Longtime baseball writer Barry Bloom discusses the pending disaster with the Oakland Athletics’ hasty departure to Las Vegas, the MLB rule changes unintended consequences and the Orioles great start amidst the financial realities of the AL East.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
game, baseball, oakland, orioles, move, year, padres, ballpark, team, place, coliseum, giants, major league baseball, baltimore, memorial stadium, yankees, stadium, point, built, dodgers
SPEAKERS
Barry Bloom, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back at W n s t, Towson Baltimore, Baltimore positive hope everyone is setting a dial out there today in 1570 for us, and podcast Landia we’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake tour all over the summer, June July, August leading up to our 25th anniversary, August 3, and then we’ll be doing some oysters. After that all are presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery of these instant lottery scratch offs. We had some winners last week, up with the local and fallston and our friends at window nation. 866 90 nation making me better in the summertime energy wise than it was this time last year, but I didn’t have windows. This guy has came into my life in the last two decades but was in my life as up as a very young man, I want to say a child but I don’t want to date him too much. But I read his work many, many times in all sorts of places in and around the Yankees and ended around the American League East he spent plenty of time Memorial Stadium back in the day, a longtime baseball man and now doing his thing. It’s fortaco you can follow him out on the Twitter thing at boom ski. He’s West coasting out there where the Orioles get the win games before the sun even sets. We welcome Barry bloom back on to the program one of our defending baseball champions. You know, Barry, I was gonna get you in March for spring training and st nap, you know, that it’s April and we had all the Lamar Jackson stuff here. And the team got off to a good start. And like this year, we’re all watching more baseball. I had no idea I was gonna find you Memorial Day. And the Orioles are gonna be like the greatest story in baseball so far this year?
8Barry Bloom 01:30
Yeah, well, they’re kind of like the polar opposite of the A’s at this point. You know, considering where the situation is in the game, the Orioles are a great start.
Nestor Aparicio 01:43
Well, these are always uncomfortable situations when these teams move right like the Orioles still very, very much and Baltimore feel the effect of the Montreal Expos demise, that they circled the drain for so long. They were going to San Juan and playing games and all these places. This Oakland situation and not and we don’t have a lease here. Barry, I want to continue. You don’t down those lines that they’re that the owner doesn’t have a lease. You’re watching what’s happened here, you’ve covered the sport your whole life. I’m assuming you weren’t there when the senators left the Washington, right. I mean, like you’ve covered this your whole life and contraction, all of these things that have happened other than the Montreal situation, they don’t move baseball teams?
Barry Bloom 02:23
No, I mean, this is my 48th Season covering baseball, believe it or not, and I started in the Bay Area. So it seems like between the Giants and the A’s, my entire career has basically been around their stadium situations, obviously, the Giants, you know, was finally settled after 20 years in 2000. And the A’s are still ongoing. So it just seems like my entire career has been filled with their problems on where to build out a build, who’s gonna pay for it. Now, I was not around, I was still in college when the Senator has moved to Texas. But you know, I was knee deep in the Montreal Expo moved down from Montreal to Washington and the building of the new stadium down on the Navy yards down there. So yeah, that was pretty expensive following and I’m really not sure. You know, what happens with the A’s at this point, whether they moved to Vegas, or they moved somewhere else. You know, I mean, I think for them, and most people don’t really even talk about it much. But I think if they do it, baseball does allow them to move and they go to Vegas, I think it you open to huge expansion market for Major League Baseball to take $2 billion from somebody who probably build on the Coliseum site, and return baseball ultimately to Oakland. It’s just too big a market for them to vacate. And I just don’t see them seeding the entire market to the giant.
Nestor Aparicio 03:55
8Has it ever been any good? I mean, I was gonna ask Jim Palmer when he was playing against, you know, catfish and 73 and 74. And, like, I was at the games here, and I was a little boy, I was five years old. They they were the first team I hated the Oakland A’s, right, because they were great. And they had Reggie and they had banned them. And that can’t be and you know, like all those players, Rudy, all of that. And they were the original sin of Charlie Finley being a cheapskate and trying to sell the players off and and that’s probably in the beginning of your career, that the BBQ and all that stuff that happened. And I think about Billy ball, I think about even the bait the series back in at night, like all of the things that happen. I think they’re sort of the Tampa rays sort of grown up 50 years later, right? Like they were sort of brought out there in the middle of the night by Finley to begin with. And they were always a little bit of a second citizen even when the the Giants couldn’t get out of their own way in the 80s. Well, I
Barry Bloom 04:47
mean, comparatively, I mean, as you point out, I mean, the A’s in the early 70s won three World series in a row. They’re the they’re the only other team in baseball history to do that. Besides Yankees, you know, then, you know when Finley sold off to the Haas family, you know, they built it back up very quickly and you had, as you said, Billy ball and Rickey Henderson and armas and a great pitching staff, you know, and they went to the playoffs,
Nestor Aparicio 05:16
that controversial pitching staff I might add, they’re about controversial they do in McHattie. Some of these guys that blew their arms out made me feel differently about things. So
Barry Bloom 05:25
I don’t know, I’ve talked to McHattie about it and wrote a column recently when he was still the Nationals pitching coach. And he said that he never hurt his arm. He said he slipped in a bathroom and hit his elbow on the floor. And that’s how he blew out is his arm. But yeah, I mean, it the A’s in 1980 had something like 93 complete games. And I personally sat in on for 14 incomplete games at the Oakland Coliseum. I mean, it Billy didn’t have a closer and he was just hitting carry just was even gonna blow these guys out. But you know, they were good. And at they went to the, to the playoffs in the split season and at one less of the Yankees in championship series, you know, then, you know, Steve shot and happened bought the team and you go into the Billy Bowl era, and they were constantly in the playoffs and and close every year, they were drawing 2.5 million to the Coliseum. At the same time, you know, the Giants and reloc were relocating into, you know, into the ballpark down on McCovey Cove. And both teams were thriving. So I mean, I think the whole controversy, the, you know, of the giants and A’s circled around, you know, how and when did the A’s cede the Santa Clara County to the Giants and, and never took it back and why it happened and why the Giants were able to block them from moving and building down in San Jose. That’s really the crux of the whole of the whole story. And the Giants continue to this day to to own under the auspices of Major League Baseball, you know, it’s codified in the Major League agreement, that they have the rights to that county, and it’s the only one of the split team cities where counties are actually mentioned in the agreement. The other ones New York, Chicago, LA, they split the counties down the middle, and they have ownership of all the of the entire area. You know, this is
8Nestor Aparicio 07:27
Angelo’s just took the television that was the way to do it here, right? Well, Angelo’s claimed
Barry Bloom 07:31
that he had rights to the Washington area, which he never had. And you know, for whatever reason, you know, but but Khattab to him, and they basically, you know, gave them the share and running of NASS, and which is still a problem. Now. I was gonna say, how did that work out? Yeah. So I mean it. But that was the way they they justified moving the Expos into the Washington area, even though people in Major League Baseball admitted that Angeles did not have any, any rights to the Washington area. He just said, Well, we drove fans from down there. Well, great. I mean, if you had put like a decent team on the field every year in Baltimore, it wouldn’t have mattered if there was a team in the Washington area. They just let the team fall apart. And now, you know, after a long last, you know, and once you know, you know, show Walter left, and that bottom doubt. Now they’ve gotten through that era, and they’re starting to come back again, by drafting good talent. And they are where they are with a $55 million payroll. I mean, it’s incredible. I was doing the math the other day on a Red Sox story. And the Blue Jays Red Sox and Yankees have $600 million combined in payroll. The rains that we’re leaving division is 55 million the Orioles in second place 55 million on that day, like last weekend, the Red Sox were like 28 and a half games, you know, out of, you know, combined out of first and second place. So, I mean, it’s like what happens? How do you, you know, how do you justify it? How do you quantify it, you know, it’s just, baseball doesn’t really play to the amount of money that you spend, it’s not going to mean you’re going to put the best team on the field and that that team is going to win, man and you’re seeing it right now where you know, the Yankees are starting to come back the Mets are starting to come back but struggling the Padres are third in the league in payroll a donor 50 million and they’re having a god awful season so far, and then just lost their TV rights. So I mean, it’s like the sport to Washington in problems at this point, but I don’t remember a time where it wasn’t.
Nestor Aparicio 09:48
I would I would say to you, you know that there’s there have always been problem franchises and I go back with Oakland to like they’re we’re gonna move to Denver back in the day right. So so all and the the Padres were moving the wash LinkedIn at that time they made baseball cards in the 70s with all this stuff, but for me that the the Oakland thing as the current dumpster fire, I mean, this thing here, Baltimore’s been a dumpster fire forever, that nobody’s even attended to it was like, we just don’t see it at some point he’ll die and we’ll figure it out. He’s still not dead, they still haven’t figured it out. They were so bad so long, that they wind up getting rutschman They wind up getting these players. And then and this is where I am at this point, because it’s coming back. People are going back to the games. The city has been on the struggle for a long, long time and people are getting back to you know, it’s afternoon games now people are coming down. Kids are coming. They did the Baltimore jerseys in the city connect, they did all of this stuff. But I keep thinking to myself, is this short lived? Right? Like you mentioned the Buck show. Walter wasn’t that long ago, but they didn’t grow through that era that you know, once it was over and over it bottomed down. Sponsorship fans, people go into the games, they didn’t grow the Oriole brand. It feels like this is a from scratch thing again, where it’s rushman. And Henderson. Like it’s it’s a bunch of young guys.
Barry Bloom 11:05
8I think the problem during the you know, the show, Walter era was that eventually, you know, Danny and Cheb Walter got to loggerheads. And they essentially weren’t even talking to each other by the end. And it was like Danny went to Angelo’s, he wanted to fire show Walter, they said no, he’s under contract, deal with it. They couldn’t deal with each other at the end. And when you have that kind of dysfunction, it’s gonna affect the whole team. That just and that’s what happened. And then once you got through all of that, now you are where you are right now. But I’ll tell you the difference between the a’s and the the orals is the fact is that, you know, you still have Camden Yards. And it’s like, it’s a beautiful ballpark, they’ve upgraded it, they’ve spent money on it. It when people around the country destination ballpark, people still say, you know, I don’t know, I either haven’t been to Camden Yards for years, or I’ve never been they still want to go. In Oakland. The Coliseum is a slump. I mean, it really is a slump. I was there last year. And, you know, the aides had produced a list of problems in the ballpark. And they I got the list. I went around the ballpark. And I checked out what they were talking about. And they were right. You know, there’s like, corroded you know, corroded you know, metal on where seats are there. Some of their key seats are from the football stadium when it when when the football seats removed in there, it’s feral cats, there’s possums. There’s rats. There’s a homeless camp outside the ballpark. But at least there was last year, you know, the the food
Nestor Aparicio 12:48
was there as well. I went for a Pearl Jam concert a year ago this month was in May. And Pearl Jam played two concerts. The A’s were playing the angels during a game. And there couldn’t have been 2000 people there, you know, like that you wouldn’t have known the game was going was an afternoon game. It had no sound to it. And I listen, I would say the Baltimore people and I’ve written about this when I did my 30 ballparks back and 15 I love the old Coliseum because it reminds me Memorial Stadium, like in a time capsule wait smells like Memorial Stadium when you walk in it. And I think to myself, holy hell if we were still playing games in Memorial Stadium. How bad would it smell how many feral cats would be like, like, like, there’s only so much life in a state seven years ago?
Barry Bloom 13:33
I don’t think that’s comparable. I mean, the memorial memorial was built in the 50s. The Orioles moved there from St. Louis in the mid 50s. You know you’re talking about it didn’t move to Coliseum until 68. The stadium was built in 66. The only money that Oakland has ever put into that stadium was to bring the Raiders back from Los Angeles. Davis. Right? Yeah. So they built that end of it. And they haven’t, they didn’t put one dime into it for baseball, since the stadium was built. And whatever beautification or upgrades had been done had been done by the A’s themselves, you know, just to make the ballpark livable. But it’s if it wants to add that kind of you know, feel to it. It certainly doesn’t anymore. And I’m, you know, at the point where here, I’m never going there again, I feel like it’s a dangerous place to both watch a game. And it’s also a a dangerous place to go in and out and leave especially at night. I mean, I worry going out into the parking lot at night, you know, and if you’re a female fan or sports writer or whatever, you really have to be concerned somebody really needs to walk into your car and who wants that, you know, the whole bay area we can get into the the massive problems that are going on in San Francisco right now which you know, it’s extended to Oakland. Maybe We’ve just gone through a situation here in Arizona where Tempe voters you know, very smattering of Tempe voters vote that voted down, what would have been a generational entertainment complex on a landfill, they actually voted for the landfill. This is how crazy people are, and Oakland that they didn’t get the money to gather to, you know, build that, that Howard terminal when the A’s still had the money, and we still had the will to do it, they’re never going to have another chance. I mean, Oakland, nobody’s going to ever put up that money to generate, you know, an economic engine, and that kind of, we’ve got that kind of wait for the city again. And then Vegas doesn’t need it, they’re just going to slap a stadium, if it goes there, right in the middle of the strip. And it’s just going to cause all kinds of problems ultimately, in the strip. So I mean, the these are our bad decisions, they’re not the city council’s Politico’s don’t step up, you know, they’re afraid of their own jobs. I mean, and to be fair, I mean, when the aides had the money, and they were ready to do it, then the pandemic hit, and everything came to a complete halt. But you know, I gotta say, I mean, I documented it going back to shot. I mean, these guys tried to build the ballpark, you know, it’s a huge endeavor, you know, the only thing they never wanted to do was, they just always thought the Coliseum land was a loss leader. And nobody ever wanted to build on that land, even though would have been the easiest place to build a ballpark, they didn’t see the future in it, and didn’t see that area as a 24/7 place where people would come around, you know, 12 months out of the year, it baseball wasn’t being played. So, you know, maybe that was a lost opportunity. I think that if it ever does if the A’s do move, and like I said, if they if if the baseball uses is in that expansion market, which is a no brainer, then it’s like, it’s going to go on the Coliseum because it’s that’s the easiest place for them to put it. And the ACE Dolan effort, and the install still won’t happen. So they own half of that real estate. And they’d make money selling it to whoever one wanted to do the do the project. So it’s a really complicated, you know, situation. You know, I’m not glad I’m not in Major League Baseball trying to decide it.
Nestor Aparicio 17:27
Will you say if they stay, to your point, like the stadium, they don’t have a place to play. So they’ve willed themselves out of it. Barry Bloom is our guest.
8Barry Bloom 17:37
Yeah, I mean, they have a lease to play at the Coliseum for at least another year, they can play at the Coliseum ad infinitum. Until something gets built. It’s just okay. At some point, when does Major League Baseball step in and say, you know, this, this is not a safe place for the players, it’s not a safe place for the fans, like they just did with Milwaukee, they just told the county of Milwaukee you need to put $400 million into this stadium, which is only 20 years old, to like, upgraded to where it needs to be to continue to have baseball here. They never went to Oakland and said, you know, the Coliseum commission, you the A’s, the other group that’s involved in this, you know, you need to put X amount of dollars into this, or we’re not going to continue playing baseball. We’ll move it to San Francisco for a while until you figure it out. So I mean, they have to figure that out. Even for the short term, some money has to be spent on that if the A’s are going to wind up staying in the is staying in Oakland, and I don’t think it’s it’s a, you know, until I see documents sealed and everything. And you know, Fisher really committing to put some money into Vegas, which he never did in Oakland. I want to see that. And when they do that, and they actually announced the deal. And Major League Baseball approves a move, then I’ll say okay, the ages are gone from Oakland. But right now, I still think it’s far from the truth.
Nestor Aparicio 19:07
Sometimes I think there’s no bottom with any of this stuff. The Montreal thing felt like it went on forever. Meanwhile, the glacial pace the baseball moves to get the DH to the National League. All of these things. interleague play still feels five minutes old and 30 years old. Now. The pace of play and the shift, and this the runner on second base and these newfangled rules that I’m sure an old guy like you and an old guy like me to get off the lawn guys, how do we do all this? In my town, at least over the last eight weeks since they’ve, the team has gotten better the team is blossom. The one thing that I hear from everyone is we’re enjoying the games more. They’re starting the games at 630. Here in April in May. The games are over at nine o’clock at night and Baltimore has a reputation like Oakland where you feel like is it safe to go downtown I lived downtown for 20 years. I don’t say it’s safe. are not safe, I’m saying I’ve been comfortable with it, I’m comfortable with getting better. But all that being said that all the conversation around baseball this year, other than the last 20 minutes about Oakland has been very positive in regard to, they finally are trying to make their game better. They’re trying to find that they’re trying to package their game to make it more appealing. I don’t love the runner on second base in the 10th inning, but it gets the game’s over. And if that’s ultimately what they’re trying to do the shift thing, the game had gotten crazy. We players on one side of the field, it changed the game, but that the pitch clock and the pace of play. That’s the one thing I can say in all of these years, I’ve known you and doing this. I can say Man, they improved it, because I can’t think of many things they’ve done over my lifetime to say they’ve really made it better.
Barry Bloom 20:47
Well, if you go back to the days you’re talking about, and you’re a lot younger than me, I’m 71. But the pace of the play was like this without all this paraphernalia. And you didn’t have to worry about it. It’s twofold. I blame the shifts and on the analytics departments. I blame the lollygagging on the mound and around the batter’s box purely on the players. I blame the umpires for not, you know, holding up rules that were already on the game that was supposed to, you know, basically marginalize this. And so you had to come to a point where it’s like, okay, if you’re not going to do it, you know, we’re going to have to do it for you. And, you know, really, the pace of play the game and pace of play on television are really two different things. A lot of this was made for television, you know, because the games were just too long, people were not going to watch three and a half hour games on television. Now two and a half on television is reasonable. at the ballpark, it creates maybe a quickness to it. I’ve heard from fans that, you know, you go for a beer, and you miss half the game. You know, there are things that have to accommodate that. So it’s a much quicker game. And you know, to your point about, you know, Camden Yards mean, the other facing side of the ballpark, not the harbor side is a pretty bad area. So I mean, so you’re dealing with a, you know, a ballpark that was built at a time 2530 years ago, you didn’t foresee what was going to happen overall to that whole neighborhood. But it’s still a gym. And it’s still a fun place to go to the ballpark. And I think you’re right. I mean, people are are happy about shaving a half an hour off the games. You know, I’ve seen many a game that has gone two hours and 45 minutes or two hours and 15 minutes, that last year would have been three hours and 50 minutes. And nobody needs to spend three hours and 50 minutes at the ballpark. And to the runner on second base. You know, that was a COVID era safety rule. Because they didn’t want the players on the field any longer than they needed to be the seventh inning doubleheaders were also instituted that year. You know, that’s gone by the wayside. But I think that it’s a leftover rule. You know, that’s essentially a good one. You know, you don’t need games, going regular season games going into the, you know, the 10th and 11th or 12th inning. It’s kind of like the five minute three odd three in hockey. Great for the regular season. fun way to end the game. If it’s still tied, you go into a shootout I don’t particularly like to shoot out. I’d rather see them in the game and overtime, just play it out until it ends. But okay, they don’t, then you go to Stanley Cup playoffs, and it’s overtime to right. It’s right. And the same thing in playoff baseball. They’re old, you know, extra inning roll comes back into play. And you can play all night, because that’s the way a regulation baseball game should be played, you know, during 162. No need for it. So I think really, you know, they hit on a good thing. I think you know, you know, Commissioner Manfred deserves credit for instilling the committee that put all these together. I think, you know, I think it’s funny that, you know, my buddy, Theo Epstein. I’ve known him since he was a kid is an assistant PR guy for the Padres. I mean, he basically this is his most of it was his ideas, and then getting it through the union what they were going to accept what they were not going to accept, and then the stacking of the committee through the collective bargaining process that gave the owners more sway. And so you know, it’s they’re all
Nestor Aparicio 24:38
8there may see your Commissioner one day, huh? I’m sorry. No, make feel Commissioner one day.
Barry Bloom 24:43
Well, you know, maybe I don’t know. But it ain’t easy pitch to
Nestor Aparicio 24:47
fans that he’s looking out for the game. You know, we’ve we’ve been wondering about that for a long, long time. Barry, haven’t we? Who’s looking out for the game? Peter Roth wasn’t they throw them out? Right?
Barry Bloom 24:56
Well, but whatever you can say about bud Bud was a you The baseball fan and he looked out for the best interest of the game. When it wasn’t looking for the best interests of himself. He looked out for the best interests of the game. And I’m sure Theo, I don’t know Theo wants those headaches. But you know, I give him credit for a lot of this stuff because he and Joe Maddon were the ones that started, man, let’s go back to you know, the Cubs. Let’s go back to the Red Sox. Let’s go back to Tampa Bay. They started the shifts, they started a lot, you know, a lot of these things, and they just blew out of proportion. And now you have to bring it back. So I think that’s what it’s good. What happened this year, it’s much more enjoyable for me to go to a game and and watch and watch the pace.
8Nestor Aparicio 25:43
Barry Bloom is here. He’s watched a lot of baseball as much baseball has anybody ever on the program, or you can follow him at a boom ski is out in the desert, living his best life watching baseball ad on the West Coast and admiring the Orioles from afar. We could sit here with discuss the problems of television, regional, right, like all of the problems of baseball, what do you think’s good about baseball? Barrett, what do you still love about it right now.
Barry Bloom 26:08
I just think that the talent is, is phenomenal. I mean, you go around the league, up and down rosters made by even if you look at, you know Otani doing what he’s doing and judge doing what he’s doing. And all your young players. I mean, the Diamondbacks have very similar team to the girls right now where, you know, they built through the farm system, they’ve got a young fast team, they’ve got this kid Corbin Carroll, made if he gets gets on first base, he’s going to wind up on third base. You know, yesterday, kickoff
Nestor Aparicio 26:42
rules change the speed part of the game, it’s like everybody’s playing like the 82. Cardinals now, really,
Barry Bloom 26:48
8I thought it would have more of a profound effect. But the way they adjusted to that was, they’re just not throwing over the first place anymore. So I mean, and the catcher throws behind a runner at times. So if you don’t throw over to first base, the player can’t, you know, can’t take advantage of that rule when you get the third time. I mean, sometimes, if you watch it, maybe a quarter of the game, you’ll get to pick off throws in the entire game. That’s another way the game has really sped up. Because in the past when you had four or five, six throws over to first base, okay, enough is enough already. So yeah, but I think Carol is about as fast a runner as I’ve seen in the game since Deion Sanders. And yet yesterday, you know, he walked stole seconds told third and scored on a sacrifice fly. I love you know, the fact is that I laugh all the time. Very livello out here. I got I said, I love that small ball. And it goes I know you do. Yeah. You know, when you play to what you have. Too many times. People run teams, whether it’s general manager, baseball ops manager, they try to do things that are not appropriate for the for the talent they have. When you play and you’re appropriately running the team to the talent. You can have a lot of fun. So like, you know, the Orioles right now are in second place. The Diamondbacks are in second place in the West, you know, the Dodgers are they’re not as powerful as they’ve been between injuries and all the guy that led $100 million where the players go. It’s funny, I was what watch the Red Sox out here in San Diego and Arizona this last couple of weeks, and there’s half the Dodgers are on the Red Sox. You know, it’s and I asked the Velo that I go, what’s it like to see after retouches on the Red Sox? Because, yeah, there’s one guy who’s still on the Dodgers that I wish was still there. Talking about Mookie Betts. It was a great answer. But you know, it’s like, you know, so, you know, the Dodgers the Padres are underperforming. The giants are what they are. And so the Rockies are bad, but you know, the Diamondbacks could wind up much like the aerials playing for a playoff spot. And you know, as we saw last year, with this new round of playoffs, anything can happen, you win that mini round, even if you have to go on the road, you win it, and then you get into the next round, and you could do damage like the Padres and the Phillies did last year, getting to the NFL Championship Series and the Phillies going to the World Series. Nobody expected that. I mean, I saw the Padres in Milwaukee and and the Phillies a lot in September and in August, and they were god awful. I’m going this is a good advertisement for why we shouldn’t have expanded playoffs. Then they get in. You know the Padres get by the bats. The Phillies get by the Cardinals. The Padres catch the Dodgers flat footed for the only time in the last 10 years. You know, it’s fun by
Nestor Aparicio 29:47
the way, you know, you know I’m a closet Padre fan. So like and especially they stake again this year and they’re never gonna really thrill their fans. On behalf of the late great Tony Gwynn, but it was fun while it lasted.
Barry Bloom 29:58
Yeah, I’d like to see them win. World Series before I die, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
Nestor Aparicio 30:02
I won’t be hitting my aunt Jane has been dead 20 years and I still want him to win it for her, you know, just in her honor. Barry, it’s always great talking baseball with you. And I guess we could go on all night about, you know, all of these things. And but we will. And the good news is here, and I’ve said this over and over again, despite being thrown out for 17 years now by the Angelo’s family after having a press credential for 21. I’m still here doing my thing. It really is nice to have it back. My last name is Aparicio, you know, walk in the streets and have people wanting to talk about that damn manager left the picture in too long or why isn’t Richmond playing on day games? And what are they going to do with Cedric Mullins? I’m thinking how many of these bait they’re real baseball conversations, and real things you can complain about in the seventh inning about your manager about a bad, a bad play, whatever. The kinds of controversies that built my career, the first 15 years but really, for the last 20 years have been very difficult to have around here. So the heartbeats back, come on back to Baltimore. I get your crabcake Barry Come on, man. Yeah,
8Barry Bloom 31:05
Baltimore is historic papal city man. You know, the Babe Ruth was born there. So I mean, you know, it’s like, you’re gonna have a renaissance and it’s great because it’s one of the old timey cities that should do it.
Nestor Aparicio 31:20
Come watch Adley rutschman play but we’ll make room for you. Barry Bloom is boom ski he has added sport echo. He has covered the game of baseball and he still likes hockey bass. He does all of that seems old school but sports fan like my dad, you can follow him at boom ski, SK i e out on the Twitter thing and you follow them sporto as well and we will stay in touch with you and now that baseball is relevant again. It’s great to have you back on the show.
Barry Bloom 31:43
Thanks Nestor appreciate you having me. All right, you
Nestor Aparicio 31:45 got he’ll be watching plenty Orioles baseball night at the Padres off the dish. I am Nestor. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. Happy spring to everyone. We’re gathering this weekend over Costas. We’re going to have some crabs. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour next week beginning at Shannon’s pub. We’re going to be at spirits West it’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends at WIN donation. I have the funny floppy hat going Listen to my interview with Clancy fancy Clancy asking been serving beer since 1974. To Orioles fans, that’s what you get on the crabcake tour. Stay with us here at Baltimore positive
