Longtime Sports Illustrated author Scott Price takes a deep dive into the rich history of the game of lacrosse in his newest book, “The American Game,” highlighting the game’s cultural significance, growth, and its intersection with American society, connections to Wall Street, the military, and Native American communities.
Nestor Aparicio interviews S.L. Price about his new book on lacrosse, “The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse.” Price, a long-time Sports Illustrated writer, spent seven years researching and writing the book, conducting 370 interviews and traveling extensively. He highlights lacrosse’s unique cultural significance, its growth, and its intersection with American society, including its connections to Wall Street, the military, and Native American communities. Price also discusses the sport’s accessibility and the challenges it faces, such as the decline in baseball’s popularity in Baltimore due to the rise of lacrosse.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Lacrosse history, American game, Scott Price, Sports Illustrated, lacrosse culture, Native American lacrosse, Duke lacrosse scandal, lacrosse growth, lacrosse access, lacrosse networks, lacrosse players, lacrosse fields, lacrosse book, lacrosse events, lacrosse community.
SPEAKERS
8
S.L. Price, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Taos in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. It is spring time in Baltimore. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour. I’m bringing out the Back to the Future scratch offs, presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Will be at red brick station this week. But we are coming to all sorts of place, go to Baltimore, positive and find out, moving around the beltway and chatting with good folks. I waited a long time to get this guest on. Every time I reached him, he’d be like, I’m writing a book. I’m writing a book on lacrosse. I want to come on the show. Want to do it. We are to maybe that the cradle of lacrosse. We certainly have a Hall of Fame around here. There is a new book The American game history and hope in the country of La Crosse. SL price has been an author I’ve been reading for years and years and years, if the byline sounds familiar, using long time Sports Illustrated, back when it was the Real Sports Illustrated. And he has written this book. He’s also the author of play through the whistle. And we have chatted at various points about all sorts of in the old days of my journalism, Scott, they would call these takeout pieces or enterprise pieces. And I have John Eisenberg all the time on talking about sports. Two was the Sunday insert where you could just write long form. You are one of the most decorated long form writers that I know of in sports certainly, and it’s taking you a little while to put this lacrosse thing together. Are you done? Are you toweled off at this point? Scott price,
S.L. Price 01:28
I’m telling off. I’m telling off. I mean, this was a really long project. I started in 2018 I was still at sports illustrate at the time, so I was sort of doing it in between projects. But then in 2020 I left the magazine after 26 years, and I’ve been buried in it ever since. Ended up doing about 370 interviews for it. Traveled to Israel, West Coast, up the obviously, to Baltimore, North Carolina, Chicago, lot of different places. San Diego went to two world championships, and essentially I just got undoubted lacrosse guy, kind of like you Nestor. I was not someone who grew up playing the game, but I I was involved in a bunch of different stories that Sports Illustrated, and it the sport got a hold of me, and it bit me, and it wouldn’t let me go. And when that happens, that usually is a sign that you’ve got to at least an intriguing story that’s going to keep you interested for years. And that’s exactly what this did. There wasn’t a moment when I was researching or writing it where the people, first of all, were incredibly welcoming in lacrosse, incredibly generous with their time and their insight, incredibly honest with their insight. And you know, as a sports writer, I’ve seen what’s happened to sports in the last. You know, 40 years I came to into covering sports in mid 80s and and the access was extraordinary. I covered Michael Jordan in college, and when I was a student at North Carolina, and then the NBA, Michael Jordan would come out for 45 minutes before every single game on the road and at home and just hold court. And it was all very casual. It was the same with baseball clubhouses and and even, I mean, NFL locker rooms were a little bit tighter. But hockey, everything, the access, especially, especially after COVID, has been cut to the bone at the Olympics everywhere and journalists, while dealing with, you know, a cratering economy and a cratering industry economically have also been dealing with a cratering access to athletes and and personnel and and, and it’s it’s hurt to hurt the industry. I, simply by chance, dove into a until lacrosse, at a time with a sport was the fastest growing sport in America, fastest growing team sport. Pickleball kind of took the shine off that, but it’s still, still booming. And, and I, you know, the and the people were just so open. The access was extraordinary. Almost no one said no to me and and not only that, but gave me all the time and patience in the world. And for that, I’m eternally grateful, because I, I think the sport is, is actually quite important. Again, I’m not all across person. They’ll tell you, of course, they think their sport is wonderful, but I, you know, as a sort of big four sports writer. I went to 10 Olympics. I did, I did a lot, but there’s, I’ve done a lot of different things, but the but lacrosse is importance, really came across to me in doing this, and only reiterated itself throughout the process.
Nestor Aparicio 04:58
We lost John. Feinstein recently, and I miss him dramatically because he would come on and we would just commits. He was just talk, you know, and and I would always say to him, or any author, and I’ve written four books, and they’ve all been real personal and real, like, you know, Jack Torrance and the shining, like, literally, my wife would tell you that, like, if I’m writing in the spring, there’s no hockey, there’s no basketball, there’s no baseball, just writing all night, working all day, writing all night, you know, like like that, and I and pumped them out after the Ravens won championships. I’m the only one that chronicled it, and I felt like if I didn’t tell the story, it wouldn’t get told. I think I’m done writing books because of that sort of method acting, going into the basement, not knowing where the end of it is. And I’ve been chasing you down for years and all this. But you are and I, you know, look, I mean, I anybody can Google SL price and Sports Illustrated and see all of your work. And for 40 years, the lacrosse thing is off the track of what you did. You said it came to you. Now, I’m a Baltimore, East Baltimore guy. My last name is Aparicio, so I was kind of born with a glove and a bat in East Baltimore in the 70s. But the lacrosse thing in Baltimore was a rich white kids thing. It always was. It was always prep schooling. It was all of that. And now I look up, you know, I’ll be in Las Vegas next weekend when they’re having playoff games Denver, you know, Florida, Notre Dame, Michigan, just all over the country, and it was very much Syracuse, Long Island, Baltimore, maybe the Carolinas was sort of the next place where it kind of caught on. Did the Duke lacrosse thing bring you into lacrosse in some way?
8S.L. Price 06:34
Well, let me just say one thing. Yes, absolutely. So, so let me just say one thing before that, all my books and the stories that I was most taken with at Sports Illustrated were almost always at the confluence of of sports and culture. There’s I truly believe that sports reveals American culture and most international culture. It reveals people in a way almost no other exercise or entertainment
Nestor Aparicio 07:03
does and can galvanize people in a way that nothing else can
S.L. Price 07:06
absolutely and it also reveals everything look as a sports writer, you’ll you can write about sports, balls and strikes and scores all day, But you also will find yourself writing about civic institutions, local government, drugs and alcohol, performance enhancing drugs, sex crime, everything under the umbrella can be will dip sooner or later. Race will dip into the sports realm. And all my books either be there about Cuba or Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, or the death of Mike coolball, a minor league coach hit by a foul ball. Or we’re all, in a way, for me, exploring the intersection between sports and culture. So so this book is exactly the same in that path. I mean, to me, it was actually weirdly sort of similar to the Aliquippa book, because I dove into a world and, and, and, and tried to learn as much as I possibly could about it, because I found it important
Nestor Aparicio 08:11
8and, and you didn’t know a lot to begin with, correct? No, I mean,
S.L. Price 08:15
I grew up. I grew up in in Connecticut, um, I grew up in a town that didn’t have much of a lacrosse past at all, all the little league sports and everything else were, you know, baseball, Little League Baseball, Pop Warner Football, that kind of thing. And I fiddled around with the stick in high school, because my high school, some guys from my high school, started a club team that lasted a little bit, but, but, you know, someone handed me a lacrosse stick, and I ran around it, not on the club, just with just running around and hitting it off, you know, doing a little wall ball, but, but essentially, it was not my sport. And then I went to North Carolina, and you you picked up on it very well when I went to North Carolina in 1981 Willie Scroggs, Baltimore, born, blue collar, poor, incredible, incredible figure in lacrosse won championships as a player at Johns Hopkins went down to North Carolina and essentially began the expansion of the game. And that was right when I his first national championship. Was right when I reached North Carolina. I didn’t cover lacrosse there, but I was certainly aware of it and and all the expansion that you’re now seeing in this board, the western expansion to Denver, to Florida, you know, Indiana, Michigan, California, Texas, all the, all those things, you know, Obviously Chicago area, all those things started in my mind in the modern era, with Willie Scroggs leaping Hopkins and going down to North Carolina. So, so that’s that was my first bite, and it was just sort of in the back of my mind. Then I went in in 2006 for sports, illustrated when the mayhem of the Duke lacrosse rape case, in which three players were. Accused of of raping a three white players were accused of raping a a African American stripper, who that it was later found out falsely had falsely accused and lied she actually admitted, either earlier this year or last year, that she that she had lied and admitted it at last, and the players were declared innocent, not just not guilty, but innocent. And and in the in the early days of that, after the first sort of mayhem of it, where it turns out the prosecutor was overreaching, and he later was disbarred. Michael knife on, What? What? I went down there for Sports Illustrated and worked with a reporter named a great reporter named Pharrell Evans. And Pharrell very quickly set sniffed out that there was something wrong with the case and and together, we did a story for Sports Illustrated and and sort of picked apart as much as possible. The damage done by the case in the early days, to the to just everything in that town, Durham, the school, the team, the players, the coach, and as as wild as that, as it was when I left, there were a couple of things that hit me when I was covering it that I didn’t know I had exactly what you said, look, it’s a it’s absolutely has a tradition and a reputation of being lacrosse does, of being an upper class prep school exclusive money sport played mostly by white players. And that’s largely true. But what I found when I went to Duke was the roster certainly had the share of those players, but they’re also blue collar sons of firemen and cops from Long Island, the Loftus brothers, Casey Carroll, who, you know, they were the first kids in their family to go to College, and lacrosse was being used in much the same way that basketball or football is in the inner city. It was a way to climb up and move up, move up a class in America. And these guys were going to go off to they’re going to get a degree from Duke, be the first in their family to get an education. And they were going to get a job on Wall Street, or somewhere through the through the most incredible network of and of business sports connections I’ve ever heard of, and that was the other thing I’d never heard of, the sort of Wall Street network that that schools have, where, say, a school like Yale has, you Know, a pipeline into Barclays in New York and all the individual schools all have the Georgetown Hopkins have these connections, a lot of them filled by former players now on Wall Street that continues to churn on and on. And that network started in Baltimore with Alex Brown, the investment the oldest investment firm in America. So anyway, so I didn’t know any of that, but I’m like, wait a minute, I’m used to sports where you go to high school, you go to college, and if you’re good enough, you’re going to make a lot of money or a substantial amount of living playing pro. Look Pro. You know the pro version of your game well in La Crosse, especially when I, when I first was exposed to it, that wasn’t the case at all. You still can’t make a ton of money, maybe $60,000 just from total from playing indoor outdoor, maybe a little bit more as a as a professional player. You can certainly today, you know, top six figures through with the combination of playing and coaching and that kind of thing. But it’s, but it’s not the, it’s not the destination for money where.
Nestor Aparicio 13:49
Well, I mean, I’ve had Chase diamond in the OM on from 30 years ago to an indoor lacrosse I covered warthogs games at the Capitol Center and the Baltimore thunder Jim dark Angelo, they would do these commercials to try to sell lacrosse. And I always thought to myself, if your kid’s got a lacrosse stick, he’s not trying to get rich, you know. And the same thing was kind of sort of for soccer. If you played soccer here, it felt like we’ve had one or two kids ever really go to Europe and be successful in this, in 50 years of this, making a lot of money. But lacrosse was not that. Lacrosse was like, it was more, yeah, I guess to go to college is Baltimore,
S.L. Price 14:30
right? But it was to go to college, but the way to make money was to use that network to get a job working extremely hard on Wall Street, like sitting in front of a terminal for 14 hours and in either, you know, investment banking or real estate or whatever, that was the payoff. So, so right away, I’m thinking, wait. So first of all, this is a sport that, unlike the cliche and the caricature, which is, which is often true, there’s also these exceptions, I which were, which were including. Wall Street and and the sons of Long Island firemen who who were involved in 911 you know, you know, so, so, so, this is a different twist on the game. And then in 2010 for Sports Illustrated, I went off and did a story on the Iroquois nationals, who are the third best were became, while I was sort of working on it. We’re the third best team in are the third best team in the world right now. They’re the only indigenous team recognized by international federation and and they’re superb. And they they use, they’re the opposite end of the sort of prep school network, you know, prep school image. They’re a lot of them very, you know, lower class economically and the sport is a religion unlike any other sport. It’s a way of pleasing the Creator. People are given a cradle stick, a wooden cradle stick, babies at at birth, and men die with it and carry it into their coffin. They play an extremely beautiful and thrilling style of game, idiosyncratic behind the head, a lot of offense, not not that great on defense and but, but incredibly thrilling to watch, full of passing, sort of the beautiful game in soccer, translated to lacrosse. It’s gorgeous to watch. It’s fun, and it is. It is an expression of sovereignty, because they travel on their passports, and they try to get into different countries, for example, England in 2010 and in 2015 Scotland. And if they don’t, if they’re not allowed to play on their own path, travel on their own passports, they won’t play the tournament. So, so you’re talking about a completely different side of of American culture that goes 1000 years into the past. No other sport goes as far into into the American past, the continents past, as lacrosse does. It started in 1100 okay? It’s not inherited like baseball from Rounders from England. It’s not like football inherited from rugby. Okay? This is a sport that came out of the woods. Came out of the stick is made of hickory. The original sticks and the and the and the ball was made of deerskin stuff with feathers. Okay, so here’s a sport that suddenly, I’m doing the story on it, and I’m like, wait a minute. This has, this is nothing to do with the cliche, by
8Nestor Aparicio 17:22
the way. How’d you find out about that story? Because they doing this story at sports. Also isn’t as simple as, Hey, I got an idea. Let’s go.
S.L. Price 17:30
It actually works that way. So I’m just casually in 2009 I’m reading the New Yorker, a John McPhee story on La Crosse. And you know, that’s sort of the only place you can you know, you probably read in mainstream magazines lacrosse. John McPhee, one of the great non fiction writers of really, the last 50 years, wrote this long piece on lacrosse. And there was a throwaway line mentioning the Iroquois, how they play for their own plays as their individual country, and they’re recognized by by international lacrosse Federation as a country, and they’re the third best team in the world. And I’ve never heard of this. I’ve never heard of it. And I just, I mean, I sort of had a vague sense that this, that the game had started with the Native Americans, but as
Nestor Aparicio 18:16
a Baltimorean who never played the game, but I’ve had, oh my god. I mean, I’m in Baltimore. I’ve had every lacrosse person ever, Tony Seaman being really the leader, who was a big listener of mines, a great man. He would always come to my studio say, Dude, you like hockey. You like ice hockey. It’s the same game. And you’re in Baltimore and you’re on the radio. Get over to Hopkins. Get over to Homewood. You got the gate brothers, who I’ve known for years, and had, I mean, I would always open my microphone. Jay pivot, one of my great sponsors with Toyota, was like, You need to understand lacrosse, because I’m like, Dude, my last name’s Aparicio. We played baseball. And the lacrosse story you have there was one kid my neighbor in Dundalk who had a lacrosse stick in a ball, and you know what he did with it? He threw it up against the wall and he caught it because there was nobody to play lacrosse with. He would come out and play baseball with us with his lacrosse stick, and catch the ball because there was nobody to play lacrosse with in my neighborhood. We didn’t play soccer, either or rugby, or any of that other stuff. We didn’t go polo riding. We didn’t play golf because we were poor. So like lacrosse, to me, was foreign, but the one thing I always knew about it, it was a Native American Indian, as they would say game here, that was played long before we came and raped and pillaged the land, right, right? That’s all I know about the history of it.
S.L. Price 19:34
8But so, so then so, so I so I, you know, I’m like, wait, wait a minute. This just, wait a minute. This is an entirely different kettle of fish here that I’m that, that, that I’m dealing with, and that most people don’t know about. So so that, after with that and the Iroquois, by the way, they’re now they, they’ve always called themselves the Haudenosaunee, and now they’re officially called the Haudenosaunee, as opposed to the Iroquois. But most people know them as Iroquois, located in upstate New York. The Onondaga Nation is six nations, and the Onondaga Nation, the capital of it, is right near Syracuse. So there’s always been a pipeline of a trickle of players that go to and play for Syracuse, and are often great. You know, all Americans. You know, Jim Brown, obviously, is, is the greatest, you know, to some people’s minds, what up? Let’s just say, one of the greatest football players of all time. Well, Jim Brown was arguably, in the late 50s, the greatest lacrosse player of all time at Syracuse. And his teammate, his co captain, was Oren Lyons, who, who basically was an all American goalie Onondaga, and he later our lines, later became one of the most important indigenous activists in America, and he’s addressed the the United Nations. He spoke at Muhammad Ali’s funeral. And in 1983 he Oren Lyons co founded the Iroquois nationals and and basically started it to reclaim the native game, the field game. Because what happened was, in many ways, the Native Americans were shut out of the field game for 100 years, in the late 1800s by Canada. So they took up box lacrosse, indoor lacrosse, in the 30s, and that became sort of the central Native American game. They still played the field game for their medicine games for their games to heal that which are games to heal the community and heal people. And played off in a year only by men with wooden sticks
Nestor Aparicio 21:35
and the box game was really adopted in Canada, right? But primarily because of native, not Native Americans, but by by nations, right? Well, not
S.L. Price 21:45
only up, but it was also adoptive Canada, sort of codified the field game in the late 80s, 1800s but when box came in in the 1930s It was invented going back to hockey. It was, you know, Tony seaman’s right? I mean, box lacrosse was invented essentially by or by the owners of the of the Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs to fill the arenas in the off season, in the off hockey season. And he’s exactly right, and
Nestor Aparicio 22:15
they were used by a Poland to try to fill the capital center. Right, literally, but Right,
8S.L. Price 22:19
but because it was so much like hockey, almost immediately, Canada also embraced, like basically stopped playing field, and everybody went all in, almost overnight on box lacrosse. And the thing is, is that even though the the the Native Americans were sure to shut out of the the field game in Canada, they were allowed to play box and they and it became central to to the Native American experience in both Canada on both sides of the St Lawrence River. So So or Lyons founds this game, okay, I found this team, sorry. And in 1987 now, again, contrary to sort of the upper class image of lacrosse, the sport, the Federation accepts the votes in the year of the four nations that were then playing lacrosse, Australia, England, United States and Canada accepts the Native Americans. And in 1987 mind you as a nation, and says, we accept you, and you are now a playing nation in with us of equal with us in in La Crosse and so again, you that’s not exactly, you know, sort of a stuffy upper class thing to do. That’s a pretty progressive, in fact, extraordinary progressive move, if you think about it. There’s no other place, there’s no other institution in America that really exalts and celebrates and and there have been tensions, by the way, don’t, don’t get me wrong, and it’s all detailed in the book. But in the end, exalt celebrates and and, and essentially treats the Native Americans on an equal level as as as a co partner in their endeavor and and it’s all to lacrosse credit that they did that, and it has caused tensions, because, think about it. Look, Lacrosse is a sport in essence. I mean, not in essence. It is a sport and its job as a federation. Lacrosse Federation is just to put on championships and grow the game and world.
Nestor Aparicio 24:20
Yeah, I would say like lacrosse is in a business or an industry, but it is, but, but it is, but it’s not as sort of routed out as the NFL or the NBA, right, in
S.L. Price 24:30
that way. Oh no, absolutely no. It’s very expensive game. That’s that’s part of the problem for for getting it out to people. And of course, it’s not for the most part, at least nationally funded by high schools like football is so, I mean, funded for equipment and that kind of thing. So anyway, I’ve lost the string
Nestor Aparicio 24:49
8there. That’s all right, the American game is here. I’m sure we’ll pick it back up. Scott price, SL, price history, and hope in the in the country, look right there. I get a little better of viewing it. Stickball. The premise was, when did the light go on and say, All right, I’m doing a lacrosse book. I’m hooked. Because that really is, that’s the author’s kiss of life and debt, that there’s going to be a book and you’re going to see it through. But it’s, I mean, seven years you’ve been working on this. What was the premise of other than, hey, lacrosse is cool. I don’t know a lot about it. Let me learn something, because it sounds like that’s kind of where this thing came. This thing came from, for you, sort of midlife crisis. Scott, well,
S.L. Price 25:26
it’s not necessarily. Every one of my books has been like going to grad school, like, I mean, I, you know, I It’s, it’s, I’m able to dive into a world and and get educated. I mean, essentially, learn about something I don’t know about, and raise the bar so that I can at least become learned enough to write intelligently about and and, you know, as a non fiction writer, the gift of that is, you know, you get to talk to people, and they, they’ll teach you. And so that’s so, that’s what happened. And, you know, so, so essentially, I It bit me, and it wouldn’t let me go. And I and I would say to people exactly what I’ve said to you for the last 20 minutes, including my editor, who was my editor on my previous book. And he was like, Well, I’d like to work with you on something I’m saying. And I said, Look, I I know this isn’t gonna, this isn’t, you know, this isn’t the Bill Belichick, you know, tells all book. I know it’s not, at least on paper commercial, but I this is, this is what I find interesting. And you have to, as an author and Nestor, you, you’ll understand this. There’s nothing else but, but the work. What I mean is you can’t count on reviews, you can’t count on sales, you can’t count on critiques. You know you can’t count on anything. You can’t count on anyone reading it. If you’re going to dive into a project like this, you better love the subject and be intrigued by it, because it’s just you and it and in your and as you understand by someone who goes in the basement, your family doesn’t really understand it, your friends don’t really understand it, and and it’s due. And so if you’re bored with the subject, um, you’re dead, you’re in big trouble. So it is a bit of a gamble, but all I can tell you is, every single day, every single month and every single year, I was working on this, I kept learning more and more. I felt more and more justified by the importance of the subject, and I kept more and more gratified by the by the honesty and generosity of the people who took the time and patience to talk to me again and again and again. If you
Nestor Aparicio 27:34
love lacrosse, and a lot of people Baltimore do, this book is modern. Kind of up to date, I guess, for a guy like me that doesn’t know a lot who, let’s say, my grandkid, falls in love with lacrosse, and I have to figure it out and learn a little bit about it. The premise of it was, what in regard to your education, and then sort of informing, folks are saying, this is the history. And you said it’s really important. What makes it important? Scott,
S.L. Price 28:02
well, I just think that. Look, there’s a famous quote by Jack Jacques Barzun that if you’re a baseball guy, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll probably have tripped over this where someone’s going to talk to you about the magic of the national pastime, right? Almost always they will quote a quote from Jacques barzone that says, Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and the rules and the reality of the game. Well, baseball came from England. Baseball doesn’t include the Native American experience, nor does it track almost exactly as a metaphor, the appropriation of the land and the westward movement of America by by the United States. What I mean is essentially the game was taken from Native Americans. It was appropriated by them. For a while they were banned from playing it professionally. I mean, because they were professionals, so they were banned in that sort of amateur thing in the late 1800s and they were sidelined. The Sport became an American upper class game for the most part, the field game and baseball does not include the explosion of the sport in the last 40 years because of Title Nine, the growth of the game, it’s grown a lot on the men’s side, but it’s grown even more on the women’s side at Division One schools because of Title Nine. So so you have that involved in this, in the sport, in a way that certainly baseball doesn’t, doesn’t encompass half the population and the empowerment of women. So just those two factors tell me so it includes Wall Street. It includes no sport, I would argue, has more of a connection even to this day, with the with the US military. You. You have players at Duke and Hopkins and everywhere else who will. There’s a regular pipeline of players that go and and join Ranger, join the Army Rangers and join the join Navy SEALs, um, go into the hardest parts of combat and the most strenuous sort of parts of our military complex, and often would get their college degree and enlist, not go in as officers. And this is the tradition in La Crosse that you find anywhere else. So, so it encompasses Wall Street, the military women, Native Americans. And I would argue that. And you know, let’s face it, there’s a lot of excessive drinking, binge drinking, you know, in college and college lacrosse, it’s, it’s a big, you know, tradition. It’s certainly a part of the culture. That’s a part of American culture, too. Drinking is a thing in America. And I would just say that overall, you are, you are looking at a sport that in some ways reflects the culture of America in a way that no other sport does and encompasses it and and it’s because of that I think it’s important embarrass both examining and understanding.
8Nestor Aparicio 31:17
SL price, Scott price is our guest. The book is the American game history. And hope in the country of lacrosse you can pick it up. You’re going to be signing some books. You’re clearly going to be in Baltimore several times. I’ll send everybody out and get all the details and all that stuff. We’ll put it out of Baltimore positive as well. This is the thing about lacrosse for me, and it’s not just because I’m an Aparicio or a baseball guy or because I’ve talked about baseball and football here for 35 years on the radio. I live in Baltimore County and the Orioles, and this is where I’ll bring you back. You can come back and be SL price from Sports Illustrated, be the baseball, football, basketball guy, but we’re trying to fix this show that Angelos has destroyed. And you know after Cal Ripken and what the Orioles are going to be and selling tickets. And the Yankees were here last week, and they can’t sell tickets. They give out bobbleheads for May the Fourth be with you. They sell some extra tickets for trinkets and stuff. But I am, you know, I’m a lifer baseball guy, and I don’t know a lot about lacrosse, probably because I was a baseball guy, right? Season. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is the problem. And I think this is the problem for baseball in this city, and for the Orioles in this city. God bless Brooks, Robinson and Jim Palmer trying to sell it and and my cousin, and he’s still alive, oldest living Hall of Famers. We record this, um, in my community where I was from, we played baseball that was so 1978 you know, 1982 right now, when I drive around my community, and I would say this to David Rubenstein, who just spent $1.8 billion buying the baseball team, the enemy for baseball in Baltimore is lacrosse. And every single time I drive around, if I drive around tonight and it’s May, if I drive around in March, if I drive around anytime, and I’m I live in the northern suburbs, if I just drive past any school, any place where there’s a field and there are lights, it’s not a baseball field, it’s a lacrosse field. And when I went to Japan the first time, maybe 15 years ago, I took the bullet train out of Nerida into Tokyo. And you can’t see much, because the damn trains going 180 miles. The only thing you see our baseball diamonds when you’re in Japan, you see them everywhere, out the window, dozens on the wages getting into the city. And I’m thinking to myself, so one thing I never see in America anymore, when I driver, I see soccer field. I see baseball I see football fields. You play football in my community, it’s lacrosse. And for every little Jack and every little Jill that are born here, whether you’re born into Gilman or whether you’re born to Dundalk, whether you’re in a traditionally African American neighbor, whether you’re in the city, whether you’re in the county, you don’t see baseball fields, you see lacrosse fields, and that’s in my community and that and to your point, if you’re if you’re female, and you’re in a anywhere in the northern suburbs, we call it the White and Black Butterfly here in Baltimore, you can Google that one on a socio economic background and redlining and All the other crap that’s going on here for 50 for 50 years, but it’s faded as a place where kids play baseball. Now, I’ve had Mark Viviano. I’ve had Jamie Costello. Last week, my son plays what you like baseball, your baseball guy, your kid plays baseball. But that’s not the majority of what’s going on in our marketplace, and that is Major League Baseball’s problem. It’s Cal ripkens problem. It’s anybody, if it’s connected to baseball, is that lacrosse is exciting for kids, and you hit each other and you throw the ball, and you don’t play right field. You don’t have to sit around when it’s cold out. You play anyway, like I see it here, and I think if I have a grandchild, even as an Aparicio that kid. Going to want to play lacrosse. They just are,
S.L. Price 35:02
well, let me, let me add to that, because during the concussion, you know, when football and the concussion discussion was really at its height, I was reporting this book, and I thought, you know, middle class mothers at this point, you know, kids are, are, are surrounded by cotton batting and not allowed to do anything, walk the streets or whatever. Mothers are not going to allow their kids to play football and risk concussion. And Lacrosse is a perfect sort of alternative, because it’s great for an aggressive, hard hitting, athletic kid. But let me just say the other thing about lacrosse, and Kyle Harrison, the great the African American, the great African American player for for Johns Hopkins, the only one African American to win a tour ton Award, which is the Heisman trophy of lacrosse. Told me, Look, the great thing about about lacrosse is you don’t have to be, first of all, 668, you don’t have to run a four, 440 like if, if you’re a decent athlete, you can get a stick in your hands, start practicing and become adept at the sport extremely quickly. The one thing I now this doesn’t happen nearly as often now, because, because, like other sports, Lacrosse has lots of travel teams, and kids are playing earlier, so on and so forth. But over and over, my research and the history of the game you had, you have, I mean, Northwestern, the core of Northwestern, the women’s team, was built on a pair of sisters who never had played lacrosse before and were recruited like as they jogged by the lacrosse office for Kelly Amonte Hiller, and she ran out and got them, and they became the sort of foundation of her program. And you know, Hopkins, the first black player for Hopkins in the late 60s, Joe Carlton was a basketball player who was recruited to play basketball. Had never played high school lacrosse. But if you’re a good athlete like you know lacrosse is, you know, footwork and knowing how to position yourself, and you get a stick in some a great athlete’s hands, they can play defense pretty quickly. But we’re talking about, you know, Alabama football, right? The the great Alabama football is not going to take a far a basketball player and start them on, on, you know, their Alabama number one football team, Johns Hopkins, in the midst of being the dynasty, the, you know, winner of 40 national champions, put Joe. Joe called and other players. They were recruiting football players to come out and play and and very quickly, a good athlete can be, can be, not only sort of pick up the game, but could, could play it at at its highest level. So it’s incredibly rewarding in a very quick way for a converted athlete. Many soccer players, for example, many women once they found that girls who were in high school found, oh no, you know, soccer is kind of tapped out. It’s become much more competitive. I’m going to, if I want to go to college and play a sport, I’m going to pick up lacrosse because, because soccer is kind of kind of over overwhelmed with girls at this point, but the field is wide open for lacrosse programs. It’s booming, and you had a lot of very good athletes with very little lacrosse experience, converting to lacrosse and picking up the game. So, so the game is, is incredibly rewarding in a very quick way that, say, a baseball player picks up the game. You know, you’re not going to pick up that in six months. You’re just not football. It’s arcane. It’s obviously got its way. I mean, there’s almost no sport that rewards you, like lacrosse, so that, so baseball is facing that as well. Now, again, I will, I will tell you, Nestor, you are in the heartland of of La Crosse. So, so it. I understand Baltimore’s problems and but it’s I do. I do see baseball fields elsewhere. So, so I don’t think it’s quite the crisis that it seems in Baltimore, but, but I take your point.
Nestor Aparicio 39:07
Scott price is an author and writer you’ve been checking out his work in sports, illustrated, if you know anything about sports, the book is the American game history and hope in the country of La Crosse, author of playing through the whistle, as well as a whole bunch of other different things. We think the last time we talked was Aliquippa PA and you were doing a football thing, and you’re going to be in Baltimore at the Enoch Pratt library. I want to promote that on Thursday, the 22nd of May. You can find out all the information you know now that Megan’s doing. I love Baltimore. I gotta make new friends with the Enoch Pratt folks and get them down here, but you’ll be in Baltimore the book, and now that it’s out, it’s just literally out this week, in time for playoffs, championships, everything that goes on. Did Bill Belichick talk book with you, Mr. You know, for being a football guy. He’s known as sort of the lacrosse Whisperer in some way.
S.L. Price 39:55
8Yeah, I did not. I did not go after Bellum check. I know. He’s a super fan of the game. I know he’s very interested in it. There have been stories written about it, and I just thought, you know what it’s I didn’t think I would strike much gold with with Belichick, so I didn’t do that. I will say I know how devoted he is to the game, and he’s devoted to the game in a way that a lot of lacrosse people are when he left the Patriots and didn’t get a job in the NFL, I thought to myself, you know, I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw Belichick on a lacrosse sideline someday. He was an assistant coach or whatever. He loves the game so much. All three of his kids play. His daughter became a division a coach. You know he loves the game and his gruff, and I’ve seen it as gruff and as standoffish Belichick can be in interviews. Every time I’ve seen him interviewed about lacrosse, the guy is incredibly engaged. His face lights up. He’s He’s incredibly happy. He loves the game and, and that’s a tribute to lacrosse. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 41:04
he would come in here with Petra Mala just hang out and just watch practice all the time. No,
S.L. Price 41:08
he loves it. And so I honestly believe that someday you’re going to see him on a lacrosse sideline helping out. I don’t think he’ll be a head coach, but, but he’ll want to be there, Scott,
Nestor Aparicio 41:17
this is going to be my ultimate tribute to you, because I’m getting to be an old fart at this point, and I’m getting a little bored with it. All that you’re to everything you talked about. I got the Justin Tucker crap going on here. The second round pick, they took another kid with problems and zero tolerance. They’re they’ve banned me after 40 years. I’m not a real media guy. Could wallpaper their place. So like the baseball and football, the arrogance of all of it, I’ve reached to rock and roll and little to society and more trying to get the felon King out of the Oval Office and all of that. So I’ve moved on to stuff, but the lacrosse thing is always sort of passed me by in some way, even when Tony Seaman and Petra mall and all my lacrosse buddies are telling me, you got a Doppel cross, there’s no money involved. It’s more pure. It’s more this. And I’m like, I don’t drink enough. I’m not a bro. I didn’t go to the Gilman I like and I always kid him about all of that. But you’re proving to me that maybe there’s something out there in life that I haven’t discovered yet, that I’m gonna find and turn into, like a rugby guy, or never a pickleball guy. That’s That’s a joke, but, but this is something that’s interesting to you that, like as an adult, you picked it up and made a book. If I would have told you 20 years ago you’re going to write a book and devote seven years your life to lacrosse, you probably would have looked at me like, You’re nuts, right? I
8S.L. Price 42:33
would have looked at you and said, You’re nuts. But let me just say, Well, let me just say one other thing, Nestor, um, you know, Baltimore, black lacrosse, the black the history of the black players in La Crosse, in inner city Baltimore, is very rich, especially when, with white flight from the public schools in the 60s, the black players started playing lacrosse. A lot of ex football players picked it up in the spring and so on and so forth. Well, there was
Nestor Aparicio 42:56
access here. There weren’t high school teams anywhere else, right, right, right. And one
S.L. Price 43:00
of the great stories is the Morgan State lacrosse team, started by Kyle Harrison’s father, along with other players, miles Harrison doctor. Miles Harrison, and you know, they they, in the early 70s, began this incredible run. They took down one of the top teams in the nation, Washington and Lee on the road. It was an incredible success story. The 10 bears is a is an incredible is a book by miles Harrison, and a little Baltimore trivia for you. So the head coach of Morgan State was a guy named chip chip Silverman. Chip Silverman was a bit player in the movie diner by Barry Levinson, and an old friend of Barry Levinson, he was the guy who was like, selling suits out of the back of a trunk of a car. And Chip Silverman was the white coach of the Morgan State program when it first started, because he was a Morgan State administrator, and he sort of was this key figure for African American La Crosse in in Baltimore and and in some ways, he sort of bridged the old um line, Jewish part of Baltimore with, with, uh, with the African American community. It was a nice bridge. Incredible story. Um, frankly, there should be, it’s a movie that Barry Levinson should direct at some point.
Nestor Aparicio 44:17
8All right. Well, the book is out. You’re, you’re titillating me. SL price, Scott price is our author, the American game. If you love lacrosse, I then wait seven years for you to finish the damn thing. So I’m glad at least have you. Are you done? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s finite, right? It’s not an infinite. This is an internet study. But what? What happens next for you? Book signing at Enoch Pratt a little later on. Are you working another
S.L. Price 44:40
book? No, that’s see now, you’re a cruel you’re a cruel man. You’re a cruel man. Nestor, because, because, basically, my brain is, is, is completely tapped out. I need to recharge. I don’t know what I’m doing next. I’m coming to Baltimore, I’m coming to the library. I’m going to sign books. I’m going to be in conversation with Steve stenderson, who’s the. Former US lacrosse direct Executive Director, and he’s a great guy, completely steeped in the sport. A ton of respect for him. And so it’s going to be, it’s going to be fun,
Nestor Aparicio 45:13
alright. Well, listen, next time I have you on, no disrespect to your book, well, I’ll promote it before, during and after. Next time I have you on, we should just do, like, a sports thing, you know, like, you’re coming to Baltimore, like, Orioles rave. Are you still a sports guy, or have you sort of removed yourself a little bit from the Sports Illustrated grind?
S.L. Price 45:30
Well, well, I mean, the fact is, is that I was, you know, I’m absolutely I’ve been buried in in this book. I’ve been writing it, I’ve been editing it for the last year, like, you know, I mean, so, so I have been sort of taken out of it, but I will tell you, I was out in San Francisco just recently, went to two ball games, and it was just a joy to be back in a ballpark. So, so I’m, I’m ready to get back into it. Baseball
8Nestor Aparicio 45:55
is like the mafia keeps bringing you back in we thought that in Baltimore, like we 192 wins last few years. Just thought, Oh, this is going to get easy. And then they have to go out and pitch every night. Figure it on, and young players have to perform one. Ones actually have to go out and, you know, hit like Johnny Bench. So Scott price is an author. He’s a busy guy. He’s going to be back in Baltimore. I owe you a crab cake when you get here on the 22nd get down to Enoch Pratt. I’m still one of those guys that like writes books and reads books and likes words and all of that. Thinks the books shouldn’t be burned, they should be read and all of that. So Scott, congratulations on getting this done. I know it’s always the hardest thing all, work and no play makes SL price a dull boy, but I’ll get you out here to Baltimore, and I hope you sell a million of these things. I hope everybody that loves lacrosse wants to learn more about lacrosse, and I appreciate your time today.
S.L. Price 46:43
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been incredibly fun. Scott price, joining us here. You got party shot for me? No, I just want to say and thank you for your patience. You’re the first podcast I’ve you know, I’ve been waiting to come back on you, and you’ve been incredibly patient with me for years. I kept putting you off. So thank you, Nestor for having me.
Nestor Aparicio 47:00
It’ll go downhill from here. You know the problem, Scott, is it so few people really know sports. I went out to dinner the other night accidentally with Dave shining on the Washington Post. I was in his neighborhood. I threatened him, when I was in his neighborhood that we would have beer. He paid for it. We fought over and did all that. And after like an hour, just sitting in the ball game, we didn’t pay attention, but just talking, I said my wife was at the I said, there’s so few people that I can talk sports with at this level who have done it at that point. So I love having you on. I will stalk you and bother you, even though the book is done on to your next project. SL, price, Scott price, the very elusive Scott price can be captured at Enoch Pratt on the 22nd of the month downtown Baltimore. Get down there and make sure you’re if you’re reading his book, read some more books too, because it’s important. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking reading and writing and arithmetic and lacrosse at Baltimore positive stay with us. You.
