The keys to getting Keys baseball back to Birdland with Frederick Mayor O’Connor

The Baltimore Orioles are coming back to Frederick and Mayor Michael O’Connor is here to tell Nestor all about it. Just one more reason to jump in the car and head west to one of our favorite little snack towns toward the mountains.

Nestor Aparicio interviews Mayor Michael O’Connor of Frederick, Maryland, discussing the city’s vibrant arts district, local businesses like the Bakehouse, and the return of the Frederick Keys baseball team. O’Connor highlights the city’s transformation, including a $40 million stadium renovation funded by the Maryland Stadium Authority. The renovations include new clubhouses and training facilities, aiming to attract Major League Baseball affiliates. The Keys’ return is expected to boost local tourism and community engagement. Aparicio also shares personal anecdotes about his experiences in Frederick, emphasizing its charm and the appeal of minor league baseball.

• [ ] Complete the stadium renovations at Harry Grove Stadium by April 2026 to prepare for the Frederick Keys’ return as a high-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.
• [ ] Engage the local business community in Frederick to support the Keys through sponsorships, ticket sales, and creating a vibrant game day experience.
• [ ] Promote the proximity of Frederick to the Baltimore area and the opportunity for fans to see Orioles prospects develop at the high-A level.

Frederick Mayor Michael O’Connor’s Introduction and Personal Connection

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the show and mentions the Maryland lottery sponsorship.
• Nestor shares his personal connection with Frederick, Maryland, through the crab cake tour and his wife.
• Nestor and Mayor Michael O’Connor discuss their favorite places in Frederick, including bakehouses and bars.
• Mayor O’Connor shares his background, including his time in radio and television, and his connection to Frederick.

Frederick’s Transformation and Personal Journey

• Mayor O’Connor talks about the transformation of Frederick from a less vibrant downtown to a thriving destination.
• He shares his personal journey from working in radio and television to becoming the mayor of Frederick.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor discuss the growth of Frederick’s business and cultural scene.
• Mayor O’Connor emphasizes the importance of Frederick’s unique identity and its role as a destination.

Frederick Keys Baseball and Minor League Baseball

• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor discuss the history of the Frederick Keys baseball team, including its first year in Frederick.
• They talk about the impact of Major League Baseball’s decision to contract minor league teams during the pandemic.
• Mayor O’Connor explains the efforts to upgrade Harry Grove Stadium to meet Major League Baseball’s standards.
• They discuss the importance of minor league baseball in Frederick and the community’s support for the team.

Efforts to Bring Back Minor League Baseball

• Mayor O’Connor details the steps taken to secure funding and support from the Maryland Stadium Authority.
• They discuss the importance of providing state-of-the-art facilities for minor league players.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor talk about the impact of having a minor league team affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles.
• They highlight the community’s excitement and support for the return of minor league baseball to Frederick.

Frederick’s Attractions and Community Development

• Mayor O’Connor shares information about Frederick’s attractions, including the Weinberg Center and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.
• They discuss the development of new facilities, such as a police headquarters and a youth center.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor talk about the importance of maintaining a high quality of life in Frederick.
• They emphasize the community’s efforts to make Frederick a livable and attractive place to live and visit.

Frederick’s Unique Identity and Community Engagement

• Mayor O’Connor talks about Frederick’s unique identity and its role as a destination for both locals and visitors.
• They discuss the importance of community engagement and involvement in the city’s development.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor highlight the efforts to make Frederick a welcoming and inclusive community.
• They emphasize the importance of supporting local businesses and community initiatives.

Frederick’s Economic Development and Job Creation

• Mayor O’Connor discusses the economic development efforts in Frederick, including job creation and business growth.
• They talk about the importance of attracting new businesses and investments to the city.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor highlight the role of minor league baseball in boosting the local economy.
• They discuss the impact of the Frederick Keys on the community and its economic development.

Frederick’s Cultural Scene and Community Events

• Mayor O’Connor shares information about Frederick’s cultural scene, including the Weinberg Center and other local venues.
• They discuss the importance of community events and festivals in fostering a sense of community.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor talk about the role of local arts and cultural organizations in enriching the community.
• They highlight the efforts to make Frederick a vibrant and culturally rich place to live and visit.

Frederick’s Future and Long-Term Goals

• Mayor O’Connor discusses Frederick’s long-term goals and future plans for the city.
• They talk about the importance of continuous improvement and innovation in community development.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor highlight the role of minor league baseball in shaping Frederick’s future.
• They emphasize the importance of maintaining a high quality of life and supporting local initiatives.

Nestor’s Personal Connection to Frederick and Final Thoughts

• Nestor shares his personal connection to Frederick and his experiences visiting the city.
• They discuss the importance of supporting local businesses and community initiatives.
• Nestor and Mayor O’Connor highlight the unique charm and appeal of Frederick.
• They conclude the conversation with a discussion about the future of minor league baseball in Frederick and the community’s support for the team.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Frederick Mayor, Michael O’Connor, Keys baseball, Maryland lottery, crab cake tour, Frederick Arts District, bakehouse, minor league baseball, Harry Grove Stadium, stadium renovations, Orioles affiliate, community development, downtown Frederick, game day experience, local politics.

SPEAKERS

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Michael O’Connor, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. We are positively in Ocean City, Maryland. It is Mako, where I’m doing everything but getting into water. I did put my feet in the water last night, but I think I’m done until Saturday. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. At Maryland lottery representative, stop by of the lucky sevens, doublers, the pressure Lux. We are doing our 27th anniversary. We are doing our 27 favorite things to eat. This guy here may be a part of this unwittingly and not know it. He’s the mayor of Frederick, Maryland. I always say it’s one of my favorite towns, because the crab cake tour put me out on the road four summers ago, and I went to lots of places I had never been. I had I had been to downtown Frederick, but I hadn’t been to the funky Arts District version of Frederick. And my wife and I went to French we were actually in really nice bar down on the corner. I had a crab cake there the night that J K Dobbins blew his knee up for the Ravens. I was in Frederick tonight watching that Redskins game. I think they’re still red. They weren’t commanders quite yet. They’re Washington football team time. But Frederick’s a place like my wife and I now make as a destination. I’ve told you this, we go out, we get oysters, we get beer, we hang out, idiom, all those kind of places, but bake house is what I’m about. You know, I’m about to say that, right? Do you go to bakehouse, Mr.

Michael O’Connor  01:26

Mayor, I do. I do not, not as often as I want to, but that’s probably skinny. It’s probably for my health.

Nestor Aparicio  01:33

Michael O’Connor is the mayor of Frederick. He’s returning champion on this program here, and life in the in the great

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Michael O’Connor  01:39

town it is. I’ll just say Frederick is not one of my favorite. It is your cities. It is my favorite. Unquestionably, it’s tops on the list from I don’t know I’m from Frederick. I grew up in Frederick when, when downtown was not nearly as vibrant as it is today. And you’ve seen it all changed. I have. I have went away to college to do what you’re doing, to do meteoric and did that for 20 years. And when I got out of college, opportunities to do that kind of work in Frederick were there. They weren’t there when I was a kid, what did you do? I was in radio for about a decade, and then I went into television for about a decade, working for the cable company, doing local origination programming. So we were producing news, newscasts, interview shows, roundtable discussions on politics,

Nestor Aparicio  02:25

arts. We did sports. We did Frederick keys baseball games. We did high school sports. I threw baseball. We did. We did all we were. It was a very robot, sure made with Mike Elias. I did. I did. That was a big day. Let’s talk baseball first. I mean, I love I think for everybody, we could just talk about baseball. I would be a perfectly happy guy. Rather talk about cupcakes and stuff like that too. But the baseball team and I like I think the first time I ever came to Frederick was to see the keys. So the keys probably came correct me from wrong. 91 2345, somewhere in there.

Michael O’Connor  02:59

89 was the first year in Frederick. They played at McCurdy field then, so we hadn’t built the stadium. Oh, I didn’t know. I never went, yeah. So they, they, they played in the old sort of municipal stadium, McCurdy field. Ben McDonald pitched one of one of his, one of his, I think two minor league starts, was in Frederick, at McCurdy field. I don’t know where the other one was, okay, and that was in Frederick. Had a chance to see Ben pitch when he was just a kid. I was just a kid. Too bad. I was too same age. Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  03:28

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Well, when the keys happened, there was a guy named Peter Kirk, who was the owner of those teams, who came and sat in my studio and invited me out to Frederick, and Lupton was the GM going all the way to Frederick? I’m in Dundalk. Man, you know, at the time, and I went Frederick. Man, that might as well was that, is that near, like Rocky gap? Is that near, like, Cumberland? Where is that? And I’m like, No, you know, especially, you just kind of go out to turf Valley and keep going to the 20 minutes,

Michael O’Connor  03:55

and you’re there, yeah, it’s an hour outside of Baltimore, an hour outside of Washington. People have always thought that it was much farther, but that’s how, that’s how miles were. Well, we say bedroom community, right at this point, right? Well, I think that we’ve actually seen some transition from being that bedroom community that certainly was the identity kind of in the 70s and the 80s. But we’ve seen pretty robust business expansion in Frederick as well. Well, to establish, to establish, really a destination in and of itself. And so we’ve got more people living and working in Frederick. We’re now other communities, maybe bedroom communities, for Frederick, in certain industries that we have really that sense of place, I think is really important to identify Frederick is not just part of the outer suburbs of Washington, but some place with its own unique identity and feel,

Nestor Aparicio  04:41

well, you just said the key thing. When I think of Frederick, live there, work in Washington more than live there, work in Baltimore, I would think, I mean, I would think that that probably was, I got a federal job in Washington. Where can I live that’s affordable, right? Like, if you got assigned to Washington in some Federal Way?

Michael O’Connor  04:58

Well. In a weird way. When you wake up in the morning and you travel to Baltimore, you’re driving right into the sun. Okay, so I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s part of why people would naturally gravitate to commuting south as opposed to commuting east, because who wants to get up every morning and drive literally right into the sun? But if you come home, you’re not driving into you have your other choice. Unless it’s wintertime, the sun is setting and then you’re driving directly into the sun at the end of the day. So why did you never leave Frederick? That really wasn’t the goal. As I said, I went to college and I studied journalism, and I was going to go to work for ESPN or become a baseball broadcaster. That was, that was the plan. And when my first job landed me in Hagerstown, and I was there for about a year before I went to Frederick to work for a radio station. There I just with every passing day, I became more interested in the local politics, the local government, the things that I was covering every day in the news and as a journalist, as a journalist, as a journalist, asking questions and what was going on. Of course, I met a I met a girl, and there you go. That was a reason to stay also and have a family and all those kinds of things. So you know, time, when you look back, it all, it wasn’t the plan. But in retrospect, it all make perfect, perfect sense. Do you grow up a baseball goober? I love like me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I kept score pads and did all kinds should, all kinds of nonsense with, you know, baseball, having Fred

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Nestor Aparicio  06:24

Lynn on my show, like, and I, I’m not star struck much, but like there, there’s something about that, that if you love baseball, you’re my people. Yeah, Aparicio, right. I

Michael O’Connor  06:35

don’t know if, I don’t know if I would be as star struck of the players who are playing today, if I met them, but the people who were my heroes and idols when I was a kid watching the Orioles, Eddie Murray and Kenny singleton and Al Bumbry, and you know, those great teams in the in the late 1980s and, you know, into the 90s. Those are the, those

Nestor Aparicio  07:00

are the they’re the Mount Rushmore for me, and we’ve got and there are a lot of good players. I mean, the organization is developing a lot of good players, and their guys on the roster now who are going to be in that upper echelon. But I hope you know how many at home or yesterday. Jim Palmer, you know, well, he’s not coming back, but they’re giving his jersey way in a couple weeks. That’s good. Michael Connors here, he’s the a good mayor of Frederick, Maryland, where I know you want to talk baseball here, because I saw your picture. And so the stadium, Harry Grove, correct. I started driving out there, I guess, 35 years ago, and it was the reason I would go to Frederick. And a lot of times like, I think I saw a rehab assignment there that maybe BJ sur Hoff or somebody did I went up there to see again, maybe Jeffrey Hammonds or somebody like that in the 90s. But I haven’t been to a keys game in a long, long time. I’ve been a minor league baseball game. Major League Baseball. Went to a lot of baseball in my life, so I don’t go to baseball games as much. But getting this situation back for you and I could have the former mayor Hagerstown, Emily on to talk about the Hagerstown baseball situation there and Meredith Park. And they were all excited about that last year. But this is sort of your moment the sun. Give me the baseball Frederick story as you know it, from the old stadium to the new stadium, and how it didn’t remain vibrant there in the way that maybe it could have or should have. And I know buoys rebranded now Minor League Baseball is a hard business. Mike, it

Michael O’Connor  08:23

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is, it is, it is. And when Major League Baseball made the decision five years ago to contract right during the pandemic, the timing, whether, whether the contraction was going to occur if there was a pandemic or if there wasn’t a pandemic, who knows, but when, when I got that call from Mike Elias that the keys were being pulled as an affiliate of the Orioles, that was a tough day. We sort of expected it, because we could see the writing on the wall in terms of the way in which Major League Baseball was evaluating where, where teams were

Nestor Aparicio  08:57

going to stand. Well, there were 100 Fredericks that were swept up in this, right? Yeah, it was. We were one

Michael O’Connor  09:01

of, yeah, I want to say 40 or 50 communities that had minor league baseball and was really all about the facility. Harry gar stadium is a great venue for baseball, but it was, it’s a 30 year old ballpark that has not seen substantial renovations in that time, Major League Baseball was very interested in their players being developed in facilities where the players had the best opportunity to be successful, things like state of the art, club houses and training facilities, ballparks that don’t have the bullpens in the field of play effectively, things to protect the enormous investment that major leagues are making in these players when they draft them and work to develop them. And I think the thought was that they are paying fewer players on fewer teams. They can also pay those players more so they could pay the players more and give them better facilities. And we just didn’t, we just didn’t stack up in the facility department. So we set out almost immediately from that day and talking to the ownership of the. So the baseball team attain sports about what we needed to do in order to put ourselves in the best position to have major league baseball look at Frederick, once again, as a destination for an affiliated team. And so we worked with the Maryland stadium authority funds that were authorized by the Maryland General Assembly, and got $40 million to do stadium improvements, new clubhouses, new state of the art facilities training the 3 million bucks, $40 million they authorize a $200 million fund that the stadium authority could use to upgrade minor league facilities all over the state. So considering there are only about five or six of those $40 million is about the right so what

Nestor Aparicio  10:39

is it? So I just drove by one, you know, here in Salisbury, right? And, and you, you have one. Frederick had one at one point. But Hagerstown, my dad would always start to take me. I see the Hagerstown sons back in the 70s. You know, I never went out there to the old park, and that’s why, when Frederick happened, I could drive at that point, I was in my 20s, that it became something. I remember going out with my buddies to see a minor league game. Was more at that point. Camden Yards was expensive, early 90s, very full. So there was that. And then Bowie had opened, and obviously Aberdeen and Ripken coming online. What makes minor league baseball? Because it’s not downtown in your community right,

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Michael O’Connor  11:18

like it’s right on it’s right on the edge. I mean, it’s close enough now, and as we’ve seen some growth in the City of Frederick, it’s, you could argue it’s actually a little closer to downtown now than it was when built at 30 just just because there’s been more activity around it. So it feels closer to downtown, even though it’s not a downtown ball, it’s not a downtown ballpark, but it’s, it’s well positioned relative to the interstates, and good in and out. So

Nestor Aparicio  11:45

someone comes into a game, I come from Baltimore, come to a game. I’m probably going to come out 70, park in your parking lot, go to the game, go home for me. But that’s not the goal. The goal is, come downtown, have a beer afterwards, get dinner before. So, you know,

Michael O’Connor  11:59

well, I think that’s what’s changed. I mean, that’s, that’s really what’s changed from today versus 1989 1990 when the team first came to town, as our downtown is much more vibrant. There’s a lot more of those other activities. The restaurant scene is has boomed. There is the craft beverage industry that is all part of it. We now, as of last fall, small boutique hotel open to downtown Frederick. So now you can, you can come and you can do it overnight in Frederick, and do a lot of other things, and stay right downtown. And the stadium is an easy walk if you want to do it, but it’s a really short Uber ride if that’s your if that’s your objective as well. So there, there are only, you know what, 30 major league teams, times five you know, minor league affiliates. And we’re high a and we’re one of those 350 cities in America that’s got minor league baseball. So it puts us on a on a unique map. It’s always been a great baseball town, even for the years that we didn’t have affiliated baseball, and we had the Major League Baseball draft League. It was well supported. But the whole idea is that the ownership is responsible for creating a really great game day experience. So it’s it’s about baseball. For, you know, baseball people like me, I like to see the players who are moving their way through the system, but for people who are not baseball fans like we are. They want a good game day experience. They want to be entertained in the stands. They want affordable they want, you know, decent food and fireworks and a great night out with the family. And I think that’s what has always been a part of what you get at nimio field, at Harry gross stadium, is you get a really great family game day

Nestor Aparicio  13:38

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experience. So so all this money, I saw you were there with pictures, but I didn’t read anything. And obviously the Orioles don’t send me press releases. Give me a timeline, when and what and how and renovations. And you know, the next six, eight months, they can be playing on that field,

Michael O’Connor  13:54

neighborhood, the goal, the goal, because of where the improvements are happening. They’re not in the field of play. The improvements are happening while the draft League season is ongoing, and they will. We expect them to conclude fall over the winter, so that when opening day for the Frederick keys, high affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, opens in April of 26 they’ll be playing in that newly renovated facility with new amenities for the players.

Nestor Aparicio  14:21

I see a place like Frederick, all those businesses downtown be interesting for sponsorships and wall signage in the outfield, and whether the business community would step up buy tickets by I don’t say corporate suites, whatever the new stadium would be. That would be the Bougie VIP thing or whatever. But a night out in Frederick, when you’re in Frederick, it’s also, yeah, nationals, Orioles, a little more expensive. You got to get in your car. You got to do all that. It feels to me like this is going to be a well supported local thing. You’re not trying to get necessarily, people from Towson to drive out there, maybe once in a while, but 5060, 80 games a year. You’re, you know, you’re going to draw within you. And 15 miles we are,

Michael O’Connor  15:01

and a little bit more, I think we’ll, we’ll pull people up from gaithersburg and rockville. We’ll get down folks from Gettysburg and some big this is where the Orioles connection, it matters to a fan

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Nestor Aparicio  15:13

that they’re not the Cardinals, right? So being being

Michael O’Connor  15:17

a half hour, 45 minutes to see a player moving through the Orioles system, who you hope one day will land in Baltimore. I think that’s a I think it’s a big attraction. You know, a long time

Nestor Aparicio  15:29

ago in hockey, the capitals never wanted their farm team in Baltimore because they thought it wasn’t punitive enough for a minor league player that could live in Columbia and get sent up, sent down. Now the Orioles have Norfolk, right? And then they had Ottawa was a disaster. I mean, Angelo screwed a lot of things up with the minor leagues. It was one of the reasons that major league team stunk. But the notion that they can rehab a player and have him pitching Frederick high a Alright, go down to Bowie Saulsbury, wherever it is that that makes it a lot easier on the mike Elias is in the scouts to keep an eye on their players, whereas, if your hockey affiliate is in Salt Lake City, you can’t get players around. There’s always something about baseball that not just for you know, I’m an Oriole fan. I live in Frederick, or a nationals fan. It would have to be something local in order to make it more vibrant. And it feels to me like you, you got your ish together and trying to put this together, because Frederick is a different community. When Peter Kirk invited me up there 30 years ago,

Michael O’Connor  16:35

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well, I I told the team, when we were working to get minor league baseball back that, you know, the Orioles, an Orioles affiliate, for me, would be priority one, nationals would be one, a just proximity, and then anybody but the Yankees, as long as we didn’t have a Yankees affiliate, I felt like, you know, we were not going to be beggars. Can’t be choosers. But I think you’re talking a little bit about the old school, new school model, just the way Major League Baseball has approached this player development system. Now they’re seeing these players as investments in ways that they didn’t you know when Earl Weaver was the manager that you don’t want to punish a kid by sending them to the minors. What you want to do is develop them into a major league caliber prospect. And how do you best do that? Give them a good field to play on, give them the right training facilities. Give them an opportunity to take batting practice year round, we throw in a facility where they can develop and grow and train they’ve got a lot of money invested in these guys, and they’ve now built minor league systems that are trying to capitalize on that investment as quickly as they can get

Nestor Aparicio  17:42

it. I will forget this. You know, I covered baseball all my life, really, and I probably was a good 10 years into my career in the Major League clubhouse at Camden Yards. I covered kings Memorial Stadium too. And obviously big difference there in the bouginess of it all. But Camden Yards is on buoys open. You’re open out in Frederick. I don’t think Ripken was open yet, but it’s probably turn of the century. I covered a buoy. I went down to buoy for a game. I think I participated in a celebrity softball fan game or whatever. Got a single off tippy Martinez. He didn’t throw me to hate her, but because I didn’t throw you, the curse. Only place I’ve gotten a single in my life was off. Tippy Martinez and Bowie. See you

Michael O’Connor  18:22

remember Fun fact, tippy Martinez and I share the same birth date.

Nestor Aparicio  18:25

Tippy is a good man. Yeah, should have shared his tacos with you as well. So I remember going down to Bowie that night, or was one of those. I’ve only been to Bowie five times, you know, a handful of times, but I went down there as a journalist, which I used to be, and I went into their clubhouse, and might have been to meet a player who was on a track to be a superstar back in the day, but I was down there working wherever work was, and it might even been like Gary Kendall was managing the team, or one of my buddies. So I went down to Bowie, and I went in their little locker room down there, and I looked around and I realized they were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And I’m like, Well, this ain’t the show. You know what I mean? Like, just how, when you said punish minor leaguers or whatever they’re sort

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Michael O’Connor  19:10

of make them earn it. They gotta earn it. They gotta earn their way to the end of being poor,

Nestor Aparicio  19:13

riding busses, being 19 or 20, staying at B rate hotels, playing in sometimes broken down ballparks in the old days, that the Bull Durham thing really was a thing at that time. And so there is a point for where you’re like, these young people are our investments. You know, we need to have them in a better facility. I’ll hear that when I saw the peanut butter and jelly 20 years ago and Bowie, that I would hope that they’re doing a little bit more humanely. Yeah, I don’t think

Michael O’Connor  19:39

they’re getting the clubhouse spread. You get a Camden Yards, but my guess is it’s not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Nestor Aparicio  19:45

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anymore. What’s protein in that peanut butter? I guess Mayor Michael O’Connor is your former, recovering journalist and current politician and Mayor of the beautiful city of Frederick, Maryland. Everybody make your postcard for me. Give everybody the acid somebody why they want to come to French because I. And I would start with the bakehouse in your downtown community. I think you and I said the funky Arts District, I’m embarrassed to tell you how close I came to seeing the Oak Ridge Boys play your theater

Michael O’Connor  20:10

downtown. The Weinberg Center is a great asset in downtown Frederick. We operate a smaller sort of black box theater across the street called nespire arts. We’re the home of the National Museum of civil war medicine. We’re getting ready to open this fall, early next spring, the first black history museum in the City of Frederick in city owned facilities. We just built a new headquarters for our police department right downtown, just a handful of blocks from where they were

Nestor Aparicio  20:38

sitting there. I’ll be good when I’m in your town, nor should you. I don’t need to see that

Michael O’Connor  20:43

place, but they were in cramped facilities previously, and now they’ve got a space that they can grow. We put a community space in there to make sure they can connect to the community in the right way. Also helps you get better officers. We’re working on the development of a youth center in in downtown Frederick, a community center out on the west side of the City of Frederick, 76 parks, a lot of great neighborhoods. Like most communities, we’re struggling with housing affordability and transportation infrastructure and those kinds of things. We’re not unique in that regard, but our goal is to make sure that we’re maintaining a high quality of life for our residents, that everything that we do is about making sure that Frederick is the most livable place that it can possibly be, and we’re a little better today than we were yesterday, and we’ll be a little better tomorrow than we are today. I love

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Nestor Aparicio  21:25

that you said livable because I was about to pay you the highest compliment that I could possibly pay you. We’re saying every time we go to Frederick, we drive around my wife, and I’ll be like, we can live here. We can live here. It’s a good place. And a lot of

Michael O’Connor  21:37

people find it by accident. Some people come intentionally, but a lot of people find it by accident because they don’t know that it’s there. And

Nestor Aparicio  21:44

let me call it a Fred neck for 40 years too. And then when and when,

Michael O’Connor  21:47

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then when they get here, they find out while this is closer than I thought it was, you know, out this is not as far out in Western Maryland as you might think it is, and it’s really charming. There’s a lot of a lot of charm. There’s a lot of charm in in funky downtown Frederick,

Nestor Aparicio  22:01

funky Arts District, yeah, all right. Well, um, tell the guys at the bake house. I appreciate them. And there are mornings where I wake up the one morning we drove out, I should tell you, this happened the last year and a half, and I met the owner of the bakehouse as well when I was there, it’s very obvious he

Michael O’Connor  22:15

got to get there early.

Nestor Aparicio  22:16

You got it look I did. I did my stop, my 27 stop I did right now. I had the scone a minute ago from the ugly, the ugly pie right here in Salisbury, beautiful bakery. It is my second favorite bakery in the state, my favorite bakery.

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Michael O’Connor  22:34

You’re just saying that because I’m here, but thank you. Now one morning, I didn’t have anything

Nestor Aparicio  22:38

to do with I woke up with my wife. I swear Summers is true. And I woke up like, five in the morning, and we’d always talked about like, because you got to get to the bakehouse. Seven, eight in the morning, you can’t roll out there. 1030 in the morning, you’re going to be getting the last scone. You’re going to get a scone. You’re going to hear about the pumpkins and the maples and the blueberries, but they’re only going to have the cinnamon.

Michael O’Connor  22:57

They’ll be out of croffins by then.

Nestor Aparicio  23:00

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I never had a croffin. I gotta go.

Michael O’Connor  23:03

It’s croissant in a muffin. I never had none like that, often filled with a lot of other like really interesting and delicious combinations of flavors. New menu for the spotlighted stuff. This is first weekend of the month.

Nestor Aparicio  23:18

Weekend. It was a Saturday morning. I woke up. The weather was nice. At 530 more, I made a little coffee, and I didn’t have any desserts in the house, any munchy munchies that I like around the house. And my wife woke up really early, six in the morning, and I said, there, I’m like, Hey, you feeling all right? Yeah. So I got coffee on. What do you think we get in the car and just make a run for we’ll go out to Frederick, and we came. I think I spent 35 bucks. You know, it’s just the two of us, and pastries don’t keep that one, but cookies do. Muffins will keep a couple of days. Donut, eat that day one, bread, eat that one day, one or two. But we came home with a box, giant box, and we had one of this one, we had a scone, we had a muffin, we had four cookies. The cookies lasted five or six days. And so every day for a week, I went into my bakehouse box and opened it up and I cut like half of a scone. But when I go to the bakehouse, it’s like a Blues Brothers mission. I go in early and I’m desserts

Michael O’Connor  24:16

for the whole week well, and they’re great, shareable, so they’re they’re sized and good enough that you want to, you want it, you want to sample a bunch of different things. And you

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Nestor Aparicio  24:25

know what? He told me? He had a bake shop in Baltimore before he he migrated from Baltimore out to Frederick. So they’re all the good ones do, right? You’ll get me there, Mayor. We’re,

Michael O’Connor  24:37

we’re, our goal is to be a destination. All

Nestor Aparicio  24:39

right, opening night. When you open the new is it gonna be called Harry grove? It nimio field at Harry Grove stadium? That’s not changing. Okay, good. Make sure I’m calling it the right thing. Come and see. Will all the new improvements be there, or is this everything will be done by April.

Michael O’Connor  24:52

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That’s the plan. Is all the new clubhouses and the new training facilities and all those the the fan experience will be. Proved a little bit because of expanded concourses, and some of the fans notice something else. They will absolutely see the changes. There’ll be an opportunity for them to watch batting practice or see the pitchers warming up to be different vantage points for the bullpens in the way that’s going to be done. Longer term, there’s some other improvements I think we want to make to the stadium to give it that 360 degree access that’s become very popular in ballparks now. In the outfield, you can write, you can go around the outfield, you’ll have like, drink rails and whatnot out there that people can watch the game from the on the wall, jets. It’s it’s gonna

Nestor Aparicio  25:33

be great. I’ve only been in the Goodyear Blimp once in my life. If I told you the story, I think maybe last night, maybe not. My friends at Brooks off tire, Trey. Thank you, Trey and everyone there invited me 2018 to do the Goodyear blimp. And the Goodyear Blimp lives at Frederick. It lives at the airport there. When it’s flying around, when it’s in the region, they will, yes, they tie it down at the Frederick airport, which isn’t all that far for your ballpark, right there in the exit. So I went out, and when the blimp goes up, I’m in this beautiful Zeppelin. And my tour of it from the sky was like the Willy Wonka scene when the hover Vader lifts off, and you see the town, my whole view was Frederick and the mountains, and I could see big corks off to the south, and I could see Harpers Ferry off to the southwest. But we didn’t make it to Hagerstown. We just kind of went up, moved around. But my one day in the blimp, my view was Frederick mariner. It’s all my pictures of your beautiful town. I love it. Mario. I’m Frederick. Didn’t leave anything out. Not anything important. Most important thing if you’re going to Frederick keys game, this is a Bruce Springsteen line ice cold beer at a reasonable price. That’s all we can ask for minor league lots of choices. All right. Well, congratulations on getting baseball back and the Orioles back. They’re not the Nationals or the Yankees, which makes Michael O’Connor a good man. He is the mayor of Frederick, Maryland. Go out see them. Get breakfast, get lunch, get dinner. Stay a while. Spend the night. Boutique it up. Go to the Weinberg. Get a good concert there. I’ll come out. Thank you, Nestor. All right, Mayor Michael O’Connor, joining us here we are at Mako in Ocean City, Maryland. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Have the pressure luck scratch offs. I have the lucky sevens. I have bunches of these. The mayor, a lot of people want to give me more of them. We’re beginning our 27 days of 27 eats. That’s last week, but we’re beginning the actual tour next Thursday. We’ll be at faithies downtown, at the new Lexington market. On Friday, we’ll be at Pizza John’s in ASICs, and then we move to cost us on Monday and Timonium, and we’re go