When the Maryland Crab Cake Tour was rolling toward West Baltimore and Spirits West on Wilkens Avenue, it was time to let our proud Gaels alum Chris Pika tell Nestor why Mount St. Joe is special to him and many others over the infamous “Godfather” Italian cold cut on the longest block of rowhomes in America.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
joe, years, west baltimore, running, man, wilkins, day, good, couple, seaton, talk, great, call, mount, worked, wanted, crab cake, draft, school, play
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Chris Pika
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back, WN S T, Towson, Baltimore. Baltimore positive we are positively back in the city. This guy’s old stomping grounds in West Baltimore. I feel like a stranger when I’m near Mount St. Joe. But I have friends at the bar here. We’re experienced West. We’re Wilkins Avenue in beautiful West, Balmer, hometown. Calhoun Street is what you call Chris Branca. Correct? It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have my window nation floppy hat out. I will break that out momentarily. I have a rock and roll belt buckles today. A Chad weaseling NFL agent is going to be here today. He requested the Oh sit right here. He requested the Peter Frampton belt buckle so Wow. It’s all brought to you by our friends and wind nation and our friends at the mayor a lot of I don’t know if we’ve had a winner or not. Because I had a feeling like over a year if you went 100 bucks you notice yell I want 100 bucks. You just take the ticket cash a ticket, go home, do what you do. But I’d say we’re going to be celebrating 25 years at wn St. Giving these way. I might have some hot sevens by then August 3, it’s our 25th anniversary will be a Costas all day. Then on the fourth we’re going to move the drug city because I need a milkshake, a big boy milkshake that’s going to be on the fourth. So we’re going to make it a two day celebration, but it’s gonna be a year long celebration of 25 years, which is almost half as long as I’ve known Chris pica, and man for the time I knew you. You had a Mount St. Joe thing about you you were very young. I was younger. But you got to St. Joe thing I was from Toronto. I was still in high school when I met you. And then you went to Loyola College which is where you were and man between like the Mount St. Joe thing and the Loyola College thing and Malone winning the championship. This is an awesome being in the neighborhood. This is prime for you to be here man. So I’m I’m pleased you’ve decided to come after crabcake and a godfather sup here experience were
01:49
excellent food here. absolutely excellent food. No doubt.
Nestor Aparicio 01:54
How long how many weeks? Is it going to take you to eat that sub that you got here? Oh,
01:58
I could probably clean it off tomorrow for lunch.
Nestor Aparicio 02:00
Okay, buddy after Yeah, it’d be afternoon Chris pike of course is our blog and tackle NFL expert. Chad we slinks here. We’re gonna welcome him in as well as some belt buckles from Boston and Led Zeppelin amongst others. We’re gonna have a good time. Chad is an agent for NFL running back. So I’m gonna start this with a football conversation with you because we could talk Orioles and Chad’s gonna be involved in this. But the running back thing with JK Dobbins popping off as long as you’re involved in league and everybody going back to Ricky Williams and Reggie Bush and whatever, right when you’re with the saints and Falcons after that the running backs have always kind of been screwed and undervalued. Right? I mean, like, I don’t know that there’s been a running back that has over has been overpaid at any point in the end, because they don’t last long. Right? Well, I
Chris Pika 02:45
think that that goes back a couple of decades. I mean, we had, you know, Ricky Williams, like he mentioned, Ricky was traded, went on to Miami then came play for the ravens to towards the tail end of his career. We had Deuce McAllister, who started off his first year as a kick returner for us and then became the starting running back after we traded Ricky Deuce had a very nice career.
03:05
Dustin was a hell of a badass he was he was a rebel, he you know
Chris Pika 03:08
this, you know, Ole Miss and a great running back on a team that we threw the ball off a lot, but we had to have a player like him. It was Aaron Brooks era, right? Yes, it was. And we have Joe horn as our as our top wide receiver, we had to run Python we had we had a good we had a good crew offensive players. So the running back position, at least in as being a little bit older looking at that. These are these are guys that are not playing 1213 years at the position now. And I think NFL owners have gotten to a point now where these guys maybe get to contract well,
Nestor Aparicio 03:39
you decide to be running back and you’re good at being running back when you’re in high school. And then you’re like, what’s my pathway to getting rich? Right? Well, all right, you’re gonna go to college, they’re gonna rip you up for a year or two, or maybe three, you want to play. So you get there, you want the ball, you want the ball, right? Then you get into the league. And they’re like, Alright, here’s 10 million or whatever, this is enough to get you you know, you’re good. Mom’s taking care of whatnot. But that next thing, that next that second contract, that that is a promise that unless you get injured, you know, you have some tragedy, something happens that if your safety, your wide receiver, even if you’re a lineman, you think, am I I got 810 12 years in me, right? I mean, hello, Dnata got mean guys get paid, right. But that’s the position, right? We’re like, it just doesn’t happen.
Chris Pika 04:25
Well, I think it happens in a lot of positions. I worked in the NFL, and you look at players, we had guys who were, you know, NFL Jason had played in the league, and these guys are in our late 20s 2829 30. And they’re trying to get back in and they’re having a very hard time because of their age. And I think that’s partially to do with the, you know, all the studies and all the research was done in baseball, where they said, Okay, 29 is sort of that year where after 29 It starts to fall off. Do we want to pay guys that are in there, you know, 3031 year? Well, we can go draft a player who’s 22 at less money. And so the NFL has gotten younger in a lot of positions, and they churn those positions. I think it makes it harder on the veteran guys, the guys who are solid veterans, that would help a lot of clubs. They’re sitting on the sidelines waiting to get back in. So they’re playing in the spring leagues, they’re playing the CFL, they’re playing in places where they get opportunity to make money, because they’re just not able to, at their age, even third, the advanced age of 31. You can’t get these guys back into the league. And that’s, that’s across a lot of different positions, I think.
Nestor Aparicio 05:28
Well, I mean, Peterson and you know, a couple of Garrison has played lamb just trying to think of a handful of guys. So one other guy played the last 10 years that played a play for the 40 Niners in our Super Bowl, Gore, Frank Gore. I mean a couple of guys, but like, Chad’s hatred for Josh Jacobs, he brought Josh by when Josh hadn’t been paid yet he was, you know, cleaned up real nice. This will suit in his Alabama story and all that attached to getting drafted and hoping that the kid can run the ball, get in, get in line up, carry the ball, be a factor, all that then you get to that point, if you have any other position player, you know, took them off for a little while longer without an agent, but he got paid. Right. And I think the JK Dobbins thing is a great example of a guy it’s now rip his knee up a couple times. Pissed off and probably couldn’t, should be, you know, right. I mean, in some way, but also is not proven, which is also like making me scratch my head and say, who’s on his side? Well, who’s given him this advice to be to be chippy, and to be obstinate with the coaching staff and scouts about a mini camp practice in June that everybody else is practicing? Well, you
Chris Pika 06:35
know, say Quan Barkley with the Giants who’s sitting right, you know, it’s basically said, Listen, I’m gonna sit out. And some of this, I’m not gonna participate some of this I think I’m underpaid, based on what the Giants have done. So it’s,
Nestor Aparicio 06:46
you know, that paid beginning, right? Yes, he was right. But
Chris Pika 06:50
in but he sees that he was undervalued when he paid at the time, and now he’s looking at the Giants where they aren’t going, I should be paid more. So that’s where our good friends the agents come in. They’re the ones that
Nestor Aparicio 07:00
do the math before he comes in. 20 minutes away, you can get a Pepsi here, habit, you want to crack it, but I’m gonna have you do the math of how different what kind of different car you’d be driving, if you had say, Quan Barkley than even Josh Jacobs, like how much money the difference between those football players were in the draft. And they’re both quality players. But the difference even in slotting in the first round, just a tremendous amount of money if you’re drafted fifth than if you’re drafting Barkley, what was the Fifth? Sixth? Seventh? Yeah, it was something like that. Then if you’re drafted, what was Josh 20? Some 24. Right. And there’s a big difference in lifestyle between what Joe Flacco got and what Matt Ryan got in the same draft, and then what they have to go chase later on, as opposed to even burrow like burrow got a lot of money. But that ain’t gonna matter when it comes time in a couple of weeks for him to talk turkey with Well,
Chris Pika 07:48
that’s and that’s why you have to have a very good agent as we’ve we’ve talked about a lot here about agents and employers and whether they want one
Nestor Aparicio 07:57
agent, I would have gotten the Godfather instead of salad. But we’re experienced West Chris Pike is my gas. We’re 2601 Wilkins out. I promised to hold the menu. You know what I loved about the menu, the middle I came in Waffle House font right here, man, you know the food’s gonna be awesome. So I had a bowl of half and half and you and I had a Greek salad and it had some wings over delicious honey obey, but you got like this Godfather thing, that Rick’s gonna be talking about forks. Excellent. Like this insane. And Amelia, 90 rockin and if the hearse people were nice, they’d let her come on and talk rock and roll because I’d love to like Mickey says she knows more about music than anybody he knows other than me and maybe bro art. So I want to have one of these music think tanks with her. But she’s doing this sub shop thing, which is caught on like my crab cake thing, which like the bacon and beer thing. Everyone’s got their crab cake things. My thing. Thank you. I even own crab cake tour.com. So if they want to squat on that they can. But this submarine that they have here that I didn’t realize there was an Italian cold cut thing until I had Rob Santonio back when he was working with wise markets. They sell a bell garden sub at the wise and I said what is that? He’s like, Well, there was a bell garden sob that was at the Bell garden sub shop and they went out of business and everybody in the neighborhood wanted to sob so then the grocery store down the street started making it right right. So this is kind of a story is one or
Chris Pika 09:16
two down down by we’re where I lived down in south south south fed Hill. A couple of Italian subs and those cold
09:25
squalene days. Yes.
Nestor Aparicio 09:27
Well, I’m just thinking of all
09:28
the Italian just this one here is very difficult because that’s the unbelievable
Nestor Aparicio 09:33
Italians I just went on it’s not what I want. When I go
Chris Pika 09:37
when you get this here you have all this like mozzerella other stuff on top. I mean, you basically you basically have to like tuck it in to be able to doesn’t
Nestor Aparicio 09:45
mean it’s from Dundalk, or no, no, I’m just checking. I’m just tracking from East Baltimore. Yeah, one thing I’ll say about this dude, you I want to get you into Mr. Your Mount St. Joe and like all that and your Loyola guy went in the NBA title and all that but when you’re from Dundalk And this is no offense to anywhere else. I mean, it Chad lives over can’t when you’re on the East side, and you get on 95 And you’re going to my old days, the capital Center and the old, you know, going to DC or you’re going to the airport or you’re picking somebody up family, whatever you’re doing, you don’t drop off and I told Moeller this forever. I really ever spent any time in Lansdowne, I didn’t know how to sail Thorpe to the put the brewery over there, you know, and St. Joe is in one of those places. Like why would I get off the beltway and Wilkins and come East unless I was going to the hospital. Let’s say I had a purpose. Right. So same thing in Dundalk. Like, there’s parts of Dundalk that you don’t travel through because there’s nothing There’s residential. Yeah, it’s where you live, right? You’ve been Mount St. Joe, and you told my spirits once you got past this place, it’s the world’s oldest famous most block or what is it the longest
Chris Pika 10:49
block longest, longest block of rowhomes.
Nestor Aparicio 10:53
So this part of Wilkins 600. Yep. You’ve known this your whole life because you’re at Mount St. Joe, because
Chris Pika 10:59
you just passed by this literally. I mean, you know, it’s seen that and heard that along the way. So yes.
Nestor Aparicio 11:05
Well, Rick’s got a picture up on the wall here. I mean, yeah. And Bill Cole told me on the show this week, he’s like, as long as block in America or something like that. They told me to listen to the wives tale. And I’m like, Well, I’m gonna learn about it. So between the Godfather sub over here and the longest blog, I want you to regale me and obviously, St. Joe has been in the news for a lot of the wrong reasons this week about something that happened 55 years 50 years ago, but you’re very proud Gail, I’ll have you sing the fight song. I mean, Rafi Alvarez and molar have sung it here on the air before. But like, give me your St. Joe experience because you went in the late 70s, early 80s. Right.
Chris Pika 11:43
I was 7983 and I grew up in obviously in this part of West Baltimore in Southwest Baltimore. How far from here? Oh, falafels wise. Oh, I’m gonna say 1213 blocks. You ride your bike up here. You could Yeah, yeah, basically, the unit blocks south Calhoun Street right off the lumbar between Lombard and Holland. How
Nestor Aparicio 12:00
far am I from Mount St. Joe right here.
Chris Pika 12:03
You’re actually pretty you’re actually pretty good ways from St. Joe, you’re closer to the former Cardinal Gibbons, okay, which were a lot of my friends when I grew up over here. That’s where they went to school where they went to Catholic High School. They weren’t they weren’t given see
Nestor Aparicio 12:14
in my neighborhood. If you were private, you know if your girl it was Catholic, or curly, or Mount Carmel, like those, those are my options. And my parents wanted me to go to curly, like they were ready to pay for it and all that is and I’m not going where there’s boys and priests sorry. I mean, no offense, but like I just I didn’t want a private school. I wanted to stay with my friends. All my girlfriends, Curley’s wife, Shonda, we grew up I wanted to go to I wanted to go with my friend want to get on the bus. I had friends that went to Curley and Fadiman other places. I like the neighborhood part of being in a public school for me, but all my private school and Catholic League and like all of that stuff, it was always a little foreign to go to the dances there and do different things
12:54
where we you know, our choices were either Gibbons or st show. Girls basically your gross mass as well. No, it was well the sales was some but mostly Archbishop Keough because they, they want to know well, later Later, Seaton was out in in rock Charles but no Charles village I didn’t know where seed never was. Seaton was up by one of the churches, right? I covered college or high school girls. It was within a phenomenal team at Seton Kia they had really good team and lands now let’s see Nikki over separate school right and then they joined up but obviously Seaton Kia which was correct the cardinal get, right, that’s right. Crossing the hospital. Yep. So
Chris Pika 13:31
Seaton was in was in Charles village because I rode the bus with those young ladies on the way to went to I went to grade school mounts at St. Alphonsus, which is on Saratoga Street Park Avenue. So I took the bus and walk through, you know, downtown right by Chinese food for lunch every day. Well, I mean, right next to China, totally accurate, but
Nestor Aparicio 13:50
a white rice in China. Yep. And I sell my soul for a bowl of china doll. We
Chris Pika 13:57
had a lot of those. We had a lot of their kids. I went to grade school with several of those late
Nestor Aparicio 14:02
racin right now. My mom little hot tea. Business people lived up
Chris Pika 14:07
there, their kids, their kids went to the same house and I was on a graduating class of 10 I mean, so in 1979 but that
Nestor Aparicio 14:14
turned out weird. You know, we’re middle of five boys, five girls who was 7646464 I had all girls in elementary school man there was going to picture this five dudes and 20 Chicks
Chris Pika 14:26
across like catty corner from the school was like a kind of want to say records. It was not records illustrated. There was a big record shop on the corner of a belt buckles. I don’t know what they did. They did sell the Ohio players, you know, so
Nestor Aparicio 14:41
I was gonna wear it right. It’s one of the hardest belt buckles to get. So there was
Chris Pika 14:43
a big record. There special vision, but the biggest thing the biggest thing Yes. Yes, exactly. The best part about that is though, you could walk down to blocks and it those days and you know, for those who have an older generation, you can walk to Hutzler as heck social club
Nestor Aparicio 14:59
right on Okay, all the same places I had at the mall, right you had in the city department store us in Highland town. Yes. Right, exactly. Now we would always come down to Park Avenue, take the 23 bus down Saratoga, we would get Chinese food and we walk to Howard Street. And all those places you talk about hex. Stewart’s right
Chris Pika 15:18
there right past Chinatown on that corner was a was an old line. Newspaper place Sherman’s
Nestor Aparicio 15:25
Sherman’s had whities new standard. Broadway. Sherman
Chris Pika 15:29
was a he was a erasable. The best way to put it this guy is
Nestor Aparicio 15:33
important thing of any bookstand in the 70s. And it’s very, very important. I went through this with Dennis closers last week that they had wrestling magazines. They had every thought if they had wrestling, if they had a
Chris Pika 15:45
wrestling, they had magazines and newspapers from all pro wrestlers.
Nestor Aparicio 15:49
They had to have the apartment house wrestling special. I don’t know about Charles Atlas on the back
15:54
cover. Probably.
Nestor Aparicio 15:57
Chris Pike is here. We’re talking about West Baltimore Mount St. Joseph, you went You were always gonna go to St. Joe
Chris Pika 16:03
Wishing Well, I actually wanted to go to Kibbutz and we went on a visit to Gibbons, one of their open houses. And my mother took one look and said no way.
Nestor Aparicio 16:11
You know, just want to go to Gibbons. They
Chris Pika 16:14
it was just, it was just the the vibe just wasn’t there for that.
Nestor Aparicio 16:17
And as you knew Sam’s mother wanted him to go to Auburn. It didn’t turn out that way. And so
Chris Pika 16:22
we took a visit out to St. Joe and it just it just was a better fit. So my mom worked at a Social Security Administration at Woodlawn. So every morning she was just dropped me at the cafeteria like 730 in the morning on her way out to Woodlawn. And I would take the bus home. And I’d come in easy. Yeah, it was easy. And then you’re
Nestor Aparicio 16:39
thinking for me about curl your Mount Carmel is gonna be like difficult in it. And then like, I bet you don’t know. And there were two I’ve told this story once or twice in 30 years. I my parent, I was a really smart kid. I was like a gifted, talented I skipped the grade. And in sixth grade I had a teacher’s the best teacher I ever had in my life. She’s wacky. Everybody hated her every but I loved her. And she loved me, because she was really intelligent. She wanted me to go to McDonough. And she on a Saturday morning they were doing like an Iowa test out there like an entry. And my parents like dressed me up at five in the morning on a Saturday. And I was 10 years old. And I drove out to McDonough through the gated community horses Polo Grounds all that and I went out there and I took the little Iowa test and I don’t really know whatever happened right? Or what my parents couldn’t have afford. I don’t really I was 10 years old. But like I was I that was my entree to private schools when I was in sixth grade. And I didn’t and I never looked at it again. I never did a visit a curly I never did visit a Catholic either, although I did there’s dances both of those. But like I I didn’t have a concern or consideration in East Baltimore. You can appreciate this because you know Mike Preston Preston went to Kenwood, right i Everybody in my neighborhood went to Kenwood all of my all my mother, my stepbrother. Everybody wants to camp on all the neighbors. And then they redistricted to Dundalk. And you can imagine an Archie bunkers Dundalk in 1979 8081 when you’re going to now go to the school with the kids from Turner’s and like all that. But from the time I was in sixth grade, all my childhood I thought I was going to Kenwood and then the busing change the zoning change, and then I was going to Dundalk and I never considered anything else. So like having that consideration because you love St. Joe, like you went there. You were like the team manager like I don’t know anyone that is more. I mean, Jim Schwartz loves St. Joe. He’s written checks to share I mean, like all that, but my friendship and Moeller loves, but But you are the St. Joe guy to me. So doing the show over here. I wanted to give you some oxygen about it. It’s
Chris Pika 18:46
good. I mean, I went to I went to grade school for a year and a half at school for Stewart Hill, which is our store dough Academy is getting ready to close right off of Union Square. So I did public school for a little bit. But, you know, I got I got pulled out of there just it just wasn’t, you know, at that point, you’re always 70s You know, my parents were private school for well, it was yeah, they weren’t because my mom and my uncle right they went they went to St Al’s so they that’s where they put me so, you know, going out to St. Joe, you know, I go into cafeteria at 730 in the morning. It’s like five of us in the cafeteria. One of them was Larry comas, who’s in there reading the the race or you go steal then? Yes. Oh, yeah, he was he was all the horses even at that point. Right. So you have a lot of those
Nestor Aparicio 19:28
hardest job in the world by the way it is. I did it once you know this. They brought me out to Pimlico and I did a race and just remembering the seven horses I had because I when they gave me the race the first thing was how many horses it’s 13 horses I know I’m going to screw this so it was like eight that became like five it was a ridiculously small field that still screwed it up. It was tear it was so awful. That it’s legendary. I love the video and
Chris Pika 19:53
lay and every time Larry comes back to call the platelets he still wears a purple tie for NBC the as you know the old saying show love so we appreciate that.
Nestor Aparicio 20:01
I told him I was gonna stink at it when I did too. And I did I stuck.
Chris Pika 20:05
But shorts was there Right? Yeah, shorts was here after me, but I wasn’t really involved with the football guys, Mike Freeman. I went to school.
Nestor Aparicio 20:13
With long segment together, you can find out Yeah, about his Brooklyn Stabler and his rubbing up here. Yeah. So he
Chris Pika 20:19
was a St. Joe guy too. So just at that time it was it was great for me because I was able to
Nestor Aparicio 20:24
connect with people there. That’s a wet some really wild mix of humans. Yes. I you know, I know all of those humans and their
Chris Pika 20:32
enrollment for Howard County a lot. I’m from Ellicott City, and they all
Nestor Aparicio 20:35
describe you the same way. Pica sports nerd man. He was like, he was all sports. He was all sports. And I’m like, why met him like 10 minutes later at the news, America. And I was 15. And he was like, 19. And it was all sports, all sports. I mean, he’s number two guys that have lived the life of growing up and loving a man worked at the school newspaper. I mean, I was the same guy. You were a couple of years younger than you. But like the experience we’ve had in how many Super Bowls you and I’ve taken pictures together at that we dreamed of going to write I mean, it’s kind of an amazing thing. And St. Joe allowed you to do that it
Chris Pika 21:05
did it gave me the opportunity to be you know, through my head basketball coach at that time, Pat, Matt geo met Bernie Mykolas through that.
Nestor Aparicio 21:15
So Bernie went to a rumble right or the Bernie
Chris Pika 21:19
I think was balding. Right. And Bernie was doing some preps at that point. So I got to know those people because you have to call them the scores. Ken Frazier, you know, Kathy, yeah. And you had to get you had to get on that you had to get on the phone and call call the song called news. America is my first boss, okay. And so you got to call these people and tell them hey, this is you know, the, the scores and that’s how I got involved. And so Bernie, you know, through Bernie, I wound up to the internship down at the news, American. And so that’s how that started. And, you know, going back
Nestor Aparicio 21:45
that was great, right? Kathy Fraser and Bob Clark in their, you know, late
Chris Pika 21:50
Bob Clark restaurant he was we just had
Nestor Aparicio 21:52
great people like really encyclopedic knowledge really, really smart, detailed, community oriented, knew everything about local sports, probably
Chris Pika 22:06
and probably the quirkiest set of people I’ve ever been around. Top the bottom. I mean, we’re talking I’m
Nestor Aparicio 22:14
talking hold on for so we’re talking like sitcom crazy right? Like it would have been great sick Florio.
Chris Pika 22:19
I mean, you got like, oh, you baby doll. Yeah. I mean, that was that was an interesting bunch of people. And I’m like, you know, I’m a high school senior looking at these folks gone?
Nestor Aparicio 22:28
Well, I just think for me as I was sort of the last piece, Kevin EQ, also intern there after me. I got him his gig there, right before it went out of business. I was sort of the last piece of all of it because I was the young I was 15 years old, right when I worked there, right? So I’m 15. I’m 16. And I’m at the paper at 17. By the time I’m 23. I’m on the radio by the time I’m 28. I own the radio station, right? So that’s 25 years ago, in that period of time, all of these people have gone to Sacramento and run newspapers for the last 30 years. There’s a whole group of people. The guy that gave me the first interview with Steven Tyler, and with Aerosmith. It turned into Tom Hamilton because I guess Steven was to SmackDown to do the interview, right. But Tom Hamilton was actually I was waiting for Steven Tyler to call and Tom Hamilton called my first ever interview with Scott Lebar. He was executive editor of the Sacramento Bee last 2530 years. So like all these people went on to do things and moved about Barry Levine has been on my show, he writes books about like all sorts of work that the National Enquirer received, received, right, yep, Ken Davis left there, and went up to Hartford, Connecticut and covered UConn sports for
Chris Pika 23:41
years and passed on was the executive sports editor at that, or at St. Louis Post Dispatch, who took Jeff Gordon and Bernie with them basically there and Bernie became a legend. It is a legend. And Jeff and Jeff was there for many many years in that room that I’m thinking about it. I use American Yeah, there were there was a lot of John Hawkins when Johnny Hawk was basically the lead intern when I was there. As he was just starting out. He was such a hard ass with me man brought up Tom Robinson was my direct boss,
Nestor Aparicio 24:07
Tom Robinson is the reason I got my gig. So yes, and Tom Robinson went on to run the Scranton newspaper. Yes. And just a beautiful guy.
Chris Pika 24:15
And let’s I was doing some research for the for the bomber capital. And I was looking through the old I’m going to be going through the news American archives down it down at the central library, but I was looking through some of the Sun archives and the stories about when the news American clothes and they talked about the people who came through there and there were people you know, my grandparents don’t call the news post I’m sure your your folks. It’s all my life. So I mean, I was a city kid through and through basically with the, the newspaper of the city newspaper of Eastern Baltimore County and you talked about never being over in West Baltimore. I never spent any time over in Dundalk. I had no idea so when I
Nestor Aparicio 24:52
bring you over to Costas, for crabs, you’re passing places you’re like, you don’t know the right drive and you didn’t know that was the role Marina You’re
Chris Pika 25:00
right yeah, never went through the tunnel or anything like that.
Nestor Aparicio 25:03
Never go over to the steel mill and see it while it percolated. Do you ever drive over the Key Bridge and really see in? vaguely, I mean, my dad worked and died down there, right. But my dad would, there were two or three nights in my childhood, where they did an open plan. They brought the families down, right, you know, and my dad and I remember, as a little boy walking through my dad was like, this is where I ate lunch every day. And we go through and see the mill and man it was
Chris Pika 25:27
my grandfather worked at barrel Shipbuilding and Drydock. Okay, so down the brights So all through the door worker No, welder welder. Yeah, welder. Yep. And so, you know, my only trip over the east was the exotic trip to play Archbishop Curley in basketball,
Nestor Aparicio 25:42
or baseball Memorial Stadium. Like it was a church. Right? Exactly. That really was the piece that brought sports together was bringing people together was that I would go to Memorial Stadium. So that’s section 10. And I had a chance to sit next to you right at a Mount St. Joe and say, What’s Mount St. Joe? What’s that purple all about? Right? I look at that, right? I mean, like that was that was growing up in Baltimore, Kevin Berman, Kevin Byrne came in from Cleveland thing that his his vision of the city was so much like Cleveland, he said because every person you meet, you’d say where did you go to high school? Yep. And like there aren’t a lot of you don’t do that Dallas. Apparently you don’t do that in Miami. Apparently that’s not a thing and other places.
Chris Pika 26:23
Yep. And it’s it’s funny because one of the stories I was told the the 1982 the final game of the regular season. The Palmer Sutton game with the brewers and the Orioles. I get my mom gets me a ticket to the game. It’s it’s a you know, it’s a lower deck ticket, but it’s a obstructive, you see, and I get to the window and it’s under my mom’s name. And they won’t give it to me. They won’t give me the ticket. And and I’m gonna blank here who was gentleman who was the home plate. attendant at at the Orioles games for forever was a credit to our
Nestor Aparicio 26:57
Ernie Tyler early. By the way we did the show mid falls oyster reel. That’s his grandson.
Chris Pika 27:04
Right. Yeah. So Ernie was bringing up the tickets, I guess from the players out to that will call window. And I looked at I said I said that’s my mom’s name guy was in there. And then Ernie, like patted me on the back looked at the guy said he’s a saint Joe guy. He’s good. And that’s how I got into the final game of 82. The only way I could have gotten into the stadium we had paid for. But that was the power of that kind of high school connection. You just have to see my varsity jacket. It’s a
Nestor Aparicio 27:28
great story, Dude, I gotta take you out to McFaul to do the show next time we do. Well, he’s he wants to be a part of the oyster tour. So a big shout out to Glen and everybody else we’re on the other side of town word spirits West. We’re here on Wilkins Avenue in St. Joe land. They have a lot of UFC stuff here. Big police bar their blue line behind as you can see there to represent that stop on by have a beer watch a ballgame gets wings. We’re gonna have a crab cake. Pike is gonna vouch for the Godfather, right? Yes. I’m gonna take a break. chadwicks links here NFL agent, we’re gonna bring him in. I got room here. We’ll talk a little NFL and I’ll let you get back to Kate and take her some food for the for all the beautiful creatures and animals that she loves and takes care of anything you want. Promote animal wise for your wife before I take a break here.
Chris Pika 28:12
We just have a lot going on over at bark. She’s working over there philanthropy, so a lot of events and, you know, obviously we’ve had they were overrun with with puppies over there. And so they had a couple of Adoption Day events out at Oriole Park. Thanks. Well went very well. Absolutely. Well between money and people. You know.
Nestor Aparicio 28:31
We adopted a couple of three cats up at Adams Jeep about a month and a half ago with Mike bordick for the Chesapeake feline Association. Really good. Dundalk, Lady runs that So shout out to you Karen. All right. So but Dundalk people involved up in Cecil County in saving animals and loving animals up and get spayed. Nury bark is spay neuter all good marks. Yes. You wanted to call Kate and give her money or anything.
Chris Pika 28:58
Just go to this go to barks website. There’s a lot of events that go on in town. It’s amazing. The one thing we’ve learned is how many people how many bars, restaurants others do events that benefit barks and how many people we run into that have gotten their animals from that organization. It’s a brand new facility over in Cherry Hill. It’s absolutely beautiful. We visited they’ve done done done a tremendous job over there
Nestor Aparicio 29:20
and they’re gonna give the old facility to John Angeles but that’s an exact that’s exactly that’s it. Chris bike is here. He’s blog and tackle. He’s Mount St. Joe you want to sing the song or No, no, I’m good. How does it go?
Chris Pika 29:30
I can’t even I can’t remember.
Nestor Aparicio 29:33
I’ll sing the Dundalk high album. Ah, please get back in. I’ll sing if you sing. No. Gosh, man, come on. You’re not gonna do it. Nope. You know real proud Gail. Alright, we’re out of spirits West 2601 Wilkins Avenue. I dig it because the menu looks a lot like a Waffle House, which is one of my favorite things in the world. So maybe you want to get a club sandwich. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with a Friends when donation 866 90 nation you buy through to get to free two years 0% financing and I should say right now Bill Cole’s buying his windows from window nation. So thank you, Bill Cole, and thanks for telling me about the longest contiguous block in America in the world we know once say America I’m going to ask Rick and find out but we’re Wilkins avid it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery hope you got some winners here had some some feisty ladies in the backyard spirits with anybody want 100 bucks back there No. Gosh man second chance a second chance man the lottery. Back from the Maryland crab cake tour. I’m having a crab cake tour in the next segment or the segment after that. Back for more WNS. D stay with us in West Baltimore experience West
