Sportsf1rst: The little 1984 tabloid sports newspaper that began an incredible Baltimore media journey

Forty years after “Sportsf1rst” from The Baltimore News American folded, Nestor hosts an alum reunion to discuss his ambitious first newspaper gig downtown and the folks who went on to amazing careers in sports journalism around the country.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sports, news, chris, story, baltimore, years, newspaper, people, dave, bob, write, american, remember, sports editor, called, orioles, paper, john, pete, bernie

SPEAKERS

Gene Boyars, Dave Smith, Pete Kerzel, Chris Zang, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

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Welcome home. We are W N, S T Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively gonna have some fun in this one. I’m doing the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Gonna be doing a whole bunch of stuff. I’m gonna be at the Costas on the 27th gonna be celebrating my birthday, as well as Luke’s birthday, as well as Jim Palmer and Sammy hagar’s birthday on October the 11th at Pizza John’s in Essex. Yes, they have a crab cake. No, they will not have oysters. I’m doing oysters every single day for our friends at Liberty. Pure solutions, one 800 clean water. They keep my well water clean. They can keep your well water clean. Also. Our friends at curio wellness, I’m wearing my I’m a blunt person shirt, just to make my friends giggle, because they’ve known me a long, long time. Where to begin in this one, back when I was a young man, my first gig was at a newspaper called The news American. My parents called at the news post, and there was an opportunity came my way, and I’m not going to go too far into my own story, because it’s documented, but I was a kid at the mall, there was a printer on the second floor who was the father, stepfather of girl I went school with, and said he was going to get me a job at the newspaper. And I filled out a form in eighth grade, ninth grade, to go to high school to be a journalist. I thought it was gonna be rich Cunningham. And I ran into this family at Christmas time, 1983 at the mall, and he had always promised to get me a gig back when I was like 12, and now was like 14 or 15, and he said he’s going to get me a gig. And then my phone rang, and there was a guy named Tom Robinson who called and said, hey, here, you want to be a sports journalist? And I cleared my throat, and I said, Yes, I do, Mr. Robinson. And next thing you know, I’m on the number 10 boss with my dad. And in this old, broken down newspaper the corner South Lombard street called the News America. And there was an upstart little tabloid sports section called sports first. And this was a news this is the August 1984 edition. This must have been what I had my first byline. I was 15 years old and 10 months when this was published. And this publication lasted one year and maybe a week or two. I’m gonna let the adults in the room clear all of that up, but I have gathered anyone who would gather from the staff. It was really all brought on by the death of one of our colleagues, guy named rich Petro, whom we all loved, who fixed all the cameras, and we needed him today to make the zoom cameras work, and he’s not among us anymore. And there was a picture of a bunch of young men, I should say, and I can share this out into the zoom right now for everybody to see, this was the crew at a newspaper called sports first back in 1983 in 1984 some of these good looking folks have gathered here today to reunite rich Petro is the man on the far right in the upper corner, sort of standing alone, because he did stand alone right over the very famous John Steadman, I’d like to welcome in out of my my crew of colleagues, and I was by far the youngest one there, but, but not too far, because some of you would say you were teenagers. I know that Tom Robinson was, and he couldn’t be with us here today. Some folks departed. Some folks went on to fame and infamy, including Barry Levine, Bernie miklas, Jeff Gordon in St Louis, our lead, fearless leader, Bob Paston, who went on to run the St Louis Post Dispatch, but gathered here today, some of my bosses, some of my editors, some of my mentors. One guy I dragged to my high school luncheon because I got credit in my senior year for working at the news American, I’d like to welcome in our one of my bosses at the time, Dave Smith, who is like the executioners were just sort of a black mask because he can’t figure out to make his camera work, which is where we could have used rich Petro right now. Chris Zang is here a long time editor, a long time Community Relations and PR and tall man, and the man who accompanied me on my 21st birthday and bought me my first legal drink at hammer Jack’s legal drink, we were together that night. Gene Boyers is here, a great photographer, my friend, who lives out in the desert, went on to Jersey and shot a lot of World Series, a lot of games, a lot of Yankees, a lot of giants. And then Pete kurtzel. Everybody’s familiar with Pete. He no stranger to wnst over many years of Jimmy Buffett conversation as well as, oh, real baseball gentlemen, how are you 40

04:41

years?

Nestor Aparicio  04:43

Literally today, as we tape this on September 21 1984 that the sports first shutdown, the news American would say so long so I have this. This is may 27 1986 it was a. Almost two years later that this was the original. You remember Mr. Levitt pleading guilty there, and Memorial Day 1986 and then they went from this to so long Baltimore. I have both editions here from the news American you guys, some of you were a part of that. And I guess Dave, let’s lead off with you, because you were with me at the sun. You were sort of a big brother to me in the beginning. And I don’t know how all of you gathered to even I don’t know the genesis of Bob past and saying, we’re putting a newspaper together. We’re going to hire some young people around here.

Dave Smith  05:36

Yeah, well, you know, I had a little bit of a head start at the news American because I was a college intern there. So I, you know, I was on the phone, taking agate from basketball games, and they sent me out to cover a few things. And you know, when I was getting ready to graduate, that happened to be the time that sports first was, was hiring people, and Bob Paston offered me a job, and I was going to start two weeks after high, after college graduation. So I said, sounds good to me and, and that’s, that’s how I got started. And it was, it was a great way to get into the business, because I already knew so many of the people I would be working with. You know, Z in particular, you know, you say Nestor that you consider me somewhat of a mentor, man. Z was, Z was my mentor. Z, Z taught me the ropes. You know, he was, he was so kind and patient to put up with, with all of us young people trying to, trying to figure out how to, you know, how to edit stories. But I, you know that that’s one thing I remember about my year at sports first was, it was such a learning experience and and Chris sang, man, he was, he was right at the center of that. So I’ll always remember that. But that the other thing I want to say about about sports first in general, man, is, you know, if we were only in existence for one year in one week. It was, it was a hell of a year. As far as you know, news value in sports, you know, the Orioles. First thing that happened was the Orioles won the World Series about a month after we went live, even less than a month after that. And, you know, we were, we were targeted. We were marketed to the Baltimore, Washington area, not just Baltimore. So you know, you have to include the Redskins going to the Super Bowl there. And then few months after that, the Colts packed up and went to Indianapolis. Couple months after that, Jim Palmer threw his last pitch for the Orioles and and then a couple months after that, was the LA Olympics. So it was, it was an incredibly newsworthy time in in Baltimore sports, in particular, Baltimore, Washington sports, Oh, also, I have to throw in, you know, Maryland basketball winning the ACC tournament. It was lefty drizzles only, only ACC tournament title. So it was, it was, man, we were, we were chock full of big events. So if we couldn’t survive selling papers, you know, to to an audience there. I mean, I guess there was no hope for us, but, but the news certainly didn’t hurt. Zanger,

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Nestor Aparicio  08:10

you want to defend your own honor here, I always remember you in the newsroom. I was a kid, and then you followed me, and I followed you to the evening sun. We didn’t have like, the same deadlines at the evening sun, like the evening sun, we were kind of like chilling out and whatnot, usually in the middle of the night, taking time to edit. You know, there was enough time to get the job done. But I always remembered, like, you were always sort of like calm, you know what I mean, calm in a circumstance where the newsroom was not always calm. So we need to calm. We need a big, big, grown ups like you. Zanger, well,

Chris Zang  08:44

maybe part of that was because my sidekick, Mike Marlowe, who was the designer, who unfortunately is on the road today and couldn’t be with us, but we would become some nights, because we’d be following you down hammer jacks to check out whatever Act was, was was going on at the time, because the evening sun shift was we we needed to be done like, like seven in the morning. And obviously, it really didn’t matter whether we were doing well, there had to be paid page flow and all that good kind of stuff. But for the most part, as long as we were hitting our deadlines, if, if we decided to go out for an hour and accompany you to some, some local place where, where maybe somebody like, like Joan Jett or

Nestor Aparicio  09:40

Ginger Baker was the big night. As I remember, you guys were very turned on by Ginger Baker.

Chris Zang  09:45

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Well, I was playing drums at the time and and I took a drumstick, expecting ginger to sign it for me, and he looked at me like I had three heads and told me that wasn’t going to happen. So And anyway, he

Nestor Aparicio  09:58

was not nearly as friendly as. Mothers were in the Rock and Roll space, for sure,

Chris Zang  10:02

no but extremely talented. And how, how he Jack, Bruce and Clapton put together cream with with three people as well. Them at them in the Hendrix experiences,

Nestor Aparicio  10:16

sometimes I wonder how we put together a newspaper back in the day. And I take this everywhere I go and everything I do, the budget meetings and news value and what is news. And you know, my status in the local media is sort of infamous at this point, 40 years later. But all of it was brought on by all of you taking a 15 year old kid and saying, you know, you have to press people on issues behind all of this was the news in journalism, we had fun. And, I mean, it would have made a great sitcom the whole thing. Gene, were you at the news? American before sports first? Do you have some history you can bring? Is that like how Hearst and they were trying to make a business out of this sports little paper in 1983 84 I

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Gene Boyars  11:02

came to the news American in July in 1970 so I had been there, and when I first started a new guy in the photo department where you’re going to work nights, which didn’t bother me, because it meant I got to go to the Orioles. I got to go to the bullets. And that was fun. And I came in after about it been there about a year, and I came in one morning and my boss said to me, I need you to switch shifts. I said, What said? Andy keen, our early guy keeps oversleeping and they’re going to fire him. I need you to switch to six to two, that was 6am to 2pm and do news and features. Sure. I’m 24 years old. I’m going to say no to the boss. I did that for eight years, 79 when the Orioles made their World Series run. Paul White, who was them, my boss, came to me in August and said, I need to take you off that early shift. I’m going to put you on the Orioles straight through as far as they go. And when that ended, he said, I’m just going to leave you at night and you’ll shoot sports and we’ll work a schedule out to whatever. And about three months after that, Richard Curtis, who was our graphics editor director, calls me in and says, Hey, are you still just shooting sports? I said, Yeah, I like it. He said, Too bad. We need you to do other stuff too. And I got stuck doing this, doing that, and I complained to somebody out front about it. Oh, I know what happened. They put all the new kids doing sports, the Baltimore blast, and they couldn’t shoot indoor soccer. It was too dark. Paul got called on the carpet. He said, Hey, you won’t let me put gene in where I can use them. So I got put back into sports. When everybody left to go to USA Today, they brought in a new photo director who said to me again, now you can’t just do sports and you got to go on. And I complained about that, and I was told, be quiet. Something new is coming as photographers, they didn’t tell us anything. We just suddenly, you know, about six weeks before the first issue came out, we were told, okay, you guys need to learn to process color transparency film. You’re going to be shooting color five days a week on deadline, and it was like, all of a sudden we had all this new stuff we had to learn. And it was so everything

Nestor Aparicio  13:56

you shot was black and white prior to that. Yes, I think that your film was black and white. Everything you shot in 1979 was a black and white picture.

14:04

There was one, one of the World Series. I guess it was a 79 World Series where we did a color project for one game, but to do it on a daily basis was, was just, you know, it knows today it’s nothing, because it’s all digital. Well, took

Nestor Aparicio  14:22

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a special press, right? I mean, it took, that’s why this, this sports first, was never really printed in Baltimore, right? Like the presses this thing was so ambitious to the news American in that old dumpy building that was decrepit then, that presses that that printed this, this kind of tabloid was a different kind of press, right?

14:44

It was printed, I think, in Gaithersburg, because the first night we, you know, we worked all day, we the publication started on Monday, because we had the Colts on Sunday. And I’m there. I shoot the Colts game. We come back, we process film, we add. It, we get it all put together, and then we all have to drive to gaithersburg to watch it

Nestor Aparicio  15:06

come off. I remember this story, there was somebody at the end of the shift charged with literally driving the plates for the newspaper to gaithersburg and getting it there so he could be printed. Right. Like, literally, that’s how backwards asked. This, right? Like, literally,

15:21

yeah. And everybody went the first night. I think was part was Maurice Barbie, still the publisher, then,

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Nestor Aparicio  15:30

yes, yeah. And, you know, we’re

15:33

having champagne as this presses are running. And it was exciting. But I said to myself, who’s a business major, I don’t see this model working, and it the problem was they were trying to create something new, to create new advertising, and all they ended up doing was pulling advertising away from the daily paper because People

Nestor Aparicio  15:58

cannibalized itself. Yes, sure, they

16:00

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wanted to just buy ad space in the in the sports first paper, and management was saying, No, you got to buy it in both papers. So

Nestor Aparicio  16:14

I remember news, American seven lines, seven days, $7 I remember the average on the classifier

16:19

classified. We’re talking about display. Ed, sure, sure. Unfortunately, I gotta get out of here. My granddaughter, Jean, I

Nestor Aparicio  16:26

love you. Man, thanks for storytelling. I want to bring Pete in here. Anyway, I gene, I’ll be following the pictures. Gene lives in the desert, out in in Vegas. I’m looking forward to your sphere pictures out there. Man, okay,

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16:37

I’ll see you guys soon. Good to see. Take

Dave Smith  16:39

it easy. That

Nestor Aparicio  16:40

picture of Derek Jeter he’s got behind him that he told you learn

16:43

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your camera. Baby pictures matter.

Nestor Aparicio  16:48

Visuals officials tell stories. Pete kurtzel, i Dude, I gotta get you in here because I don’t know your story. I know you’re a Southwest Baltimore guy. I knew there were roots in this. And you and I really became friends in 1984 through hockey and being in the press box. And I know you wrote for like an Arbutus paper or something like that. What happened with you? You were probably stringing at the News America before sports first, yes,

Pete Kerzel  17:12

yes. And the I got out of UMBC in 82 born and bred in Catonsville, lived there until I moved Ocean City two and a half years ago. But got out of UMBC in 82 and went immediately to work at a Patuxent publishing paper down in Laurel, the Laurel leader and I was the sports editor in Laurel, and about the same time, Ernie miklas was covering for the news American both the blast and the Skipjacks, and it was just running Bernie ragged. Um, it’s hard to cover either of those two teams, covering them both simultaneously, being on the road. Some it just doesn’t work. And one night in the press box, Bernie said, Hey, would you be willing to come in and talk to my boss and see if we can get you to cover some games. I was all about that. I’ve been doing a lot of freelancing and soccer and hockey, and so

Nestor Aparicio  18:12

you were in the hockey press box for Laurel leader, right? And there were no, I

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Pete Kerzel  18:15

wasn’t. I was in, no, I was in the hockey press box for anybody that would buy my stuff the Harrisburg Patriot news with Steve summers,

Nestor Aparicio  18:25

so you were stringing for the Utica paper or the Richmond whoever was in town. Okay, got it all right, and I went same thing with the blast, right? Because the blast didn’t travel necessarily people Tacoma or other,

Pete Kerzel  18:36

Oh, no. I mean, it was a lot easier for them to pay me 75 bucks, which, you know, doesn’t sound like I’m not a lot today, but think early 1980 75, bucks was a pretty good deal for one night’s work, when it didn’t even feel like it was a lot of work. So

Nestor Aparicio  18:52

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you were trying to build a resume, you’re trying to get into we all were, I mean, I think that way all the time, like, how many God would have paid them to do it, to interview Paul Stanley, exactly. Well, I

Pete Kerzel  19:01

sat down with Bob Paston, and Bob was like, I want to hire you. And I said, There’s only one problem. And he says, Okay, tell me what the problem is. I said, I’m working with this other paper that can’t know I’m working for you. So that’s why, for my entire two plus years at the news American, and sometimes it sports first. Whenever they needed copy, I never got a byline. I was just special to the news American, and it made it a little Why didn’t

Nestor Aparicio  19:34

you become Kurt pizza or something like that? You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Take on a different name.

Pete Kerzel  19:39

I asked about that, because I had a pseudonym that I had written under, and what’s it going to be? What was it back then? Peter Toth, T H, o, t h,

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Nestor Aparicio  19:49

okay, and pass sounds like a porn star. Just so, you know, I’m just saying, but go ahead.

Pete Kerzel  19:54

I actually next

Chris Zang  19:55

then, sorry, I actually thought when, when happy five. Was writing at the news American. I could have sworn that that that was a, you know, pseudonym for or something, but that

Nestor Aparicio  20:06

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was really happy. His name, yes, yes. He really was happy, fine. And there’s a whole story about him in the industry. But nonetheless, Pete, so you’re, you’re sorry, you’re special to the news American. Special

Pete Kerzel  20:19

to the news American. And, I mean, look for a 2324 year old kid. This was like I had died and gone to heaven. They were sending me on road trips. I mean, I had been with the news for like, six months, and Bob pulls me into the office and says, I want you to do a big feature, but it’s going to, can you get off for like, 10 days, 10 days Sure. Where am I going? He says, you’re going to go with the Skipjacks to the Canadian Maritimes, and you’re going to, we’re going to send you up there for an entire maritimes road trip. And they, it ended up being great, because they clinched the title while I was with them on the road.

Nestor Aparicio  20:57

Oh, that was the 84 season when they played Sherbrooke, right? Yes, yes, wow. So what did you do Cape Breton and Frederick? Well, no, we did. Well, we

Pete Kerzel  21:06

started in Springfield, then Halifax, Moncton and Sherbrooke, fair enough, and then flew back out of what’s a hell of an experience for a 22 year old kid from Catonsville, right? I’m just were you 22 How old were you? I was about 24 at that point. Okay. Oh, yeah, all right, and I’m living the life now, but we got off to a really bad start on that trip, because we’re in Springfield. Rubriaco is the coach, right? Ruby’s the coach who’s still in contact with, every once in a while, one of the great humans I’ve ever met in my life. Oh, and just salt of the earth. Well, we’re in Springfield, and Chris will remember these. Remember the old telex machines they gave us to go on the road with. Oh, my God, this is pre Radio Shack. This is pre Radio Shack. Trs, 80, model, 100 Yeah, trash, trash 80. Um, the Telex was useful and functional if there was no noise. If any of you have ever been in a sports arena after a game is over, there’s rarely no noise. I’m sitting there trying to file my story, and you had to put the phone and the couplers on top of the thing, and that was fine, unless anybody within about a 10 mile radius sneezed, coughed or walked I kept getting kicked off because they were literally breaking down the ice rink for a wrestling event the next afternoon. Right? Exactly? Well, it, you know, hour after the game, ubi comes out on and it was like a stage similar to what was at the Baltimore Civic Center, and he calls up and he’s like, scoop the bus leaves in 10 minutes, with you or without you. I gotta file my story, and I can’t get the story to go. I think I ended up dictating the story, or at least enough of it, to

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Nestor Aparicio  22:58

somebody like me. That was somebody in the other that was usually me. Dave said, answering the phones for agate. That was my other job. Hey, Kurt, kurtzel, can’t fire. I can hear pasta coming in. Kurtzel, can’t fire. You got to get on the phone with him. Take dictation. Well, thank you, Mr. Paston.

Pete Kerzel  23:15

This was Mr. Kurtzel. This is all well and good until I finished dictating get downstairs. The bus is gone. The bus is leaving Springfield to go to Boston. We’re overnighting in Boston and then flying to Halifax at like six in the morning.

Nestor Aparicio  23:35

Let me explain this, because some young people might be here, the dictation meant a phone attached to like a payphone. You couldn’t take the phone with you. You couldn’t dictate from the bot. People were saying, how do you miss the bus, take the phone, get on the bus, and dictate? No,

Pete Kerzel  23:49

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no, no. We were dictating from a press box phone that was like a hardwired phone.

Nestor Aparicio  23:56

I can think of bad places to be stuck, Springfield, Massachusetts, not a good one. Well,

Pete Kerzel  24:00

it was about a $68 cab ride to get to the hotel at Logan Airport, or three weeks pay. Well, remember, remember before when I said 75 bucks for a night’s work seemed like a lot, the looks on the faces when I turned in my expense report from this 10 day trip, and the first day I have a $68 cab ride. Boy, did I get my butt handed to me? But no, I mean, I I got to do cool things. I was telling a friend down here in Ocean City last night. I was 24 years old. I thought I knew everything, and I learned just how little I knew in the couple of years I worked there. But I learned, I mean, there were people around all the time, like Chris and nuscar Stan, Rappaport and Bernie Molly, Molly, and people that just were giving of their time, that that that took. Their experience, and just gave it to you and asked nothing in return, except maybe to give that same experience to someone else down the road. And that became, kind of, in my career, a something that happened over and over again. It’s one of the reasons I enjoyed working with young people up until the time I retired a couple of years ago. Yeah, I heard from

Nestor Aparicio  25:26

my eighth grade teacher about a week ago after I planned this. This gathering, by the way, if you’re listening, out, this is my sports First News American sort of regathering. If you’re watching, you’re involved. Pete kurtzel is here, formerly a mass and you know his work with the Orioles. Dave Smith is here, long time editor at the Baltimore Sun and at the news American and at sports first we began. And Chris Zhang, also, long time news American evening sun. There’s a theme here that all of us had bylines in one or two or three papers along the way. And you know, I have to ask Shaughnessy on all the time, and Clark judge. And you know, there’s so many legendary people that came through Baltimore. Peter pascarelli, we mentioned Bernie and all these people that we work with. But there was this whole Ken Rosenthal and Tim Kirchen and Richard justice and just all these people that came through the Baltimore news paper world that went on to do amazing things in baseball, football, sports in general. And Stedman kind of sat at the middle of all of it, um, Dave and Chris. I you know, I want to talk to you about this because, um, there’s a point for me where, when somebody says to me, can you handle criticism? And I go through this with my wife, my son, my family, you know, fans, listeners, whatever, and people being critical or being judgmental of your work. And I think to myself, I was 15 years old there trying to write stories. And my I was 15 years old, nothing was perfect. You know, was it it? You know, like it was always a guy like Dave or a guy like Robbie or Bob nuscar or Chris sang. And every one of you, and I don’t know why I didn’t listen to the editors as much as the writers gonna, sort of idolize the writers, John Hawkins and Bernie and Jeff, Mark Hyman, Bill stack, I would talk to them about writing all the time. You guys were more mother hens in regard to like, which takes the comma that doesn’t that’s a rule. And here’s the style book. And Dave, you were like an angry nun with a ruler, slapping my finger saying, this is the right way to do this. And all of you were and all of you were older than me, and as much as I probably would, however you remember me then, I respected the hell out of all of you, and I never argued a word. I had a thesaurus on my desk. I was always trying to pick a better word as a writer, but I think it allowed me to be shaped by all of you very early on that’s made me the stubborn old bastard I am, in regard to what kind of journalist I’m going to be, how I’m going to be dealt with, how press conferences are going to go. What is truth? What is fact? What is fiction? And all that started, Dave, I’ll give you the first love and Chris, but both of you equally. I I can’t think one or the other, and Chris, you’re with me maybe a little longer period of time as I got older. But foundationally, your ability to make me better is the reason they kept giving me gigs. It’s the reason I didn’t stop at one Getty Lee interview and didn’t write the next 600 or stop at one skip Jack story. And they say this kid can’t do this. It was this kid can do this. We got to help him get better. Dave, Chris, that was your life, and you were trying to make great writers better, let alone me at 16 or 17, make me eight inches publishable on some little story. You know,

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Dave Smith  28:47

yeah, well, you know, the first thing I would say Nestor is boy I had, you fool because, you know, now 40 years down the road, I’m thinking, here I was a 22 year old trying to, trying to sort of fake it and think that, you know, I knew everything there was to know about editing, whereas I was, like, you know, furiously trying to, trying to soak up everything I could from Chris sang, and trying to figure it out. And, you know, I wasn’t just learning, like the technical aspects from Chris. I was also learning bedside manner, you know, how to, how to, how to talk to writers. You know, it’s a, you know, as you as a writer Nestor, you know, you’re vulnerable. You’re putting yourself out there whenever you write. And

Nestor Aparicio  29:32

what has my name on it? That’s what I would always say, get my name on it. The coach lies to me. I can’t just print that. You don’t get my name on it, right, right?

Dave Smith  29:40

So, yeah, and so, you know, what I learned over the years, and what I probably didn’t know, you know, when I was just starting out, was, you know, how do you, how do you talk to a writer, work with a writer, and, you know, not, not make them feel like, oh, you know. I’m an idiot. How did I miss that? But make it like, you know, you’re working with them, you know, trying to make them look as good as possible. And, you know, that’s, that’s one of the things I learned from Chris saying, and maybe some other guys at the news American too. I don’t know if you remember a guy named Mark Zinder who, who, he never really worked on the sports first copy desk, but he worked on the news American copy desk. He was a, he was a really good editor, you know, on the word side. And I learned a lot from him about about editing, but also the people end of it. And so I think, you know, the and people underestimate, you know, how, how, how important it is to just build relationships with people and get them to trust you. So that’s, you know, that was part of my learning process, too. I know, I know you were, you were 15, and you were like, you know, you were listening to everybody and soaking everything in. But, you know, hey, true confession time, I was 22 years old. I was still, I was doing much of the same stuff you were. Nestor, Dave, every

Nestor Aparicio  31:01

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morning I would get up and see the paper and see what you guys did to at the time. How’d you f up my copy? Why? Why did you rewrite that? Why that was it was perfect. They were my words, you know. And I would see why you made the changes. And then someone rational and far more grown up, like Jack Gibbons or Chris Zhang or Bob or Bob pastern or Mike Marlowe or Bob musgar. Oh, down the line. Kathy Frazier, throw her in. I want to give Chuck Rappaport some love, because Chuck always beat my ass and made it right. We cousins were early on. But Larry Harris, I’ll throw him in. I’m just trying to think all these people that would say, Dude, I love you. And you wrote a really nice, this is a really nice story. You did a great job. You had a great interview with this famous person, which to come as a witch and that. And then you never forget that. Just basic rules, and then style, and then more than that, like structure and saying they still say this to me, I can’t imagine. You’re a little long winded, you’re a little wordy. We could be a little more. We’re newspaper. Yeah, we were concise. It’s not the internet. So I think there’s a concise part that I have to beat into my brain in the modern era to say, Don’t bore us. Get to the chorus. We ain’t got all day, right? I mean, Chris, and that was your sort of gift, is you gotta write tighter, dude. I remember you telling me, like, Dude, it’s a skipjack story. You’re getting 1214, inches. Make it all good. We’re not making it bigger. The holes, the hole and the adds, the ad on page eight, where your skipjack story is going. You gotta write this tight, and then be great at this. Or, you know, we’ll find somebody from Towson State or the University of Maryland journalism school to, you know, because there was always people ready to do these jobs. You know, it was fun job, but you needed to make sure I was good enough at it. And I, I appreciate that, Chris, all these years later, well.

Chris Zang  32:57

And you can say the aviation mechanism suffered from futile starvation, or you can say the plane crashed. And in newspaper parlance, you want to say the plane crashed when I was doing some public relations work for various places, sometime, you do have to get into the gray area, because I remember especially one I was told by the president of a local hospital, make them think that we care what they think, but don’t promise them anything, because we’re not changing anything. Okay, and that that gets in into a whole different thing. But what I loved about newspapers was if, if Cal Ripken was three for four or zero for four, we basically say what’s what’s happening with it. But I also like to play with words in that,

Nestor Aparicio  33:51

look at steady. You got steady in I got a steady story, but go

Chris Zang  33:54

ahead, steady. And this is probably, I’m looking at it backwards, but a walk on the wild side Orioles out of control and another losing effort to me, what brought me the most joy was putting and I also thought this was a funny one, because it’s got a bowling story. It’s got a bowling centerpiece, only in Baltimore, right? But I also had my share of mentors, and especially when Russ brown first came in at the News America and a sports editor, I would come in in the morning, and he’d have page proofs, and there’d be red lines all over the place. And these, these are, are the, are the 30 things you should have, should have caught last night and then, and actually later on, a good lesson. I went to a basketball game at the old Civic Center, whatever it was, was was called at the time, and they. Just before the halftime, they started having trouble with the big clock overhead, and so during halftime, they lowered this thing down, and on the side were all these like eight to 10 year old basketball players, and they were supposed to have a youth game at halftime, and because they had to fix the clock the kids didn’t get to play. And as a former kid that played on that basketball court and used to and came off and walked alongside Wes onsel When he was playing and things like that, I was really ticked off that the kids didn’t get to play. So as a newspaper person, I went into the paper that night and said, I really have to write something about it. And I know this is a news American show, but this, this, this was a, was a Marty Kaiser moment at the sun, and Marty said, Well, you, you’ve got to call the other side and find out what’s going on. I said, Yeah, but I saw it. I saw the kids, kids on the side crying because they didn’t get to play. He said, You have to call the other side and get the other side their chance to respond. And I called, and by then, Wes onsel, the player, had become Wes Unseld, the general manager. And he said, Yes, I know about it. Did you hear we’re going to bust them out to Largo to the Capitol center, and rather than them playing during halftime of an exhibition game preseason, they’re going to come out for a regular season game, and we’ve got them jackets, and we’re going to take them out, and they’ve all got tickets, and they’re all super excited about coming out so that that was what you’re talking about, mentors, okay, maybe, maybe me helping some people. Well, I had a lot of people helping me, and just Marty telling me, hey, you have to make that extra call just to let the other side. Have I, I would have been wiping egg off my face if I ran a story. Had written a story. Big, big, bad team doesn’t let little kids play during halftime of a, you know, bullets wizards, whatever it was at the time game. So it’s, I was happy to help you, but along the way, I wouldn’t have had had my career. I think news American once explain, described me as as the greenest copy editor that they had. I was actually in the office of Steve O’Neill, the managing editor for a job as like a copy boy, you know, running coffee or doing stuff. And Bob Swan from the copy desk came in and said, someone’s just leaving. And Steve turns to me and says, Have, have you ever edited copy? And I said, Yeah, I work for, you know, school papers and stuff. He said, Well, take, take the editing test. And if, if you pass the editing test, we’ll, we’ll talk about it. So I passed the editing test, and now here it’s, you know, 4050, years later. And that’s, that’s, but what my career was and still is, I’m still fixing up stories and making sure which has a common that that doesn’t, and whether underway is one or two words. You know, those kinds of things. Which one is it? AP, keep changing. I think, Dave, is it two? Now,

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Dave Smith  38:20

as far as I know, it was always two. That’s what you taught me. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio  38:24

so here’s what I would do in a case like that. I’d say, I don’t freaking know, so I’ll use in progress. Uh, Chris Zang is here. Dave Smith is here. Pete kurtzel is here. Recik is at some music festival. Uh, we are discussing the late great sports first. Today is the 40th anniversary of the demise of a one year and one week old tabloid publication that was owned by the news America. And I am so I have steady here. This is a Terp stage miracle. This is after. It says page 11 at the top. That must be where my story was in it. This was after sports first folded. This is November of 84 so two stories one, my son was born on September 22 1984 so happy 40th birthday to my son. How does that make you feel pity that my and Chris and Dave, that my son is 40,

Pete Kerzel  39:17

I can remember the days leading up to your son’s birth. And you’re, you know, you were telling folks, I may be around in a couple of I just don’t know. I, you know, I tell

Nestor Aparicio  39:27

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rag all the time that I went into the office on September 23 the morning after my son was born. I was 15 years old and 10 months old. I went in and rag was the only one. It was a Sunday, and I was writing, and I had to try to figure it out, but I had interviewed kiss, or are you a band at that time? And I needed to go in because there’s a computer at home. I’m 15 year old kid. I had to go to the paper to write it. And I went and wrote this piece that I had interviewed. Maybe I might have a rush actually, I’m trying to think it was and I went in on a Sunday to write. I was only. In the newsroom, and resk came over to me, and I said, Hey, we’re seeing my, hey, we’re seeing my, my girlfriend, gay. You had the baby we’re gonna name and Barry and, like, first off, people couldn’t believe that a kid like, that’s all obvious, but we’re six, like you. You do know the newspaper went out of business yesterday, right? And I’m like, what? He’s like, Yeah, we’re a lot of people gonna lose their jobs, dude, I don’t even understand what that meant at 15, you know what I mean, I had been there nine months. Mean, I had been there nine months. I’m a kid. I’m 15 years old. Didn’t understand any of that. And what happened was, and some of you would know this is a lot of you lost jobs, and I was the kid making $3.33 an hour, like you. PD, you know, 50 bucks for the game. You know, it got me more work. I went from nothing to 30 hours a week. Can you split half school time? And Dave Smith was my, my my mentor. In that case, my big brother had to sign all of my grade stuff for my teacher my senior year of high school, which is what this was. So this thing was steady. I got to tell steady story zanger because, and Dave, you’ll love this too, because it’s an editing thing. I’ll never forget was an area we called the bullpen. Do you remember that the area where John Stedman was was the bullpen, and if foyers were here, he would tell us what it was before it was the bullpen, but it was John had an office in this area that you had to walk down this long tunnel. It had a fountain outside. It had a window and the the the SIG of John Steadman on the phone. That’s on purpose, because John was always on the phone. Whenever you went in there, sometimes his feet were up on the desk. Sometimes it, you know, weren’t. But like, John was always on

Chris Zang  41:31

the phone. I think, though the funny thing at the time was all the writers, I mean, Pascarella, Richard kuckner, whoever, all the the ones that had the pictures, and we’re talking on the phone. So Marlo, one day, drew a line connecting all the phones of the columnists all talking on the phone, yeah, each other,

Nestor Aparicio  41:54

yeah. That’s, that’s a great graphic. So steady pulls me in one night. And I’m young and impressionable, and I think I had written something, and I’d ask him, if you know, or whatever, I he didn’t edit my stuff. But I admire, you know? I mean, anybody knows me knows how much I love John. I’ll give you guys James talk about John if you want. But here’s my John story. He comes in, eyebrows all up, he says to me, and Chris, give me that line again about shortening with your stock speech about what, oh,

Chris Zang  42:23

aviation mechanism suffering from fuel starvation versus the plane crashed.

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Nestor Aparicio  42:28

I had written something that someone perished or passed away. Probably passed away because in my neighborhood, you know, you said, Oh, Mrs. Miss Lois passed away. He looked at me, eyebrows up. He said, senior, they don’t perish. They don’t pass away. They die. They die. And I’m like, dies. Three letters pass away is like seven and two words in a space like, like, you know, Dave, finding the right word matters, right? Mr. Editor,

Dave Smith  43:03

yeah, it really does. And, and you know when, when Chris talks about being being called into meetings and saying, Hey, you missed this. You missed that. It reminds me of a of a sports first story that that involves past and I think at one point during that one year that we were in existence, I think the Colts, the Colts played the Broncos and and, you know, it was a big game. John Elway was playing them, and I think the Colts had a lead in. The Broncos came back to beat them. And I happened to be the guy who was looking at the story. I had the chance to write the headline, and I wrote a headline that did not please my boss Bob past, and it was something along the lines of like, you know, belated Bronco salvo stuns colts or something like that. And that headline, not only did he not like it, but it was, it was bad enough that he felt the need to call a staff meeting the copy desk in which he held up that headline, my headline, and said, wait a while. I write headlines like this.

Nestor Aparicio  44:07

No, he didn’t say that at all. He cursed every other word, right?

Dave Smith  44:10

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He probably did.

Nestor Aparicio  44:14

He I can hear him right now. When I think of past and I think of the F bomb flying out of him, it’s hilarious. Oh, yeah. And he lost me.

Dave Smith  44:21

He loved me. Probably, probably a couple of F bombs did fly out, but I was sitting in the back of the room and we had that meeting, and my face was growing redder and redder. I was so embarrassed. But you know, you talk about, you know, learning how to take criticism. Well, yeah, that was, that was one of my early lessons and have criticism, that’s for sure. All

Nestor Aparicio  44:42

right, I want to I put this picture up because Dave’s freaking camera’s not working if you’re watching that on the Zoom, uh, Chris Zang is here. The great Pete kurtzel is here. Dave Smith is here. We had gene Boyers earlier. I’m going to sort of wrap it up with this, because you guys, you got things to do, and it is the 40th anniversary of some of us losing our jobs and some of us getting great opportunities. But. This picture was a goodbye picture for Bob past. It is that correct, Chris? I think, as you know it to be,

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Chris Zang  45:05

yes, we had done it in and that, that was the when we had moved to the back of the building at that time. So by the way,

Nestor Aparicio  45:14

that’s the only way I knew you. When I came in in January of 84 my first day was like January 11 of 1984 I walked in and this was the room, and it was a commissary, right, like but this, this is the room I remember, in the closet over petro’s head. I remember all because when I came in, you know what, my job was, passed and came in, it probably was Stan rapport said, You got to clean this up. This is what you this is your job. You clean this up. And I’m like, so I cleaned it all up. I mean, I spent weeks cleaning that place up. It was a it was an asshole, honestly, really, the

Chris Zang  45:45

sports department used to be in the cafeteria, so we had basic but this sports department also was kind of a and especially with sports first was, well, even, even before, sports was always a joyous I mean, when, when, when Steadman would have his the people come in, off, off the street just to talk to John the the new side kind of wanted the sports department to be off on its own, because we were a bunch of characters and weren’t necessarily very quiet or anything like that. So

Pete Kerzel  46:22

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toy department, yes, definitely, Island of Misfit Toys,

Chris Zang  46:26

yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s one story before we go, Nestor Aparicio, basically, as executive sports editor the news American concentrated most of his efforts once sports first started on sports first, and I was assistant sports editor. And he said, Chris, take take care of the day by day of the news American, because I’m concentrating on sports first. And one of the problems we had, as Gene Boyers mentioned earlier, with it having to go to gaithersburg to be printed, was the whole idea. And this was before ESPN. This was before USA Today. USA Today. I mean, we were looking to get in on the sports market, the morning sports market, because at the time, the Baltimore Sun was doing some kind of bland coverage at the time, and I can say that because I later became a sun person. But anyway, one of the problems, however, was so the idea was to get it in the boxes at the convenience stores by like six or seven in the morning, so that people could grab it go into work and have it on the bus, or grab it when they grab their morning coffee and have it for the day, because they couldn’t get the news American until the afternoon. So this was a way to grab the sports market.

Nestor Aparicio  47:50

This was the news American’s morning paper. Correct, correct.

Chris Zang  47:55

So the problem was, however, because of gaithersburg and because of problems with transportation, half the time it was getting into the stores after the news American so it was we weren’t able to grab the market, and they were complaining that the sales weren’t up. Well, the sales weren’t up because it wasn’t in the damn stores at seven in the morning like it like it should have been. So I, as assistant sports editor, wrote a letter to publish your sparbi and said, these are the problems we’re having, and we really need to get this in the stores earlier. There’s a there’s a transportation problem several days in the several days later in the inter office mail, I open up something, and it’s from it’s a application to join the news of American transportation fleet. They wanted me to leave as assistant sports editor and become one of their truck drivers that if I was going to complain about their performance, their union, that I if, if Chris really has a problem with it, he can start driving one of the trucks, basically, was what he said.

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Nestor Aparicio  49:11

Well, I want to leave with this, because I want to identify all these people and, and, and if you have something to say, this is the I’m not in this picture, by the way. I wasn’t there when it was taken. I mean, I was just in but, I mean, I was working three, four or five nights a week. I mean, I was there a lot in 1984 I mean, once I started, but the sports first folded in September, and that’s when I really started to work a lot, the next year and a half before I went to the sun in 1986 so left to right. Let’s go through these, because I don’t know that. I know everyone right. Pete kurtzel is on the far upper left. There’s a man with a beard next to him. Who was that? Alison who is next to

Dave Smith  49:48

him, John Banks, John Banks, Stan

Nestor Aparicio  49:51

Rappaport, Barry Levine. Barry Levine, yeah. Ernie miklas, ed dentry, above Ed dentry, who is. That.

Dave Smith  50:00

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That’s Mark

Chris Zang  50:02

Snyder that we referenced earlier. Yeah, okay.

Nestor Aparicio  50:05

And that’s Bob Clark, yep. And then top throw back is Tom Cousins. Underneath of him is, that’s uh O’Neill, right? John O’Neill, O’Neill. I think we just lost John in recent times as well, uh, below uh, John O’Neill is Chuck Rapoport, who I mentioned, sitting next to the only female in the picture, Kathy Frazier. And then above Chuck Rapoport was the great Charlie Lamb, who was our long time horse racing analyst, who was a wonderful man. And to his right, standing off alone is the great, late rich Pietro of Dundalk, Maryland, my horse racing buddy and a computer consultant to everyone. Beneath him is John Steadman. Beneath John Steadman, to the right is Rick retardic, is that correct? Guys, right?

Chris Zang  50:51

And Rick, Rick helped us with horse racing, also,

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Nestor Aparicio  50:55

I remember that. And next to him, next to John Steadman, is my dear friend, and one, a man who went on to he’s in Hall of Fame, Dick Girardi, who covers calls Penn State football. He’s a recurring figure in my life and on my show and as a horse racing analyst. Next to him is Chris Zang, who is with us. You still look the same. Zanger, to me, you’re still tall, right?

Chris Zang  51:17

Still tall, a little bit wider now

Nestor Aparicio  51:22

below Chris sang is Lou Cortina, who is in New Jersey with his Italian family, and couldn’t be with us today, but it’s still alive and well to Chris’s right. To the left of the photo, in the beard and the the fro is the great Ron wenig, who is now sunning himself from upstate New York all the way to Sacramento and now in San Diego, sunning himself in a semi I believe he’s in real estate retirement in the the lower center, Jeff Gordon is above him. By the way, I love that winnings, the guy with his mouth open, because it’s such personality of who Ron was in 1984 above that is Jeff Gordon, and Dave Smith is above him. Dave. Dave, Dave, is there anything you want to say about Jeff Gordon and about Bernie miklas and and Dick Girardi and some of these folks that went on in our industry to really do some amazing things, and Mark Hyman, by the way, next to Jeff Gordon, who now runs the University of Maryland, the Merrill School of Journalism down there. But just some great, great writers that were born out of this. Just this picture. Oh,

Dave Smith  52:21

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yeah, absolutely. I really loved editing all of those guys. And, you know, Mark, Jeff, Bernie. I mean, reading guys like that really was, like, it was like a, like, a graduate course in Baltimore sports and Bernie. I really liked Bernie when he became a columnist and and he, I thought he really had his finger on the pulse of things. And I was real, real sad to see him go. But he’s, you know, he’s gone on to do great things. And, you know, Mark, Mark, of course, you know, went on to a great career at the sun and also helped, helped John Miller, the URLs broadcaster, write a, write his, his book back in the 90s, Confessions of a baseball purist. So it was, you know, it was, it was, it was just a treat to be able to to help these guys, you know, look good, you know, put, put their best face out there, you know, in the newspaper, make sure their bylines were, you know, you know, something they could be proud of, what was under their byline.

Nestor Aparicio  53:24

I think the only person in this picture. There are two people in this, well, three actually, and they’re all about to be identified. So Jeff Gordon is the blonde in the middle. Above him in the glasses in sort of the middle of the middle is Dave Smith, whose voice you just heard here. Mark Hyman is below Dave to behind. Mark Hyman is Bob muscar with the mustache, the the Columbus, Ohio sensation who went on to be my boss at the evening sun and the guy who, and I should tell you guys, is what my face showing, because I hid out in the morgue, which we which was in the hallway behind John steadman’s office, which is called the library, but we called it the mortgage where all the old newspapers were the microfiche anytime needed to do research, it was, but it was called the morgue. Even though it won’t, Steadman would say, they die. They don’t pass away. They die. I went in, I snuck into the morgue, and there were a couple of phones in there in the middle of the night, and I called up to the newspaper at 11 o’clock at night, one night, and I’m like, No, you got to get me out of here. You got to get me a job. You got to get me a job. This place is going out of business. This ship is sinking, whatever. And my phone rang, and Jack Gibbons and Bob musgart and a guy named Mike Marlowe, who was only a legend to me, met me at Christmas time in 1985 and gave me a job at the at the sun that really begat, you know, everything that I’ve done in my career, none of this happens without the guy in the front. So I’m going to get to him in a minute. Fellas, who is the the gentleman here next to Bob nust, I vaguely remember him.

Dave Smith  54:54

That’s, that’s Joe serera. And I have to, have to tell a quick story. Um. When, when they were hiring for sports first. Joe was a copy editor like I was. I chose to start on june 13. Joe chose to start on June 20, 1983 when sports first folded, and they had to lay off certain people, and they kept certain people to work on the news American. That’s the only reason I kept a job. I stayed on with the news American. The cut line fell at Joe serera. He ended up getting laid off because he started one week later than I did, and then a few years later, when the news American was getting ready to fold, Joe helped me get a job where he was working at the Bergen record. So shout out to Joe serera. He’s a great guy.

Nestor Aparicio  55:42

I remember when I remember Joe now i There’s few people missing. A guy named alpacani, Chris pika, who’s my dear friend. I’m missing in this picture, John Hawkins is missing. Must have been a blast game, because he was covering the blast. Then. I don’t know if anybody else is missing, but below Joe serera, to the lower left corner with the hat. The only guy with the hat, the Man in the Hat, you know his work, is with sig microano, who’s my dear friend. And then below him is the guy who’s really responsible for all of it. And Dave, I know you couldn’t get your camera to work, but you have this shirt, this yellow shirt that was the sports first logo, where the the eye in sports first was a one, and that is Tom Robinson, better known as Robbie. He went on to become the editor of the Scranton newspaper. He’s from Binghamton, New York. He’s a lifer friend of mine, and I wanted to join us today, and couldn’t join us today. And yeah, I remember attending his wedding as a young man, but he was the first person I met. He was my boss, my and I think he was 19 years old, and I was 15 Pete when I got dragged up into the press box in 1984 he was dragged with him. When I met you, it was with him, and that with the death dogs up in the Baltimore Civic Center on the roof on the west side of the arena. And so, you know, he brought me in on all of this. And 40 years later today, it all sort of fell apart. We’ve all gone on to do these amazing things. But I wanted to tell these stories because nuscart finally came on in my 25th anniversary last summer at Costas, and did an hour just telling old stories for SIG. And I, you know, we did these on the show all the time. We rarely like tell a lot of old war stories. And then Tom Robinson has come on on my 10th anniversary, 1520, 20. And every year, every five years, he’ll come on and tell some old stories, because I am so proud of everything that of my own work, but my relationships with people like you. And when people ask me how this thing survived all these years, you guys, just all of you, and the people that have departed and people no longer with us that couldn’t join us. I’m indebted to all of you, especially for the hour you’ve given me here today. I appreciate it.

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Dave Smith  57:50

Hey, glad to do it. Ness, absolutely.

Nestor Aparicio  57:52

Zanger, when are we playing hoops?

Chris Zang  57:55

Hoops? Well, how about tennis?

Nestor Aparicio  57:58

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Are you playing pickleball?

Chris Zang  58:00

No, refuse to play pickleball.

Nestor Aparicio  58:02

Good for you. Good for you. Pete curl, Dave Smith, Chris sang true mentors and good people, good men, and shaped me and molded me when all I had was a rose, a theosaurus, which takes the comma that doesn’t they don’t pass away. They’re not deceased. They

Pete Kerzel  58:21

but they die. You know, Rose, first name miscar. Peter

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Nestor Aparicio  58:29

Roget, okay, here’s

Pete Kerzel  58:30

your trip here

Nestor Aparicio  58:32

for the day. Peter, Paul and Mary. Pete kurtzel, Dave Smith, Chris sang gene boyars, who was here, and for everybody else that ever worked at the the great, great sports first newspaper. This will now, this might be the only Requiem that’s ever done in the history of 40 years to the day that we all lost gigs in Baltimore, lost the newspaper and also lost the football team that year. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore. I appreciate y’all listening to the old journalist and sports writer and editor war stories back for more. Baltimore positive right after this you.