Bill Cole and Nestor debate why more Baltimoreans don’t go to College Park for Terps football games in the era of big money, Big 10 action.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
game, people, terps, years, put, point, maryland, vote, win, playing, talk, trump, kids, ravens, sports, sponsor, day, feels, football, orioles
SPEAKERS
Bill Cole, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Music. Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore. Positive. We’re always encouraging folks to if you’re out in the car and you find us, or you’ve listened for years, set a spot on your dial for us. So easy to do on the am side, we’re always a click away when the guys on the FM or a boring you were in bad commercials, or the the the HVAC guys talking to the gold rush. Seven doubles I have. I will have the Raven scratch offs. And we’re in oyster land. We’re in crab cake tour land that we’re going to be at Cooper’s doing both in Fells Point on Friday, last time we were Cooper’s, this guy joined me. He is the newest sponsor of the oldest service we have, which is the wnst tech service. It is coming back to life. If you want to join it, I say this out loud, Bill you need. Does some directions. Here you go. You text 410-821-9678, that’s 410, 821, wnst, which is our old house phone number. You text that number and you just Text Join or wnst, and you’re back on the tech service, and we’re about to kick this thing back into gear. So, Bill, you’ve inspired me. We have not set the tech service out. I have figured out how to put the streams back together. We can get people to sign up again, and we are going to have the new and improved and more robust wnst tech service. What do you make of that? Bill Cole,
Bill Cole 01:19
I think that I will be a more informed Baltimore sports fan thanks to the tech service show a 1057, uh, yeah, no. I mean, I always there were things. They were always things that made me, you know, you don’t ever want to be the guy who just has no idea what’s going on. And sometimes I find myself being the guy that has no idea what’s going on. Did she hear blank, right? Okay, I mean, when they’re talking about names of people that I’ve never even heard of, that’s when I really feel out of touch and and I find myself in that place more often these days than maybe I used to.
Nestor Aparicio 01:57
I had an embarrassing sports moment on Saturday, and I admitted this to Leonard Raskin earlier this week. I A, didn’t know the Terps were playing. B, I didn’t know they were playing at home. C, I didn’t know they were playing Michigan State, because I would have text my three friends were Michigan State Spartans fans and given them a hard time. And then the fans walked out. They blew the game. Nobody’s there. Everybody leaves. And I think to myself, like, You’re a big sports guy. I’m a big sports guy. Where I talk about oysters being down the menu on things I order, which is one of the reasons I’m doing them now, is like I just never get around to ordering the oysters. I almost had a freaking deviled egg the other day. I got to tell you about that, so remind me about that. But, um, you know, I the Maryland Terps on the sports menu of am I gonna go see Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, sticks, Lake Street dive the Ravens this weekend? Am I saving up for Orio playoff tickets the cap start in three weeks? Um, what? Whatever, whatever you spend money on. Merriweather, this that concerts, ball games, kids, college, whatever, travel, wherever you’re doing, going to the beach, where the Maryland foot like things that miss me and things that are just gone that like they don’t exist anymore. Maryland’s football is right up there in this community. For people I know it doesn’t jump on my timeline.
Bill Cole 03:20
It’s it’s interesting because, like their I think their football footprint as part of the Big 10 is probably broader than it used to be in the ACC I accidentally stumbled onto the game. Happened to be sitting in front of the television for a few minutes. Got roped in. I’m like, Okay, I’ll give this a shot.
Nestor Aparicio 03:43
Did you know The game was happening? Or did you just come across? Did you know they were playing Michigan State? Did you know I saw my game was playing? I knew the end of it.
Bill Cole 03:51
I knew it was a Saturday. And I thought, Oh, I wonder when Maryland plays. So I went looking for it. But my my relationship with Maryland football doesn’t ever seem to change, which really means I will not go seek it out like I every time I turn it on, I’m I’m generally disappointed and annoyed and like that just seems to be the case. And and I was got excited because I’m watching, and it’s like, okay, look at this. Like, I don’t even care that the guys are trying to tell me that Michigan State’s the underdog and that Maryland. I mean, it’s like in my world, where Maryland will always be an underdog to Michigan State. And football, give me a break, and basketball, quite frankly. But you know, so the fact that they were winning, and it looked kind of fun, and I’m starting to learn some names and and it’s like, and then it just the inevitable happens, and I’m like, Oh my gosh. And, you know, Mike Locksley, I don’t know, um,
Nestor Aparicio 04:57
you mean I like Mike? I mean, I. You, Trevor, I like Mike enough to get in my car and go down there and spend five hours and chase my press pass over at the hotel where they want to leave it and park me in Greenbelt and like, and then not come on the show and like it just, I just, I got fed up with the Terps years ago. I, you know what? I got fed up when Luke got fed up. And Luke has a much, much higher tolerance for what He’s enduring today and every day in regard to dealing with these people. And part of my declaration of independence, and I know you wrote my you read my letter to Eric cuss, I had a friend of mine asked me, Are you losing your mind? And I’m like, No, I’m speaking my mind. And like I die tomorrow, I need Chad Steele and the Whistler and you and everyone I know to know exactly what’s happened that that thing with Eric to Costa. I wrote that because people need to understand where I’m coming from and what I have dealt with and with the Maryland Terps, I have not been bitchy or moany because, because I’m a whiner, that’s all I do is sit here and whine while I talk to all sorts of people that have fixed the place. But I’m, I’m a whiner about media credentials. When they just they they make you say, Why am I doing this? Why? Why? How am I in this relationship where I’m in front of this human who’s treating me like stool and and still getting in my car and going down there like Gary Williams was ever nice to me? Or like, you know, it’s like, it’s been 50 years at this point with the Terps, and it’s still 45 miles away, and they don’t embrace this city. They really don’t. I saw Loxley on the pregame show. I mean, I’m the one guy watching the Ravens pregame a month ago where he’s there, and it was the strangest thing, because he’s standing in front of these kids, and they got all their Terps Under Armor, $200 shirts on and like, all that stuff. And he’s like, we’re paying a straight cash money these days. And I’m like, That’s just weird. Yeah. He’s like, we’re straight crash money. And I’m like, Man, we’ve really, we’ve moved on what the industry is, what the business is, what the expectation is, but the one thing, and it was never a price point, going to Maryland games was always very affordable, whatever, just whether you wanted to go and the boys and girls that sleep down there on campus didn’t want to get out of bed and walk. Of bed and walk four blocks to go to the games most of the time. I don’t know what to say about them, other than I use the cat Williams thing, and I’m should have used this on Eric the cost. I’ll use it on on the rest of them, you know, like, you’ve gotten what you’ve earned. Like, you know, there’s a whole Redskin fan base down there. Commanders, there’s a whole Raven thing up here. You play on Saturdays. This is a lifetime thing of you not doing a good enough job, of us getting interested in it. That’s really what the story is with the Terps.
Bill Cole 07:50
Yeah, I still don’t fully connect the dots when I’m watching of the n i l money and the transfer portal and like, like, like, you know, it’s somewhere along the way during the game, and announcer will say, Well, remember, and they have seven new players on their offensive side of the ball who, all, right, yeah. So that’s what I get, like, that perspective reset, because I really just look at it the way we always looked at it. So, you know, I don’t know Terps football, I can remember going as a kid once or twice, but certainly not a lot. Basketball. I would love to go to, but man, like an eight, 830 tip on a Tuesday, like that just does not work in my universe to go, especially
Nestor Aparicio 08:38
when you live north of White Marsh, right? It’s hard. I live downtown for 20 years, and it wasn’t College Park wasn’t far to me. You know, living downtown in Towson feels a little further. I went to Annapolis the other night, feels a little further. You know, that said Bel Air feels a little closer, you know? I mean, so it depends on where your your geography is. But you know, they’ve always had a problem. And I talked about this, and I know you knew Steve Hennessy real well. Steve was my partner. Really helped me build this place 30 years ago. And, you know, he had the baseline seats in the old coal Field House. He was the painter face red guy in there and screaming at the Duke guys. And, you know, you suck, you suck and like all of that. And then they’re like, Oh, for that privilege, it’s $14,000 a year to your whatever. It was outrageous. It was way beyond whatever I paid. I paid $500 for my PSL, back in the day talking bitch about, and call it a poor sucker’s license, but they weren’t trying to angle me for 10 grand a year, like, like a bad timeshare, you know what I mean. And once they went to the new play, I said to my wife, when I all the hubbub happened Saturday after the game, because my wife and I were in Frederick, and then we literally went. We called an audible and saw Springsteen Saturday because we weren’t going to see him this week. So we went down to DC, and then she’s driving, I’m in the car, and I’m watching all the Terp stuff. I’m like, we’re driving right through college park when the game was in. The balance and, like, whatever. And I said to her, nobody goes because, like, don’t even know what’s happening. I didn’t even know it was happening. And I’m a sports guy, and they think so little of me. They don’t even tell me or offer me a chance to come down and talk about it and or, Hey, do you want the coach on this week? Or do you want our well paid quarterback who’s making 50 grand a year this year for litos pizza? I don’t know, but, but they’ve done a poor job. They really have done a poor job to people football. This region loves football,
Bill Cole 10:28
maybe Ness, I don’t know if they’ve done a poor job right? Like, what was their objective and what are they trying to do? I mean, they, they certainly have that. You know, they walked into the Big 10 as the doormat. And, you know, I don’t think they’re that anymore. I don’t know that they’re necessarily challenging for, like, winning the Big 10 anytime soon, but, and I don’t, I just don’t. I’m not really sure what the objective is, right? Like, change
Nestor Aparicio 10:54
uniform every week and look really good, because we have a great state flag. You want
Bill Cole 10:58
to be right? You want to be one of the colleges that is, like the, you know, big time football that’s like a category, right? Like, do you want to go when you’re when you’re 17, and you’re evaluating colleges that is a category, you know, big time sports, and they have that. They never really needed it. I don’t think because of the geographical location, being a state school, they’ve done a great job on the engineering and tech side, and they produce smart people, and those smart people go on and do really great stuff, and they’re
Nestor Aparicio 11:36
an educational institution, has nothing to do with that? Well, sure,
Bill Cole 11:40
I think it does right, because it all, it all weaves together to this growing cost of going to school, the student debt crisis, the you know, like colleges. So
Nestor Aparicio 11:53
do we know? I got three friends that sent their kids to Alabama. I got five friends that have sent their kids to South Carolina, and these are all 1822, year old people, all young people. It’s the thought of going to Maryland. I don’t know anybody sends their kids to Maryland, you know what I mean, and it’s weird, because we all like wear the flag and all that, but they’re not the ones showing up as I mean, Leonard Raskin and I got into it this week. He sent his kid to Ohio State. His whole closet Ohio State, I’m like, you had a closet full of Maryland. How many games you go to in your life? Like you handful. I saw major Harris play back in 88 and you know what I mean? Like, I went down there once for a Penn State game. We got our ass kicked or whatever. But, like, it’s not a thing, and it’s a thing for all of us to have experienced all these ravens games, flying to London, flying to here, going there, whatever. Like, we like football, and we love Maryland, and we love the flag like i It feels like, if I’m a marketing guy from, you know, New York, and I come down and say My Big 10 footprint of two major metropolis, yeah, and what did that get you said, I think
Bill Cole 12:57
it’s the same conversation that we had a couple weeks ago or whenever it was. I think that that really the non student associated fan, is completely irrelevant to the equation. They have absolutely no bearing on success or failure of the program, right? Like the TV deal is phenomenal. We’ve got our own network, right? Like the students, the student body, that’s the recruiting piece, right? You got to fill the roles of students. And I think they consistently get kids local. I hear you on the whole Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, like, like, there they have done well, pulling us mid atlanticers down into the South because we wanted to be a little bit our kids wanted to be a little bit warmer all the time. So they’ve done a good job. But there are always kids well, you know, when my son was coming out of calver Hall, there’s a bunch of kids that went to Maryland. I mean, I think they do still do really well here, but I don’t think selling tickets to games, I don’t think they care to I mean, sponsors,
Nestor Aparicio 14:13
I think they need the revenue, dude. Part of this, they need look, I had a friend that sold for Maryland recently that doesn’t anymore. Part of it is the optics of nobody being there. And if nobody’s there, you know, all that sponsor money, they come back and say, I know this from a from a real life perspective, you don’t have an audience. You don’t have much so, you know the empty part of it, um, and to Google the Valentine’s like, game against India. Was it Indiana, or was it? It was Illinois, like, 1000 people at a basketball game and in the middle of Big 10, and like, like, it didn’t quite look like the White Sox two weeks ago, but it looked like nobody. And then the football thing this weekend, and the coach is pissed, and everybody’s like, I just think we’re talking about. Got it, because we never talk about Maryland football. But this isn’t a bad way to talk about why people don’t go because we’re the exact people that they’d like to recruit. We like football, you know, we like Maryland, we like the flag, we like big time sports. We like the crowd, we like all of that. Why don’t we do it? Why don’t it’s not expensive. We’ve, you know, which is a barrier for a lot of things. Feels,
Bill Cole 15:21
feels a little bit like when baseball was going through, like the steroid stuff. Like you knew that that was a transition period, right? You knew there was stuff going on. There was lots of stories. You saw Barry Bonds head get three times as big as it was before. Like you knew there was stuff going on, and you knew that eventually they were going to sort of get to the they were going to get to what they decided was the bottom of it, and then there was going to be this new thing afterwards. I feel like that’s kind of where we are with college athletics because of the n i l money and the transfer portal and trying to deal with covid. I mean, the idea that some kids have been playing for like six or seven years with like red shirts and covid years and all that crazy stuff. I mean, all three of those sort of things all happened in the same period of time that has to generally create chaos, and it’s going to take some time for that stuff to sort out. Right now, I don’t think there is any hours, significant hours, being put into trying to get you and I to go to those football games or those basketball games to your
Nestor Aparicio 16:37
point, the other recognition of the players and saying, do I even know who’s on the roster when the poor is pulling people? So that part of, Oh, we got a freshman, he’s going to be here for years. And they had that with the Tonga villa was, you know, brother, I mean, so they had a little thing they could wrap themselves around in College Park. But I’m just talking about in a general sense, if you love Alabama, whole state, you would go down there pickups. We’re gonna we’re gonna tailgate, if that’s who you are. And those programs are built. But to your point, Maryland’s trying to become a part of that. We’re in the club of big time sports, where it’s a very exclusive club to have that kind of money, you know, to have Nebraska money and have penn state money, and have Ohio state money and have Michigan money, and then the filthiness of it. I mean, you see Jim Harbaugh winning this week while he’s torched the program in Michigan. That’s all happening. You know, that’s all baked into the dirtiness of 50 years of college sports. Is baked into how I feel about it as it being portrayed as an educational institution, where you start talking about, well, we have all these degrees and so, yeah, but that’s not for that’s not about the student athletes. That’s that’s the that’s the part where you’re going to get a job that’s different than playing on the sports team and getting n i l money and and your your daughter may be getting a free ride for field hockey or something like that. That’s different than the area we’re going into now. We and you know you as a father of of young ladies, Title Nine, all of that, I would hear all of that along the lines of equity and education and all that. But whatever was going on with Alabama football and whatever’s been going on with UCLA basketball and forever, has had nothing to do with education. As long as I’ve been in radio, it’s never had anything to do with education.
Bill Cole 18:27
I agree with you, and I guess my sort of perspective at this point is, yeah, there was, I don’t know, I hate to say 50 years, because that makes me feel like really old, but like it’s been growing, right? The rule breaking and skirting the limits and all that has continuously grown to the point where the dam broke. We created a transfer portal, we created nio money, and now it is completely different. Like we were joking the other day about, you know, soccer’s relegated concept. And, you know, with the old fun conversation of, well, the Washington commanders would have been dropped down. And, you know, Alabama would be in the NFL. And, you know, and these teams would go up and down, and how interesting and crazy would that be if, if that’s really what it was, because there are a number of players, this is speculation on my part, on football teams in college who are making more money than they Will as a all you know, just missed pro football player, right? So didn’t, didn’t get drafted, didn’t get a free agent contract go to Canada or in arena football, or whatever they’re doing to try and continue that dream. But when they were on campus, you know, they were made. Making a the equivalency of significantly more money than they can well, and
Nestor Aparicio 20:04
then, but like, Reggie Bush was making money when he was running the ball at USC, you know what? I mean. So, like all of this, there was always money for the right player to be delivered by the AAU handler. I mean, we all this is as obvious, is what the ravens and the Orioles have done to me in regard to press passes, you know, just sort of like it’s just sitting there, you know, you know where the truth is, but you just want to look the other way. In regard to Steve Francis playing three minutes at Maryland, 25 years ago. You know these, you know how these guys wound up at places, and Gary was pretty, you know, at least out in front and saying that he was against all of that more to get out. And Gary Williams plug accelerant here, if you wish, is a big sponsor. We have an accelerant a lunch. But there’s a comics event that Gary Williams spoke at about a year and a half ago, and I remember going, and it’s a breakfast event. Everybody’s there to hear a worship Gary and whatnot, and he there’s going to be guardrails. Gary says, I’m like, Were you dreaming? Is that just a talking point? Like, who? Who’s the guardrails? Congress, the government, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court’s one put this in business. Like, do you know what’s the Attorney General of Maryland? Nobody’s coming in. It’s free agency. Baby, it’s, it’s capitalism, baby, you know, there’s not going to be any guard rails for this. And I think that that’s the hardest part, is some of the old school people thought, well, this is crazy that Mike’s Mike Loxley be sitting on, no, it’s not. This is, this is the new business, straight cash, homie. You know, it’s out
Bill Cole 21:37
in right? It’s out of the shadows and in in front of everyone and then on top of it. To your point, it is, we always, we have a tendency to, like, do stuff and then sort of figure out how to regulate it later, you know, like, oh, I guess we probably should have put some rules in when we did this. You know, there are, and I don’t even know if this is really a thing. But there are definitely kids out there who are in high school who are making decisions that are probably putting their eligibility in jeopardy because no one told them what the rules are, you know. And then there are d2 and d3 schools who all they got to do is, like, put a person in place whose job is to connect the tire shop in town to the football player that everybody goes and watches on Friday night, because there’s nothing else in that town, right? And the pizza shop that everybody goes to from campus, well, there’s another guy with a pizza shop who wishes he was that pizza guy. So let’s go get the other pizza guy and see if he’ll give them, you know, 1000 bucks a season or something, for the the best player on the d3 football team. Like, it’s funny,
Nestor Aparicio 22:52
years ago, I had Fang Mitchell’s whole team in my studio, speaking of Hennessy. He put that together back in 1998 when the big upset happened with with Coppin, and they all came in the studio, and we had a pizza sponsor, I think was a mama lordos At the time, and they sent the pizza, and always gave me heartburn. They sent the pizza in, and we ate pizza. And the pictures have us eating pizza. And when it came time to do the newsletter, fan called me, said, Hey, man, you can’t, you can’t be putting the pictures in there the pizza, man, you know, you gotta get the pizza out. And I’m thinking I gave your kids pizza. It’s a violation. That’s against the rules, you know? Yeah, so giving a kid a slice of pizza in 1998 was against the rules, right?
Bill Cole 23:41
It’s crazy and that and that, when I sit and watch games, I don’t think about it that way, until something you know, reminds me that the everybody
Nestor Aparicio 23:51
in the arena, everybody’s making money, except the slaves that are dribbling or playing like literally, it’s March Madness all day long, all of these kids, all these cheerleaders, all of this, all of this, television ads, ads, ads, brackets, fantasy brackets. You know, back in the day and popcorn vendors making money. Everybody’s making money. They’re selling tickets, they’re selling beer, they’re up charging. They’re gouging for all of it, hotel rooms for all of that. And everybody’s making money, except Steve Francis, when he’s dribbling in Knoxville, 30 years ago, with me and Hennessy, spending all his money to get out of there, driving around. And it went on forever. It was always wrong. It was always wrong all this bowl money, bowl ball, bowl Ball, ball, ball, we’re going out. We got the rose this and the rose that, and the parade and the sponsor and that float and this and that, and then the kids go out there with helmets on, beat each other’s brains out, and they’re getting nothing. It’s crazy,
Bill Cole 24:51
yeah, and but it’s over with,
Nestor Aparicio 24:53
and now we have to figure how to manage
Bill Cole 24:55
well, right? You you turned on the fire hose, so like you. I don’t know, every Jersey they sell that has a kid’s number on it, like, I doubt it’s automatic that they’re getting money on that. They probably got to go do a deal. Well, that
Nestor Aparicio 25:10
was the deal, right? The Edo band deal was, you were using my likeness. That’s Nate, by the way, my wife asked me at the bar. We were out at the bar last Friday night. We were Coopers, and we and we reasonably Cooper’s North is because the game was in Brazil, and I wasn’t given Peacock, right? I wasn’t giving them chickens. Um, so we were at the bar. My wife’s like, n, i L, what does that stand for? And I she was about to google it, and I’m like, not interested in learning. And she’s like, name, image, likeness, and I’m like, Yeah, Ed O’Bannon, you know, like that. This is about them making even more money off of you on a video game years later. But, I mean, there was, really, it was an unending pit of being able to make money if you’re state, you if you’re Alabama, right, literally,
Bill Cole 26:06
well, and I just like, when the day you turn that spigot on. I mean, if I buy a jersey from for with the backup Center’s number on it, because he’s my cousin. Like, does he get $1 does he get five bucks? Or does he get nothing? Because he doesn’t have somebody who went to the school and got them to sign a contract that says, if you do this, this is what I get. The school might say, Well, screw you. We’re not doing that. We just won’t put your numbers.
Nestor Aparicio 26:41
Let’s go. You say you get an education, room and board. So I have no idea. Like,
Bill Cole 26:46
that’s just, it’s so foreign, and you think about it. I mean, there’s, yeah, I don’t know. Well, the unintended
Nestor Aparicio 26:50
consequences of anything that is a a paradigm shift, right? Like, literally, right? The unintended consequences are unpredictable. You know, it’s like a hurricane. Bill Cole is here. He’s called roofing. I don’t know how we got into this, because I was going to talk ravens with you. We were going to talk about my Eric, the Costa letter. We were going to talk about the tech service coming back, and all the cool stuff. Because it’s brought to you by Cole, roofing and Gordian energy. What which card would you like? I What’s on your mind right now? The debate. I mean, we have all sorts of things going on here. The Ravens, losing. Lamar not practicing running the ball 15 times. Everybody on the Orioles is hurt. They can’t hit the ball. Pitching has been better. But, I mean, this is, this is the these are the good times. You know, 30
Bill Cole 27:36
seconds ish on the Ravens. I It felt like Lamar was faster. They kept telling me about all the weight he’s lost, and he looks Spry er, so that’s encouraging till it gets hurt, right? Because I’m sure he put the weight on to protect him. So, you know, some part of me, probably the one that likes to wear the purple glasses says that that was like a preview of the AFC Championship game. And you know, that was just for now. We’re going to have to play it in Kansas City instead of Baltimore. And I really think that those two teams are going to just run roughshod through everybody all season, and nobody’s really going to put up much of a fight. That’s obviously a very optimistic way to interpret that game because, because I don’t think that ever happens in the NFL, but barring injuries, which seems to be always the case in the NFL, like that Kansas City team looks dangerous like they need to have some injuries. We need to not have some injuries. I’d like to see the O line kind of figure out what they’re doing, but I don’t know. I’m excited. I think they’ll, they’ll be productive. I think they’ll win a lot of games,
Nestor Aparicio 28:53
nine and a half to make you laugh, you know, this week. So they better win this and that’s what I said with Dallas, Dallas Buffalo and Cincinnati coming up tough games, they need to figure the offensive line. I don’t think it’s and with the Orioles, not about figuring things where they’re gonna have to figure things out, but it really is waiting on this cavalry of all these injured players to come back and all at the same time three weeks and all be productive and all have timing together. I don’t know it’s a tall ass for the Orioles right now, I think, and and how you feel about them, but they’re certainly, it’s October, it’s baseball. Anything can happen. I mean, look at Suarez the other night. Yeah,
Bill Cole 29:31
I think the Orioles there’s all you can ask for is baseball fans, just like, get hot at the right time. You know, put it all together, put the piece together, and then just go do something magical. I mean, we, I remember just watching the Rangers last year, like that was a buzzsaw, like, like, we were the we were a really good team, and we got destroyed. We just ran into the buzzsaw. So, yeah, you know, I think they. Are. They are a team built around statistics, so it’s always going to come back to the mean, right? And the question is, are you below the mean going into the playoffs, which means that they’re going to accelerate and do better to bring their mean back up to get to the average, or have they been overachieving, and things will start to tail off and get to the average at the end.
Nestor Aparicio 30:24
See, I think you know you’re, if I were a scientist, I’d say you got the wrong sample here, because the team in May is not the team that’s been out there lately. So you know, there’s video evidence of rutchman taken a you know, a pitch on June 27 he’s been hit like a buck 50 since then, injured and playing. Everybody else is injured. We don’t have to tell you about ureas and Matteo. Just go down the list of all the guys that were a part of this. Even if you thought ureas, Mateo, how important are they? Westburg was very important. And you think, ah, the bullpen Webb cologne, they’re just relief pitchers. Oh, well, then there’s Grayson Rodriguez, and then all the other starters. Bradish means go through the list of the guys that have had injuries. Um, it’s kind of astonishing. I mean, when you think of efflin and burns and Suarez being their hope, and none of them were on the team when the Ravens got eliminated by the Chiefs last time they played, they literally weren’t with the program. And the guys that were really good on the team in April, May and June, um, they need to be better. Ruchman, Henderson, Santander, okay, cows are fine, but they need to hit the ball, because they’re going to have to score six, eight runs a game in October to win. I believe that.
Bill Cole 31:42
Again, I baseball’s such a long season. The, you know, the scientists, right? They figure out how this is supposed to go, and then it’s just, are you going to catch lightning in a bottle at the end or not? And if you do, then it gets pretty exciting a
Nestor Aparicio 31:57
game, and kimbre can’t pitch and, you know, Rush McCann hit the ball and holidays up and he shouldn’t be. I mean, it’s just a lot of things about this that Mike Elias and Brendan I wouldn’t have wanted for the team in June. You know, it wasn’t the plan. You know, I
Bill Cole 32:13
understand. But sports stories are always about someone playing way over their head, someone playing somebody that was great, but then did something that no one had ever seen before, or is unsustainable or overachieving in some way. You know, you find some guy in the bullpen who magically pitches like, you know, 14 innings to finish out the season over the course of three or four weeks without giving up a hit. You know you’re like, so you just find that stuff, and that’s when the magic happens, I think. All
Nestor Aparicio 32:46
right, Bill Cole’s here. Cole roofing, Gordy energy, one of the reasons you sponsor we’re going to do the tech service talk about that next week, because people will have text out by then, the election is all I’m going to say to you, because you’re kind of fiercely independent, so when I talk to you like, I really don’t know who you vote for. I’m skeptical one way or another. Like, well, he wouldn’t really vote for Trump because he’s too smart for that. And I’m like, well, but his politics aren’t really where, you know, on the Democrat So, but the you get two teams, you don’t, you don’t get to vote for Ross Perot. You know what I mean? Or RFK Jr, lunatic debate aside, side. I saw really interesting observation. This has nothing to do with Trump’s dementia or his misogyny or his racist the way none of that. This is just it was Kenny Maine that tweeted this, and I thought in the middle of the night is one of the night is one of the first things I saw in the middle of night. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Pearl James lieutenant, Kenny Mayne and I reconnect, because I get him on the show. He said I should pull it up, but I think I can get one to one. He had three points about repub. I can understand if you were in on the con, and you’ve been a part of the con the whole time that you’re voting for Trump. I can understand if you’re a racist and that you think like a racist, and we all know people like that pretend we don’t, but we do that you’re gonna vote for Trump because he appeals to that. And I can see if you’re a rich Republican, or think you’re a rich Republican, which is really funny, that you’re getting a tax break, that you’re gonna get a break. So if you’re in any of that group, and you identify and you say, I’m gonna vote for Trump. But who are the undecided people? Now, you know his point was, who’s undecided? Like, if you’re on the Trump thing and whatever that thing appeals to you’re in, you know you’re voting for no matter what stupid ish he said about your eat your dogs and cat doesn’t matter what he does. We’ve learned that sanity doesn’t matter when it comes in. But the part of it is, if you’re undecided, what do you been watching the last eight years? Like that’s the part that’s amazing to me. It’s what this exercise of of a debate who they’re really trying to influence? Where? Where is the middle? Where’s the undecided? Because I that blows me away. If you’re sitting here September 11 after seeing all you’ve seen and you don’t know who you’re voting for yet.
Bill Cole 35:09
So yeah, to clarify the point you’re making, which I think everything you said, I agree with 95% of the population of our country either hate him, so we’re going to vote for her, hate her, so they’re going to vote for him, love her, so they’re going to vote for her, or love him, so they’re going to vote for him. That’s 95% of the people in this country. I think
Nestor Aparicio 35:39
that last keeping in mind that only 26% of us will vote or whatever. That number a crazy, small number, maybe 818, I don’t, I don’t know. Crazy.
Bill Cole 35:48
Great point. 95% of the 26% correct. You are correct, because 75% of us don’t even know what’s going on, which is maybe even the more staggering discussion to have. So one of the things that is stuck in the back of my head that I believe puts me in that 5% camp is I find it for all of the concerns discussed anger about January 6 and you know, the inability of our country to like do this properly as the The leader of democracy on the globe, right to completely circumvent the democratic process. Tell Joe to quit, handpick the replacement. That’s like, mega unAmerican. You know what I mean? Like, that’s not how we do this. Like in emergencies, somebody dies, whatever. Sure we have, we have process that we’ve all agreed to, and we’ve, you know, lived through, and it works, but for a group of people to take the electoral process away from Americans who would have voted in a primary for a candidate and just hand pick a replacement. I don’t even get to the point where I’m trying to decide between the two of them. I’m trying to figure out how that goes down, and that that’s okay, because that seems really foreign to me, and it just doesn’t seem like and I’m not even, I can even segregate my brain and say, Well, forget that they did it because they think she had a better chance to win. Or, you know what I mean? Like, take all the malicious reasons why they might do it. Take that out just the fact that they completely circumvented the process. That’s what baffles me. You know what I mean, like, how does we how do we allow that to happen, and that that’s okay, and everyone seems to have moved past that point. So I’m trying to figure out why I’m still hung up on that point. Because everyone else, you know there was a debate last night, because they’re trying to decide. Right? Everybody needs to decide. I think
Nestor Aparicio 38:24
you’re making a very valid point, by the way, as a Democrat, that I would have liked to have been in into a caucus, but there’s a point for me, as a human and as a citizen, in witnessing what I’ve witnessed, all that I care about is that he doesn’t win. So it doesn’t matter because, but
Bill Cole 38:40
that’s not, that’s not our country. That’s not democracy. We are always
Nestor Aparicio 38:45
it’s not about democracy. So that’s what I’m voting. I’m voting against the guy who’s kissing Putin’s ass and a guy that lies more than Chad steals lied to me. So I, you know, like, in a general sense, the amount. He’s not qualified, he’s not smart, he’s not decent, he has no integrity. I can go on and on and on and on. So whatever she is and whatever they are, put them walls into it, it, it becomes more appealing. So that therefore, but I would agree with you that she hasn’t. She’ll earn the presidency when she beats him in eight weeks, and you’ll say, well, she’s president now, but she didn’t have the she didn’t play the regular season. Is what you’re saying, right? This is putting Alabama. That’s literally what that’s pretty good. And I’m not wrong in saying that I’m going to vote for her 100 times over, and I’m going to know that everybody in the audience votes for her because I’ve seen his act. I saw what happened on that No, I saw the Capitol. There should be nobody that should vote for that guy. Like, like, literally, we were scumbag,
Bill Cole 39:49
but we’re not talking about you. That isn’t what you asked me. I You’ve been very outspoken. We know where you sit. You’re part of the 95% we got right. You’re. Asking me that last group of people who are going to swing this thing one way or another, what are the things that that they are still not sure about after all of the stuff they’ve seen? And you know, you you got you
Nestor Aparicio 40:14
well, she has been the Vice President and has been a heartbeat away. And if all the Republicans had their way and they declared Joe brain dead, she’d be the president anyway, you know what I mean. So there is a point. There is a point where, like, she’s sort of next in line as far as the party is concerned. And they all got together at Chicago, and one thing they’ve done that the Republicans had a harder time doing, and Trump did on his own, was just uniting his own thing, whatever that thing is that allows you to win any election. Uniting that part of it, the Democrats have at least had, dare I say, their shit together to some degree, because it feels like she’s gonna win. So from that perspective, if it’s just about my team winning, you know, Lord knows, we watch that in sports all the time, doing anything. We just sat here and did a half an hour on giving money to 17 year old kids to come play at state U whatever wins, that’s America, and that’s was the deal with Trump. He didn’t care if it was legitimate or not. Get on the phone to George. I need to win, because the power is the whole gig. I’ve learned that in sports too. The power is the gig. And, you know, I’m not saying it’s right or it’s good for America one way or another, but she was not, you could sell it to me, but she’s next in line, and she would have won anyway, based on what we’re seeing anyway, and based on the fact there’s no other Democrats standing up saying, I should have had a chance in the primary, and I would have been better or more equipped to do this. It’s a party. They put money together. It’s not it’s two party system that that unto itself is effed up. You don’t have a two party system when you’re hiring a CEO. Anybody does? You have an open system for all the candidates? I would agree with you. That’s what makes America great. I
Bill Cole 41:57
agree that at no point in the process, no matter which team you root for, if you don’t believe that they will do anything to win, you are fooling yourself, right? Yes, they both will do anything. It’s it’s the whole conversation around the legitimacy of elections like I snicker at that entire conversation, because if you don’t think that they’ve all been messing with it both sides for as long as you can remember, then you haven’t read any of this country’s history. Yeah, I
Nestor Aparicio 42:34
learned a lot in, like in my dalliance with with marrying a couple of years ago, about how everything you told me, as my consci about the money flow into the politics and how Kathy Pugh happened. It’s It’s wretched, it’s yes and so, so I’m telling me, as a political candidate, I had to go around and suck everybody off for 10,000 bucks to give all the money to Bal and Jay Z to run ads for me. I mean, come on, man, you know, come on. RCC lesson, that’s the thing. I get more give Kamala money and give Trump money. And I’m like, where’s the money going? To Fox News, to see to to the Sinclair family, or to to the sun, to for Sinclair’s family, or to Jay Z for Hearst, or like it’s it’s just going to crease other media companies. It’s gross. I mean, our our political I told you I was in Canada a year and a half ago see a Pearl Jam. And the Canadian system is they put these banners up in the middle of Ottawa, everywhere. And that’s the advertising. The advertising is we put stuff out on the streets, and that’s how we vote for people in Canada. And I thought we kind of screwed it all up around here, and I’m under a mess.
Bill Cole 43:49
Yeah, no, I mean that. And that’s the part of the conversation that that everybody knows about, and is somewhat transparent. You know, we’ve tried to build transparency around it. We know that, if that’s how messy that part is, imagine all the stuff that we don’t know about and that we can’t see, and the whole pay for play and quid pro quo and all that wonderful crap. I think that the balance of that 5% of people are in a camp that are literally just trying to decide who’s going to make their life better for the next five years.
Nestor Aparicio 44:32
I figure if you’re at that point, you’re really having a really hard time disseminating truth. You’re, you know, you’re one of the people that the Chinese or the are the Russians can screw with on social media if you’re at this point where you don’t know what he is and what the other sides at least trying to do, and has been trying to do the last four years in regard to international relations, which, if you’re in that 5% I can’t, I mean, I saw a thing the other day where, you know, they brought the old world map out. NAS people to point to China, and they point though, you know, Africa and like so like anybody understanding our place and sort of the sanctity of peace on our turf, especially as we sit here on the morning of 911 and discuss this right, that that, um, there is a there is a point where we watched that guy for four years pointed hurricanes that didn’t exist try to sell off Greenland. I mean, like, just the acidity of what was said on Tuesday night should make anybody that’s in that 5% look at this and say that guy’s nuts, even if you haven’t tuned in in the last four years and haven’t seen it get shot or whatever happened in Pennsylvania.
Bill Cole 45:40
Those are, but those are the things that get people out of the 5% and we’re talking there’s still this 5% and my issue with those 5% is how they choose to interpret, like, there are major wars going on now and there weren’t then. And like, I’m not interested, nor do I really believe that Trump had anything to do with preventing that stuff from happening, or the that he claims, like, with me, none of that goes on right. Like, I’m not buying into that. But my problem is, for the 5% of undecided people, how do you determine what part of that is real? Because the real part, what is reality? That we do know is that there is a major conflict in the Middle East, and there’s a major conflict in Russia, Ukraine, and that didn’t happen when Trump was in office. So I can’t dispute that simple way of
Nestor Aparicio 46:39
looking at it. Also no longer in Afghanistan. I want to point that out too our own war that we gotta, you know, we got out of. So,
Bill Cole 46:44
yeah, but that’s another one that we can’t even, we don’t even know what the the real way to perceive that is, Yes, agreed 100% we’re out. Oh, well,
Nestor Aparicio 46:58
like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill Cole’s here. He’s cold roof. We’re not going to sort it all out here, but we’re going to have an election in eight weeks. We’re gonna have a football game on something. Most important
Bill Cole 47:06
thing that was said was in between trying to trash her energy policy or whether she’s gonna ban fracking or blah blah, whatever, whatever he said, solar. I love solar. That’s the clip. Like, I don’t care like my job. And I implore people to think about it this way, one of them’s going to win. I don’t know which one. My only job as a CEO is to figure out how my business continues to survive with whoever wins, so that the 150 families that we help feed their kids every day have their jobs. Because I want to have 200 families, right? So no matter which one of them knuckleheads wins, I gotta figure out how to do business in that environment. That’s my job. Bill
Nestor Aparicio 47:56
Cole Spoken like a true independent and, you know, fiercely independent, man, I gotta get these. These segments should be sponsored by Mooseheads. Fiercely independent, good Canadian company sponsored some American conversation. Uh, he’s Bill Cole. We can find him at cole roofing. He’s the sponsor of our wnst tech service. If you’re on it, you’ll know when you get it. So will our friends at one oh, 5.7 he’s bill on Nestor, Baltimore, non denominational. We are here. We are fiercely independent. We really are. I have. I released my decor Declaration of Independence last week. So go read that out of Baltimore. Positive. Stay with us.