As all American eyes turn toward the Presidential Election of 2024, Pam Wood of The Baltimore Banner joins Nestor to discuss the U.S. Senate race and the unique attention Angela Alsobrooks and Larry Hogan are getting from outside the state and the always-significant voter turnout for a significant general election.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland Senate race, voter turnout, Larry Hogan, Angela Alsobrooks, election ads, national interest, reproductive rights, Trump impact, early voting, mail ballots, school board races, Orioles offseason, new ownership, ticket prices, fan engagement
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Pamela Wood
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
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Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 tassel, Baltimore and Baltimore positive, although it’s been a negative result. In regard to football, this week, I’m taking a little rest, but I’ll get some Broncos in here. I’ll get some ravens of relief in here. Certainly gonna get a little World Series going. This week, had a beautiful Friday at mamas on the half shell, doing the Maryland crab cake tour, presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Gave some Raven scratch offs away. Nobody came up and felt lucky to me, I gave a lot of tickets away. So somebody won some dough out knowing bills. Last week, had a great conversation with Finn McCusker, who was Scotty McCusker son, who I loved immensely. We talked salsa, we talk seafood. We hate oysters. It was a great time. And Howard chair also came out, and we pipped the skip jacks and talked about the late great Jeff amder and hockey season as well. But I have taken the foot off the gas a little bit with the Orioles and the Ravens the last month or two. On the election season. I did not want to go into Trump or Trump Landia, I’ve done that before, eight years ago, four years ago. I can’t believe it’s come to this, but the week out, I’m getting a little nervous again. My F Trump Cheap Trick shirts might come out before the end of the week, and I just want to talk about all sorts of things, because I invited Larry Hogan, um, no speak. You know, comprende never got back to me like literally never happened, and Larry’s been on the show many times. I voted for Larry. I’ll say that out. I’m the Democrat that voted for Larry, um and also invited Angela Ulster books, who canceled on me twice made appointment. So I haven’t really I’ve never met Angel officer Brooks. So when it comes to these races, I am like every other citizen out there, saying, Okay, where am I going? And Pam wood is here, and she is from the Baltimore banner. Long time Baltimore Sun now at the Baltimore banner, go hit the paywall. Pay them. Support local journalism. For God’s sake, please support local journalism. I’ve read the sun lately. I’ve seen the deeds there, question H and all of that. But Pam, you’re when I I usually say hello to you, and we talk crab cakes. Usually, sometimes it cost us before the bridge went down. It was easier for you to get from Anne Arundel County over to bridge to Dundalk. We’re going to get the bridge rebuilt and all that. Um, you’re like, a little nervous, right? Like, this is a week. AD, the first thing you said to me is, X amount of days you were days away. And, um, you know? And I say, I had Josh Kurtz on earlier, and I worked at the sun from 1986 to 92 and I said, this is Josh, and you’ll laugh. You’ll get a big chuckle out of this. But back in the day, as a kid, I was 17 years old, every election, every two years, is election primary, every all the bosses were in the boardroom was filled with pizza and food and salads up all night, all election nights in the news world. This is the world you came from. This is an exciting week. But also, there’s a lot going on, money being spent, stuff that didn’t exist 3040, years ago, in regard to modern media and how it shapes an election. Yeah, it’s
Pamela Wood 03:00
a busy time. As we’re recording, we’re eight days left until election day. Not that I’m counting, not that there’s not a countdown app on my phone until it’s all over, but it’s been a busy year. Look, you know, presidential election years are often kind of a snoozer in Maryland, right? Maryland always votes for the Democrat at the top of the ticket. You know, Kamala Harris is going to win in a landslide in Maryland. We don’t know what’s going to happen nationally. You know, no surprises there, but we’ve got this US Senate race that is taking all of my attention. It is competitive. It’s got national interest, and we are seeing spending and ads, ads out the wazoo that we’re just not used to in Maryland. So it’s been, it’s been quite a season.
Nestor Aparicio 03:45
What do you make of it? In regard to Angela, also, books is a lousy human. She cheats on taxes. Larry Hogan is a lousy human. He got deals with his family, you know, like I they’re both elected if they both been voted on and voted against many times, and i i In my world where I am, everyone knows who Larry Hogan is now, whether they’re going to go in and vote that way, whether they’re going to change their their views on things. But Larry’s run an interesting campaign that I never thought he was going to get into. I took him at face value a couple years ago. He said, ago. He said, Nah, I really don’t want to be a senator. That turned out to not really be true,
Pamela Wood 04:27
right? Yeah, he said that many times. He said that to me, he said that to lots of people, that his heart was not in legislating. And you kind of saw that when he was governor. You know, where he shined and where he felt most comfortable was executive actions. That’s why, like it or not, COVID was very good for Governor Hogan, because he just got to make important decisions and not have to deal with making laws. But now he wants to be one of 100 and he does have that name ID, right? Everybody knows who he is. It’s got to be above 95% you know? You’d have to be under. Rock, if you don’t know who Larry Hogan is, if you’re in Maryland and Angela also Brooks, yeah, she’s Prince George’s County Executive. There’s almost a million people live there, but there are 6 million people in the whole state who maybe don’t know her as well. So she has been getting her name out, and she’s been trying to convince people that maybe you liked larry hogan as governor, but he’s not right for Senate, that there needs to be a Democratic majority in the Senate to protect reproductive rights and all that sort of thing. And that’s really how they’ve been framing this debate and this election. And it’s been exactly that same message from both camps week after week. Hogan, you know, is countering and saying, Oh, I’m independent and I’m trustworthy and I won’t go with the, you know, Republican bosses all the time. I’ll be my own man in Washington. And it’s just day after day. I hear it over and over again from both of them as I fall around.
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Nestor Aparicio 05:52
You know, What side do you believe? And I guess, in regard to Governor Hogan and the campaign and the national money that’s come in on the other side of it. I saw the last election when his elected selected. I should not elected. She was not elected selected. And Kelly Schultz really had a hard time against Cox and Trumpism and running upstream in his own party against Trumpism, in a place where Trumpism still very vibrant, in trumplandia and in that party in this state, I’m wondering how many Republicans who are only turning out, I don’t know to put a perfunctory voting for Trump as a middle finger, because, to your point, he Can’t win here. But what that means for Larry Hogan, not that they wouldn’t, would ever vote for also Brooks that they would abstain, that how many people would just not support him in some way, or whether you’re going to look down ticket and say the whole way he’s going to get every Republican vote, because I’m not even sure that. I think these ads make him unpopular with Trump people
Pamela Wood 07:02
yet, so Governor Hogan has to do this balancing act in order to win. And he says this himself. He said it to me and others. Look, he has to win just almost every Republican. He’s got to keep them on board, including those Maga Trump folks. He’s got to keep them in the fold. He’s got to get, you know, a majority, you know, more than half, of the independent voters, and then he’s got to get somewhere around, like 30% of Democrats. So I
Nestor Aparicio 07:32
mean, heavy lifting Larry, and he’s
Pamela Wood 07:34
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done it twice, right for governor, so he’s trying to do it a third time. The problem is, is, like he’s on the ballot at the same time as Donald Trump, they both have an R next to their name, and Democrats, and the in the case that Angela also Brooks is making, is they need to be, you know, discerning about that. You know that those, those crossover persuadable Democrats, are they persuadable this year? That’s where it will be, went and lost, you know, potentially. And he is Hogan is holding most in polling. He is holding most of the Republican voters. And look in my neighborhood, I live in a very purple area, I see houses that have a Trump Vance sign and a larry hogan sign. So he is so far managing to hold them, even though he is running away from Donald Trump to try and please those Democrats.
Nestor Aparicio 08:24
That’s exactly that’s fascinating, right? I mean, that that makes this more than complex, and it also has made it very interesting for outside interest to come in here and dump a bunch of money that has made my conduits to the Ulster Brooks campaign have just, yeah, she’s just running around collecting donor money, and that’s what she needs to do, and that’s what needs to do. And that’s what they feel like. They’re fighting money with money. And that is the race that if I wanted to meet Miss also Brooks, I’d have to pay $500 for, you know, to come into the cocktail party or whatever. I’m offended by all of it, just as a citizen, as a journalist, as just, you know, thinking that is it all on the up and up, or how much of it could possibly be on the up and up, this thing has taken to your point, a lot of your attention. What have you been writing about and looking to write about? Because, to your point, the attack ads themselves are all based in some level of scandal that they want reported or reported more than the three words I just gave it earlier, that they they want everybody. They want you looking under the hood of the other person’s car in some way. Yeah.
Pamela Wood 09:30
And before I go into that, just the reason why we’re getting all this money and all this attention is because the Senate right now is 51 Democrats, 49 Republicans. It’s just on a razor thin margin. Democrats are trying to hold as many seats as possible. Republicans are trying to flip as many seats as possible. And this one is, look all the sort of prognosticators out there that rate the competitiveness say this still is likely or leans. Democratic to win, but it is still somewhat competitive. It’s in play Governor Hogan, very uniquely successful Republican here. So literally, 10s of millions of dollars are pouring in from the national Republicans, the National Democrats. The ads that are hitting Angela also Brooks are coming from a group called Maryland’s future that is funded 10s of million dollars, millions of dollars from these like big name Republican mega donor business people who you know, have the kinds of jobs that don’t even understand what they do. They’re pouring this money in because they want to get a Republican majority. Now the question is, the attack ads, do they maybe cancel each other out? There’s an element of truth on both sides. But do voters care? Do voters get turned off or, yeah, or does it cancel out? Like Angela also Brooks had a property tax issue. Larry Hogan, you know, has a has a big real estate business that’s continued to make money for him. And, you know, did you know? Did he advantage his own business somehow? There’s no proof of it, but there’s questions, and does it all become a wash? And do people care more about what they’ll do on the economy, what they’ll do on the war in Gaza, what they’ll do about reproductive rights? You know, that’s the question. And I’m looking forward to talking to voters on election day to see, you know what made their decision, and was it those ads?
Nestor Aparicio 11:24
Pam, what is that on the election trail for all things, the Baltimore banner, she is down in the state house, and let’s get off the election. But we’ll come back to it just where Wes Moore is in all this is somehow, some way the orange guy is running the country next Wednesday. Are leading an insurrection after he loses, or claiming that the elections rigged, or any of the other things that we can only know he will do given all this. But where Wes is on all of this with the bridge and running Maryland, and if Kamala Harris is not the president united states and we have Donald Trump, the Democrats are going to be looking to do something next time around. I shudder to think there will be a next time around. But I would think that this is an interesting way all the way around them. We have a candidate who is upwardly mobile in the Democratic Party, either way, and trying to govern Maryland, but also outside the state, really campaigning hard for Kamala right?
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Pamela Wood 12:25
Yes, that’s right. I was actually with Governor Moore this morning. He voted down in Annapolis at early voting. Yeah. And he is all in for also Brooks, and has been campaigning for her, but also for Kamala Harris. And before Kamala Harris was the nominee, he was all in for Biden. You know, he is doing his duty as a Democratic governor to push the top of the ticket. He’s been in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, recently, Georgia, North Carolina. We think in this last week he’s going to go somewhere else. We’re not sure yet. You know, really stumping for vice president Harris. And look, I talked to him about what would happen if Donald Trump is elected. Because, you know, Governor Moore and other leaders in Maryland have very specific concerns, including funding for the Key Bridge, keeping the FBI headquarters that’s been decided it will go in green belt, and keeping that decision. Donald Trump, put that on ice before. And, you know, I asked Governor more specifically, well, what worries you about a Trump presidency? And he said, Pam, I mean, everything. So, you know, he’s, he’s fully on board, and, you know, traipsing around the country trying to get vice president Harris elected over Trump. And, yeah, potentially
Nestor Aparicio 13:42
denied all sorts of things to every state that didn’t vote for him, right? Like, literally, yes.
Pamela Wood 13:47
And look, Maryland has so many infrastructure projects that they need funded. The Key Bridge rebuild the red line, and in Baltimore, that’d be an east, west light rail line that Governor Moore is trying to restart. We have two rail tunnel projects in Baltimore that need federal funding, that are important to the economy and travel. Yeah, FBI, you know, federal workers generally. We have a lot of federal workers and contractors. And if Donald Trump and project 2025 follow through on their promises to, you know, gut the workforce like, what happens to all those people who that’s their job in Maryland. So a lot they’re concerned about. A
Nestor Aparicio 14:26
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lot they should be concerned about. This is where I do my public service and say, I own an FCC license. I serve the public here. Every elected official. There’s a reason politicians have been on my airways, because they’re always welcome, and I like to have them on I like to hear views. I like alternative views. I’m good with any views, so I would just say, vote. Please vote as a citizen. It’s important to me. It’s important to my family. Coming from Venezuela, my mother was born at a time where she couldn’t vote. Literally, 1919, the. Whole suffrage thing, you know, like all of you know all of it’s not rhetoric. I just would hope people are paying attention this week. If you’re voting ahead of time, great. I’m a, I’m a day of voter. Tell me how the how the state, how we’re counting votes, when molar and I would get after it, and how they’re counted and during COVID. And I have mailed in. I’ve gotten ballots. I’ve done all that. I’ve just sort of gone back since my mother died. I just sort of like, want to get you know on that Tuesday, go do my thing. Nobody was there when I voted primer. Like nobody at all. It feels like everybody’s doing it. A different way of voting early, but clogging up the pipes in regard to Trump and giving any glimmer that we go to bed Tuesday night, it’s not solved in whatever way it would be solved or hopefully not solved in the wrong direction. Part of this is counting votes, right? I mean, it just, and that’s, that’s all that’s going to be his issue when he loses on Wednesday morning, no matter what right counting votes and how we count them in our state,
Pamela Wood 15:58
yeah. And it’s, it’s changed a lot over the last couple years with COVID and everything else. So it’s it’s understandable that, like a lot of folks, maybe lost track of, like, why we don’t always know what’s gonna happen on on Tuesday nights. So there’s three ways to vote in Maryland. You can vote by mail ballot, and I have mine here.
Nestor Aparicio 16:16
Don’t show me how you voted for you. I
Pamela Wood 16:19
haven’t done it yet. I haven’t done it yet. You can vote by mail, and you can return those at the drop boxes, which is what I prefer to do. I like seeing it like, go in the box. Don’t have to worry about the mail. You get pictures of that. I
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Nestor Aparicio 16:31
mailed it at Camp yards when I lived, you know, live downtown. There was a little ballot box right in the front door. And, like, you know, I mean, it’s America, cool spot. Yeah, great spot. He’s a good picture.
Pamela Wood 16:41
Yeah. You can also, in person early vote, and that goes through Halloween as the last day of it this year. And what’s cool is you can go anywhere in your county or in Baltimore City where you live. You can go anywhere and they’ll have the ballot for you, or you can do day of so what happens with these mail ballots that they get early, the people who’ve mailed them back already, not like me waiting until the end. They can start at your local elections office. They’ll start opening them up and like tabulating them secretly. They don’t give us any results, but they’ll start putting those in the system ahead of time. And then, you know, the early vote, same thing. Once early voting is done, then they can run those numbers. So right after the polls close at eight o’clock on election day, in that first hour, we should get all of the early voting results and a bunch of the mail ballots that were already returned. It won’t be all of them. The rest of those mail ballots get counted after the after Election Day, but we’ll get a chunk of early vote. I mean, we’ll get all of the early vote. We’ll get a chunk of the vote by mail. Then as the night goes on, on election night, we’ll get the day of voting. And then there still will be a portion of, you know, mail ballots called absentees that they’ll count afterwards. But we may get enough to know, you know what the results are going to be for, say, the Senate race. We’ll definitely know in Maryland what happens in the presidential but every state is a little different when they count those mail ballots or absentee ballots, and it can be a process to get every single vote counted. Can take several days or a week or so. So we may not know nationally what happens depending on how all those swing states, you know, Tally their votes. So we had to be patient. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 18:27
yeah, and listen, I’ll be glad when I stopped getting texts from all of them, you know, like my phone too. My gosh almighty. Pam, what is here? She’s the Baltimore banner. Next time we get together, hopefully it’s over crab cakes and we’re good. Like, faith is got my fatally shirt on here from your perspective, and you’re so into this as a journalist, and being you know, at the banner and everybody in your little space is into the election, you have your own responsibilities in Maryland, but the larger picture of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and where all of that falls i It’s, I can’t believe it’s come to this. I want to give you the Florida to say, whatever you have to say about it. But watching Pennsylvania, watching Ohio, watching what’s going on 30 miles north of here, like literally, and if you’ve traveled at any point to a state like Ohio and I have to watch television just seeing what’s taking place in Wisconsin, in Georgia, in these places where there are to your point, vulnerabilities far beyond what the perception would be of Larry Hogan winning next week. But more than that, on the presidential side, it’s just so important. And when they start talking about Puerto Ricans being trashed to start a rally at the garden the other night, I’m just losing my mind.
Pamela Wood 19:42
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Yeah, I have to wonder, I’m very interested in that, how far that permeated all of those, you know, racist things, frankly, that were said at that rally. You know, it happened on a Sunday. People are watching football. How much are they reading the news? How much do people know? I mean, certainly vice president Harris’s campaign, like jump. To write on it. You know, a number of Puerto Rican stars like jumped on it. You know, I am sort of intrigued, and I would love to read a good story about this, about people who really believe that, who people who are undecided. Everybody I know is in one camp or another, family, friends, everything, voting for Harris or Trump. And, you know, why are, why are people undecided on, on what matters? Are they undecided at this last minute? So I’m just, you know, watching and reading the stories in those other states. And yeah, one, you know, right north of us, there’s a number of people from both parties in Maryland who go up to Pennsylvania and are knocking on doors. You know, I’ve seen people my social media feeds in Harrisburg and Lancaster knocking doors to persuade those voters, because it’s not competitive here. So, you know, we’ll, we’ll see what turns out. We’ll see what our neighbors in in Pennsylvania do. It’s really fascinating. It feels
Nestor Aparicio 20:55
like a quiet before, like whatever is going to happen. And, I mean, we only had an insurrection the last time around. And this guy’s only been indicted on and charged and found guilty on all sorts of things, and he could be running the country next Wednesday. That’s, we failed. Pam, we failed. We failed. I nonetheless. Pam wood is here. That’s, that’s my little political thing. But I turn out, turn out in Maryland, I was so disappointed by the primary, just in a general sense, for the city turnout, especially, and in regard to, well, you know, I know people like this for sure. Not so into politics. Kamala is going to win here anyway. I like Kamala. I like also Brooks is going to win. She’s up 14 points. Ask anybody that it just feels like, Yeah, throw my time away, my vote away, whatever it is that that not undecided, but on the fence of whether they’re going to vote or not at all, and how much trouble it’s going to be, and whether they wake up on the right side of the bed next Tuesday and get it in or not. I know people like that, but also know people just say, Yeah, this time around, I, you know, the votes already decided I’m not going to do it, and that’s the worst part for me. But I think that that’s also the part that’s very obvious. When you look at primaries, and when you look at turnout, that turnout in population, it’s it’s a wild number in our culture, probably something that our forefathers, and I’m sure you’ve studied it more than me. Just would never understand when they got together 250, years ago, to put this thing together that so many people not just disaffected, on interested, just not even interested in voting. Yeah,
Pamela Wood 22:32
you know, I grew up in a family where it was instilled in me that you vote, you always vote, and you keep your vote secret. My parents were big on that, but they were always voters, and I never miss an election. But yeah, other people may feel like, oh, you know, my vote doesn’t matter. I mean, it does count, but they feel like it doesn’t matter. You know, in a lopsided state like Maryland, you know, anybody who has that this year, I would say, look, the Senate race is not a given. Yes. Also, Brooks is up in the polls, but like you know, your vote will matter there. Your vote matters in Baltimore City on these ballot questions happening, but it is disappointing people who who choose not to vote or feel disaffected that said, I spoke this morning with Jared de Marinus, the state director, director of elections, and he was very excited about the turnout so far between mail ballots that have been returned and the first few days of early voting, we’re getting close to about a million people who voted already, and there’s 4.1 million registered voters, so already getting close to 25% turnout, and we still have a whole bunch of early voting left to go. And we have Election Day, which still is the biggest day. So he’s optimistic that people will be driven to turn out. You know, even if we know Harris is going to win in Maryland, some people still want to vote to say, you know, I supported her or I supported him, as a point of pride, even if they don’t know. So, you know, we’ll see. We’ll see if the Senate race drives turnout, or if people are early, and then it peters out, you know, I think it’s important to vote whatever your persuasion is, like, you know what they say. If you’re not at the table, then you’re like on the menu, right? You should have your, you know, be part of of making your choice of who our leaders are. I think it’s important. That’s my that’s my civic encouragement. Please
Nestor Aparicio 24:22
do. Please do. Pam woody here from the Baltimore banner, I highly recommend that you follow her work, and as we get up on the election next week. So you live in Anne Arundel County. You have your own interest down there and your own races and things. And you’re covering the State House in Annapolis. I am in Baltimore County and seeing Johnny Owen Kim classic, you know, moving around here and and you’ve uncontested sort of races and in other places. And I know the sixth is messy with trones exit on the west side, the question H things gotten to me. I had Zach Zeke Cohen on last week. I’m mixing up Zach Orr and Zeke Cohen. There’s my sports reference for you. But I had zeco A couple weeks ago just talking about that. And then your former employers, and what’s going on with Sinclair and the sun, and not just reporters, and how reporters are being handled and unions and guilds, but but things that are getting politicized on ballots that are brought on by sort of a reigning Republican media class to get agendas met through questions. What’s What are you here? What are the other things, other than God, I hope Kamala wins, wherever, wherever we are in the Senate, thing, and then individual congressional what? What is contested in your mind, what would be shocking to you, and what’s on the menu as far as things? First thing you’re checking at nine o’clock next Tuesday night?
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Pamela Wood 25:41
Yeah, well, I’m going to be on the Senate race, but I would encourage people to take a look at your school board races. A number of jurisdictions have competitive elected school board races this year. That includes Anne Arundel, where I live, Howard County, Carroll County. School boards are the people who make a lot of important policy decisions for how your public schools run. You know, we have seen school board meetings where they’re talking about, you know, banning books and, you know, curriculum changes. They’re the ones who pick who the superintendent is. It’s very important. There’s different forces at play. The Baltimore banner has a voter’s guide where you can look up like your jurisdiction, see who those candidates are. We also just published several stories about some of the races, who the candidates are, and now in school boards, it’s officially non partisan. But let’s be real, you can tell there’s a partisan lien when you look at the candidates, who’s endorsed them. You know what they’re talking about? You know if they’re talking about parents rights there, that’s a Republican term. If they’re talking about like equity, that’s like a democratic term. But you should really do your homework. Don’t skip over the school board races, because those are important seats. There’s, it’s, it’s hard to find information about them, which is why we just published some stories in a voters guide about your school board.
Nestor Aparicio 27:04
This is why I bring you on. Yeah, there. You know, anybody could sit here and talk combo and Donald Trump or, I mean, even the also Brooks Hogan thing, um, polls and pollsters. And this is where I always get sideways with Malia in and can sell all of these people. I know they’re funded. I just I have a hard time with the science part of believing a poll, and when you quote it, or immediate people that quote it, or it’s quoted to me by team also Brooks at their 14 points up, and all they need is more money and the donor class and pay $500 and come to the rubber chicken dinner, whatever it is, cocktail party. I from my perspective on all of it, I sit back and watch it and say, what’s going to matter here is that that we have fair elections in this country, right? Like all of these things that we talk about, that we have, that my mother didn’t have, that you don’t have in China, you don’t have in Russia. It’s just such a big, big week, and you guys do a great job of, like, trying to take these other issues, because they don’t come, they don’t bubble up from the surface, things like school boards. You have to seek that out, really, right? Yeah, and
Pamela Wood 28:11
I’ll say one thing about polls. You know, all the candidates say, and it’s true, the poll that matters most is the poll when people go to vote, right? The on election day leading up to election day. So we’ve taken an attack this year with the Senate races. I just we have one story that we just keep updating with a summary of each poll, right? So you can go in one place and just see what all the polls are, and we say, who did the poll, who paid for the poll? How did they do it? You know, what was their methodology and what was the most important thing that this poll found? So you can just sort of get bite size, because we don’t want to blow up the polls because, you know, that’s, it’s just a slice in time that’s not necessarily predictive of what’s going to happen. It’s, if it were held today, what would happen. And a lot of things can happen between the time a poll was taken and the election. It does give an interesting barometer of maybe where the candidates stand, and they can find some things, but we’ve tried to be responsible about it and not over emphasize the polls, but instead give people the tools to understand the basics about them, if that’s what they’re interested in. And, you know, compare them, one to the other, and I’m pretty proud of that. I think it was a smart choice for us not to go, you know, to all in on polls, and instead focus more writing about the issues the candidates are talking about and their strategies.
Nestor Aparicio 29:35
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I think the polling thing is awesome, and I like talking about it. I just don’t like talking about it as science or as gospel that this is exactly how people are feeling. Because, I to your point, we’re all going to find out next Wednesday morning. Alright, all this politics crap aside, let’s get serious here. Orioles off season fix, that’s your thing. I mean, everybody knows that. Where, where, how are you feeling, and this Dodger Yankee thing aside, just how are you feeling? Feeling about new ownership, what kind of investment needs to be made. Most important opinion you have here isn’t, you know, Trump or come, it’s whether we’re gonna sign curb and burns or not, you know? So,
Pamela Wood 30:09
yeah, I mean, I have to say, you know, after the Orioles lost in the playoffs, it was so deflating, right? I mean, we were all just deflated. I mean, you know, wasn’t the best end of the season, but I thought we would go further. And so I mostly, I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 30:24
the Indians, at least they had a walk and they had a little fun, right? There was no fun. We had no fun. Yeah, so
Pamela Wood 30:33
I’ve mostly tuned out on baseball, although, of course, I guess if I’m rooting for anybody, it would be the Dodgers or over the Yankees, because, of course, but you know, the new ownership maybe it’s just because I’m a journalist and I’m always skeptical of everything I’m I am hopeful they’ll make the right investments smarter than I would make. Probably hopeful, but I don’t know. It’s a it’s a guarantee, right? It’s sort of wait and see. Certainly, they do seem to be not just financially invested, but emotionally invested in really wanting to get the best outcome, and they really seem to want to please fans, and they want to win. Well, they make the the best choices. I’m hopeful, but, you know, I don’t put 100% faith in anything again. I guess it’s my my skepticism. So I’m hopeful we’ll see what they do,
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Nestor Aparicio 31:22
because this is what I’ve done all of my life. The issues for me are financial and structural in regard to how those 10,000 empty seats in a playoff game get filled and they get filled with real money. I have a dear friend of mine that’s in is in baseball, and I was considering going out to LA for games six and seven. And, you know, face value in the ticket to 700 bucks, right? Like, let’s start with that. Like, if we ever get there, how many of our own fans are not going to be able to participate at that level? And I think of the money part of it that needs to fund it after Madison, what the league’s trying to do to nationalize the TV revenue. I say you want to nationalize the revenue, nationalize the payroll, you know, because then that’s what makes the NFL the NFL, in my mind, and that’s what sort of this differentiator with the Dodgers and the Yankees having all of this money, I wonder what the Orioles can be on their best day. You know, in this market, given that the Nationals exist, because I’ve watched all that happen. I had Peter sitting next to me 27 years ago. There’s no way this will work. We have two teams. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll, neither team will be any good. They won’t have money, you know. And you don’t have to have money to make the World Series, but it doesn’t hurt, and they’re going to need some level of money, is all I’m saying. And I don’t know where that’s coming from in this marketplace like that worries me. For baseball, it’s, it’s very white, kind of like the Trump campaign. It’s very white, very old downtown. And the fact, with my own eyes, three weeks ago, I don’t, I don’t want to put you on the spot because you’re busy. It’s election season, but I don’t know if you went to those games or not. I know a lot of people didn’t. Not enough people did. And it bothered me. I hope it bothers David Rubenstein and Katie Griggs. You know,
Pamela Wood 33:00
I did not go. I went last year, and I went before, you know, years before, because there is, there is nothing like playoff baseball, man, it is in the sports world like, you know, it is just, it is so great. And I think there were some challenges, like, people were unsure how well we were going to do. The games were on weekdays. It was, like, cool, and I think it was a little bit rainy, and, you know, I thought about it before, and then even the day of, you could get tickets for like, $20 and I thought, you know, I was very busy with work, with the election, and I felt like a bad fan. But I think a lot of people had that same thought, like, I don’t know, but what’s interesting to me is we’re gonna have these upgrades and renovations coming to the ballpark now that the lease was signed, they’re going to issue the state bonds. And, you know, I got the survey, like everybody else did, about, would you like this type of suite, or that all these different seating options, and they all looked very cool, these ideas, they were floating to fans, but I thought, Man, that’s going to be really expensive. That’s a like, maybe once a year, once every other year. You know, I just want a regular seat that’s affordable. Can we keep the games affordable for families? You know, for people, you can’t drop hundreds of dollars on the regular. You know
Nestor Aparicio 34:15
what they’re gonna charge for television, which I’ve talked a lot about, like that being a if you’re going to hit me for four or 500 bucks a year to have the games on TV, I won’t have the games, and they’ll go away, and you just lost the fan. You lost the customer like so I am concerned about how they’re going to distribute it, because I don’t think they have a plan. I think that’s the scariest part. They don’t really know what they’re doing, and they’re going into an uncharted space where they’re just promising all this money to these players, but I don’t know that the if the real bean counters, Mr. Rubenstein, comes in and says, you know, he bought the team for fun, now he’s gonna pay for it. Now he’s got to learn about the union. He’s got to learn about Scott Boris. Okay, have the fans waiting. Me signing gunner. When are we signing gunner? Gunners not signing, dude. He’s Boris. He’s not signing. He’s not. They don’t ask the owner to do something he can’t do, you know? So I think that this is where it all starts to say, those are the Dodgers, those are the Yankees. And you can say, well, we can’t afford that. We’re small market and all that. Well, I don’t think the fan base here is going to want to hear that after watching the losing that we’ve all witnessed and how much more fun it is to win. As you pointed out,
Pamela Wood 35:23
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it is way more fun to win. And you know, one thing that’s sort of a mystery to me. I don’t understand all those legal details of massen and all that litigation, but you have to have cable to get Madison. And I have cable, and that is one of the reasons why I have cable, so I can come home from work and flip on watch the end of the game. But if, if you don’t have cable, which is so many people, you know you’re you’re blacked out, if you’ve got the, like, the MLB app and like, a way for people to still watch the games in Baltimore without having cable, I think, I think fans would like that. I don’t know how that fits in the financial picture, the legal picture, just as a fan, make it easier to watch the games on TV, I would think that’s what a lot of people want. So well, being here, I have my dear friend John
Nestor Aparicio 36:04
Keller from Arkansas. My Dundalk buddy lives out in Arkansas. And I’m like, you get the games every night because it feels like you’re really into he’s like, No, I just watched the highlights on the app. I said, so how much would you be willing to pay? He’s like, Well, I buy peacock and I do this. And I’m like, Well, I don’t know, but I do know the models about the change, and they better figure that part out, about recruiting new people who are playing lacrosse or people of color who are adults and don’t know what baseball is, but have money and would like to be a part of the party, if you could make them a part of the party. And I feel like that the Orioles have snooze. I mean, look, it’s no secret, you and me, we’ve been through this free the birds. Angela, they’ve done a poor job. There’s 10,000 empty seats. Would speak at 20 bucks would speak to the fact that there’s growth potential here. I’m just interested to see what it’s going to be, and I’m really glad you brought the money up. Pam, because I bring it up all the time about what they’re going to do with that money, and where I’ve seen that money go in other places, including the football stadium, and saying, What does that mean to me? How’s that money? How are you getting more money out of me because you spent that money on that or how am I getting more enjoyment as a citizen when I do come those are things we’re going to be monitoring. But I know the one thing we don’t have to monitor. You love baseball. I love baseball. You’re following the election. I’m following you. Pam wood is here. She’s at the Baltimore banner. You can subscribe, you can follow. Certainly, she talked about these school races and different races, that we’re not getting a billion dollars spent about what a bad person. Angel also Brooks is one awful person Larry yogin is, and how everybody’s terrible, and all of that while we watch baseball games all night, which is what I’m doing all week. I do hope people are following your work and taking the election seriously. You know, you and I, we real, nothing else, where we vote, vote, vote, get everybody out to vote. That’s probably the most important message we can make this week, as well as trying to educate folks where they can get it from you.
Pamela Wood 37:53
Yeah. Thank you so much. And again, if I could just give one more plug the Baltimore banner com, we have a voters guide. It’s right on our homepage, we ask, you know, basic information about all the candidates. We send them questionnaires. You can say in their own words what they say about the issues. It’s a great way to just read up so you can be informed and make your choice ahead of voting.
Nestor Aparicio 38:12
Well, hey, I appreciate your time, your friendship. At some point we get a cracking I’ve come through the tunnel. You get through the harbor tunnel. Still get the cops, but I’m in Fauci lease. I’ll bring the tour operator now the rays battling cancer down in Pasadena, my dear friend, Executive Producer, I’m finding myself a little bit more down in the Dina area, so I’ll be try to pass through, and I’ll get a crab cake with you. Hey, stay sane this week. Get some rest. You know, some root against the Yankees. Do your you know, everybody needs to do their two good red blooded American things. Vote and root against the Yankees this week. There you go. Pam wood, joining us here from the Baltimore banner, one of our defending champions. We’re going to get the Maryland crab cake. We’re back out on the road courtesy of our friends at Jiffy Lubin the Maryland lottery, also our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter, putting me out for 26 crab cakes, or, excuse me, oysters in 26 days in 26 ways. I’m mixing up my crab cakes and oysters at this point. So I brought you by Liberty pure solutions. One 800 clean water. The oysters keep the bay clean, my friends at Liberty, pure keep me running clean with delicious water here so I can hydrate myself for election season in baseball. I’m Nestor. My thanks to Pam wood from the Baltimore banner. We are wnst am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stopped talking Baltimore positive. Now, go vote. Do.
