The “Free Kevin Brown” movement was quelled by the Angelos family and Team Bader at The Warehouse as the Orioles headed West after a bizarre homestand of news regarding MASN broadcasters, free speech and John Angelos demanding $300 million more than $600 million that our citizens are already gifting his baseball franchise. Luke Jones and Nestor take off the gloves on John Angelos and Kevin Brown and what it means for Orioles fans.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, kevin, people, baseball, point, years, brown, talked, john, happened, broadcast, work, angelo, luke, broadcaster, john miller, money, elias, players, thought
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back, WN S T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore positive or positively taking the Maryland crabcake tour back out on the road. We’re gonna be in Ocean City, Maryland. This week on Thursday and Friday we’ll be hearing our stuff over the weekend and finding settled social media as well as wn St. And all my personal social media as well. To get away the American lottery scratch offs. We get back after it down in an Roanoke County on the 29th at Pappus. We’re going to be joined by enrolled county executive Steuart Pittman is going to be with us We always enjoy our company with him. I’ll be with all the county executives this week, as well as a Senator Ben Cardin is coming on on Friday as his Senator Chris Van Hollen, lots of talk about the future the state with Westmore in regard to stadia and stadiums. You can read my letter or hear my letter to John Angelo’s out. I’m gonna welcome Luke in here right now. And yeah, look, Luke’s been out on the backfields in Owings Mills. He’s out there all week. Obviously up late this week with the Orioles trying to get the game on his Roku one Sunday and couldn’t get it up and pencil tucky dude, you and I, we did a we did a lot of radio together last Monday morning. And the Orioles were sticking around. And the free Kevin Brown thing was a 48 hour thing like Monday, Tuesday into Wednesday by Friday night. He’s releasing Stockholm Syndrome. You’ve Greg Bader press releases. You and I never spoke about it. You lost your electricity for three days in the storm. You’re trying to cover the Ravens do your job keep your battery powered on 90 degree days. I didn’t bother you did Dennis to show you and I have not talked about Kevin Brown. We haven’t talked about Masson, we haven’t talked about the stadium fiasco. We haven’t talked about my letter to John Angelos. Like we haven’t talked about any of that. We’ve talked about baseball, because quite frankly, the team’s been interesting enough that we can’t just talk about baseball. There are bigger fish to fry when there’s no lease when the owners nuts when the owner is intimidating. Everyone who works for him in even worse fashion than his father to some degree, especially this far down the line. And all of this goes on check for a month and nobody says anything about Where’s Kevin Brown? And you’re out at the ballpark for a week of this. You know, let’s have at it as they would says Brian Billick would say as we were as I was accused last week of muting my own employees about Brian Billick, you’d have to refer to your manual on that you’ve worked around here longer than anybody looked but have added as coach Billick would say, Well, I
Luke Jones 02:35
mean, first and foremost, I think what was amazing about this, as you mentioned, he had been off the air for what two and a half week something along those lines. So one thing I will say in fairness to why did this take so long to get out? The Orioles have so many Masson and on the radio they have so many individuals involved in that mix that you know at first, I didn’t think too much of it. And just knowing that Kevin Brown has other projects that he does, you know, he does work for ESPN, he does some other work as a broadcaster that has kept taking him away from the Orioles for a week or two at a time over the last few years. So I didn’t think too much of it at that point. I think a lot of people were just wondering where he was. But, you know, it got to a certain point in time where it’s like, okay, he’s been gone a long time now. There’s nothing going on in terms of college baseball, or college softball or other things. College football, we’ve seen Kevin Brown do games like that. That’s going on right now. So so what gives here, but I think what’s so striking about this story, and again, we’re a week plus into it now. So everyone agrees on it, right? I mean, you can find so many are so few topics in this day and age, sports, politics, whatever it might be, where you’ll find people universally agree on something. And this was as universal as it gets in terms of weight he got suspended for white, when you hear the clip that he allegedly was suspended for and, you know, look, do I think what he said down at Tropicana Field, the stats, the facts that he cited, was that the entire story? Probably not. I’m guessing there were some personality issues, whatever it is, and I’m guessing whatever those other issues are, are equally ridiculous to what this was that warranted being taken off the air for a couple of weeks.
Nestor Aparicio 04:30
Well, the question was, what else goes on there? Yeah, right. But what what else is happening there?
Luke Jones 04:36
I mean, it’s just yeah, right. Sure. But I think just what was so amazing to this, and, you know, I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been talked about for a week now, with everyone talking about this fans, medium media, whoever I mean, this is a national story for 48 hours. As you mentioned, CNN even talked about it, but from what I understand, I mean, it’s, but you just don’t find very many topics. or controversies, where there’s almost universal agreement that it’s ridiculous. And this was one of those examples. So I don’t know Kevin Brown a great deal personally, other than just saying hello, I know other members of the broadcast team much, much more closely than I know, Kevin, but I mean, this is a guy who’s in his early 30s. Anyone who knows anything about play by play, and that kind of life, working your way up the ladder, you’re generally making very, very little money. You work you’re working hard, you have crazy hours, those types of things. So for Kevin to get to the point where
Nestor Aparicio 05:37
he is Kevin browns, all my life right to mid 30s. Look, I’ve taken more. I took more resumes in my life from kids calling minor league stuff, just trying to have a talk show on my goofy little am station that nobody listens to right. hundreds of resumes. You’re one of these guys. I mean, you’re the only guy you’re the you’re the guy here 15 years but like for anybody to have that life and and as a kid, I never really thought I was going to be a player. I never thought I was gonna be a radio I was a writer right like so I’m it was never my dream, but holding my my brush up to the mirror and pretending to be Vin Scully or whatever. Like, that was never my thing. Before anybody I ever met. That was their thing. I hired a lot of those guys I sat with I mean, all of my life. I’ve done this is all I’ve ever done. And to your point, to the it’s such a specialized thing I say to my wife all the time. I couldn’t do it. I’ve been on the radio 33 years, I couldn’t do it. And it I just it’s so petty, this whole story, and it just speaks I can’t even talk about Kevin Brown or any of them. You need to talk about John Angelo’s because that’s really the story. I mean, the story here isn’t Kevin Brown. The story about me getting banned isn’t me. The story is Peter, it was always Peter. It was always the family, the lease that’s the family, every single part of the orchestration and why the broadcasts are bad, and why you can’t get it on Roku on Sunday. And when things go wrong, it has to go back to they’ve never really done this well. And the fact that and I’ve said I’ve used this term back when Buck was here, good baseball deodorizes everything for the fan for some fans for for a fan just sitting here watching it and cost this I’m wearing my cost this shirt. I was eating crabs with Linda Raskin. Sunday night. everybody’s cheering Cedric Mullins. It’s it’s very, very unfortunate, you know, and I told this story. In my letter to John Angelos I’ll tell it to you because I haven’t told you on the air. I was up in your homeland. Let it feels like a long time ago. Now. I went to see Pat Benatar on the weekend before Kevin Brown on a Saturday night up in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, home of the original wise markets and in a lot of wise people there in that in that Spyglass vineyard watching Pat Benatar and Neil Geraldo rocket, but Sunday we were driving back through Harrisburg through York, we had breakfast in your your home land with a friend, downtown York and the arts district was lovely. And I got in the car at like one o’clock had a brunch, and I put the game on for an hour hour and a half coming home. And there was a point in that game where there was a Matteo had a triple but it wasn’t a triple it was really an inside the park home run that he sort of Jake and watched and the broadcast on the radio. And by the way, I think it’s kind of terrible. Most of it. I mean, it’s so Homer ish, that it’s gross. I mean, they all look like they just came out of the team. Team store, Rob Long’s pissed at me. I mean, like, Y’all are wearing Oreo birds, put a mask and logo on put something on that doesn’t bottlecaps and jackets and Melanie Newman’s walking the catwalk every day with a different outfit and selling stuff in the store and they’re selling cheap. It’s just one Vince McMahon. 20 minutes after Championship Wrestling, shoot, interview, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, everything’s great, everything’s perfect. Everything’s lovely. And now I know why. You know, I really do. I’m not out there. You know this. They banned me 17 years ago, and I don’t want to go out there and be mistreated. I just don’t. And I watch it on TV and lord knows I love good baseball. My last name is Aparicio. I’d like I made a whole life loving this and wanting it to be good. But I will say I think Ben’s great. I think Kevin Brown and Ben put them in there 140 nights a year paying a half million I’ll do whatever you have to do, but make it something consistent that we can all get on with. But look, here’s the truth. And this is the real truth. The real truth is they want to employ as many people as possible lock in four can’t go one of locking four is now under Kevin Brown house arrest right like he can’t say Anything wonky, none of them can say anything. It’s very obvious how controlled this is and how they fear for their gigs. And that’s, that makes me very, very sad to have broadcasters held hostage because I’ve been one of them. And I told that story to Dennis the other day, please go listen to my segment with Dennis. My thought my first day at NFL monster Monday at the vault, where I had an executive producer came from Fox Television, wonderful man, but he just didn’t know what the hell I did for a living. He was writing no cards. Hello, my name is Nestor. Like handing them to me on my show. I’m like, You’re not serious, right? Like, because if you are, I can’t do this gig. I can’t, I can’t do this gig. And I tell people all the time, I’ll do a little shoot interview with you, Luke, your wrestling fan. Let me do a little shoot. We peel back the onion of our relationship. People asked me about you. And they’re like, Hey, what’s up with Luke and you? And I’m like, we’re kinda like Elton John and Bernie top. And at this point in two different rooms. You know, a little bit right in the songs that way. We’re rarely together. I have pictures of me and Dennis together at Costas the other day, like laughing and smiling sitting in the same room. I’m thinking, we don’t do that much. But we’re always here. I feel like we’re in the same room. But I say to people all the time about you. I’m like, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a crossword with Luke jokes. He could be a little chippy when he doesn’t get rest. And, you know, I mean, I’m a little different for our sleep than Luke is. And we made some Super Bowls. And we’ve crashed together 100 nights together and 30 different cities. And I said, I don’t know that Luke, and we’ve ever had a district like, and I think Luke likes me, okay. But like, the minute I would start telling Luke that you have to say this about Angelo. So you have to say that, or you can’t say this about that guy. No, I’ll say it. And if you don’t want to say it, that’s fine. Everybody knows you’re a little bit more of a tame tamer of the two of us a little bit more of a reasoned one in all of this, but I cannot imagine a life here anywhere else. Even with hosts. I didn’t like what I had on the air. I don’t like them. Now. I never went into them and said, can or can’t do or don’t or gave them the Tipper Gore list of banned music or band songs. I mean, it’s pretty clear what the Angelus family was trying to do to me then and now, especially after seeing Mrs. Show Walter write a long missive about all the awful things that the Angelo’s family told her about me and to avoid me and that I was a bad human when they wanted to bring foster kids which I I literally would have been one of them. These are, these are awful people, and they do awful things. And it’s shielded by WB al by the WB FF by W Mar not even putting a Kevin Brown story on their website. It’s shielded when Kevin Brown issues a statement is making like this never happened. Like free Kevin Brown never happened on the air on Tuesday or Wednesday. Like they’re not all held hostage like John had a meeting and said, everything’s changed around here. Just go go. Go. Be you Melanie Newman. I don’t even know who Melanie Newman is. Never met her. I don’t all I know like she might be great. She’s actually a decent radio play by she’s done it I guess she’s doing radio on TV. They all got in a pinch. They Johnson got called in. I mean, Brad Brock’s not very good at all. I mean, I don’t and I’d have no idea what direction these people are getting to become better. You know, at their craft and me, John Allen and I sat talked about Steve Whiteman giving voice lessons, who’s who’s teaching them how to do this. Steve molesky, who hates me? He was great on radio. So I listened on the way to cost this. Steve molesky is their best play by play guy not named Kevin Brown. And, but all of them are under house arrest clearly for what they can and can’t say. And the Kevin Brown. Whatever that blinked twice, you know if you’re alive. message was on Friday and a Friday afternoon news dump and you’re playing at 10 o’clock at night. That doesn’t help the situation and it really doesn’t do anything to you help a situation with somebody like me, having the freedom to speak truth, and with an FCC license and what I’ve stood for in the community all these years and what truth is, and truth is not to Kevin Brown and 30 or 40% of people by it Luke I saw it out a line like hook in Oh, see, he was fine all along. They just had him in the basement for a little while they let him out. And like I the ideology of all of it’s so twisted that it doesn’t belie what’s happening on the field but it clouds the future especially when two days later everybody look every my phone is blown up. The last week on inside information on going to the insider of all insider state things. You think I’m not going to know what’s going on by Saturday morning or I didn’t by Wednesday afternoon when I’m writing when I’m writing like people talk to me and the It’s not good, dude. It’s not I mean, none of this is good. Given the backdrop of a really good baseball team that can win a World Series, this. The players don’t deserve what happened last Tuesday or Wednesday. Kevin Brown doesn’t deserve it. Rob long doesn’t deserve it. Melanie Newman, Steve molesky, none of them deserve it. And I hope Jim Palmer is doing okay. And I wore his jersey to cost us even though he’s really never spoken to me doesn’t care for me. I love Jim Palmer. And I want him to be okay. I don’t want him back on the broadcast. And I want to engage in a pennant race in September in meaningful games that he’s waiting his whole life to broadcast, because he’s been the one guy that’s been above the fray. And maybe he’s too old and frail to stand up. But like, if he had been McDonald just came one day and said, None of us are coming to work. That’s the way Nestor would have handled it. That’s the way they that’s why they don’t let me around there. Because I wouldn’t I wouldn’t tolerate lying to the fan I wouldn’t tolerate. And shame on WB Al, I wouldn’t tolerate a broadcast that has me in my car in Shrewsbury looking down on Twitter and seeing the broadcast that I’m getting. It’s not really what happened with people with their eyes open on social media. It’s disgraceful. I mean, it’s disgraceful.
Luke Jones 16:10
I full disclosure, I mean, the one example your third, plenty of examples, the Matteo triple thing, I didn’t see him get slow out of the box. So I you know, I didn’t mention anything about it wasn’t because I was hiding for the team. But I think the big
Nestor Aparicio 16:24
picture you don’t have to you don’t have to show for the team. And at some point, they may throw you out. And I’m willing to accept that on your behalf on our behalf. Not that it’s right. But that we can’t be muted. I’m not going on the radio and saying that that Greg Boehner press release is a fact. It’s it’s fiction. And they can play that game at BHEL. They can play that game at Fox 45 where the whole friggin networks fiction and MA are running for their lives from Greg Bader. I don’t it’s It’s disgraceful. And what he’s doing to the state, and what he’s even really doing the shotty who I have no respect for either, by the way, but like trying to steal Bashaud his parking lot and saying town sand and give me $300 million more, which is what he’s doing behind the backdrop. And I’m trying to win a World Series that he doesn’t have a lease, and he’s doing this to broadcasters. What else is he doing from his lair in Nashville, like this is not good. This isn’t good for Adley rutschman, it’s not good for gutter, I’ve been here for all this. It’s not good.
Luke Jones 17:37
Adley rutschman and Gunnar Henderson will be fine. What we are seeing However, and this is where I want to bring it back to a bigger issue at play here. Because this is what it can become. And I think it’s when you look at the landscape of professional sports, when you have teams who have their own regional sports networks. And we know that that model was is crumbling before our very eyes not not specifically MAs and talking about Valley sports and everything that’s happened across major league baseball. And that’s going to continue until these teams figure out a business model. But between that what we’ve seen in the NFL with teams having their own website that they are portraying as the quote media journalism source,
Nestor Aparicio 18:22
and by the way, showing people who’ve done this for a living in front of the whole world for three decades, just throwing people like me out and saying, I’m not legitimate anymore. They’ve done that. That’s they they have but I found that to be inconceivable two years ago.
Luke Jones 18:37
The point I’m trying to make though is this is where these things start. And when you have your own regional sports network, and let’s be clear nester. Teams have always had flagship stations and broadcasts and it’s always been geared towards the home team, Chuck Thompson, God rest his soul Hall of Fame broadcaster. He loved the Orioles he hardly ever criticized the Orioles. Now, I am not saying that that is remotely the same as what is going on in the current climate of Masson with John Angelos in charge. But my point is, it starts out with something like that. And you see how it can dissolve and what it becomes over time. We’re seeing this with ESPN. Now as they just announced they’re starting their own gambling network. I mean, think about this, you have an organization that’s kind of been it’s been the flagship, so to speak for sports journalism on the television side for going on four plus decades now. And where’s the actual objectivity there when they now are going to be in bed with gambling more than they ever have been over the last few years, and they have the broadcast rights to the NFL and college football. So there have always been these conflicts of interest to some degree. As long as you know, teams have had flagship stations and networks and things of that nature. Well, well,
Nestor Aparicio 19:54
that would be Howard Cosell calling it the jack ah cracy. But but the problem
Luke Jones 19:57
is we are now at the point where or it is, you know, in the case of the Orioles here and John Angeles and mass and how extreme that’s become, we’ve talked about this in terms of NFL team websites and how they cover teams compared to independent media. So that’s not to excuse the Orioles here. It’s not to excuse John Angelo’s here. It’s it’s completely unacceptable. What happened to Kevin Brown? And you’re right, I mean, that the statement he put out first and foremost, I don’t think it’s 30 or 40% of people buying it. I think it’s a much smaller percentage of that. But I think everyone who sees that, even if the Orioles and Kevin Brown takes you
Nestor Aparicio 20:38
80% of the people see them as abject liars, then like, literally, and know that the broadcaster’s are working for profit, and except that we don’t have a choice, right? You couldn’t even accept it on Sunday, because you couldn’t even get the game. That’s,
Luke Jones 20:54
but but I think people people get that though, like, look, that doesn’t look, should every broadcaster be 100% objective? And, sure, but there aren’t enough. There isn’t enough independent media left at this point in time. I mean, that’s just reality. The point I’m trying to make, with the Kevin Brown thinking specifically with the tweets that were put out, which he clearly did not construct, I don’t buy that whatsoever. I don’t think I think most people understand that. I don’t think it’s 30 or 40%, like you said, I think it’s a much smaller percentage of people who took that at face value. Even from a strategic standpoint, whoever constructed that whoever was giving the directives for that, to something like that should have come out on I don’t know, Tuesday, let’s say to try to defuse the situation. Instead, they let that entire thing just fester, not even fester. fester is an understatement of the century. They let that volcano erupt. And then they put that out as essentially a news dump on Friday afternoon. I mean, it’s it’s ridiculous. It’s unfortunate Kevin browns, a heck of a broadcaster. You know, as far as you know, whether it’s you or other people talking about, you know, how can he work for them? It’s in his early 30s. Well, I understand he has a baby on the way.
Nestor Aparicio 22:09
Look, he has a home here.
Luke Jones 22:11
I mean, he still has things to do for right now.
Nestor Aparicio 22:14
This is my job he wants for like he wants this job. He loves this job. He moved his life here. This I mean, it’s sad to me because I won’t because look, I saw my first rodeo. I had John Miller in my studio, literally sobbing in front of his daughter. So I mean, this isn’t, this is real fresh to me. 26 years later really is and having witnessed all of this trash into your point, what it leads to what it leads to, and you say it doesn’t lead to anything with Adley rutschman and Gunnar Henderson because they’re gonna leave prop
Luke Jones 22:45
if things don’t improve on the baseball, like as far as all these issues, because we’ve said it from,
Nestor Aparicio 22:50
like Elias deal with this sort of man. Well, and you know, Mike Elias want to be in the bowl on Tuesday night with 15,000 people are yelling at his owner.
Luke Jones 23:01
When it comes down to it, there are a there’s a very finite number of these jobs. So you that’s how you get Mike Elias in the building. But something like this happens. And look, Mike my my assumption on this Nestor is Kevin Brown, who by the way, did a great job calling the games over the weekend did not at all seem to didn’t seem different, let’s say for lack of a better description. And again, I didn’t get to see a whole lot of baseball over the weekend because I was busy with the Ravens. And as I mentioned, Masson, which, by the way, has been run by John Angelo’s for what’s 18 years, there’s a good reflection right there. There’s a perfect example right there Nestor of why the state shouldn’t give him the 300 million additional dollars that he wants in whatever this vision he has for the Camden Yards complex area. But that aside, Kevin Brown, did a fantastic job. My gut my assumption on this is he’s going to play out his contract, and he’s going to be a professional because that’s what he’s been and he was a professional, even what getting suspended. What he got suspended for was being a professional. When the time comes for His contract, he’s going to be in high demand, because you saw how many broadcasters across the country across major league baseball, were lending their support toward him because anyone who’s heard him call games I’m not saying he’s the greatest ever, but he’s certainly does a good job. And to your point, him and Ben McDonald are listening to him and and Jim Palmer or he’s the best play by play person they have and you know, I think some of the others do. I think Jeff Arnold solid really I liked Jeff a lot. He’s paid his dues a long time but Kevin’s the best they have. He’s gonna go somewhere else because he’s gonna get an opportunity somewhere else. So I’m guessing however, and I don’t know if his contract runs through this year or next year. I’m sure it’s not that long term. Based on how Masson is operated He’s gonna move on and it’s going to be a John Miller type situation and he’s going to go somewhere else. And I don’t know if he’ll become a Hall of Fame broadcaster in the way that John Miller, you know, has been over the course of his career and frankly, already was with the Orioles because John Miller was my generation Chuck Thompson. let that marinate for a moment. Chuck was at the end of his career. By the time I could enjoy listening to him broadcast games, so
Nestor Aparicio 25:23
John Miller is happy as hell he left he is real baseball. And that speaks to the point of what Mike Elias and Adley rutschman and Gunnar Henderson are making of this of this shitshow and the charade that goes on that swirls around everything. This family touches the leaf I mean, dad had died yet right when dad dies, who knows? Right, Mom, what the league’s gonna do. Rob Manfred trying to get involved. The governor’s involved. I’ll see the governor this week, I’m involved because I’m gonna be the only one. Apparently, I’m the only one talking about and not name that doesn’t live in New York that doesn’t have a 212 area code. And the only one around, you’re allowed to actually speak. I mean, I don’t even it’s unbelievable how this came and went. And good baseball will deodorize this deodorize all of this. But dude, it’s there. And it never it is like termites, it doesn’t take a moment off, ever, on the broadcast on the backside, how they do business, how they sell tickets, how they sell sponsorships, how they treat players, just all of it and it’s not good. And I and you know this? I mean, you know me? Well, I hope for better from him. You know what I mean? Like I wrote that letter five years ago, when they hired John V. Dylan. And I hope that he was really wanting to come in and be like, I was told by people, he was incapable. I literally I was told by people who knew, like, the most story guy said to me when I was writing to Peter principles back in 1314, he’s like, ness, he’s 45 years old. Now. He’s been here 20 years, if he were capable of running it, he’d be running it. Yeah. And that was 10 years ago, I heard that five years ago, I gave him a chance when it was very clear that you know, Dad was not going to be a part of this anymore. And that they were taking over. I wrote a letter to both of them. I put it out on the website last week, just to see what where my head was when bucket left and things were bad. And like some sort of hope. I mean, maybe I was a little flippant, because like, Where the hell have you been for 20 years, if all of a sudden you’re competent, right? The level of incompetence see the level of batshit eree. That I am now going to find out about because everyone talks to me. So I am fine. I mean, my phone’s ringing off the hook when people tell me what’s really going on. And what I really want to know is what’s really going on like alias, so I wrote to him, even though you know, I mean, I’m not a media member, but I wrote to him. And just like, the real question is what’s, what’s the future they’re on a five year deal short and like because you lose him to me. You know, he’s your bill Polian. He’s your guy, you know, he’s your whatever you want to say, I fully credit Mike Elias with being a genius at this point, for now for the time being, from what I’ve seen. And I do wonder how this messes other things up. And I know who’s really concerned the commissioner. I mean, this thing’s finally gotten decent, all of a sudden, please don’t please don’t screw it up. Please don’t screw it up. And the commissioners gotta get involved in the lease Westmore has got to get involved in the lease. I don’t think there’s any no Angelo’s has ever given in to any pressure he fought with his brother publicly last year. So I think that the fighting has just begun, that this Kevin Brown thing, and whatever that was on Friday night is endemic of the whole problem. It was,
Luke Jones 29:04
I don’t want to call it a symptom. But it was just a reflection of how many concerns there still are. from an outside perspective. Looking at the business side. It’s very simple. And look, I in our previous segment, we even talked about this, the Angeles family hired Mike Elias. So they clearly made a good hire. And by all accounts to this point, in the process, they have allowed Mike Elias and baseball operations to do their job. And that’s one reason why it’s thriving now, because they’re, they’re competent and capable. Now, I’ll point out that rebuilding a farm system and finally becoming a player on the international market and focusing on player development and analytics, and sports science and technology and all the different things they do is still a fraction of the cost of having say a $150 million payroll, which is kind of where they peaked out, peaked in the Dan Duquette era as far as what they were pending on major league baseball players, but it’s worked. When you see something like this, Kevin Brown presumably is going to move on and find a great job, he’ll have a choice of a few different jobs at some point in time, because I’m guessing long term. He doesn’t want to be here. But in the meantime, he loves calling baseball and he’s got a job and he’s got a family and he’s got to support himself. So I can understand that I don’t blame him one bit. I don’t blame him for putting out the tweets that were put out that I’m sure he had very little to nothing to do with actually in constructing it. I think that’s obvious. Again, anyone who has any kind of a discerning ear and I can recognize that it
Nestor Aparicio 30:39
needs to be said It’s disgraceful. I don’t I don’t know what else to say. It
Luke Jones 30:43
is never ever, ever seen. What I’m saying. And this goes to what you just said, losing Kevin Brown would be awful. But losing Mike Elias would be way worse. Losing Adley rutschman or Gunnar Henderson because you do nothing in terms of signing them to a long term contract. No, I’m not saying you have to sign both of them. But boy, you tell me right now Gunnar Henderson is willing to sign a 10 year contract and I can buy out the first four years of free and see, I’ll sign up right now without even knowing what the cost would be. That’s how much I think of him as a player. Pull it. The point is, and we’ve said this, we talked about this last offseason, when they didn’t spend very much money. You know, what they did spend was Adam Frazier, Kyle Gibson, you know, $5 million from Michael Givens that didn’t work out, obviously. But it was very, very modest. And that’s a nice way of putting it. trade deadline. Yeah, they got Fujinami didn’t didn’t cost a whole lot for the remainder of Jack Flaherty doesn’t cost a whole lot for the remainder of the year. He’s a free agent. They’re both pending free agents, they are going to come to a point in time, where everything you’re seeing on the business side, talking about the lease, talking about how profitable NASA is how profitable the team is, because of how how well or how poorly it’s run from a business standpoint. All the money that comes in for Major League Baseball, where’s that going? All those different questions at some point in time, right now, they haven’t run into the baseball side yet, because Mike Elias has had carte blanche and they’ve been in a position where they’ve been able to build this while having one of the smallest payrolls in Major League Baseball, but they’re going to come to an inflection point where if they don’t clean up on that side of things on the business side of things, that absolutely is going to impact what they’re doing on the field. And the most dramatic scenario is what you laid out of losing a mike Elias losing multiple people from that are really important in the organization from a baseball standpoint. So it for me, it’s really simple. Either you need new ownership, and again, not holding my breath on that we’ve talked it years for the complicated things, and variables involved with that. Or maybe the best hope Nestor is that John Angelo’s wrecking recognizes this. And I’m not going fantasyland. Now, I
Nestor Aparicio 33:06
gotta stop. You’re right. Oh, no, hold
Luke Jones 33:08
on. Hold on. No, let me talk. Come on, let me talk. I’m not saying that that it’s going to happen. I’m saying what needs to happen is, he needs to hire Mike Elias on the business side, and run things on the business side for him, because he’s proven incapable of that. And I’ll go back to my little silly example, on Sunday afternoon of Madison’s app, not working on a Roku, which is a very popular device that people use to stream and they couldn’t get the message app to work so they couldn’t watch the game. And they did
Nestor Aparicio 33:38
that they hired that John Vito and guy a couple years ago, he lasts for five minutes. And, and again, to your point, people say I know people qualified to do that job, right? Correct. I do right? They would never in a million years. And what
Luke Jones 33:52
I’m John Angelo’s well, but at the same time, lots of people said they’d never be able to hire a good general manager and they did you know, after we got to a certain point in time after, after Pat Gillick was gone after Frank Wren was gone. You know, they Jim Beatty and Mike Flanagan and Jim did go down the list. You know, Andy MacPhail had Peters trust more than others did for a time but the farm system was in such dire terrible shape that, you know, it took it took him a time and then finally, Dan Duquette came in at a time where they were able to open up a five year window of being competitive. I made the playoffs a few times. So they’ve hired a great General Manager. To this point, John Angelos has by all accounts allowed Elias and company to do their job, albeit in a rebuilding scenario where you’re not spending a ton of money on major league talent, but they’re going to haven’t
Nestor Aparicio 34:46
had a conversation about money yet. A hard puncture they haven’t spent any of his money’s my point it’s been on the board never gone down to the hall and said I need money. Mike said here’s my budget. Here’s where it is? I’m sure this Luke, I mean, he has it. What is clarity cost him? Not much. Not much, right? Yeah.
Luke Jones 35:09
Call on that. Kyle Gibson $10 million, you know, they’ve spent some money, but it’s been much more on the margin. So
Nestor Aparicio 35:16
it would be it wouldn’t it wouldn’t be on the bat phone call, it’s a hey, we’re gonna set the budget at 60 million next year. And that’s what I’m going to spend. And I’m not going to call you so I don’t know that that that there’s been a whole lot of, hey, this guy’s good or That guy’s good. And I think to some degree, John thought himself as rotisserie baseball player in the 1990s I don’t think John’s had any input into Heston curse that or whether they take Colton cows or not, right, like I I would agree with you John’s have bigger fish to fry with his father selling off property trying to pay the Nationals trying to get you know, Nashville superstars, careers and I mean, he’s just doing other things that I don’t think he’s all that interested in baseball, you know, and when I hear him speak, I don’t hear him speak with like that he’s sitting and watching the Norfolk stats last night, you know, I, I don’t get that vibe that he’s that’s where he is in his life right now. Nor where I am in my life. By the way,
Luke Jones 36:20
I agree with you and I again, and I didn’t mean to get short, too short with you. I just wanted to make my point of what he’s done on the baseball side has worked because he stayed out of it. There’s been a general manager hired. And one thing I will say, just as an aside on Alias, before I get back to John angelos, I don’t get the sense in, you know, what Mike Elias has done things you hear the way he’s spoken about this. And I throw SigmaTel in there as well. I don’t even get the sense that they are the types of baseball executives, front office men who necessarily are all that hot and bothered about having the highest payroll in baseball and what that could do. I think there is something to be said to the intellect, intellectual challenge of doing this and being successful with fewer resources. Now that said, that, you come to a point where, again, there’s an inflection point here, too. You want to be able to keep some of those players do I think the Orioles right now, even if things improve, even if John Angelos hypothetically hires better people on the business side, and gets out of it, as I laid out that scenario for me that the only way I see this thing, thriving long term from an Angelo’s family ownership standpoint, would be that happening. And when I say long term, I mean over the next 15 to 20 years, not the next two years. But you have that. And now I just lost my train of thought, but you what you have with Mike Elias, there’s gonna be an inflection point that you want to keep some of these young players, yeah, you’re gonna, you’re probably going to do some things like the rays, like Cleveland have done, you’ll trade some guys, as they’re getting closer and closer to free agency, we’re gonna see that. And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that the Ravens have traded players before they hit free agency, the Ravens have let players go and taking comp picks, you can’t pay everybody if you’re not going to have a $253 million payroll, that’s fine. But you don’t want to be a team. That’s just that the turn is so constant that what you’re doing right now are what the Orioles have been in over the last calendar year. And let’s just say, for hypothetical sake, they don’t win the World Series this year. My fear for them is that John Angelos and I agree with you, I don’t think he has much interest at all in on the baseball side. From a day to day getting into the weeds, the minutia moves, making trades for player X or player y. But my concern for the Orioles under John Angelos as things are presently constructed, is he’s fine with them being good. I don’t think he cares about them winning a World Series, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily see him open up the checkbook to the degree that would be necessary to try to keep a gun or Henderson or someone guys have that Nate Jackson holiday seven years from now eight years from now whenever you sit in free agency. So my concern from that standpoint is not that the Orioles can’t be good for 6789, maybe 10 years if they continue to draft and develop well. But what have we said about the Tampa Bay Rays for a long time and I think it would be difficult to dispute and I’m not talking about this year’s team but the rays over the last 15 years. They’ve kind of been the bridesmaid but never really the bride right? You know, they’ve been good. Hey, they’ve gotten to a couple World Series so I don’t want to say that it’s been a you know that it’s a failure by taking imagination. You’ll take it but have you ever felt like the rays were the team to go actually because they’re not a stable franchise? Well, and that’s and that’s my point here with at some point in time, all the concerns all the dysfunction from a business standpoint and NASA And then the lack of a lease and all the different things at some point that is going to bleed into the baseball side if the Orioles are going to maintain this for a long stretch of time, I think they, I think they can be very successful. And who knows, maybe they’ll win a World Series and two, three months, we’ll be talking about a parade in Baltimore. And that’ll be great. But, and that’ll be phenomenal.
Nestor Aparicio 40:22
But in terms of CES that happened in Kansas City and went away, right, it’s literally Yeah, sure, sure, exactly. But,
Luke Jones 40:30
again, on the business side, and all the different concerns that they have. And let’s face it challenges that just being in this market, there are challenges, you’re always
40:39
gonna have challenges competing in this Red Sox, no doubt about it, and the whole country of Canada, but to this point, all those business issues that have been there the whole time, we know that, as you mentioned, John V. Lin, who was hired, what five years ago,
Nestor Aparicio 40:53
I wrote a letter to hang on to and lets you know, I should just put dear TJ Brightman or the next person in the seat. These you know, nothing’s changed, other than they’re really good on the field. Now, what else can change the Kevin Brown thing last week is really fun. Well, I’ll just say this, because you got chippy with me, anybody out there who begins a sentence with me, which begins with John Angelo’s has to change his length. Now he does it. He’s a billionaire. He beat up his brother, he beat up his father with lawyers. He doesn’t take phone calls from Rob Manfred. He doesn’t answer to anybody, or anything or any literally, he has no friends. And I found here in the moment, like in Baltimore, like, I am my worst day, I think of him as being someone that’s waiting for the Oakland move, and saying, I’ll do whatever I want. I’ll hold the whole thing hostage until I get what I want. Because I always get what I want. And you can’t tell me I’m not going to have what I want. Because I’m a billionaire. And that I get what I want. I got what I want. I told Kevin Brown to sit down and shut up and he came back and it’s fine. You know, like, so I would just say that anybody that thinks he’s going to change, I’ll say this, I everything about free the birds, I was just 39. Right. So I’m doing I’m doing the math on this in 2006. I was 38. When I did free the birds. I actually went back and read because I wrote about my father and his love of baseball and why I was doing it for the for the city and like that the thing had fallen into disrepair. And this guy was such an awful person, Peter angelos, that at that time, and I really thought like that there was some Charles Dickens, like, you know, that that there was going to be an Ebenezer Scrooge realization that you don’t want to die that guy. And that’s what free the birds was designed to do, was to say, We love your team don’t you know, you don’t need to be a jerk. And, and everything that’s happened to me the last 17 years, including him telling people down the pipeline to tell Buck show Walter’s wife that I’m a bad human. The day I met her, like, that’s who they are. And there’s not at any point where you want to be reasonable. I gave that up. Like 2006, right? Like, after the bird attacked me in the like, there was clearly a hit in my mind. 2000 people I sold tickets for that night, like, all these things we’ve done. And you know, I haven’t forgotten any of that. But anytime it starts with, well, they’ll just change. It’ll be like something in a movie. Like they’ll just swallow this, this heart transplant, that I just don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. And I think some people may have said that to me when I was your age 17 years ago, like, and I did have some people like Steve Miles was one of them a lawyer Steve Miles, a buddy of mine, he’s like, You don’t this guy, he’s not going to change. And I thought no people can change. I’m gonna Tony Robbins guy believe that. I believe that we’re all capable of being better. I think I’m a better person than I was when I did free two birds. I think I did it for the right reasons. But I think I’m a better person. And I think we can all be better people. And I think you ascribe to that because you’re a good person, Luke, right? And you come from a good family and you’re Deacon Jones and you, you walk your talk, and you’re a man of integrity, and I know that about you. But when you’re not a man of integrity, it doesn’t take it’s like termites. It doesn’t take a minute off. And I think like that’s a real fundamental problem we have here with this guy saying there’s no deal with the Behati I want $300 million. I want my broadcaster to issue a it never happened and we’re like, just the amount of bullshit that happened last week that we can a week haters say nothing’s changed. These people are insane. They are. I mean, and begin with that don’t ever think anything differently. And you can get as mad at me as you want, but like don’t think any differently because I’ve learned the hard way. They’re not changing. Believe me 2006 I really believed when I walked in there with my mother, like literally, I really believed that maybe this old bastard would say, These people aren’t out to get me these people love my baseball team. No, I was the guy out to get him. I was a bad guy. Like they told Angela show off. I mean, it’s gross. It’s and it’s been gross to be around it. Anytime I’ve gone down there for the I went to that Oriole Hall of Fame lunch and you know this for 15 years with with Aunt Pat Gates, who passed away about five years ago, at the ripe age of 93. I think she was she’s a beautiful woman. She had been an oil advocate original real advocate 1957. And she took me every year as her date. And she did it to really piss him off. She loved to see all them mistreat me. And that’s been my experience. And it’s not that they don’t like me. They have to not like me. They all have to unfriend me on LinkedIn. It’s, it’s awful. It’s awful. And I loop I haven’t been around it. They’ve been awful. You’re down there. They don’t mistreat you and I’m appreciative for that. Because you don’t deserve that any more than I deserve that. But I thought it might have gotten better. I really like in my heart of hearts. You know this because I don’t talk. I don’t talk trash about them on off whatever. I mean, they’re trying hard Elias seems like a good Brandon Hyde seems like a good guy seems like a guy I would get along with like, but the way they treated me is the way they would treat anybody who would say that that Kevin Brown thing the other night is not on the up and up and sugar. It’s delusional Dude, it it doesn’t make any sense, because it doesn’t make any sense. And you have to go with that.
Luke Jones 47:03
Agreed. And again, when I said what I said, and I got a little chippy it was because I’m laying out the scenario for this to work to do I think what your scenario for him to be saying and I don’t know if that’s gonna happen, but but I am going to be objective here. He Angeles family hired Mike Elias. And if someone had told you 567 years ago as the Duquette arrow was going the way it was, and we saw how they were heading towards a cliff.
Nestor Aparicio 47:30
He thinks he knows media though. I don’t think he maybe he realizes that the baseball things kind of complicated yet. But the masses, hey, he runs
Luke Jones 47:39
he wants to but he wants he wants to make money though. He wants to make money though. Yeah, he thinks he’s
Nestor Aparicio 47:45
making his money from the Federal east. He’s got people going into the Feds now trying to get money for a parking lot with a tunnel underneath that he can’t build on anyway. And, and continue to get public funding really smart people. That’s not right. That like you can’t build on that land. And he’s like that. And, you know, just if you want to have a baseball team, I’m not gonna sign a lease. So, Luke, I love you. Stay up late. Get the toothpicks out. You’re, you know, you’re gonna get some little hot weather, a little humidity here this week for John’s boys out there. And you’ll let us know how Lamar and Odell Beckham look as well. I hope you get some rest. And listen, I’m older than you. I’ll be dead and you’ll still be here. I want them to win for you for your nice. You know what I mean? Like you’re a generation behind me. I had a good I get to still sit here and talk to kids singleton and you know, and remember what happened to John Lowenstein getting run off and nobody remembers that. I remember that, you know, so. I just wish it were different but but yeah, I’ll tell you what, they’re really good. And they get like major league over the next eight weeks. They can just rip the pieces off the you know, at least give the fans something because this has been great for our city dude. I can’t begin to tell you sitting over cost this on Sunday night when Mullins makes the play hits the home run when they give up the homerun Baumann like it’s just, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun and it’s it looks like it’s been a lot of fun at the ballpark too.
Luke Jones 49:07
It’s been a blast and everything we lay out from a baseball standpoint, it is heading in a tremendous direction. There is a pathway here to maintain this and sustain this for far longer than to do Castro Walter era did however, it’s where we come back to the business side where that there eventually is going to be an inflection point there. And believe me, I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. When I was laying out what I was saying and cat a little chippy. It was telling you how you theoretically do that with the Angelo’s family still owning the team. Do I think it’s gonna happen? No, I don’t. But I didn’t think that they would hire someone like Mike Elias and allow him to do his job for going on five years now to the degree that they did so.
Nestor Aparicio 49:49
But to my point they haven’t spent a nickel on baseball. You know, they don’t ask for money.
Luke Jones 49:56
Right? I mean, ya know, I mean, they’ve spent money it Just it’s a fraction of what having a $175 million payroll is. So yeah, but again, father met Peter Angeles metal and metal and metal some more in baseball operations. John Angelos hasn’t done that. Now, everything else is wrong. Clearly, as we’ve seen over the last week, and we’ll continue to see with the lease and just look take a look at Masson, in terms of why you don’t give John Angelo some additional $300 million because of how poorly that’s been run for a long time. Even with lots of good people working on camera or behind the camera. Quite frankly, people have known that people listening right now don’t know
Nestor Aparicio 50:39
who I miss Mike bordick. I mean, Mike bordick never had a product that was I mean, he didn’t the beginning. But like, he wouldn’t, he wasn’t great at it. At the beginning, I thought he got better. But part of it was he couldn’t be critical. And I criticized Mike and gave him like such a wonderful guy and like, like, it’s one of my favorite people on Earth. But Mike bordick on a baseball side, he was soft on the air, especially soft, how bad they were, he had to be and they fired him anyway, and mistreated him. That’s my point. You know, I mean, if I kissed her so long. Like, you know, I
Luke Jones 51:10
mean, I would also say with that he also worked with the players. And you know, he was a spring training instructor others luck, again, not to not to belabor this point, because we talked about the beginning of our segment, this kind of stuff goes on with every team in 2023. But here’s the major caveat here. This is what it can become. The Oreos are the extreme example of what it can become when it starts as Oh, well, you have a flagship station, and yeah, they’re gonna be less critical than what an objective independent station would be. And yeah, we have a team website. And it’s not going to be as critical as the local newspaper or the local independently own radio station. But when you have that, and that starts at one level, this is what it can become where you have a broadcaster suspended for literally stating facts about the baseball team, facts that were included in the game notes constructed by the baseball team, facts that were put on a graphic that a producer for the television network had to type up and write and put their head in Brown didn’t type that graphic. So it speaks to how ridiculous the whole situation was. And we all agree on that. How’s this going to play out from a business side as far as the lease? What becomes of the Orioles when they need to start paying their players and trying to augment this roster and resigning their their people in the front office? I don’t know. And that’s what is concerning because they have something going that is really special right now on the field. Really special a chance to, you know, I don’t want to say that they’re going to be become a dynasty but they have a chance that they could win a World Series, maybe win a couple of them over the course of the next 789 10 years. But at some point in time, there is going to have to be a greater financial commitment made to keep and maintain what you’re doing. And from that standpoint, I’m as uneasy and as Doubting as anyone about their ability to be able to do that. And you know, it starts at the top which on Angeles, it’s very simple.
Nestor Aparicio 53:17
sign the lease, man. That’s all I got to say. Here. I’ll be in Ocean City this weekend learning more things about the oil situation all of a sudden, I mean, not just a hot button on the field but certainly off the field for what’s going on with the lease and what’s going on with free Kevin Brown. Very good Brown. I am Esther we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore. Positive even when it’s not so positive.
