Local author and longtime Baltimore Sun columnist John Eisenberg joins Nestor once again to tell the unfolding story of The Bird Tapes, his re-found cassette interviews from a quarter of a century ago recounting the real history of Baltimore Orioles baseball with the men who lived it and wrote it.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, eddie murray, years, great, tapes, baseball, people, put, book, talk, felt, players, eisenberg, team, john, point, interview, oriole, earl, john miller
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, John Eisenberg
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
8
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore. Positive. I hope you’re cranking us up out on the am dial and setting a dial. Mine’s at number six for AM. 1570 you can sit at any anywhere you want. Set your dial for the 23rd the cheatstrokes Come down. We’ll be down at fadelies with our friends in the Maryland lottery, giving away the golden rush, sevens, doublers. Also our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, keeping our water crystal clear. I’m drinking my water out of the orange colored glass these days. Also our friends at Jiffy, Luke multi care, keeping cars on the road, including Luke Jones out in Owings Mills for training camp. Take football, real baseball. And this guy is at the intersection of all of that as the long time columnist and one of my mentors in life and at the Baltimore Sun and in great writings, he is unearthed a treasure trove of Orioles memories and old school stories that lots of folks are checking out and talking about on a sort of weekly basis. I don’t know how many he’s had out, which is why I’m bringing him back. He is our defending champion and author of all things Iron Man and horse racing books and football books on race and quarterbacks and all sorts of things. I don’t know what his next project is, but he’s bird taping. We welcome John Eisenberg back onto the program, the good professor of all things. What’s going on? Man? How are bird tapes going on? You picked a heck of a summer to find that box of tapes. John, yeah,
John Eisenberg 01:28
well, I mean, I’m not gonna lie, you know, part of my calculus, I don’t think I’d be doing this if they were losing 110 games a year, and you have to gin up a lot of enthusiasm. But, you know, I knew there were some interests. The team looked pretty good. The team has been good, so that’s good. People are into the Orioles. They’re excited, and I have this stuff going on. And, yeah, I’ve heard from a lot of people that, you know, thanks for doing this. Honestly, they’re saying it’s, it’s adding to my interest in baseball this summer. And good. I’m glad that. Glad to hear it. I mean, it’s a fair amount of work on this side, but I’m enjoying it to be honest with you, and so we’ll just keep it rolling. You know, I’ve
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:07
chronicled the recent history of Oriole baseball, not nearly as glorious or illustrious, interesting. I mean, Peter was interesting in many, many ways. But you your documents are the history of how all this got laid, really, before Camden Yards was built to some degree, right? Yeah,
John Eisenberg 02:25
it’s all it’s a collection of tapes. It was in my shoebox that in a closet that I collected when I was doing my oral history of the Orioles, a book. That book came out in 2001 so 23 years ago, a lot of these interviews I did a year, year and a half before that, while I was researching So, 1999 25 years ago, so, but that’s when it stops. Yeah, so Camden Yards was, what 92 so it’s the whole Memorial Stadium era, and then the first six or seven years of Camden Yards, and that’s, that’s where I stopped with this.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 03:01
Well, let’s pimp the book first and foremost, because the book still sort of stands on its own. Is some sort of transcript of what you heard and kind of, you know, in their own words, was sort of the subject matter and the style that you took to tell that story. 25 years ago, I saw the Cal Ripken squirting people on his anniversary, and your book wound up in the little video vignette that your stuff shows up on the top of my timeline of Facebook. Zuckerberg must know our algorithm together, but the book itself speak about that a little bit, because that would be an entryway for me in as much as the tapes are a little bit more backstage, probably more rich history. The book at the time, I’m sure you’re still very proud of that storytelling part of it’s still a great gift, right. There
John Eisenberg 03:52
it is. Yep, the book is, it’s called from 33rd street to Camden Yards. This is my copy that I’m using as I work on this stuff. And yeah, as far as I know, I mean, there’s been a lot of books written about the Orioles, some good books. This is the only one that I’m aware of that is an oral history that is this book was in the words of the people for the most part. It’s a lot of long quotes from people talking about various things in history and sometimes disagreeing and arguing and with written parts by me to keep the narrative going. I It’s the only time I’ve ever done that, and I’ve written 11 books. It’s the only oral history I’ve done. And it was, it was a really interesting experience. You You learn a lot, such as not to get too highfalutin here, but what is the nature of truth? Because a lot of people have different memories of of the same event. And
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:44
you know, my friend John Miller, not the John Miller, the broadcaster The Wall Street Journal. John Miller just finished a book on our Weaver. And I would ask you at this point, because I remember Weaver, you know, Tipsy at banquets, getting pissed at Palmer. Thompson sport. You know, I was at the paper when all that was going on in the 80s, when Palmer was trying to make a comeback, and our Weaver was doing baseball on TV. And that relationship in your book, where is that? Because of all the relationships in the history of oral baseball before Cal, let’s say, and Cal had his own relationship with Earl too. But the Earl Jim Palmer thing, really circus, Jim pre Dave. Jim won the world since four. Oh, God, here. I could probably tell him that, you know, probably did on very sure. Oh, I
John Eisenberg 05:28
8definitely did,
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:30
you know, but those, but that really is, um, there’s a real protagonist, antagonist, part of their relationship through the ages that my father found interesting as fodder in 1978 79 that I think if you were an Oriole fan at any point, even before you got to the paper, really, that’s really where the juices it, for me, is hearing those stories.
John Eisenberg 05:53
The story is wrong Earl, as I roll these tapes out, and also in the book, Earl is, of course, he’s pretty close to the main character, because everybody’s got a story about him, and he was just around for so long in such a prominent role, and so gray at what he did, but also flawed. And just all of the above. I’m looking forward. I’m in touch with John Miller. I’m looking forward to his book, because I think he’s got some stuff in there that really hasn’t been reported a whole lot before, and I think it’s going to be a really good book on Earl, and he’s right to zero in on him as such a such a fascinating figure, really, for a major biography.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:31
Well, there’s nobody in your box of tapes that didn’t talk about Earl, nobody,
8John Eisenberg 06:35
nobody, nobody. They’re all talking about Earl. They all have these stories. I mean, Ken Singleton, who I just put up a couple days ago, just hilarious, talking about early, you know, that he said he was just obnoxious, you know, when I was playing, I mean, he was just loud. He said, I’m quoting him loud and profane. And he, you know, he got in the way, and the umps were mad at us, and as a result, we were playing against the umps, you know, he said he came to appreciate him more later. And I think Palmer, to go back to what you were discussing, had the same sort of approach. I mean, they they just battled over pitching and who was in control when Palmer was on the mound and all these things. But if you listen to the Palmer interview, he said, you know, the reason I’m in the Hall of Fame, the reason I’m in the hall of fame is that what, what year was it? He had 25 complete games, uh, one of those years in the 70s. He says,
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:31
maybe 7570 so, oh, go ahead, yeah. Said, Earl just,
John Eisenberg 07:35
he just let me out there. He just left me out there. He had faith in me to win the ball game. I didn’t always win. I won a lot, but sometimes I lost. But you know, there wasn’t like today, where you got there warming up in the fifth inning and, oh, let’s get the starter out of there. It’s like, here’s our pitcher, win or lose. And he was really good, and as a result, he won a lot more games. He won a ton of games, and as and so he’s in the Hall of Fame, and he says, really, I owe it to Earl, and he’s aware that obviously they were oil and water or just two sort of innately smart guys battling over who’s smarter. But, you know, it was a productive relationship.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:13
8John Eisenberg is here. He’s five times the author I am, at least, and has written many, many books over his shoulders. So John, I’ve written a couple books, and I Purple Rain. One now is 2423 24 years old, and I’d have to go back and read it again and read all my quotes from Trent Dilfer and the late great Tony. Sarah goossa. Now we’re losing people. Jacoby Jones, we lost him from the second rule. So you go back and get these stories. I wonder if I went back and wrote it again, I read through the tapes, did I leave anything good out? And I would think for you to go back and do this all these years later, because you felt like you put the best stuff in the book. I don’t know if you felt like that’s not really flattering about Earl. I’m not going to put that in the book, even though singleton said it and it was on the or whatever, whatever would be said flattering or not flattering about anybody in that era that I’m sure there are things in the tape that you thought better angels. It’s not what have you found that you went back 25 years later and thought, well, I could have been in the book, or should have been in the book, or, Hey, um, it’s been 25 years. We might as well tell the truth now, because I’m sure there were some things people told you that didn’t make it in the book that were just sort of like, here’s a little bit of color for because as journalists, we do that. But now you find this stuff years later, and the tapes sort of, did you edit? You haven’t edited the tapes. The tapes are pretty
John Eisenberg 09:33
Oh, they’re edited. They’re unfiltered. There are unfiltered. Okay, how, however I am. I am upholding the whatever parameters the subject set on, like, for instance, I’ve got Frank cashin coming next week. Had a great sit down with him, Truly a piece of Baltimore baseball history, his story, and he said some stuff that was off the record. And he said, this is off the record. You’re going to. Have to find it from someone else. A lot of it had to be a lot of it involved the sale of the Orioles. When hofburger sold them, he says this is off the record, so I took it out and there were it’s funny. What was it? Who was it that told me? It was Earl that told me that the whole, the whole point with Mike queer, when they got him by trade in 1968 he was in a terrible way in his marriage. His first wife had run up huge credit card debt, and they were in the process of getting a divorce, and he was all messed up in the head, according to Earl, and he says, that’s off the record. You can’t use that. And so I took it out, and then I’m listening Harry Dalton tells the whole story in his interview, and none of it’s off the record, so I put it in so it’s, it’s, you know, I’m just being honest with what these people said. And, yeah, a couple of people have said to me, Boy, I tell you my quay, our ex wife. I mean, you know, I’d like to hear more about her. And I’m like, sorry, that’s all I got. I’m sorry, but Well, it is
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:02
amazing in the modern era that some of that would be dragged out on Instagram or this or that, or problems, or, you know, the crazy stuff Earl Thomas was doing a couple years, just whatever that would be. But in that era, guys alcohol problems, financial problems, because they didn’t make a lot of money. I mean, really. I mean, against what guys are making now, they make a lot of money. Still a financial but like all of those behind the scenes, things that reporters who wrote on trains or things would have known about guys off the field, whatever that off the field thing would be, or how management feels about the heart of a player or their behaviors, that that’s a whole different thing that we talk about more now, especially on draft weekend in the NFL, right
John Eisenberg 11:45
for sure, and lot of stories went unreported back then. And for instance, one my Frank Robinson interview, and this story has since come out, but this was in 1999 you know, I was saying, dude, you think we talked a lot about race. And I was like, well, is Baltimore ready for a black player, a black star, Oriole? And he goes, he looks at he pauses. He goes, You talk about the team or the city? And you know, I said, Well, you tell me. And he says he talked about how trying to find housing in 1966 this is on the tape that his wife, he was a spring training his wife was trying to find housing up here. And he said everything was fine, until they found out that Mrs. Robinson wasn’t Mrs. Brooks Robinson, you know, it was, you know, and they were denied housing. And Jerry Hopper had to step in. Frank was ready to walk away. And Barry, he said, you know, it was not a good situation. The you know what was going on when he first got here. And he says, I’m not even sure the team was really ready. They had been in existence for how long, and yeah, they’ve had a few black players and but they had not really had, you know, star players, like a lot of those teams in the National League, which that’s well known in baseball history, the National League integrated a lot quicker than the American League. And so, you know, he sort of circumspect all of that. And I wish that I had explored that with him a lot more. I mean, I had too much ground to cover. The problem was, I had him for about an hour and a half at an Arizona fall league game, and I had to ask him so many questions, trying to get all the important things that he’d done. So I moved on. And his time
8Nestor J. Aparicio 13:30
here was short against the balance of Orio baseball, insignificant, but short. And he had a, you know, an exit, not unlike Eddie Murray, just so we’re done with you with that. Cal and Brooks never had that, that kind of exit.
John Eisenberg 13:43
That’s That’s correct. And Frank cashin tells me the story. In this interview, he says Frank understood that he had to go. He was 36 years old. It’s a threat. That’s a threat. The departure of Frank Robinson is a story that that runs, runs through, because Paul Blair told me that was a major, major setback, he said. And it had a lot of it had to do with the DH. I mean, they jumped him after the 71 season. By 73 there was a DH, he would have been a great DH, and Tommy Davis, as I remember it, right, right? And they could have had Frank, who was 36 or 37 maybe it was the right. Frank was
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:18
managing the Indians of two years later, right? Yeah, literally, absolutely,
John Eisenberg 14:21
8absolutely. So it’s just an interesting it’s an interesting perspective that certainly deserves airing and is really interesting when you consider a Baltimore baseball history,
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:33
also his greatness. I mean, just in general that he came back as a GM, came back as a manager, you know, he ran, he ran baseball’s policing for years, all of that, like all that part that Frank’s a rich part of John Eisenberg is our guest. Tell everybody where to find the tapes and all that. And then I want to take a dive back into hofburger, because I think that’s important.
John Eisenberg 14:53
Yes, the this project is, it’s Baltimore Orioles history. It’s available. At bird tapes.substack.com, substack is a media platform or a lot of sort of independent writers like myself. At this point, they become publishers and put up whatever you want to put up. Some things develop quite a following. I’m pleased to report substack, as has has announced that bird tapes is the best seller on their platform. So birdtapes.substack.com and I’m putting up some free posts and paid posts, and just rolling through it here as the season goes on. John Eisenberg
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:33
is our guest. He writes great books. If you see a guy looks like John Eisenberg hanging out in New York roads, because he’s still here doing his thing, and you got a book in the works, or anything happening, or no nothing,
8John Eisenberg 15:43
nothing right now, this has been fairly all consuming. The bird tapes. It’s it’s about the level of of time and energy investment that I want right now, and it’s a lot of feedback and a lot of fun. So I’m just going to roll with it a little bit longer notebooks. At this point,
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:01
I think what I try to do, it’s my 26th anniversary. I gotta get rid of my 25th anniversary cupcake here this week is we’re doing 26 oysters in 26 days and 26 ways in September to celebrate the end of baseball season, beginning of football season, and a month with an r and a couple of oyster festivals as well. I would just say this, the the Rubinstein thing is its own thing, and people are asking me if I’m getting my press credential back. I don’t think, yeah, I don’t. I’ll be writing about that on Labor Day, but I don’t think that’ll be happening. But nonetheless, the change of ownership and the deodorizing of all of the Angelo sins, and they’ve got cow squirt now and Ruben splash, and he’s dancing on the dugout and giving away free hats. And I don’t know what our level of expectation of ownership is, but the hofburger thing, as it was told to me, and the reason I’m an Aparicio in Baltimore, not very much, unlike what Frank Robinson went through. You know, had a cousin that didn’t speak the language, but was a star player and sold a lot of tickets, and everyone loved little, little Louie, and he couldn’t get along with VEC all of that was perceived as being a problem child in Chicago, and then came back because he could help him sell tickets, and was a champion after coming here, but hofburger and Aparicio, you know, if I Louie’s still alive, and if I were to talk to him, I would ask him about that, and about hofburger and how things were different then. And I’m not asking Rubenstein or Angelos or Eli Jacobs or anyone to be like hofburger, but hofburger was a pretty special cat, as I understand it. And you got some off the record this and cash and that and all that. Tell me what you know about hofburger, if you were to write a long chapter just about him? Well,
John Eisenberg 17:46
a lot of it, a lot of stuff on the record, too, about hofburger and all, most of it’s off on the record. And yeah, all those players had stories, and it’s very interesting to talk to them. Boot pal, he loved the fact that when they came back from road trips. There was a case of beer sitting in his locker, you know, he said now that that was a value added to his contract. Hofburger was a beer guy. Boog appreciated that a lot. And they all liked Jerry. He, he, you know, came out of the beer business, brewery business. He ran the brewery for the whole time. He was running the oils as well. And he, I think, was by nature, a family guy and a good guy. Now they all did have contract negotiations with whoever it may be leaving fail or then Frank cash and and those didn’t always go great, and that generation of player didn’t make a lot of money, and they got screwed. And, you know, if they walked in with an agent, that got kicked out and seen
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:42
8the empty stands that make you think like he probably wasn’t getting rich off the baseball team in the way that we started to perceive the Yankees and the Phillies and the Dodgers in the late 70s, when we started seeing Don Baylor and Doug desensees And all those players go and play in those places. Before there was media money, there was just the eyeball test of, I saw viada Blue pitching against Jim Palmer in 71 in front of 3800 people, right? You know, at Memorial Stadium, I’m like, tickets are 75 cents. They had no sponsors. They had no television where, where did the money come from? The Wonder Brooks Robinson got screwed. You know,
John Eisenberg 19:17
well, cash. And talks about that in the interview, he talks about how ever Ben Williams who wind up buying the team, and he tells the story of the sale and how EBW wound up owning the team. He says, You got to give him credit. He brought the fans here. He figured out how to do it, the start of attendance. And EBW, there were definitely some negatives to him as an owner. He did win a World Series. He also sort of oversaw the beginning of the drying up of the scouting and development pipeline, which became a major problem.
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:46
Were you at the press conference when he called his manager a cement head? No, you
John Eisenberg 19:52
don’t remember that one, Alta belly, he
8Nestor J. Aparicio 19:54
called out to belly a cement head? Yeah, yeah. I’m just just little oral history here, 40 years Oh, yeah. I’m remembering it well. He
John Eisenberg 20:01
didn’t, you know, he was a smart guy, and he didn’t necessarily respect a lot of these baseball guys. I don’t know that he had a lot of respect for Cal Ripken senior, you know, fired him six games into a season, and wasn’t sure that he was the brightest guy and and so, you know, these guys that had put their whole lives into making the Orioles good, it was a little rough, but he did figure out how to start filling up those stands, and that was Jerry. I The really interesting stuff I got on Jerry, and it is sort of contrarian view. It’s from Jim Palmer, who loved Jerry, but he said, you know, he did not necessarily, as an owner, have the greatest foresight look at the period of the late 70s, right before he sold the team. That’s the period when baseball changes, free agency comes in, big money is starting to creep in. That’s the first time you got free agent contracts. You got Reggie for sale, you know, you got people Eddie suddenly made he had a
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:52
great baseball team and yet a football team that pissed everybody off at 70 I mean, I was five years old, 7374 my dad was buying charger stuff for, you know, because he was so pissed about the Unite us thing that the Orioles were, they had one they, you know, they several times. They were, they were all of that in 75 678, and couldn’t sell enough tickets. And as a kid reading the papers, who wanted to be John Steadman, as you well know, the portrayal of all of it was the big bad boogeyman in New York. It wasn’t come out and support the team. I think that started in 79 with Oriole magic, which was, if you want the team to be better, you have to come out and give us a little bit of your money, which is what Mr. Rubinstein is going to have to do here. It’s going to be more than a little bit of money, too. But the money part of it is fascinating to me from hofburger, because he never really figured out how to make money on it.
John Eisenberg 21:46
8He didn’t figure out how to make money, and he didn’t, I mean, Palmer told me he didn’t. He was a great guy, great owner. Didn’t necessarily have foresight on where baseball was going. I mean, you watched that, you know, the departure of some guys in the mid 70s, the late 70s, the early 80s and the Orioles went from, they had already the people that last generation that wound up winning the World Series in 1983 they were already in place. The whole thing to Sensei and dour. And, you know, Eddie had been drafted. And, you know, there’s the, you know, Al Bunbury. There were tons of them. So there, but yet that was starting to dry up. And so it became sort of a more free agent, and put your team together that way, and start piecing your team together, and you had to spend some money to do that. And it was the end of the Oriole way. It was the end of the Oriole way. Passion went to the Mets at that point, right? Yeah. And you could, you know, it was hard to foresee it, but that’s what happened, was Baltimore did not necessarily, the franchise, did not necessarily adjust that well to the beginning of free agency and the fact that they had to throw a bunch of money. They didn’t have a bunch of money. The, you know, Reggie Earl Weaver and other people just said, Reggie could have stayed, Reggie, they could have stepped up and paid money. Reggie would have stayed here, and they could have had Reggie Jackson,
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:06
and that would have taken selling tickets after that to pay, yeah, like, could easily have happened.
John Eisenberg 23:10
Reggie liked Baltimore, you know, he was fine. So, you know, it would have been that would have been really interesting. So, but they didn’t see that coming. And so that, that, to me, was a bit that’s the period of time when baseball was changing in a fundamental way, never to go back to the old way. And the Orioles, I think, did not, even though they won a World Series in 1983 they did not come out on the right side of it, because it took them a long time to sort of adjust to the fact that, you know, it was more market driven, and you had to spend some money
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:44
plan A and plan B, free agency. I remember trying to figure all that out like alphabet soup when I was 11 years old. John Eisenberg is our guest. He’s providing great clarity, as he always does on all things Orioles base. But I even got the Ravens with you, and you covered a couple of ravens rings yourself, and like all of that, the Orioles have become a real front and center thing in every conversation I’m in. I’m sure that will change when Lamar mahomes walk out on the field in a couple of weeks. But the temperature for all of this and this rebuild and rebirth of Oriole baseball, I think you and I believed, at least over our breakfast at Panera, 100 years ago, that at some point, Peter would die, sell off, the kids would run, you know what would happen with what’s going to happen to the franchise? Where are you on the settling in of this Rubenstein thing and then paying the check last week and now bringing in Katie Griggs? I mean, they’re, they’re doing what Major League Baseball is telling them to do, based on what I can see, but this rebirth of this that’s allowed your sub stack and your bird tapes to be interesting to people, there really is something here that a lot of places don’t have, which is this incredible rich heritage of things that bring people back generationally, that would care. Ken singleton or Harry Dalton, would have to say, but also trying to build what’s really here on a night by night basis and make it great again. Yeah,
8John Eisenberg 25:08
I where I am is, I mean, it’s a very exciting time for them. It’s still a honeymoon. You know, I love everything that Rubenstein’s doing, and I think the most important thing, and we’ll see where this goes. The most important thing out of it all, I do believe, and he hasn’t said, I think he’s really wants to do right by the city where he grew up. I think that’s he wants to win a World Series for Baltimore. I do believe that. I mean, the guy’s got a ton of money. He could have done any and he’s done a number of things, philanthropically. And I think this is, in some regards, a piece of that, it’s a high profile piece of that. It’s not necessarily the biggest money piece of it, of what he does, but I think it’s part of it. So I think that bodes well in the long run, but we are definitely still the honeymoon. I mean, there’s a lot of hurdles to clear. He does. He’s got a team to run now, and he’s got all these young players, and I think it would be for all the hats and the dancing on the dugout. She would be nice to sign somebody and and show that measure. I mean, he’s already shown with some of these trade deadline acquisitions are going to pick up contracts for next year, for like, eh, Zach Eflin, the pitcher, and some guys that that’s already a huge change from the huge change night and day, from the way this team has operated for the last 20 years. So that it bodes well, but nonetheless, the guys that are here that are the cornerstones, whether, you know, probably Richmond would be the first one. It sure would be a great signal that would just show the fans that this is the road we’re going down now. We got money, we got players, we’re going to keep them. I think that that that that would be a nice thing to show to the fans.
Nestor J. Aparicio 26:50
Well, the measurement of the Boris guys isn’t fair. You know, I mean holding him responsible for signing, or anyone in the Orioles organization for signing, a Boris guy’s not going to sign because that’s not the way he does business. It’s not what he believes in. I think that that’s difficult, and that’s difficult, yeah, Westbrook’s hurt right now, but Henderson and westburger also is, is they’re not my bees,
John Eisenberg 27:14
right? So we’ll see where it all goes. And they got other young guys coming, and it’s, a very interesting time, and they’ll reach a point where there are going to have to spend some money to keep some of these players here. And I look forward to seeing how all that breaks down, as long as they continue to to pump it goes back to the era we were talking about before, as long as they continue to draft well developed guys and have players that other teams find desirable for trade. They’re going to be, they’re going to be pretty good. I think we’re looking at a long period here where they’re going to be a winning team. And that’s, that’s good. I mean, it certainly pay back for a number of years of frustration. And I think it’s just fun going forward,
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:00
8just staying on topic for the team and the trade deadline and the relief pitching and F Rogers and what they’ve done, I started doing the math on this once Westberg got hurt, Mateo got hurt. I mean, they’ve turned over third of the roster in two weeks,
John Eisenberg 28:14
eight guys. It was eight guys out of 26 on the roster of the day when all the dust cleared, eight out of 26 I don’t remember a trade up. They really did remake the team, and a lot I don’t
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:26
know. We were all complaining about the bullpen, and they clearly didn’t have enough. And I mean, it’s not often that you lose three starters in your your firemen all within 11 months of each other to arm surgeries, and you’re expected to somehow win 102 games, because you’re 101 last year, and they were running away and hiding from the Yankees for a minute when the Yankees were starting. I mean, they’re a struggling baseball team, as you and I speak here right now, about to go through the American League East on the road, and the sort of bad teams that have thrown in that a little bit, um, I’m trying to see them get well. But also, what are they? Because I think they’re a completely different team than they thought they were going to be in May when he had that press conference said, I have six starters all of a sudden when means and Bradish were around and Wells was stolen, maybe all of that’s gone away now. I like the acquisitions. I just think it’s sort of akin to Purple Rain, to when hardball came in in week 14 and said, I’m firing the offensive coordinator. You’re what, yeah, you know, it’s August. You’re remaking your team, you know? But yeah, it could all work out.
John Eisenberg 29:28
It could work out, certainly to effin high, you know, that was really good. That gives them a number three starter that they could put in a playoff game, which was, that was really important that they, they find somebody to do that, because they did not have that and the bullpen makeover, I wasn’t super satisfied with it. I was never super satisfied with the Kimbrel signing to begin with, and that’s sort of playing out all along, I have to say, as I wasn’t sure that he was there anymore, and he’s a pretty he’s a great pitcher, maybe Hall of Fame pitcher at the end of his career, and doesn’t have the command. To use to that’s clear. I don’t know that you’re going to put the ninth inning of a must win playoff game, you know? I don’t know that the city can handle that well.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 30:09
These fans, you know, they they had their fill last year that, right? Yeah,
John Eisenberg 30:13
so we’ll see. Maybe they’ll do ask the manager to be smart and mix and match, and you might occasionally see on all Perez out there in a really important game. And it’s like, you know, my God, you know, I hope, hope we get through this. So it’ll, it’ll be interesting, but there are a lot of pieces. And I think one thing very specifically that they did was, last year in the playoffs, the Rangers just lined up, lefty, lefty, lefty, lefty, lefty, lefty, and the Orioles went down in a hurry. And this year, they were again, had a terrible record against left handed pitchers, and so to they tried to make themselves better, and he’d get some right handed bats in here. And, you know, I don’t know whether the guy from Chicago, Jimenez, he’s off to an I start. He wasn’t hitting in Chicago. They were thrilled to see him lead, but he’s got a lot more protection here. It’s a much better team, and he can’t hit it. He’s a hitter, and let’s, let’s see if he can do that, and just trying to be better against left handed pitching so they don’t just get shut down like they did last year. So I understand that piece of it, and we’ll, we’ll see whether it works.
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:16
We didn’t talk about right handed bats at all before the trading deadline. And then you it’s like I say to Luke all the time, people call, would call for years. What’s Ozzy going to do on draft day? You see on draft day exactly what their intentions are. You see on trading deadline how Mike Elias felt about the bullpen, how he felt about the third starter, how he felt about the fourth starter, how he felt about an opening day starter next year. Knowing that Corbin Burns is, I don’t know, signable, unsignable That’s that’s going to be the big thing in the off season, as to whether he wins three games in the World Series and they win a championship, or, no matter how it turns out, next year is going to be different than this year, which makes it feel like every year is an important year to load up when you have healthy players to be able to do that. John Isenberg is our guest here. I want to turn it back to your tapes and where you are on that to shed some light on what’s been popular. Because you start to see the clicks. You start to get the feedback of, oh my god, I learned that what are, what have been your favorite pieces that you’ve unearthed that weren’t a part of the book, that people are feeding back to you when they come to your sub stack and listen to these great conversations of Oriole lore.
John Eisenberg 32:26
8Well, I am seeing the clicks. And I will say this, my community is growing dramatically in the last six weeks to two months, so the things that I’ve put up more recently are performing better than some of the things I put up at the beginning, when I was just getting started and trying to get attention. And, you know, that’s where boot Powell was, and some Cal and so I think I’m probably going to repurpose those and put them up again, just to let people know that that they’re there.
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:54
The best performance I think you should put Cal up on September 6. I’m just saying, Yeah, I’m just a good idea. And September 6 is the morning after the Ravens will be. Want to know and why? Boy, man, you know, it’s high stakes. I’ll get the football at the end. I’m saving that Zeppelin and Stairway to Heaven, but on the but it is exciting, right?
John Eisenberg 33:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So my best performing piece. Eddie Murray,
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:19
okay. Well,
8John Eisenberg 33:20
you don’t talk a lot. Dude, he didn’t talk a lot. People never heard his voice. They hadn’t heard his voice. So I put it up immediately. Just watched the thing spike. I was like, wow, look at this. I just sat there and refreshed and watched it. I was like, this. People want to hear this. Do I have any others who have any others that you know are sort of slightly mysterious? Because that performed extremely well. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:41
think I tell you this Eddie Murray story, because, you know, I grew up, I was thinking about this Eddie, Eddie, just like the in the echoes of my mind. You know, on my deathbed, that’ll be my thoughts of baseball will be the summer 79 and hearing that echo underneath Memorial Stadium. And I grew up a kid, you know, collecting baseball cards, like all of that. I like baseball. So I like my favorite players weren’t Oriole players. They were ceista lescano, as you well know, you know. So like, I like baseball, of baseball, and I love the Orioles, and I loved Eddie, and I rooted for Eddie and all that. But then I got into the media when I was 15. I met you when I was 16, maybe 8586 and Eddie was disgruntled, and clearly race was a part of this. The Stan Charles show how he felt about Ken Rosenthal. Rasig tells this story of Eddie pinning Jr, as we would call, Ken Rosenthal, up against the wall because of something rasig a cartoon resig drew in the paper. I was working at the paper, and we’re all trying to navigate through all this. And my anything was in 19. I want to say it was maybe 9899 I’m on the radio almost a decade at that time, we’re setting up a spring training, their training in. Fort Lauderdale before Angelo threw me it’s, we’re trying to still promote the baseball team. And we were down there for a week or two. The station existed, so it’s probably 9899 and it was very early spring training. We would go down there in February before there were games to get to have access, talk to Messina, talk to these players, and all of that. And I would go down there’s like Valentine’s Day. You go down there and it’s February the 20 something, it’s, you know how chilly it can be in Florida’s 52 degrees in the morning, and a February morning. And I’m walking back out into that backfield. We did live radio at six in the morning because at a radio station. So we’re there at 530 in the morning. And I swear to you, at 621 in the morning, I saw Eddie Murray with a cup of coffee and a fun go bat walk out with kids, kids in those orange jerseys that were number 64 number 68 number 71 the sun’s just coming up. It’s cold. You can almost see your breath in Florida, and Eddie Murray’s out there at six o’clock in the morning hitting funga. Three years removed from playing, he was still 40 243, you know, and he’s out there and I’m thinking, Man, I never talked to that guy. All everybody ever did was dog that guy, that guy loves baseball, and that guy’s out here hitting fun, goes to a bunch of kids, and he’s a millionaire. And didn’t he be doing that this morning? And I thought differently of him, and I’ve never had an interaction other than taking a picture with Eddie Murray because I’m a media member. I felt like he would never talk to me. Yeah? I mean,
John Eisenberg 36:27
it’s so funny that the best performing interview is my one with Eddie. I That’s the only one on one conversation I’ve ever had with ever, ever, ever, I’ve been here 40 years. How Did
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:38
8he agree to it and give me because you were at his locker hundreds of times right at the end of his career, right? Oh,
John Eisenberg 36:46
all the time. And yeah, he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t talk and, and it was, I don’t know, I set it up. He was a managing an Arizona fall league team. It was in Arizona, in a dugout before an Arizona fall league game in 1999 he was managing a team. So I went through the team, and this
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:04
the era I’m talking about, what the fun goes he was trying to be a coach. Okay,
John Eisenberg 37:07
he was trying. And so, you know, the person for the team, or the league, or whatever, said, Eddie will be there at 430 and I set up, okay, great. So I’d already, I went out to Arizona. I interviewed Frank, who was running the Arizona fall League, and I interviewed Harry Dalton, who lived in the mountains outside Phoenix. So I had interviews, and then I go to Eddie. And I mean, I never spoke to him, setting it up. I wouldn’t sure he’d show up. So 430 it’s quiet stadium, and he comes around the corner and, you know, and he just looks at me, he goes, now, what are you doing? And, you know, it was not kind and so, but then, you know, I don’t know what he thought. I I talked to him off the ledge. I said, Look, Eddie, you know, whatever’s gone on before, here’s what I’m doing. I’ve gone around. I’ve talked to all your teammates. I’ve talked to everybody, if they’re still alive. I’ve talked to him, and I want to talk to you about what made the Orioles good and bad, basically. And he kind of looked out onto the field, you know, and he said, Okay, what you got? And so we didn’t talk that long, but it was like 30 minutes, and he warmed up. I’m re listening to it all these. Years later, he warmed up. He did say, at one point, he confided a little bit it was time to go. He said, You guys had done a number on me, and do you feel like
8Nestor J. Aparicio 38:27
that’s true? I didn’t as a kid here. I never felt like that was true, and I never well,
John Eisenberg 38:34
if you listen to the interview, what he he does talk about the media. You know what he spends a lot more time talking about. What really upset him was when the owner criticized him. Edward Bennett Williams criticized him in 86 said lack of extra base hits is he can’t feel it’s hurting the team. Blah, blah, blah, that was what. That’s what got him mad. The media stuff gets a lot of attention, because the media gets attention. But really what upset him was the owner of the team criticizing him. He said that was just something I felt like I didn’t need to put up with. And so that’s where it all went south. And that’s that’s the biggest problem in the Eddie Murray history. Here the first chapter, Dude,
Nestor J. Aparicio 39:14
you just taught me something. I’ve known you 40 years. You’ve known this information 40 years, you know, like I never really knew the crux of it, because I felt like I thought it might have just been the fans and overt racism in the Hank Aaron way, that
John Eisenberg 39:29
8was part of it. I’m sure it was part of it too. Let’s not, let’s not undersell that. I’m sure that was part of it. But I have no doubt, coming away from that interview, what really burned him was the owner. That’s what burned him, you know, there, that’s, that’s what drove him crazy. How can this happen? You know, I’m Eddie Murray. Why? I mean, I’m the best player on the team. How am I being criticized? And so out and so, I don’t know. That’s what it was. We all
Nestor J. Aparicio 39:54
have sensitivities, don’t we? John Eisenberg has sensitivities to poor grammar and. Dog and typos and all that good stuff. He tell me where to follow you. I mean, just give me the sub stack thing again so people can find that. But you’re also doing great work, and you’re signing books sometimes, and you’ve authored some great books. And I’m sure once this thing is over with, there’s going to be a orange rain, or, I don’t know what you’re going to call it, but yeah, this is an interesting story to tell, if this team were to win a World Series, yeah,
John Eisenberg 40:24
yeah. I don’t know where it’s going, and I’m just doing it. Bird tapes.substack.com, on the substack platform, it’s a subscription model. You can have a free subscription, you can have a paid subscription, and it’s yeah, as I said, the community growing a lot, and as the word gets out, so that’s, that’s gratifying and fun. You know, a lot of people are paying attention. Good,
Nestor J. Aparicio 40:49
good, good. Well, when I wrote Peter principles, people like, like to know these stories in history, my Peter principles thing was just literally all of the journalism that had been done around Peter from the time he bought it until, you know, such point where he stopped sort of operating it. And I think there is a fascination for anyone that’s connected to Adley rutschman or gunner Henderson, or, you know, they have little kids that want gunner Henderson’s hair at this point that there is, there is a an incredible chronicling and an accurate and rich history of why so many people love the Orioles. So off baseball, John, last thing for you, football, got to give it to you. Offensive line, where we are, lamar’s place in the world, Derek, Henry, their stack, they’re expected to win. But as I pointed out, boy, I don’t know if there’s ever been a game like this where you go on the road to, you know, to see Kansas. They didn’t do any of this in the New England. Era. Little bit with Peyton Manning out in Denver when Angelo’s throw him out after they had the parade. But this is as big, a big, a big game as there is in the league, and these two players, this is, this is fun. This gets me excited a month ahead of time. It really does. That’s
8John Eisenberg 41:57
a great game. It’ll be fun. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it, if I recall correctly, can Kansas City opened the season last year and lost the game and won the Super Bowl. So, you know, I wouldn’t say that it’s the most important thing, but it’s very interesting. Ravens, usually, they’re pretty good on the road under hardball. He gets them in the right place mentally, usually, to go on the road for a big game and be a tough out. So we’ll see. I think the team will be good. That’s a very tough game. That’s going to be a tough one to win. Looks to me like a good team, a really good team. I’m not too worried about the offensive line they got. They got a bunch of guys that they’ve drafted and they’ve worked on the last few years. And I do have a lot of faith in the offensive line coach, Joe delessandro. He’s one of the best coaches in that building, and he is just tireless. And you will see him out there talk about Eddie Murray hitting fun goes. You will see him out there working while in the footwork of some big, hulking guy who isn’t going to play this year, but in two years, might, and he’s been at that for a while with some of these big file lay and some of these guys, and I think they’ll probably be able to put people out there that can do the job. And knowing that, it sure helps to have Ronnie Stanley looks healthy and better on the left side, and Linda Baum and center. That that’s helpful to have some anchors. So I’m not that worried about the offensive line. I’ll be interested to see they had a really, really, really good defensive coordinator here, and Zach Orr, who I like a lot, has got big shoes to fill. Mike McDonald, to me, was a star, and it’s no surprise that he’s immediately, you know, a head coach somewhere else, very tough to feel that guy, because they had a great defense last year. He had a lot to do with that. And so there’s even they got plenty of players on that side of the ball, but I broke one, Smith and Hamilton and all those guys. But that’s a, that’s a, just a, you know, when Gary Q back was here as offensive coordinator a decade ago, he’s kind of a ringer. It’s a head coach, he’s, he’s, he’s just, you know, dropping down for a year. Okay, I’ll run your offense. You know, they should have been in the Super Bowl that year. Blew the playoff game up in New England. I felt that way. A little bit about Mike McDonald, I said, in a young and we’ll see how he is as a head coach, but just, just a real, you know, strong, strong coach. So that’s a loss. That’s the biggest loss to me that they had in the off season. So we’ll see how that goes on that side of the ball.
Nestor J. Aparicio 44:25
Well, I don’t hear a lot of people talking about that and as far as a big loss, but I know it’s a different room that plays will be called differently. They got a lot of leadership and Tiger over there with roquan Smith as well. And yeah, and Hamilton’s just become just a great football player, right like and we go back to their talent evaluation and where they are, I’d like to think that if they think they’re okay on the offensive line, who am I to question that? But until I see it and jettisoning Zeitler and Moses and the health of Stanley and where they are with the kid from Washington. And where linderbaum is very good. I just there’s a lot riding on it. So I would like to think that they have more confidence than any of us out here have. I think
John Eisenberg 45:10
that’s a good way to put it. I do. I don’t see them worrying a whole lot. Doesn’t, sure, doesn’t sound like it. So that’s not to say that it’s going to be, you know, the best offensive line in the league. They got a lot of young guys, and they’re pretty good at coaching those guys up at that position. So I think, and I think it will not just be a red flag that brings the season down.
Nestor J. Aparicio 45:32
8Look, dude, the Cardinals or the Seahawks cut some guard who looks like Zeitler. They would let you know on August 30 how they feel if they go and sign a veteran, right? Like they they show their hand. They do by the end of the month, they’ll they’ll show whether they like these guys or whether they don’t. And much like other training camps, there’ll be a couple guys they think they like now that they don’t like at the end of the
John Eisenberg 45:54
month. Yeah, and, and they may well do it. They’re not afraid. Obviously, in today’s NFL you you can’t be afraid to cut ties. You can’t be romantic. You cannot be romantic. Yeah, you know, you gotta win the next game. So, yeah, they’ll bring in somebody. And who’s the guard last year? Simpson. John. Simpson, yeah,
46:14
right, yeah. Oh, they
John Eisenberg 46:15
let him go. People said, Well, you know, where they found him. They found him like, you know, you know, out on the scrap heap somewhere. So it can be they can do that.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 46:23
John Eisenberg, none of his stuff sat on a scrap heap. He’s unearthing the bird tapes out of sub stack. You can follow him out on the interwebs as well. What’s coming down the pike? What would give me a couple of ball players you have not released yet? You released Paul Blair yet?
John Eisenberg 46:37
Yes, I released Paul Blair Crowley. You
Nestor J. Aparicio 46:40
released Terry Crowley, I don’t have Terry. Oh, I
John Eisenberg 46:43
8do not have Terry. I do have Milt Pappas. Mil Pappas coming very interesting. I did talk about who performed. I put Steve barber up over a couple of weeks. I had a really long I went all the way to Vegas to interview him. So I got a lot of on tape with him, just to you know, what a deal, you know, talking about a guy in the 50s and early 60s, and he was rough and profane and funny, and people seem to like it. So I’ve got Pappas, who was the, you know, he and Barbara and Pappas hated each other. It’s very evident in the interviews. So now we’ll get Pappas the side of the story. You know, traded, traded for Frank Robinson. Incredibly bitter about it. Incredibly bitter. How many years later was it 34 years later when I interviewed him? Just, just incredible. And so that one’s coming. That’s the next player. So and then I’ll keep rolling. I got, I have to, I have to digitize a new group. So I hadn’t decided, Davey Johnson coming down the pike. Oh, and so and, of course, I also have Peter Angelo’s coming down the pike two hours. And I don’t know when I’m going to do that when I haven’t digitized it yet, but it’ll come sometime this What
Nestor J. Aparicio 47:55
was your conversation with him about? Or, like, I mean, it was good about the history of the team, or about where he stood in 99 owning this, where he stood
John Eisenberg 48:03
99 and what people were mad at him about, and, and, yeah, he agreed to do it. We went to he bought a bottle of wine. We had lunch at Little Italy. The tape recorder ran, and it was
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:15
this a Boccaccio, yeah, yeah. And
8John Eisenberg 48:19
so I’m gonna have to listen back to it. It’ll it’ll be, I’ve been listening a long time. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 48:24
had today I become a subscriber. Eisenberg, Okay, you go listen to my two hours with them over highballs at the barn. And it was something, yeah, my, my chat with him was in March of 98 it was right after he fired John Miller, he didn’t bleed enough orange and black, so, like you got him about a year later. And at that point, I guess he had fired Regan. I’m I’m just going through all the names Davey had left, because Davey was still here. So it was 97 was March of 97 that I interviewed him, not 98 so he was feeling real strong. He was talking Chris widget trades and like all of that, I wonder, in 99 what you got. So I’m looking forward to that. I’ve
John Eisenberg 49:07
forgotten some of it, so I look forward to hearing it myself, and I will put
Nestor J. Aparicio 49:11
it up. Hope you talked a little. Washington will never have a baseball team. You know, it’s all that’s going on. John Eisenberg’s here, the Orioles are under new ownership, but still owned by the people here and Orioles fans. Going to be a great run up if you want to enjoy it a little bit more. Enjoy the history of Orioles baseball. No one tells it better than John Isenberg through the mouths and ears and storytellers of the people who live the game. By the way, I had a young man on in Wisconsin who wrote a book on Harry Dalton recently, absolutely. And you mentioned race in the American League and National League, I had John the other Eisenberg on, the great Jerry Eisenberg on, wrote a book on Larry Doby. So it’s been a great summer to talk about, basically, talk about all this. I’m glad you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, bird tapes are doing well, John, appreciate. Appreciate it. Thanks for glad you. Found the found the the archives there as well. Nothing better than a rich archive. Sean Eisenberg, long time columnist, um@ravens.com as well at the Baltimore Sun. I am Nestor. We are W NSD, a of 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive. You.
