The death of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay hit home in Baltimore last week as Nestor has sought to get the story right since 1984. Hall of Fame football historian Clark Judge joins us to share memories of the son of Bob Irsay and how his legacy in Indiana and his commitment to not be like his father was a promise kept after the Mayflower vans broke our hearts.
Nestor Aparicio and Clark Judge discuss the death of Jim Irsay, reflecting on his complex legacy and impact on the NFL and the community. They recall Irsay’s efforts to redeem his family’s name, his community service, and his love for music. Irsay’s significant contributions include a $100,000 donation to preserve Deer Lake in Connecticut and his support for mental health initiatives. Aparicio shares personal memories of Irsay, including a walk at the Arizona Biltmore and a memorable music event in New York. They emphasize Irsay’s efforts to make a positive impact and his dedication to preserving the Colts’ history.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Jim Irsay, Baltimore Colts, NFL, Hall of Fame, community service, music collection, Super Bowl, Indianapolis, Baltimore Ravens, sports writing, football history, mental health, Deer Lake, NFL royalty, rock and roll.
SPEAKERS
8
Speaker 1, Clark Judge, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 task of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. I’m doing a little bit of a special Memorial Day weekend edition of our programming, but this will be kind of eternal. It’s just sort of time and place. I was in Las Vegas last weekend with the the Maryland party and everyone got together. We got back freak this weekend, the Orioles firing, all this stuff happening and the Ravens. Who knows what’s going on with the ravens, but the the the death of Jim Irsay came in a text to me from my wife, who knows of my fondness for Jim. That goes back to a long walk I took at the Arizona Biltmore with Steve Bucha and Jim Irsay to discuss the Colts records and them and their placement in Canton, Ohio. I’ve had a lot of people hit me about that, and I’m bringing in a guest that I’m going to have fun with. This guest that’s going to be half somber, half jubilant, and if Jim or say we’re listening down, he probably would appreciate it, because I want to let my hair out before it’s all over with. I hope it’s Utopia by the time this this whole segment is over. Clark judge has been my friend for, I don’t know about a quarter of a century, but he was a bit of a sports writing legend to me and all the legends around me in my time, in the late 80s and early 90s, as a guy that went off found sunshine and the San Diego superchargers, as well as the San Francisco 49 ers. He also married into some NFL fun executive royalty as well, but he covered a billion Super Bowls. He’s on the the Hall of Fame voting committee for Football Hall of Fame Canton, and he’s been my friend, but also we shared a relationship with Jim Irsay that may be a little sideways and weird. And I know you and I wound up at Jim Irsay big party in New York a few summers ago. Is one of the great nights of music ever that night. And I want to welcome Clark judge in my friend at Hall of Fame voter, just to talk about Jim. And you know, I got all sorts of props, dude. You got props, Clark, are you going to show thanks. Yeah, this is a 71 NFL belt buckle. Oh, you’re gonna break the Johnny. You out on me? Are you
Clark Judge 02:16
got it? Hang on, yeah, more Hang on one second. Well, in order to
Nestor Aparicio 02:20
get in the mood for this Clark, I had to channel a little bit of great sports writing and 1959
8Clark Judge 02:28
1959 he signed that to me, that Western Maryland up there, 1959 Yeah. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 02:34
here’s what I got. I got the John Steadman Baltimore Colts Pictorial History. I have the best and worst is Stedman, because I wanted to sort of touch things with Henneman. Henneman passing this week, we’re gonna we’re gonna love him up a little bit. The Baltimore cold story, which was gifted to me recently, and a book that I actually did some research with John I’m credited from colts to Ravens. So Clark, I don’t know where to begin with this the death of Jim Irsay, because it kind of hit me harder than I thought it would, because I thought of that hour that I spent on the deck with him and Steve Bucha tea. And Steve had coached me up about trying to get the records back, because the fans here wanted it so badly. And I got to know him, and then whenever he saw me, he wanted to talk about rock and roll with the Beatles music. And, you know, and I don’t know, you know him as a kid, right? Like, literally, when you were covering the Baltimore Colts, right? Yeah,
Clark Judge 03:28
yeah, he was, that was 1982 8384 right? In there, I left in 84 and so, yeah, I knew him as a young man then. And then got to know him much better when he was in Indianapolis, and got a real appreciation for him, where I had no appreciation for his father. I mean, I resented his father. I didn’t know much about him. I knew enough about him that I wanted to keep my distance from him. What he did to Baltimore I could never forgive. So the Irsay family was not something that I really wanted to be part of and then I realized Jim was very different, and and Jim was trying to overcome some of that, and he did he listen? Was he flawed? Absolutely, a very fragile character, a vulnerable character, but one who was so giving, compassionate with people, did so much community service when you and I saw him, yeah, he had the Jim Irsay collection that he brought to New York that day. It was June 2, two, three years ago, and he made it free. He could have charged a fortune. He didn’t. He took it around the country. Made it free because he wanted to share it with people. And the his death hit me very hard, very hard. Nestor, and I’ll tell you, just give you one example. I was involved here three years ago in a land deal here in town in Connecticut, where the Boy Scouts were selling a camp that our daughter went to, 250 acres, beautiful area. It’s pristine wilderness, really, but they were selling it they’re going to sell to the highest bidder. Yeah, and, and so I was part of a group, a grassroots group, that said, We’ve got to, we’ve got to protect it. Somehow. We’ve got to protect it. They said, you can’t, you’re not gonna be able to raise the money. And I said, Well, here are some people I’ll contact. And I put Jim, or say his name on the list, and I just wrote him and said, Listen, here’s what we got. We’re trying to protect this. Keep it as a wild space. Preserve it eternally. Are you interested in doing anything? Anything can help? And he said, Let me think about it. And he came back and said, Would this work? And I said, What? He goes this, $100,000
Nestor Aparicio 05:35
8Wow. He
Clark Judge 05:36
knew nothing about it. He just knew that I was interested in it and that it was something we were very passionate about. We protected it against all odds in Connecticut, when you talk about Deer Lake in Connecticut, environmental so say, What a great grassroots campaign. It was people like Jim er say that made it possible. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 05:58
I listen. It’s very complicated here, right? I’m in Baltimore. You’re long gone. I want to set the stage for what you found in Baltimore, because it sounds to me like you came in right around schleister, right around. I mean, was Burt still here? Like, give me the lay of the land of the Jim Irsay you found and what he did with his life, and what his nasty ass father did to leave him right, like and all the Bernie Mick journalism about Bob, or say his mother, and just all of it, right? And the Jim Irsay I found as a villain, right? You know? I mean, we celebrated Bob or say’s death around here. I’ve got Bob or say’s dummy, the little mini dummy after Nacho mom is closed, it came back to me. So I have her six dummy right here in the radio studio. And, um, it’s just complex. I mean, just holding up this belt buckle is complicated for people in my world, right? You know, anything with a cult logo, if you’re of the right age, or I can sing the cult fight song, or any of that. And his last name was her say, and if you didn’t know him, if you didn’t meet him, if you’re from Baltimore, it’s f him, it’s, it’s all of the above, right? It’s all of that. But then I got to be an adult. I hated everything about going to Indianapolis, man, my wife would say, Why do you even go? I’m like, What’s where they have the combine? Yeah, you know? Like, I gotta go, you know? But I hated, I mean, it really viscerally bothered me until I was 40 years old, and there was a point where Jim was very magnanimous with me that made me think about things like the time I spent with him. He was like
Speaker 1 07:32
a really, really peaceful, thoughtful,
8Nestor Aparicio 07:38
you know, when I talked to him, I mean, Steve Bucha, he put me up like a priest to be in front of him on the and they were smoking cigars. I’m chewing through the cigar smoke at the at the Biltmore in a 95 degree day. You know the deal. And we’re talking about the records. And I thought, This is not a bad human and I don’t know why Steve put me up to do that and why we were there, but we were there on behalf of of Baltimore Ravens fans and colts fans, on behalf of Johnny, you You already owe Johnny, you up. I That’s and Jim’s like, I’ll do anything I can do to help it along. But the the Football Hall of Fame, people feel like records or records we, we did broach that subject. This is in 2008 it’s right after Jim won the Super Bowl nine, right after the paid and eight, there was the Peyton Manning Super Bowl that Steve wanted to approach Jim about it, about the records of the baltimores, that serious a conversation. And how am I going to be mad at Jim Irsay after he that changed everything for me. And then I went to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, and like that place was just not a place Baltimore people ever wanted to look at. And I saw what it did for their city and how beautiful. That was the best Super Bowl I ever attended. Of all of the weather was unbelievable. Every it was like a civic fair, like an Indiana fair. And I thought to myself, Why am I going to be angry at these people and the ghost of these people? We’ve got our own thing. We’ve had two Super Bowls here now, like, why I’m not going to die with that anger, and I’m so glad that I could let it go. But it was because Jim Irsay was just, it just impressed me Clark, and in the way it impresses people like you that found him as a kid with his old man, and see what blessings he wound up giving the world in many ways.
Clark Judge 09:29
Yeah, no, when I came to Baltimore, it’s 1979 uh, Bert Jones was still there, and I covered some of the practices I when I came there, I came there as sort of a go for it, not a really go for better. Was working on the desk there at the evening sun, and then I quickly went into high school sports, became the high school sports editor, took over my Clingerman that year, and then they asked me to do emergency duty on an ACC tournament. One year, it was 1981 No 19. Yeah, 1981 so right in there. And I said, Okay, so I flew down to Greensboro and I did the tournament, and I came back and they said, You did so well, we want to put you on Maryland. And went, you let me put me on Maryland basketball, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 10:12
so Graham era, right there. What do you got going? Yeah, yeah, that’s
Clark Judge 10:14
8right, yeah, got it. And so I go that Charles Pittman, you know, but
Nestor Aparicio 10:22
I know. Go, No, hell, I don’t know clock.
Clark Judge 10:25
Oh, that was, that was lefty and lefty, and I got in it once. But so I go, 8182 with the Terps and, and so then, you know, Ken Murray leaves town and and bird Jones left down, and now you’re going to draft out when they put me on the Colts. And lo and behold, the 82 season, what do we have? We have a strike. And that’s how I get into the NFL. I’m covering a strike, and I’m covering the team that I adored when I was a kid. The ball right? Kush by Frank comes in. So you got Frank Cush, you got, I mean, so you’ve got this guy who’s supposed to be a tyrant. He wasn’t a tyrant, but he could be, he could be 95% of the time. He was a great guy, but that 5% is what got him the reputation. And there were some great stories, which, you know, Holden Smith story, a great one, another guy named Zach Valentine. They trade for him, doesn’t show up for 36 hours. Shows up Zach Valentine. They said, Oh yeah, you’re cut. He cut it before he even got right
Nestor Aparicio 11:21
mark. So I’m a 1213, year old kid whose old man loved the Colts and he quit on him at that point. Everything about all of it, the stadium was empty by the time you got on the beat empty. I was at those games with, you know, a Chester Mark hole kicking field goals for the Packers. And oh, eight and one. That’s
8Clark Judge 11:40
the year I covered him. Yeah? Mike, page goes on. David home, yeah. David hum, actually, during the strike, I played a pickup basketball game with the Colts. You’re going out. There they go, Hey, we gonna guard, and I guarded. David hum, Dick didn’t have to guard
Nestor Aparicio 11:57
Randy McMillan or Curtis Dickie, that probably would have been a problem, right? Would have
Clark Judge 12:01
been a problem. But wait, I mean, so Reese McCall and the pivot,
Nestor Aparicio 12:07
8I love talking, see, this is when I get guys like you on that only people either know. If you know, you know, and if you’re not enjoying the segment, you just
Clark Judge 12:16
didn’t love Ed cinnamon. Ed simonini, remember his wife? Oh, Ray, you gotta, you’re gonna get all this right. Aaron Christie was Simone and his wife, she happened to be the Playmate of the Year, all right. So she comes to practice and they’re going, Oh, my God, please keep her away from here. How hunters the offensive line coach, I can’t get my guys to not look at her, okay, would she keep her away from here? There’s a whole different, whole different deal. But yeah, and so I didn’t, I didn’t know Jim. I mean, I certainly knew what Bob Earth and then tried to track him down once he takes off. But I will tell you when, when they made the deal way trade. Remember staying up all night. That night, worked it all night, so didn’t go to sleep for I’d say, I don’t know. 2436 hours, Kevin cower and I were in the office, and we’re working the phones at two in the morning, three in the morning, and we’re calling back to Denver. And DJ Simons was the guy was selling, here’s what’s going on. And he tracks down Reeves, and he and I became lifelong friends out of that. But from then on, I was, my goal was to get Earth, say, and it flew to Chicago. Dan Pearson, Don Pearson and I cornered him in a building we thought, except he took the elevator to the floor we didn’t cover and we missed him. So then he comes back to town. You would remember when he did his State of the Colts
Nestor Aparicio 13:33
Well, so, so hang on. You were the beat writer for the Colts for like, two and a half years. Maybe no left, no 1982
Clark Judge 13:40
82 strike season. Then Ken Murray comes back, and they said, Well, we made decision, Ken’s gonna be covering the team. And I said, wait a sec, you just told me I had a good year. You did. We’re gonna put you in the NFL. Pete, I said, we don’t have an NFL beat. We do now. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I got to travel the country and go see Bradshaw and other guys, and you get sit downs with guys you couldn’t possibly get today. You couldn’t so with Terry Bradshaw when he’s coming back from that elbow injury, I go to Pittsburgh. It’s a Tuesday. He’s going to play Saturday. I think it was a Saturday afternoon game against the Jets. It was the game without announcers,
8Nestor Aparicio 14:19
wasn’t it? I think it might have been. It was the game without announcers. But go have remember that game. Go ahead. So it’s
Clark Judge 14:27
me and Fred Mitchell are the only guys there to talk to Terry Bradshaw coming back from this injury today. It’d be 1000 people. Fred Mitchell and I are sitting down with Terry Bradshaw. It was great. Anyway. So he comes back, plays for like a half or a quarter, whatever. There was a couple Dutch masses, and his career is over, finished. He’s done. But we got that so I had things like that. I flew out to San Diego to see Elway play the Chargers when he lined up behind guard. So it got me exposed to numbers of people. And then the next year, 84 I’m out. I go to San Diego. The Colts moved to. Yeah, Indianapolis, I go to San Diego. I think I got the better that deal. So you
Nestor Aparicio 15:04
you weren’t here the night of the May flowers. You was no, okay, that.
Clark Judge 15:08
8And so I went, Okay, what are we doing now? Well, good question. And so long, it’s not long story not worth getting into. And so the editor said, you know, you have an offer from San Diego, I think you should take it. And I said, I like it here better. I don’t think I want to go. And he said, Well, find out. Just go out there. You have a team to cover. You don’t have one here. I can’t give you something that I’d like to I just can’t. They were trying to work on something so and then I remember Ernie, of course, he’s saying to me, listen, what’s the worst that can happen? You hate it. You come back here. And he said, right, going to San Diego is the best move ever met me, not because I left Baltimore, but because he now was exposed to a different market, different players, and my experience grew everyone from there to San Francisco. And you know the rest of the story? I didn’t know Jim Irsay when he would when I was covering the cold. Certainly know of his dad, but I heard stories about him from Ernie. Of course, he was the GM, then Ernie left as the GM. But there was, there was a great one where he said it was a great story where Ernie said, you know, you never know what’s going on with his dad. But he said he called me one time and said, You got to get in touch with, with with Jim. You got to find him. And Ernie said, why he goes his his his house is burning down. And Ernie said, what? He said, His house is burning so Ernie calls Jim. Jim picks up the phone, this is Ernie telling me. And he says, Hey, Jim, what’s going on there? He goes, nothing. Why anything unusual happening in your house? No, no. Nothing unusual. No, there’s no firing, no. So was Bob with one of his imaginary thoughts, you know. I mean, he was probably under the influence of something. But what was it? Just sort of was hallucinating, whatever. So Ernie said that that’s kind of the stuff that we have to put up with you anyway. Make a long story short, when he came back there, or say, I don’t know if you remember that press conference we talked about the Oh, way deal, he couldn’t get anyone’s name right. Called Ernie. Mr. Ernie, he called Frank Kush. Frank says Mansky or Ernest. Mansky, you gotta be saying
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
you’re a bad man. I’m not talking. He was talking to Gordon beard, apparently in that, yeah, yeah. I think that’s Gordon
Clark Judge 17:20
Gordon beer, to Gordon Forbes. I mean, it probably either one of them. But what I want
Nestor Aparicio 17:24
to ask you is it you covered the team on and off, in and out for a couple of year two. Yeah, yeah, whatever. You were never in a room with her. Say, like, right, right. He was never, like, around, right, no.
8Clark Judge 17:35
But when they left, I despise them. I despise the family, because what they did so much so that the PR director for the Indianapolis Colts saw me when they played Indianapolis and when the when the Chargers did when, because I’m coming to charges, chargers, and he said, Why are you so tough on us? Why are you so why did he beat us up so much? I said, because your owner and what they did to the city of Baltimore, they ripped the soul out of that city. They took the soul away from a city that deserved better. And And for years, he and I, Craig Kelly, didn’t get along because of that. And then, and then we did because I learned what you did. I just learned to let it go. And I let it go because of a couple things, but one of which was when I was in San Francisco, they were playing the Indianapolis Colts at home, and Jim came a day early with the team, and then went downtown and made, I think it was something like a $500,000 contribution to something like a homeless group. And it was a charitable donation. And I saw it and went, Whoa. I mean, that’s, it’s kind of or Jim Irsay. And then I kind of got to know him, and I’m not sure how it happened, or when it happened, well, this was after his father’s death, yes, yeah, okay, all right, um, yeah, it was after his father’s death. Yeah. Okay. So I’m just trying to think when his father died, and then,
Nestor Aparicio 19:01
yeah, I was never in a room with him until, you know, maybe when I started covering owners meetings at the turn of the century, when his father was gone, right, you know, and before he had won, but around the time they were getting into the Peyton Manning’s, you know, yeah, world where he had sort of cleaned it up a little bit after Jeff George. And you know what? I mean, it was getting, I mean, it was bad for 20 years, right? I mean, from, well, it’s bad for a decade here, but from 84 through the turn of the century, his old man never really pissed the drop ever in running the place. And look at what he accomplished in his 25 years of running it, right? Yeah. Well, I
Clark Judge 19:39
mean, but when they had Dickerson, they were not a bad team. I mean, 95 team, I think was in the championship game, yeah, with Jim
Nestor Aparicio 19:44
8Harbaugh correct and goose correct. So that was close with March of Broda as well. Yeah, yeah,
Clark Judge 19:50
no, that’s right, they had some good people there, but, but once I got exposed to him and we started talking, we realized we had similar interests. We loved music. And then he started talking about some of the cons. I’ve been to, and then we got closer and closer. So every time we went to Indianapolis, I looked for him and you’re right about the Indianapolis Super Bowl. I would say, if someone said to you, what’s your favorite Super Bowl? It said Super Bowl site. My favorite is San Diego, because I loved it there, and I think it’s a good place to have one. However, the best one to me was Indianapolis, because of what that you write that the temperature was great. It was, it was like a fair. They had a zip line going through town. I got on and did it. It was
Nestor Aparicio 20:25
just fantastic. And everyone there were real townies and local people that drove within. People from Chicago came down. It was nice. It was a different kind of Super Bowl than, like, Meridian, or, yeah, or any of the ones where it’s golf,
Clark Judge 20:41
but yeah, and so Jim took us out. He took me and Rick Gosling a couple others out for, I think it was a dinner or something one night, and was so gracious to us. And I’ll never forget, he was asking me, when did you first see the who? And I said, I saw him at 69 nightclub and in Boston, right outside of the left field wall Fenway Park. It’s called the Boston Tea Party. And what were they doing? I said they were doing Tommy, they’d come off of the Woodside. Oh, man, as you know, that’s when I would have loved to have seen a man. That’s when they would love to have seen him. They were so you’re so lucky and and so we had long conversations. We were talking about Steven, still, a lot of people. And anyway, one of the trips either just before then or just after them. He asked me to come back into his office. Takes me around the office, as you know, if you’ve been in there, walls full of all sorts of guitars, of album covers, things signed by everyone. And it was astonishing to see what was in there. I think he has a Abbey Road covered, signed by all four Beatles. And so I looked in this is this amazing. So we had a common interest with with music, like you did, but we would also talk about football, and whenever I saw him, we’d seek each other out. And I really enjoyed being around him, because I knew he had a story to tell. And one of my last owners meetings was in Laguna Beach, and I remember he took a break and said, Let’s go outside. And we sat down for an hour, and he poured his soul out about what his father was, what he was like, and why he was not going to be like his father. And it was really something I’d never heard before. I’m not sure how much we played it. I was working at CBS Sports and, and I’m not sure how much we played at that time, it was,
8Nestor Aparicio 22:23
it was an audio piece, or was a reporter sit
Clark Judge 22:27
there? No, it was, No, it wasn’t an audio piece. Man, I taped it but, but no way. I put it on our site and CBS sports.com and it was a revelation to me, because he was essentially saying, I know who and what he was. I don’t want to be that guy. And he’s tempted all the time, but I’m not going to be that guy. And I, I know that, you know, he tripped up and fell on some things. You know, we had setbacks and that sort of stuff, but he wanted to be something different. And to me was he made a defeat. He was in the community service, kept the team in Indianapolis when there was, you know, some threats to them leaving, built the stadium, and he that his death hit me hard. I actually, really did. I mean, you and I went to that thing three years ago, and that’s, that’s not the last time I saw him. We he and I did an interview together two years ago, and he was always, always willing to do whatever I or someone else wanted. And Clark, don’t worry, we’re going to do the interview. Let’s just and he was in LA at that time. We’ll do this, and we we put it up. And he was great. And when I saw this, I was blown away. When I heard this, I was blown away, even though there had been some signs that he wasn’t well. But I was shocked. And I corresponded with Pete Ward, whom you no doubt know, and was in Baltimore when the Colts were and then moved to Indianapolis with them. And he just said, I’m devastated and devastated. And so it was
Nestor Aparicio 23:49
say, Pete Ward, by the way, Clark judge is my guest here on Baltimore positive we’re talking about Jim Irsay, and I’m having a cup of Memorial Day coffee and memorializing all sorts of memorials in a lot of ways. And we lost Jim Henneman this week. And I’m holding James debmon books and this sort of era of the Colts and even the hatred of Earth, say, in the Colts name in Baltimore, his death this week on my timeline. You know, people didn’t have a chance to know and whatever, but there’s a a point for me with you mentioned Pete Ward, and I’m sure most of this happened because of Bucha D, but I think at some point Craig Kelly and I, or you mentioned Craig Kelly as well, so I’ll bring him in. The team came here in 96 and we played a game five, six weeks into our existence. That was a Sunday night game. Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback of the Colts. Vinny Testaverde was the quarterback of the Ravens. They had this young kid named Ray Lewis and John Ogden. And it was it was my birthday. It was October 14, 1996 and I took my first ever road trip out. I took 2030 people out to Indianapolis to go on a road trip to. Indianapolis of all place my buddy Scotty, the late great Scotty and Nacho mom, has had his bachelor party that night in Indianapolis, as I remember parts of it, but so it was kind of a seminal time, because it was Baltimore versus Indianapolis is the first game. Was a few weeks into it. I had met Craig Kelly at that point and all of that bad vibe, and was really raw and wide open at that point, 1996 9798 and then the Peyton Manning thing happened, and, you know, at the turn of the century, and Bob’s death happened, and all of that happened, and the Ravens won a Super Bowl. And there was a period after that where it’s like, all right, man, we got the better end of the deal. You know what I mean? We, we wound up getting the second wife that was like, fantastic. And God bless all of you and your records. But there was the Johnny, you thing, there was the all for all the millennium, Moore’s Tom Matties. Johnny was still alive for a period of that, until the early part of the century. So for me, the air got a little bit let out of the tires just because we had our own thing. Had never gotten a team back, man, it would have been a whole different gig here, like I, you know, I can’t say what would happen had art modell not moved the team here, but it’s that fixed a lot of things for me as a guy on the radio. I was then a decade and a half into being on the radio, but Steve Bucha tea and I somehow were talking records and this and that. This is when Steve was really active in care, and when I was still a media member, which is just all of it as I get older, has been disgraceful through all of this. But it’s the people I’ve met, and the people like Jim Irsay, who would be misunderstood here because of his last name, that I’m not going to blame him for his dad’s sins, but I took this long walk with him at the Biltmore, and you can look it up. Was right after they won the Super Bowl, eight or nine. So I’m getting a little further in. You’re like a year out on sitting with him. They
Clark Judge 26:53
8won the Super Bowl. They won the Super Bowl. 2000 766,
Nestor Aparicio 26:56
okay, then it was six
Clark Judge 26:59
or seven. It was, it was six, because in 2007 The Patriots were undefeated. Well, I’d have
Nestor Aparicio 27:06
to figure out the Biltmore year versus the Florida year, where they do the owners meetings. But this was a Biltmore walk, and it was 678, in that range, and we talked about records, and now that they had won, what happens to the Johnny you stuff, and Peyton Manning would be this and that, and their record books, and where does Baltimore sit? And the fans here hated going to Canton and having to go to the Indianapolis wing to see anything associated with the calls. So Stephen and Jim. And here’s what Jim said. And man, Steve, like, I don’t talk about this much because I didn’t talk about it at all on the air at that time. It like, now that it’s 20 years later, I’m in, you know, I’m telling the story, but Steve came to me with the cigar and says, we’re going to talk to Jim. Listen, he’s a really mellow guy. So like, tone down the nasty Nestor thing a little bit. Like, give him space to breathe, try to talk a little slower at him, because he’s going to react better to you because he’s he’s a very kinesthetic guy. This is what Steve is saying to me, right? So we go for this walk and and Jim. And Jim’s like, I’ve always wanted to get the Baltimore thing. Anything I can do, anything I could do to fix Baltimore, I would do anything I could do. I would do, except here’s what I’m not going to do. I’m not, I can’t rewrite what really happened. I’m going to do a little. Little is Midwestern, you know? I can’t, you know, the May flowers, all of that happened. I can’t, but the records, the records, really, they happened in Baltimore, you know, like, so he’s like, I’m trying. I don’t. I know how the Hall of Fame and we literally sat and prayed on this over cigars and through that conversation. Anytime you ever saw me after that Baltimore, you know, he would always see me that way. And then it was like, once he found that I was the music critic at the sun and we had a longer talk, and, you know, another owners meeting, and we’re having a, you know, I’m having a cocktail later at night. We just talk Beatles and like all that. But I never sat in his office. I never did any of that. Most of my relationship was Pete ward. Now I will say this in 2009 10, I was working on a book that I never finished. It was, it was a conceptual idea of how many people I touched, who touched leadership in Baltimore at that point, Brian Billick was my partner. Had had left the team, and I’m like, Man, I could get the Don Shula. I could get to lefty Gisele. I can do lacrosse. I could do all of these. Earl Weaver was alive and talk to me right, which I wound up helping John Miller with his book recently, because I sat down with some of these people, and I stupidly never sat with Don Shula, who agreed to sit with me. I’m an idiot. Schnellenberger was all ready to sit with me in Palm Beach, and I did stupid, but nonetheless, um, I did sit with Jim, and Pete set it up, and we just talked about leadership and the P. He talked about were Ted March abroad, Joe Thomas, that he used their thoughts and their way. He didn’t mention his father much at all he did. But, like, I didn’t want to poke at that bear, you know, I mean, he was being kind enough to sit with me. I didn’t want to go down some dark I was it wasn’t a gotcha thing. And at this point, we had had a pretty, you know, awesome relationship in that way, where, when he sat with me, was very comfortable sitting with a Baltimore guy on camera, and I released it the day after he passed, because I never used it, and it was just beautiful, like he sat there and talked about what really influenced him at that point in his life, to be able to save a franchise, keep a franchise. I mean, the cook family had to take, I mean, a lot of these families didn’t get to keep their franchises. He wound up making a real difference. And I felt it that Super Bowl week. I felt it in the Final Fours. I’ve gone to out there. I felt it when I went to see you, too. I I zipped in to see you to play with Beck one night in the dome, like Jim Irsay made a like was was given this thing that he drove better than his his father, in sobriety and sanity, would be very proud of what Jim mercy did for Indiana and Indianapolis. No,
8Clark Judge 31:11
no question. I mean, that’s why it it felt so bad, because he was trying so hard to get things right, and he got things right a lot, and I don’t know what happened at the end, but I know that he had, he had more to achieve, and he if he knew him well, which a lot of people didn’t, but if he knew him well, it sort of got inside of Jim Irsay. It’s a guy who really, really wanted to do the right thing and wanted to be liked and and people say, Well, what about this? What about I don’t, I don’t care about that. I just, I he may have
Nestor Aparicio 31:43
even treated me a little more special because I was a kid from Baltimore, had my heart broken, and he knew that, you know what I mean, like, yeah, when he was around me, he would always, and he didn’t put on any air, but he would always go out of his way to be to talk a little music with me, you know, really, always, yeah.
Clark Judge 31:59
So when we, when we talked last, when we talked last, what we, what I was talking about, that situation, the Baltimore move, what his father went through. And I’m not going to recite it, but one thing I said was, you know, you had the team, then what would you have done? Would you have kept John away? He goes, What are you crazy? Of course, I would have, I never would have traded him. I never would have traded him. And he was very logical, and his father wasn’t because his father, I mean, he admitted it was an alcoholic, and unfortunately it got the better part of him. And and Jim was trying so hard to make the USA name something that people would be proud of. Well, they can be proud of I mean, with Jim, they can be with his father. I had no use for his father after they left Baltimore. I had no use for him when he was in Baltimore, because I saw what he was doing with the city and, you know, the eminent domain and all that stuff that was going on, and essentially was hanging the city in the breeze. And I thought this was really unfair, and I love watching the Colts. I’ve got tons of cold stuff. I know what they meant to the city. When I was there, I knew what they meant. I went to the games before I started covering them as a spectator. Saw Burt Jones play there. I just, where did you grow up? You grew up somewhere all over the country. My dad was in the service. Yeah, but, but you the Colts were your team as a kid. Yeah. I went to three. I went to three, three high schools in four years. So we, my dad was in the service. We moved all over the place, and we lived in Hawaii when I was a kid and but when I was in junior high and high school, I mean, those were the times you got one or two games on a Sunday, depending on where you lived. And we got when we were living in Newport, Rhode Island, because my father taught at the Naval War College there, we got the Giants games, and so I got to see the New York Giants. Really didn’t want to, but I wanted to see the Colts. And when we moved to campus in North Carolina, I did get to see the Colts games, and I liked that. That was great. I love I loved watching them play. I loved what Unitas represented. And I was crushed, so crushed by Super Bowl three. That that Monday, I said to my mom the day after the game, I can’t go to school. How old were you 69 How old were you the senior in high school? I said, I can’t go to school. I can’t go to school. I said, I I can. She goes, Okay, stay
Nestor Aparicio 34:16
8after the Colts beat the Ravens in oh six, I wouldn’t have gone to school either. I mean, you know the Peyton Manning game, remember that one that was a bad, bad that was a bad night in Baltimore. That’s dude. That’s how angry I still was. I had Earth say suck signs like in 2006 so, right? I mean, it took a lot I know, I know that sword down and to feel the way I feel as a grown up, which makes me an evolved sentient being, I think at this point, and we’re discussing the life of Jim, or say, Clark judge, you knew, so did you remember? Do
Clark Judge 34:50
you remember how many touchdowns the Colts put on the Ravens that day?
Nestor Aparicio 34:55
No, yeah, it was 15. Six ball was terrible. I feel. Let’s we’re not gonna talk about I, my wife filmed me blubbering over the city that night, like, literally just, I wasn’t, like, drunk or anything. I was just so I could not believe that they lost the Steve McNair era. So nonetheless, Clark, you know, for for you, did you not have Jim on your pod a couple of years ago, I want you to talk about that a little bit. That’s what I did. That’s
Clark Judge 35:23
what I was talking about that, that conversation about leaving Baltimore and John Elway and that sort of thing, we talked for a long time
8Nestor Aparicio 35:29
about that. So that is, you people can listen to that, correct? They,
Clark Judge 35:33
they can’t listen to it. I posted it, right? Okay, yeah. But if so, I looked for they’d said, you know, at the top, you click on this, which you could and you can find the interview. And so the interviews are, I clicked on it says 404, which means it’s disappeared. Oh, no. So it’s disappeared. Somebody’s got it. I don’t know where it
Nestor Aparicio 35:54
is. Yeah, we got to find the archive of that. Because, I mean, I sat down when art modell was still well enough to sit, and I sat for hours with him, telling his life story. And there’s part of that, and I run it once in a while here, when I’m at the beach or need some time off, or just want to be retrospective Memorial Day, sometimes I’ll run folks who are no longer with us to just to honor them and have these great conversations with these people who saw and did things in the league, and Jim Irsay in the 1970s right? Was like a kid on the wall catching footballs, and like, his dad never had time for him or anything else or whatever. And like, had to sort of figure life out. And maybe this is where we really take a detour off of football and accomplishments to rock and roll and escapism. So I’m gonna let my hair down here before I do this, and I’m just gonna say, like, when people say to me, like, what’s the best show you saw recently? Or concert I saw AC DC last week, I sat in the second row last week. Saw Sammy Hagar do the Van Halen thing out in Vegas. I saw Pat Benatar. I mean, like, I’ve seen some great stuff. One of the most amazing things I saw and my wife, and my wife didn’t go to New York with me on that trip, because she was, like, doing something with her. I think her mom had a battle. They, my wife couldn’t go. Didn’t go. I turned it into a long weekend where I went and saw Robert Plant play at Forest Hills in in New York, they they’ve turned the tennis court into a concert bowl right now. Yeah. So, so I saw Robert Plant, but I built that weekend because Pete Ward and Jim Irsay kept saying, you got, you got to come to one of my I’m doing my auctions, my things, and we’re doing this for stigma. We’re doing this for mental health. We’re doing and and I saw concerts popping up with Ann Wilson from hard with different artists. And I’m like, Pete dude, I want to come do this. It’s coming to New York. It’s going to be great. The night we got it, we got Natalie merchant on the front end of it. It was, it was a block and a half from Madison Square Garden. It was up in this, this palladium Hammersmith thing. Yeah, incredible. And I’m out in line walking to get in, and there’s Clark judge, my rock and roll brother from a run, from another run, run, mother and I would just say like we went in, and I don’t know about you that night, but it was cocktailing, and it was Hunter S Thompson, this, and guitars and just all sorts of cool stuff going on, and free cocktails. And it was flowing, and it was awesome. But when the music started and I walked up to the stage, and there’s Mike Mills, and there’s Kenny Wayne shepherd, and there’s Kenny Aronoff, who was on stage last Saturday night banging the skins with Sammy Hagar. 20 feet away. I lost my mind, and when they’re doing don’t go back to rockville. And Kenny, oh my I see you, lighten up. But then Jim sang with them, and I found the video the night he passed. Last week, I found all the video I shot up on the stage, and most impressively, and I released, it was a version of him doing Tom Petty’s a Tom Petty song, and I released. It’s kind of haunting at this point, but man, Jim Irsay loved rock and roll. He loved it. Oh, loved it. Became rock and roll, and at the end, he that rock and roll was as much fun to him as sports ever was.
Clark Judge 39:31
8Yeah, no, no question. I think he did the weight by the band that night, too. But yeah, he loved rock and
Nestor Aparicio 39:36
roll. I think was something big, by the way, something big was the Tom Petty song. He did go ahead, but I
Clark Judge 39:41
think rock and roll was a nice diversion for him, because he could be himself. And he loved being around those people. He loved creative people. And that was a magnanimous night. And funny, I want to go back to you mentioned earlier, Pete ward. Pete Ward is a guy I I’ve always. Is always, always admired. Like very much, consider him a dear friend and and I mentioned Craig Kelly. Craig Kelly and I, as I said, we were on completely different planets, until we weren’t. And then, once I let go of the angst, he and I became really good friends. And part of it is because my wife, who you mentioned, is part of, he said, NFL royalty. She’ll love that.
Nestor Aparicio 40:19
She I think of her as NFL royalty. She always, but she, she thought I was a media member.
8Clark Judge 40:30
She was very close to Craig, and she said, and he goes, she said to me, Craig once said to me, I don’t see what you see in this guy. And then we became close, and we did a lot of things together. And Craig was always very generous to me when we went, when I went out there to Indianapolis, and I want to make sure I just set the record straight that he and I are
Nestor Aparicio 40:49
Oh, and I feel the same way about Craig. And I’m sure at one point we had a conversation about, Hey, dude, you know, I always say this to Matthew Orioles in the new ownership. You understand we’ve dealt with some trauma here, right? Like, like, let’s just start from the baseline of, yeah. There was trauma involved here. If you were a kid in Baltimore, 1984 there just was, and it was sort of baked into this, which makes this conversation we’re having at the end of Bob, or say, son’s life. Well, you’re looking at the gym. You got your ticket there. Is that? What
Clark Judge 41:19
it is? Yeah, yeah. Jim Irsay collection, and then, and then, obviously, their pictures. I I remember
Nestor Aparicio 41:25
8you, and I walking around, and I’m like, Hey, there’s hunt Hunter S Thompson’s joint bird that hole.
Clark Judge 41:31
Yeah, Natalie merchant. Now I also remember Natalie merchant. Was it the two please for the center?
Nestor Aparicio 41:38
I remember her sassing the crowd a little bit, you know, trouble me absolutely.
Clark Judge 41:43
But, and she was lucky that was, I love Natalie merchant. I didn’t like her that night because she was so talking down to people, like, what do you expect here? It’s, it’s basically an enlarged, gargantuan, not cocktail party here. And she didn’t like the fact that people are not silent. They were talking. I understand that, but this isn’t a concert.
8Nestor Aparicio 42:02
Dude Mike Mills was singing, don’t go back to rock. It was great, like a stypian Angel at three feet away, and there literally were just eight of us gigging around, thinking this might be one of the greatest moments of my life, and digging it. But I dug it, and I’m telling you right now that the Jim Irsay night of music, my I tell my wife all the time, I’ve shown her the videos. I’m like, You have no idea how viscerally excited it had. The little boy in me came out again at that moment, and then later that night, they invited me back to the cocktail party, and I wound up like wound up talking more to a guy named Miguel Ramos, who was in the band, who was in the bo deans for a period of time. And I wound up Bo deaning him a little bit, but I talked to Mike Mills a little bit of baseball, because he’s a Braves guy. And I, you know, and I moved around that cocktail party that was one of the really amazing nights of music, of cocktails of purpose and mental health. And I never spoke to Jim again after that night. I saw him later that evening, kind of holding court at the hotel, but I was never in a room with Jim again after that. And I’m talking about like Roger Goodell was there that night. Everybody came to New York that night to be a part of it, but it was a powerhouse music night, and then Jim took the stage with this half of John Mellencamp band, and I was watching most of the show with the other half of the band that lived in New York. And it was, it was a, it was a night that I would, I would think everyone could experience that they love music.
Clark Judge 43:41
Sure. I mean, when Natalie merchant, when she stepped aside, but when Mike Mills, when he when he did, don’t go back to rockville, I would say next Pete Ward, and Pete said, I love this song. It’s one of my wife’s favorite songs. I said, I love it too. I didn’t realize that he I just didn’t realize he’d written it, I guess I mean, but I didn’t she’s a big REM fan. I’m not so much, but I like a lot of what they did. I do like that song a lot, but I remember sitting there with Pete looking around and just saying, like you did. This is unbelievable. That’s one of the greatest nights of my life. How am I? I’m standing next to Ringo drum kit. I’m looking at a note that Paul McCartney wrote to John Lennon. This is unbelievable. It just there was so much there to see, and it wasn’t just Beatles paraphernalia. Was a wall, as you know, of guitars. And I remember talking to a guy there and said, You spelled Pete Townsend his name wrong up there. And he said, I know you. Not many people recognize that. I said, Why do because, because I follow though. He said. We started talking about the guitars, and he was telling me of all these guitars that were up there, but, but, you know, I
Nestor Aparicio 44:47
am your strips too, the Kerouac,
Clark Judge 44:51
8yeah, yeah. And he brought that to New York early, years earlier, and I saw him there at the library, because he there was put out the library, and I saw him there when it came. Talked for a long time, but I didn’t talk to him personally, except for one time, that was two years ago, after that situation. But we corresponded a lot by text. I will say that we corresponded by text a lot. He’d asked me, What do you think about this, whatever. And so I like that. I mean, I like the fact that I still had a connection with him, and I knew darn well. I told someone recently that was trying, someone who’s interested in trying to get into the business. I said, Listen, I don’t know what there is out there. It’s a whole different landscape now than when I got into it. But I told him, and I mean this, I said, if there’s one guy who will give you a chance, at least listen to you lately, least let you get in the door. It’s Jim mercy in Indianapolis. He’ll at least listen to you. You know, he’ll, he’ll give an opportunity. So, as I said, when that happened this week, I just looked at my phone went, you got to be kidding me. It’s too soon. This isn’t supposed to happen now. This is supposed to happen to guys like Jim mercy, and of course, we know it happens all too often to people like Jim mercy, and I’m really sad about it, but it does make me realize how he brought us together, along with a lot of other people, for some wonderful moments, Super Bowls, rock collections, everything.
Nestor Aparicio 46:14
Well, in my time with him, he tried to fix the Baltimore thing, and it was always like and he couldn’t, and he made it. I’ll never forget him saying, I’ll do, I can do anything but rewrite history. The way it happened is the way it happened. And like, and I, there are a lot of people. We’re in a world now where we’re always trying to burn John Steadman books for the history, right? Or whatever. It’s like, no, no, no, like the way it really happened. I have immense respect for people who don’t want to rewrite history, but maybe want to make history right, right? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, and he was one of those kind of people to me, that took where he was, which was an uncomfortable place and an uncomfortable last name, and did it proud. And I just want to make sure that we spend an hour on that here in Baltimore, at least talking about that, because he spent some formative years and probably years, and probably some very uncomfortable years here in Baltimore as well. Clark, Judge, is my friend, my guest. We share a love of old Baltimore, cold stuff. We do. Share a love of the NFL and some expertise. He is a pro football hall of fame voter, and any complaints, lodge them. And Clark the other 364, days of the year, and we’ll get back to, like, real football here. But, I mean, our city on the back end of the Justin Tucker thing, and we had this such, you know, Lamar Jackson and Harbaugh’s got the New Deal, and, like, all of this stuff happening, Derek Henry, we’ll get to football season. But you know, the life of Jim Irsay, I’m glad we, we at least set the record straight for the Jim Irsay, we know?
Clark Judge 47:40
Yeah, I’m glad you called about it Nestor, because I have a lot of strong feelings about him, and a lot of people have feelings that are not so strong and not so positive. And I’m glad you were able to allow me to do at least express another side of Jim or say which I cherished and will forever be grateful for
Nestor Aparicio 48:02
if you find that audio, I definitely want to like I want to sit and listen to him tell stories about his dad, because especially in a professional setting toward the end of his life, my regret is that I never saw him again after the night in New York to just say thank you to him for it, but not just to say thank You. I would have been like, look at my pictures. I want to show you my pictures, right? I want to show you the video of you singing Tom Petty, something big, which I love. That song. Anyway, I couldn’t believe, like, what a choice to do that song sitting there smoking a cigarette up on stage with his cowboy hat, you know, and all that good Kenny Wayne Shepherd doing the leads on it was insane, like playing the mike camel part, um, but like, I would have said all of that to him over a buffet one night at an owner’s meeting, had I had that opportunity. But I would just just would have said, Man, that was just an amazing thing. You invited me to and I never got to say thank you to him. So I’ll be looking for something big. You know,
8Clark Judge 49:00
I did get a chance to say thank you to him for what he did for us in this town to help save a piece of land and a big piece of land that will be preserved forever. I wrote him a letter. What’s the name of that piece of land? I want to Google it. It’s, it’s Deer Lake. Deer Lake. Yeah, it’s a Deer Lake in Connecticut, correct? Yeah, in Connecticut, in Killingworth, Connecticut, and I wrote him a letter, and he was very gracious in his response. He didn’t have to do anything. He didn’t know anything about it. You know, I knew that. But also, know it’s Jim Irsay. Jim Irsay cares about the underdog. I said, we don’t have a chance to get this, but I think we do. I think we could, we get people like you involved? He goes, tell me what. And I just said, anything, you can do anything. Nobody goes. Is this okay? Are you kidding me a six figure deal? Yeah, absolutely. I want
Nestor Aparicio 49:49
to look up the quote that he had about Snyder on the way out the door. Yeah, I want to get it right, because he said something. About, like, I don’t give a damn, let him come get me or and I thought, you know, if I think that might have been the last time he was quoted before he had his fall and he had his incident, was just a defiance. It was a big middle finger to somebody doing something wrong in the NFL, to besmirch the shield because he he didn’t dig that.
Clark Judge 50:18
Yeah, no, that’s right, he was so different from everyone else. That’s why I love approaching him at owners meetings. And I remember I went to the last owners meeting I went to, and it was at the Biltmore, and I was standing talking to him in Lobby. And then, as you know, you get one guy to talk. All of a sudden, there are 300 people around you. So Jim in our conversation was shared by others. A young guy from the company I was with afterwards, said, Hey, you did a really good job asking those questions. I said, Gee, thanks. I’ve known this guy for 30 years, for God’s sakes, but as long as it meets your approval, thanks very much. But I love dealing with him. We could cut through some of the bull, you know, when we did and and get to the really the crux of the problem. And and it was always good to talk to him, and he, as I said, the thing that came through was a real care and caring and compassion for what’s how do we get this right? How? What can we do to help? And as I said, the great example to me was that was that Deer Lake situation didn’t have to do anything. You know, if you think about I’m going to approach some other owner and say, Hey, listeners, we got okay, I gave you $100 whatever. What? No, I mean, he said, This is what I can do, and this is what I want to do. Is it okay? Is it okay? I mean, that’s who Jim Irsay was. Anyway we’ve already Well, I’ll
Nestor Aparicio 51:36
8tell you what, whenever the Colts, people and the earth say, folks, take that collection out to wherever I hope it goes again, and if, if it ever comes somewhere to be seen or placed somewhere permanently. You know, aside the Rock and Roll Hall, whatever Jim wanted to be done with it, I don’t even know what his will would be to be to do, but whatever it is, it would be to be shared in some way. I have not to be hidden and wherever winds up. If you get a chance to go see the Jim Irsay stuff, it is an amazing thing. Clark, we’ve had enough. We got a rough football season. We’ll get to that. I’ll throw, you know, rocks at you about Hall of Fame voting and all that. At some point.
Clark Judge 52:13
We’ll even talk about the Orioles,
Nestor Aparicio 52:17
not today. I’d rather talk about Todd runger. Well, our judge can be found out on the interwebs. He is still doing it the history of the NFL better than anybody else history pro football. And people like Jim are saying, and anyone like that, we’ll do a whole hour Jim Henneman at some other point as well. For Baltimore sports writing legends. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S D. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. And we never stop talking Baltimore positive with my long hair out you.
