Actor Thomas Sadoski tells Nestor the roots of his passion for Baltimore Ravens football and his new role in “American Sports Series: Aaron Hernandez” on FX, a dark mini-series tale of the troubled New England Patriots tight end and his murders and death.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cake, aaron hernandez, baltimore, story, ravens fan, fan, people, watch, man, fx, football, actor, play, maryland, grew, fandom, raven, happen, extraordinary, day
SPEAKERS
Thomas Sadoski, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
8
Music, welcome home. We are, W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are. Am 1570 hoping you’re setting a spot on the dial. We will have the Maryland lottery, Raven scratch offs to give away when we convene yet again for our birthday. October 11 will be Pete’s eating crab cakes at Pizza John’s and Essex. Our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, have set this out this month for 26 oysters in 26 days, and we’re appreciative of that. I hope to have a crab cake and noise for this guy. They I love having actors on. I like to having the Hollywood folks on. We mix it up around here, but when they find out the person’s a Ravens fan and in a football movie, certainly the Aaron Hernandez story, for anybody out there that hates patriots as much as we did, certainly a crazy, crazy time. About a dozen years ago, I did a little bit of research. There is a it’s not a film. It’s actually like a little bit of a mini series, as old folks would call it, the the FX network has provided Thomas Sadowski has allowed me to call him Tom Tommy Raven fan and actor was portraying the agent for Aaron Hernandez in this really kind of a dark tale, right? You’re a football fan. Tom, pleasure to have you aboard. I’ll get to your Ravens fan, but we’re going to talk about this series. And certainly,
Thomas Sadoski 01:13
yeah, man, it’s a dark story. Man, that was not, that was that was not a happy time, three innocent people lost their lives because of this guy. And, you know, it’s a story that needs to be sold. I think that the unfortunate reality is that you’re dealing with, you know, the what we talk about in, in the story, is not just, you know, Aaron Hernandez and the the the mayhem that he enacted on three innocent lives, but also what was happening in college football as an industry back in the day, where they were just taking these kids and they were running them through the mill, making all kinds of money off of them, and then, you know, spitting them out into the world, regardless of how broken or injured or or whatever they were, and taking no responsibility for any of it. And I think that that’s something that really is an important story to continue telling. You know, it’s changing now, the nil stuff, you know, you see these kids actually finally getting paid for the money that they’re bringing in to these institutions and to these TV networks and all this stuff, which is great, but it it’s still a story that needs to be told about the way that so many of them, for so many years, were totally taken advantage of. And I think that, you know, Aaron Hernandez was definitely one of them, a
Nestor Aparicio 02:34
40 year media member, you know, I covered Ray Rice here, I covered Ray Lewis here, I covered Jamal Lewis here, I’ve, you know, had all sorts of jurisprudence issues here in orange jumpsuits through the course of time that never seemed to affect anyone’s fandom. Ray Rice situation here was five minutes they honored him as a player of the game nine months ago. So the you know, fixing these broken young men is part of like, what we sort of expect them to do. You can’t quit on a 19 year old until he becomes a murderer when he’s a 25 year old, right? Like it was an unbelievable story. And I look back and I realized he only played a couple of years. It feels like he was in the league a while, and I really had to do a little bit of research. You play the role of his agent, right? Yeah, give me You’ve acted. I mean, so many films you’ve been in and on the stage you’re in some sort of Baltimore play early in your career as well, and I got to get to your Baltimore fandom. But when you take on this, it really is getting into the mindset as the agent of I’ll cover for him. I’ll cover for him. He’s a little messed up, but he’s my messed up, even to the end, when I Googled your character, Brian Murphy and agents or athletes, first saying, well, he couldn’t have killed himself at the end. I knew him really well. He couldn’t have killed I don’t know, I don’t know what to believe, but I was on the field with Aaron Hernandez when the Ravens beat them in that game, the last game you ever played in. I was down on the field, and I don’t know, you never think murderers walk amongst you, but I’ve been in a million locker rooms with a million football players over the course of time, and it’s a violent
Thomas Sadoski 04:00
game. It’s a violent game. It’s, that’s true, and it’s part and parcel of the reality of it. And, yeah, I mean, listen, it’s, it’s, it’s, what makes this specific story so extraordinary, I think, is that, you know, there’s a lot of question marks over the course of the years, in terms of, like, who we’ve decided to make heroes out of, I think of a certain quarterback in Pittsburgh, you know, and some sort of shameful behavior that that gentleman was involved in, that we all just sort of swept under the rug. I think that is, it’s, it’s understandable that we love being fans, but at a certain point, and you don’t expect everybody to be a saint, it’s it’s impossible to expect people to be saint. But at what point do you draw the line and just say like guy, you know, you’re a multi, multi multi millionaire. You’re. Playing a kid’s game as a grown up for a living. Maybe you can, like, leave the fake gangster stuff behind, like, maybe it’s time to just sort of put that down. You can be an intimidating presence on the football field without having to be a knucklehead off of the football field. It is possible. Many people have done it. Many people have done it very successfully, and also the NFL as an institution probably needs to start looking into and they are, to at least to a certain extent, finally, taking taking a serious stance on ways that we can protect these men so that they’re given the best opportunity to not grow up into knuckleheads off the field, you know, CTE and all of this horrible stuff that you’re starting to understand about the way that it impacts people’s ability to think. The way that it impacts impacts people’s ability to walk through the world. You know some responsibility needs to be taken there by a multi billion dollar industry that makes its billions off of the backs of these guys who go out there and play and listen, they’re adults. They make their they make their beds. They got a lie in it. I understand that they’re they’re making the the choice to go out and play and and, you know, we as a society also have some responsibility to say, like, Yeah, but we don’t want to watch these guys get killed out there, and we don’t want to watch them get turned into vegetables, you know, like that. It’s not, that’s not what I’m a football fan for. I watch extraordinary athletes doing extraordinary things that I’ll never be able to do. You know what I mean? Lamar Jackson does things on a daily basis that I could never do on my best day, no matter how many steroids you hit me up with. You know what I mean? And that is, it’s a it’s a joy to watch extraordinary athletes do things in an extraordinary way, and I don’t want to watch that happen and then sacrifice the the athlete down the the line. That’s not what I’m interested in. That’s not why I’m a fan. You know? Yeah.
8Nestor Aparicio 07:16
I mean, I’ve been doing sports radio 40 years. The morality play never seems to work. It works for a moment, but at the end of the day, it’s, you know, I’m wearing purple, and you know, that’s where it is. Thomas Sadowski is here, if you know him, actor of the newsroom life and pieces and other things, uh. He portrays Aaron Hernandez, the the former Patriot murderer and champion agent Brian Murphy and FX 10 episode, limited series. It’s called American sports story. Aaron Hernandez, it premieres on Tuesdays, on FX and then on Hulu. Now they told me, You’re a raven fan. I didn’t even shave for you. Maybe baseball playoffs. They could get stuff happen to bills in town as we speak. This may run after that, but you’re Raven fandom. I I’ve looked you up. You have a beautiful wife. You’re from Connecticut. You’re an actor. We go, it’s your Baltimore thing. Like, give me the
Thomas Sadoski 08:05
Baltimore thing. You know, in a previous life, I had, I was married to a woman who was from Columbia, Maryland, and I spent a lot of time in Baltimore. I have family from Dundalk.
Nestor Aparicio 08:20
I’m only in one Hall of Fame. I’m in the Dundalk high school hall of fame we’re gonna be in. It’s the only, like, literally the only one ever gonna put me in. So you even pronounced it, I would have invited you to cost us tomorrow had I know crab cakes oysters were doing it all.
Thomas Sadoski 08:36
8Come on, brother. You know, like, I just made crab cakes for my family the other night. Man, I don’t like
Nestor Aparicio 08:42
wrong? I mean, I where, what state are you in right now?
Thomas Sadoski 08:44
I’m in New York. Yeah, we
Nestor Aparicio 08:46
don’t trust the crab cake out of Maryland. I wouldn’t eat it. I’m
8Thomas Sadoski 08:48
sorry. Oh, hey, listen, I get it. I truly understand. Like, I, it’s like, I wouldn’t eat a buffalo wing outside of New York State. I totally get it. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 08:55
this weekend we’ll have buffalo wings on the grill. We’ll have Josh Allen wings. We’re
Thomas Sadoski 08:58
gonna on the grill. You got buffalo wings on the grill? Well, we
Nestor Aparicio 09:02
8got a tailgate going on because, you know, their mafia is going to be diving off tables and those. But how did you become a raven fan just because you had a wife in Columbia? But like, were you giants jets? Were you something else? When you Oh, no,
Thomas Sadoski 09:15
no, no, no, you know, like, listen, I grew up, like, for a lot of my life. I from until I was, like, 18 years old. I grew up in Texas, and I grew up in College Station, where Texas A and M University is, which meant that, you know, I was stuck somewhere in between the Oilers and the Cowboys fandom growing up, and I wanted nothing to do with any of them. The closest thing I could find to being a fan to a local sports team at the time was the saints, but they were horrible back in the day,
Nestor Aparicio 09:44
and he was burning the things and doing all No, no,
Thomas Sadoski 09:47
no man, no, I, I, I’ve always, you know, I, I, I didn’t really buy into that whole thing. It, it kind of freaked me out. I. That. And like, I, you know, like, I just, I feel like, there’s the whole, like, you know, Texas A and M has this thing where, like, we’re the perpetual underdogs. And I was like, Yeah, but you know, what it requires to be a perpetual underdog is that you always lose. So, like, I, you know, I didn’t, I got a little bit tired of that. And then I’ll tell one. Is that what you’re telling me, you’re, oh, man, I like the Raven. First of all, I love the ravens, just when, when I when they first came into town, I was like, All right, let’s see what this is all about. I loved that initial team that came out, and I loved, like, the way that they started building that franchise, and the way that they threw themselves so entirely into the city. I was like, You know what? I’m all in. I’m all in. Like, no, totally. Man. It was fantastic. I think that there are very few teams that do that did have done a better job of ingratiating themselves into the community right away, like when that
8Nestor Aparicio 11:00
Jacksonville, the teams that came at that time, they’ve always been sort of a little bit troubled. The Ravens have never had trouble selling tickets,
Thomas Sadoski 11:06
no. And it’s because, like when those when those teams came into those communities, they didn’t make themselves part of the community like they didn’t. They didn’t throw themselves into being a, you know, a Floridian, or, you know, a Carolinian, like man, when the Ravens started, they were like, We are Maryland, as you can get an all Ballmer all the time. And like, I just, I thought that that was fantastic. They knew that they had to go some distance, you know, to heal the wounds of the Colts. I get it. And they did it, and then some. And the way that they have always been so invested in being part of the community, the way that they did, the way that they have grown with the Orioles, the way that they there was, like a mutual respect. There was never any weird competition there. Like, I just, I thought it was fantastic. Like, I really, not only that, but I, I just loved the players that they were bringing in right out of the gate, Ozzy, like, right, right from jump, was bringing in these extraordinary people. Hard Knocks didn’t hurt, you know, getting to know, like, Todd heap and those guys, when they first were coming in, like, I was just, and, you know, all my
Nestor Aparicio 12:14
boys, man, that’s, yeah, dude. Like, there are
Thomas Sadoski 12:17
8very few people in the world who will make you enjoy watching football as much as Tony saragusa, like, that guy is fantastic. Like, he’s such an ambassador for the game, because he’s just great. And like, Man, I loved watching goose run around out there. I was even like, a moderately big Trent Dilfer fan for a minute. I was like, listen, just don’t turn the ball over.
Nestor Aparicio 12:39
So I gotta know as the Ravens quarterback. There you go. He’ll always be perfect. Tommy Sadowski is here. He’s an actor. He is in this brand new series. He sit here talk football and grab gates, and we do it especially Orioles this week. It’s all big. Give me a reason to watch the show? I mean, watch this crazy guy go crazy in the portrayal of it. By the way, I watched the trailer. Kid looks a lot like Aaron. I mean, like I’m bought in on the believability. And it’s hard to sell football. I go back to North Dallas, 40 and semi tough and long. I mean, doing football or baseball and sports, well, is really hard to do.
Thomas Sadoski 13:14
It’s very, very hard to do. And you know, I think that particularly when you’re doing something where you’re you’re not afraid to take in a stance, and you’re not afraid to have an opinion. And you then put it on sports on top of it. It makes it additionally more difficult. And we do it all pretty well. And Josh, who plays Aaron Hernandez, is fantastic. He’s a fantastic young actor. You want to see this guy do his work like he’s he’s somebody who’s going to be a big, huge star in this in this industry for a long time to come. And this is just like one of his first coming out parties. You know, you’ve got to see Norbert Leo Butz play Bill Belichick. It’s hilarious. It will make you laugh and it will make you cringe. And I think that there’s a lot of really important and worthwhile stuff that’s said in in the show. But also it’s just entertaining, man, it’s just entertaining. Like, like, it’s important to say things in art. I and I’m a big advocate for that. And also, sometimes folks just need to be entertained and sit back and enjoy watching what’s on your screen, and we do that with this show. It’s, it’s, it’s not pretty, but it wasn’t a pretty story, and I’m proud to be a part of it. American
Nestor Aparicio 14:30
sports story. Aaron Hernandez premiers on Tuesday on FX and then on Hulu. Tommy Sadowski here, Raven fan actor, if you ever come back. Crab cake on me. Obviously, this the last thing about the Aaron Hernandez thing, because I’m just thinking out loud, because I I covered it in real time, and like, I’ve been on the air doing this, the fact that he located his phone when he committed a murder is still like, I want to talk to people in the court system and find out in the modern era just how many people leave their phone located when they’re committing a murder or any crime. Quite frankly, but a murder specifically,
8Thomas Sadoski 15:01
yeah, that is boy. That was that. That was a choice. That was
Nestor Aparicio 15:07
that, when I when the trial came out, I’m like, Oh, my, I mean, I don’t know that I’m capable of committing a murder, but I would turn my phone off, you know. I mean, I think, yeah. Tom Sadowski, uh, please come back visit, uh, after Lamar wins the Super Bowl? So you can see I knew he would right, of course, yes. And I appreciate your time. Thanks for dropping by. And hey, man, we need more Ravens fans outside of of the 410 and the DMZ. So So I there’s plenty of room on the purple bandwagon. So
Thomas Sadoski 15:37
get on Yeah, me and Josh, Charles, brother, we’re carrying the flag. I got no problem with it. There it
Nestor Aparicio 15:41
is. Man, enjoy your work. We’re going to watch Aaron, Aaron Hernandez, the American sports story. Tom Sadowski, our guest here, appreciate that with our friend Danny and everybody at FX for making that happen. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Lots of football, lots of baseball ahead. We are Baltimore, positive. Stay with us. You.
