my life and has brought my radio show, my blog, my social media, my newspaper and my message into your world.
I understand how it feels to be abused, threatened and dumped upon by a couple of sports franchises – professionally and personally. I witnessed the demise of the Baltimore Colts as a kid and have been the publicly hung journalist “dumpee” in a 25-year professional standoff with a patently dishonest, shameless human being and his “for profit” kingdom with the Baltimore Orioles and MASN. If you have witnessed the behavior of the Angelos family toward me, my family and my company and employees over the years – or just ask around town for anyone else who has the tired treads down their back in some way at the hands of the franchise in a business sense – and, well then you can easily see why I don’t give them my money. And there’s plenty you don’t know and probably will never know.
We all have a red line.
In 2006, I drew mine publicly and privately with the baseball team in Baltimore – on an ethical level, on a professional level, on a basic pride of what I was willing to accept level.
If The Wembley Knee pushed you off the ledge, then so be it.
And if you are never giving the Ravens your money again, then I feel your pain – and gain.
There have been plenty of places I’ve taken my money – and some of my time in the spring and summer when I’m not working and doing what I’ve done for a living since 1984 – besides Orioles baseball since May 2004. I take pride in giving the Angelos family zero ticket money besides what they’ve siphoned off my cable television bill. Those people lied about everything and anything from the moment they bought the team. They treated me – and virtually everyone around me – like garbage. It wasn’t personal. It was who they are and the way they view the world.
It was a Trump to Comey kind of “loyalty pledge” that is made clear if you’ve ever heard Angelos speak a word about “telling it like it is but keeping your opinion to yourself” kinda journalism he employs at MASN.
I had enough. I told the truth. They tried to end my career and damage my business and real life. I had a media pass for 21 years. This will be my 13th season “banned” for telling the truth and asking questions that were only met with lies.
So, I also vividly understand civic protest and free speech and dissent toward a sports franchise. See: Free The Birds, September 2006.
But my last name is also “Aparicio” and I love baseball.
I love baseball enough to watch it every night in the summer and in the summer of 2015 I went to 30 Major League Baseball parks in 30 days to promote the bone marrow registry and saving lives of cancer patients like my wife, who is a two-time leukemia survivor.
I understand the internal conflict of supporting something you love or are passionate about but realize that you are worshipping a false idol who only loves you back in some Harlequin novel pretend fantasy world.
And in this modern world, you – the customer, the fan, the consumer – are paying more than ever for the right to cheer for (sometimes dirty) laundry that fulfills whatever psychological
