We didn’t have a football team, that was fun, right? Summertime, 8889 91 to four was defensive rating. You can look this up, Stratum, it’s Stratomatic was the best one, you know anybody, it’s a great defense, Manny Machado is a one, Brooks is a one, right? Four, we would always say, like Sherman, a bando, that’s so it must have been 9495 96 We played his game, Sherman, a band, oh, Chino Martinez, they were fours, right? Right, like in that era, you know, Glenn Davis was a three as a first baseman because he was a power hitter, so I’m just going through player, Brady Anderson was a was a two, but really was a one, like, but, but, like, we thought, well, they rated him wrong, they didn’t, they didn’t value him, and then he became a one, Mike Devereux was a one, right, great player, Mike, Mike Bordick would have been a one, right, Rich Dar would have been a one, so one to four, they don’t have a guy on this, like Kauser’s a two, they don’t have gotten

Joel Poiley 54:41
better. Watchman’s

Nestor Aparicio 54:42
a two,

Joel Poiley 54:44
no,

Nestor Aparicio 54:44
and everything else is a four. I mean, everything else about the team is baseline DH level. They have seven DHS from the field, like literally, guys, you would not want to give a glove. To them, Earl Weaver would come back and say that I can’t put that guy on the field seven days a week, because he’s, he’s just gonna cost us, like, and collectively as an ensemble.

Joel Poiley 55:10
Oh, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 55:11
it’s brutal. It’s just brutal. It’s pictures, it’s brutal. Have two pitchers do color and talk about it.

Joel Poiley 55:18
Oh, yeah, you watch Taylor Ward go after a fly ball. I mean, I know he’s made a few plays this year. He’s out there every day. High fly ball, that’s going to hit maybe on the warning track. He goes this way and that way, so he gets all turned around. He doesn’t know how to go to the ball, just basic stuff, man. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 55:38
I love how much you love the game, Joel. You know what I mean. You get so aggravated. I love

Joel Poiley 55:43
it. What do you call me a nasty MF? I don’t know, because I care, man. I want to see them do well. I care more than Katie

Nestor Aparicio 55:52
Griggs. I do more

Joel Poiley 55:54
removed from that,

Nestor Aparicio 55:56
you know. I know I care more than Mark Fine and more than David Rubenstein. You know why? Because I’ll be here when they’re gone,

Joel Poiley 56:02
no question.

Nestor Aparicio 56:03
And that’s what I told Rafael Palmeiro, that’s what I told Davey Johnson, and that’s what I’m telling them all. I’ll be here when you’re gone. I told Angelos that too. Steve Miles, that was the best thing. Steve Miles, the lawyer, he said to me on the Free the Birds Day. I never forget this. I get, he did the show a couple months ago. He’s in his 80s now. He’s one of my favorite people in life. Stephen L Miles, let’s talk about it. He said to me, ‘Don’t worry, man, you’re gonna outlive him about Angelos. That’s what he always told me 20 years ago. So, I’ll be listen, I’ll get you back on in August. We’ll tell some Free the Bird stories. It’ll be a blast. There’ll be 22 games. Joe Boyle is here. You can find him out on the internet. He’s down at Tampa, Florida, soaking up the sun like Sheryl Crow, and join himself down there. He’s out on the internet. He’s written a book on Tom Matty. You can find it, Last Man Standing. Hold that up. Tell everybody, I can find it.

Joel Poiley 56:51
There you go. Oh, it’s all over Amazon. Book’s a million anywhere that it’s not in stores, but anywhere online. Just put in Tom’s name and the title of the book, and be

Nestor Aparicio 57:01
honest with me. Is there a typo in the whole book? Are there any typos that you’ve identified?

Joel Poiley 57:05
I’m going to be honest with you, I, you know, because I’ve read it 1000 times. I had a lot of people help me, a lot of good editors, in addition to the pub. Is it

Nestor Aparicio 57:14
clean? It’s clean.

Joel Poiley 57:15
I good for you, maybe one or two. I’m very proud of it. Very proud of it.

Nestor Aparicio 57:20
I’m proud of my books too, but they have typos in them. Is the first thing Steve Bishotti mentioned to me. He is Joe Poili, I am Nestor. We are WNST, AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. I got the ending right.