Nestor Aparicio tells Dennis Koulatsos about when he and Steve Bisciotti talked Colts’ records and Baltimore history in Canton with Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay at The Biltmore in Arizona in 2006.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
play, baltimore, day, colts, win, steve, orioles, years, week, billy joel, nestor, ravens, jim, pennant, wanted, dad, johnny unitas, threw, stevie nicks, jerseys
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Dennis Koulatsos
Dennis Koulatsos 00:02
Welcome back. My next guest is Nestor Aparicio doing great things always on Baltimore positive 1570 Am wn St. Nestor welcome in
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:10
Hey, it’s like old times here like sports is important again and like, you know not talking as much about this and that and crab cakes and oysters. I got time for that. I’m doing all of that. Even some concerts and whatnot. But boy, the Orioles just, you know, don’t play on Wednesday night not playing on Thursday night or you know, we’re playing at Cleveland Thursday, and trying to pick the sort of pieces up after Houston and get ready for the weekend. This magic number gets stuck at eight which is a Cal Ripken number. But for me, um, you know, the bullpen remains an issue for them and setting their pitching. And it’s wonderful. They’re gonna win 100 games. I think they’re gonna win the division, get the buy. I think there’ll be okay. They’ve played their last competitive team. They’re gonna see Cleveland, Washington, Boston, they’ll be home all next week. It’ll be a nice little homecoming for them. Everybody’s getting their playoff tickets. I’ve seen that all over social media last 48 hours. Everybody’s bragging about what they got the pitching right and Tuesday night Flaherty in the bullpen looks okay. Wednesday afternoon Fuji out of the bullpen ball one ball six ball seven ball 10 Palmer’s Yellin You gotta get them out. Palmer’s Yellin on the air. You can’t begin watching him. We can’t see any more of this.
Dennis Koulatsos 01:25
He’s all in. J.
Nestor Aparicio 01:29
Palmer’s watch 40 years of this waiting for them to win.
Dennis Koulatsos 01:32
8Yeah, has he really has been there. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 01:35
speaking to that. I got I got a big big anniversary this weekend. I’ll well this is true on Saturday. It will be 50 years to the day when my dad took me to my first Colts game 50 years to the day. And Dennis, you know, I know this bothers you this week and we talked about a little earlier in a week and I talked to Bob Kravitz out in Indianapolis but this is my this is my belt buckle from 1977 from Sears Roebuck. My parents got me a belt. Bert Jones was at the helm. Roger car. Sack pack Glen dowdy little Mitchell the whole deal, right Tony Linhart head marcher Brodo and so we played colts this week. And I got into this like with Todd radium. Todd radium is a very famous brand designer for sports. So anytime we talk about laundry and pajamas and logos and branding, he’s written books on all of this. He’s a true story. And he came on I brought all my jerseys out that I’ve been showing you the last couple of weeks. And we did a whole turn. And we’ve been planning this for weeks about jerseys because we’ve been arguing about the Baltimore City connects and what looks good and what doesn’t look good and all that. And like in the middle of it, I had to think about the day I fell in love with the Houston Oilers. It was 50 years ago, Saturday, September 23 1973. I found the ticket stops. I have the I have my program that my father bought me that day that I still have to this day. And I actually went and put my hands on it today, because I wanted to get the date right September 23 1973, the 50th anniversary of my first football game
Dennis Koulatsos 03:15
you remember going there.
Nestor Aparicio 03:17
I remember everything about it. I thought I remember where we sat. The story that I told Todd and I’ll tell you as well for your audience, but and this really had to do with the Oilers and Dan Passerini was on a couple of weeks ago and the Euler colors are all like back now because the Titans are gonna wear those jerseys this year. But my dad took me to the game that day. And Stan white sack Joe Nemeth and separately shoulder that day and Stan white loves to tell me the story. But I saw Stan last year at the Cal Ripken basketball event that he has with Jay Wright and with Gary Williams. And so And Scott Van Pelt involved and that’s a beautiful events down at the Marriott waterfront around this time last year, but basketball is just getting started late September early October. And I just gotten lost my press pass and Chad Steele threw me out and all that so Stan pulled me up, you know big brother and me and we got to talk a little bit and I said to him, you know about the Joe Naima thing he’s like that’s that’s a legendary game. That’s he said there were eight interceptions in that game where the Colts threw eight more in the first half for for Marty Donruss and for in the second half for Bert Jones eight interceptions in that game 50 years ago Saturday Stan boy tells me all these stories about I have the program actually took a picture of it. Stan sent me some pictures that he had literally in his archive of him sacking Oh, okay picture of him sacking Joe Namath that day when he separated Jane That of course got killed. They lost 34 to 10. That day, Nemeth didn’t play the backup quarterback game and the whole deal. But that was 50 years ago. And what I remember about my dad taking me out, was we sat out in in left centerfield I had just lost my finger that summer, summer before so I was without a finger even then that early in my life. I was four years old. I was almost five. And my dad on the way out of the stadium all I remember my dad that day was it was the first two weeks that Johnny Unitas was a was a charger show. My dad was pissed at the Colts. I mean, there was Unitas wasn’t there. The crowd was kind of pissed at the Colts right? They were getting their ass kicked 34 to 10 interception. interception. interception. Bert Jones is drafted. The team stunk right that the next year they caught fire two years later the caught fire 75 They’re really good right? But it took them you know that ramp up being not so good. 7374 I’m trapped and Randy Burke and you know that era of of colts football. But Mike there was a bad crowd that day. They got they lost. They won the Super Bowl two years before I don’t remember that.
8Dennis Koulatsos 05:58
Was a crowd 25 30,000 No,
Nestor Aparicio 06:00
no, no, it was still a full it was it was a pool house. Gotcha. Gotcha. Nemeth was playing. I mean, people barely knew her stage name and 73 It’s a great Yeah, right. Right. Right. I mean, but my dad was this is when our state was getting drunk with Schnellenberger and Joe Thomas. Remember he went in and made Joe Thomas, the coach for all sorts of issues that remind very reminiscent of the theater principles in regard to poor management. Right. And leaving the stadium that day. My dad, you remember the men that used to push the supermarket carts that would have pennants and bobbleheads and hacks and stuff? Peanuts. They sold stuff that you wanted. Right out it were the bushes were. And it were the bricks were on 33rd Street where the buses would let off. And we were coming out of the stadium that day. And I don’t think we stayed to the end. I think they were losing my three. My dad grabbed me we were going out on the bus, right? Because I don’t remember there being a lot of people when I was leaving. But I remember seeing the vendor. This is like my wife would say I’m like Mary Luana. I really I do remember almost everything in my life. But my dad said you want a pennant? And he wanted to get me the Chargers pennant because he was pissed at the Colts. Right? And I think he said we got a colts pennant, which we did have a colts pennant. He’s like get a get a chargers pen. That’s what Johnny Unitas says. So my dad bought me two pendants that day. He bought me to keep in mind now he lost his son in a drowning four years before this. Right? I mean, so like anything I wanted, I probably was gonna get right. I asked for it. Whatever the vendor said five hours is $2. Right. And my dad might have paid it because my dad wanted to make me happy. You know what I mean? My dad loved me. I was four years old. I was being adopted in that process. And I went home that day with the San Diego Chargers pennant and a Houston Oilers pennant on there, and I wanted the Oilers pennant. And that’s all I wanted was the Oilers pennant because I love the colors. And I love the blue. And I love the derrick and I thought it looked cool. And then when I watched and they had a silver helmet, and a baby blue element that they had worn in those those years and 68 to 73 and I fell in love with the Houston Oilers and they stunk and I fell in love with Dan Passerini and they were no good. He had a fun name Santa like Italian food. And then they got good. And they came to Baltimore and 76 I saw them play and they were so terrible. Passerini told me how terrible he was that night. He’s like I was on Monday Night Football we stunk we were no good. But we got our own Campbell after that. We stopped trying
Dennis Koulatsos 08:35
to Tyler rose after that. It was worth it. But it was 50
Nestor Aparicio 08:39
8years ago that I fell in love with football that my dad took me to see Joe Nemeth play. I saw Bert Jones play, trying to think of other Hall of Famers that may have been on the field that day. I actually I have the program. Like I could grab the program and like read. I’ll do that on Monday after the Ravens beat the snot out of the Colts a better the Indianapolis Colts. I will storytel with you Monday, I’ll get the program out. And we’ll have a good time I’ll say boxscore out. And that’s what bugs me
Dennis Koulatsos 09:06
the most. What bugs me the most is Cleveland got the keep the Browns under colors in the history. And Baltimore was not given the same consideration by the National Football League. We should have kept our records our colors, everything. And
Nestor Aparicio 09:22
what’s that? Yeah. The whalers like all of the markings, right, but to our own the brown stuff and kept it and I wrote about this in preparation one kept it as a negotiating ploy knowing he was going to have to give it back knowing that that was going to be part of the divorce is that he? Because I asked art the first question here. And the first question I asked was, Are there going to be called the browns? Great press conference a great question. He had a Browns logo. I’m like are our fans going to call them the Baltimore brass
Dennis Koulatsos 09:54
now? I’m glad he did it that way. He said
8Nestor Aparicio 09:57
yes. If you go back to the press conference, he’s said that because the lawyers were given Chase, right and all along, Pat Moriarty, Kevin, burn all those people. You know, Bob eller. They all told me all of that.
Dennis Koulatsos 10:09
Well, I’m very grateful that that he did that because I would hate for the ravens to be called the Baltimore browns.
Nestor Aparicio 10:15
I went to, I went to and you know who agreed, and he and I are not in agreement on much lately who’s who’s shoddy Steve shoddy. You read my letter, Steve. And in that letter, I referenced Steve Rashad, he grabbed me at the owners meetings at the Biltmore. Bullock was still the coach, we’re going back to oh five. Now what was oh six, it was oh six, because Jimmy Ursa just won the Super Bowl. And this is why Steve wanted to approach him. Steve wanted to approach him eight weeks after he won the Super Bowl. For the very purpose that you’re talking about this right here that the owner of the ravens and this is a long time ago, is 17 years ago, cared enough at that time, he had owned the team for five minutes, he finally owned the team in Oh, 405. Right. I mean, our David still on the team at two and three and a part of it. He had just gotten the team. And he, he wanted me to go with him. He said, I want you to talk for Baltimore. This is what Steve said to me. Well, how far we come. So he and I, he said meet me at one o’clock after the meeting. We’re gonna go for a walk with Jim or Seattle live Randy or smoke cigar. And we’re gonna talk about the Colts records. And I want you to tell him from the Baltimore perspective, and the way Steve explained it, and I have to write about this at length at some point in my memoirs, but the way Steve explained it in front of Jimmy was that if there’s a divorce, you and your wife get divorced, and your child gets married and you’re remarried, and she’s remarried, who sits where? In the pews in the church, who sits on the left who sits on the right. Like and and that is how Steve kind of couched it with Jim that day. And Jim’s a very touchy feely guy and a very, Jim will listen to you, Jim is always every time I’ve been in a room with Jim. Jim has been very focused on feeling me. He’s a kinesthetic kind of guy. You know what I mean? He’s, he’s very aware of a mo emotion. You know, he’s not an emotionless guy. And Steve made me aware. They said, when you’re with Jim, slow down a little bit, you know, we’re asking him for something heavy, you know, so like, and I respected all of that. And, you know, I respected it so much. I never I never even talked about it. You know what I mean? Like, I like it’s a private thing, but it’s, it should she should be proud of you. I was proud of him. And I told him that and I wrote about that. And I said, I can’t believe that. You chose me. I remember saying to my wife that they’ve my father. We’re live he died. My father knew I were on a veranda with two billionaires disgusting. How in the first the first wife, the First Family and Johnny Unitas and how sickening that makes all of our fans have to go to the Hall of Fame and see all that sitting under Indianapolis. That was Steve’s beef. Then it got taken from that meeting. Jimmy said, I’ll tell you this, you know, Jim Irsay said, Jim Irsay said I would do anything I could do to heal it. But I can’t change history. I can’t change what really happened. What really happened is the Mayflower has moved the franchise and the franchise name. And that’s the way the Hall of Fame does. It would would it matter to him to Jim, if they took all the Colts records and put it on the Ravens side as a This happened in Baltimore, Jim was all for it. Jim was all for it. Steve was all for it. The Hall of Fame said that’s not our standard here. That’s not the way we reprint resentment portray the history of franchises. It’s not the way we do it. And that was the official answer. So I’m glad we’re talking about this this week. It’s very young. It’s kind of timely with the cold
Dennis Koulatsos 14:13
8have proposed, shall we say? Yeah, when Sunday we have a ballgame to win
Nestor Aparicio 14:18
and three or four baseball games to win between now and then eight and that we need to get on the right side of and wins or losses in order to wrap this thing up. But then it’s just as tight you know, when Fuji comes out starts throwing balls and they lose the game. And you just I believe I’m still a true believer but man it’s a really isn’t over till it’s over and they did their champagne the other day, but they don’t want to be playing baseball in a three game series. No, not Toronto, or, you know, they don’t they don’t need to be doing that. That that that’s not good mojo for where they’re sitting right here right now with a week left to go in a season. They got to finish the deal, and then they gotta rest up. And then they got to be ready. Need to win game one.
Dennis Koulatsos 15:01
Now if they win a division? That’s true, they’ve got to win two series before they get in the World Series. Am I correct in saying that? Alright, so I
Nestor Aparicio 15:07
learned this. This is a first world problem, Dennis, you ready for this? I booked airline flights for Lucas and I didn’t even know his middle name. Christopher, make sure you refer to me. So I held some flights, because there’s possibilities here we’re gonna go. So the hlds. So the wildcard is the three game right? It’s the Wednesday Thursday. That’s the wildcard. Right? So we are the wildcard if you don’t win vision, right? So you’re in that series. So if if all things hold to where they are right now, and they’re the one seat because they can’t be the two seat because Houston, Texas, they can’t catch them, right. So they’re gonna be the one seat, the two seats gonna come out of the West because Minnesota can’t catch the West, right. So Minnesota is going to be the three C they’re going to play the sixth in the wildcard Minnesota is going to have to play the division winner is going to have to play the 60. The 60 could be any of these teams at this point, including Seattle, I mean, Toronto, Texas, Tampa, they’re all bunched together. So the 60 will play the three seats at Minnesota. And then the four or five will play each other which, as you’re sitting here this week, it was Tampa and Toronto, mainly Texas would be the team going to Minnesota but that can change in a heartbeat. And Houston is not proclaim the winner of the West yet either. So I mean, it could be Texas, whatever right? But I learned this the six three winner has to go to to see the six three winner can we can’t play them. And this was the ideology was this and it doesn’t hold true. Because if Tampa is the four seed, there are four seed with 95 wins. They’re the better team. They’re the second best team. That’s a fourth see what they tried to do in the seating get your arms around this is make sure that the one C doesn’t face a division winner in the alts that the one C gets the advantage of playing a wildcard it’s not an advantage this time right? It wouldn’t be an advantage in either Yankee Red Sox two years either because they both win 100 free games and you know pinch each other out or whatever in the years when they were real powerhouses. So the Orioles can only play the four or five so the Orioles are going to be stuck. If Tampa survived playing Tampa, okay, probably right probably there’ll be the favorite Tampa would be the favorite then they can lose the Tampa or Toronto and a three game series or they wouldn’t play Texas, probably because the six C’s gonna play the three. So they but they can’t play Minnesota. They can’t play Houston and they can’t play the six seed whoever it is in their round, they can only play the four or five then then they play and then you know they would play the winner which Houston would have an advantage if they if they hold on as the to seed. So you know, I held the flight to Houston for the ALCS. All the dates are said, you know the real controversy, Dennis and I don’t know how much you’ve read about this. Is this Billy Joel Stevie Nicks concert next week? No. Okay, so October 7 is a Saturday night. Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks are playing the football stadium. The ravens are out of town that weekend, right the weekend of the eighth and then they’re there in Pittsburgh. And then they go to to London, right? That night of the seventh to the seven o’clock show Stevie Nicks plays a full gig. Believe me it’s a long concert to do on it with you dollar tickets. They sold 50,000 tickets is a lot of people come in the Orioles are slotted for game one of the ALC if the Orioles win the division and hold on, that would be the day that game one of the Al DS happens that they would play Tampa Toronto whoever it would be and they have the parking lot issue. Okay, the Orioles hold all the cards. They are the grandfather. Big Daddy because they came first. They can throw Billy Joel out of the parking lot they can hold on it’s gonna be interesting. And you know how good the Orioles are, how excellent they begin to deal with and circumstances like this. I would say that, you know, play your Billy Joel albums because I don’t know that you’re seeing Billy Joel on the seventh. And I think the Ravens have been so docile. And if I really were to get together with Steve over a beer and ice to give Dick cast of raft a menorah about this privately. I talked to him all the time about how much you’re going to take from them before one yells that they’re not people. They’re not a good part. How many times are they going to St. Keith Urban in here and throw you out to Denver 10 years ago after you win? Like and it’s not the Ravens style to like, say anything. But I always said what’s true and I’m telling you, the Orioles win the division and they get the bye This Billy Joel thing will become an issue and he’s gonna get Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks are gonna get thrown out. And the Ravens aren’t going to say a word. They’re going to reschedule and whatever insurance they may or may not have had and whatever codicils that are in, because the language in the contract is about sporting events, so it’s very nebulous in its terminology. You’ll be hearing about this in the next because you’re always gonna win the division I believe that I believe they’re gonna get to buy I believe they’re going to play a home game in the Al Division Series on Saturday October seventh. So as you said the racetrack hold all tickets. Hey,
8Dennis Koulatsos 20:39
great stuff as always Nestor I appreciate you enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the festivities. Enjoy the games. Hopefully the weather holds up and we don’t get rained out.
Nestor Aparicio 20:47
Well, it’s I don’t see Fuji pitch anymore in a tight ballgame. I’m good. You got it. There
Dennis Koulatsos 20:50
it goes. Nestor Aparicio. You’re here. 1570 am WSD. We’ll take a quick break and come back right after this.
