With new ownership for the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Commanders arriving over the past year in the DMV, venerable sports author and longtime Washington Post columnist John Feinstein joins Nestor to discuss the promises made (and broken) by the men who own our local sports franchises.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
years, sports, baltimore, teams, money, book, orioles, duke, kid, baseball, won, ivy league, talk, players, great, baseball team, buy, football, games, nestor
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, John Feinstein
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. We are positively into the crab cake season. The 25th anniversary is about to give way to 26 years here, and we’re going to do 26 oysters in 26 days and 26 ways all over the state of Maryland. All are brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery of the Gold Rush, $7 sevens, doublers. I’ll be giving these away when the cheatstros come to Camden Yards in two weeks, Luke and I will convene on the 23rd of August, kicking off the Maryland crab cake tour via Cocos. We’re going to be a casa. Going to be a failey. It’s going to be everywhere next month, eating oysters. And in the middle of a month, that’s going to be one of the great, great months of sports here. I believe in September we have a defending champion al East team trying to defend itself, and pitching and new players. We have the defending AFC Championship Game, hosts and losers going at Kansas City in September, lots things going on. I love talking sports with this guy. I haven’t seen him since the UMBC days. He does things with Gary Williams. He used to do things on ESPN and the Washington Post. Now he just writes books and discusses good things out on x, where they’re sadly diminishing good things out there. John Feinstein joins us once again, is our defending champion and the author of all good long walks. How are you happy end of summer to you, I don’t know. It’s been a little while since we got together. I was like,
John Feinstein 01:24
it has been a while since we talked Nestor. It’s good to talk to you. And I don’t like to think of august 6 as the end of summer, although summer ends earlier and earlier as we get older and older, that’s for sure. But
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:37
we’re doing tax free a week here in Maryland next week, and I talked to Leonard Raskin about that, to send the kids back to school. So it does feel like, you know, as Jimmy Buffett once said, The circus has almost ended a couple of weeks from now, but we’re in a time here where you’re in you’re known as a Washington guy, but I always think of you as DMV. You’ve done as many things in Baltimore over the years as you have in the Washington area. You moved to Virginia, sort of semi famously lately. This is a fascinating time for my town. And you’re not the Baltimore Sun columnist, but if you were, you’d be chronicling all of this money, all of these things that have gone on. You’ve written a book about a former Oriole and Messina, amongst others. You’ve written a book about the Ravens. You’re about to do some Duke books, man, if you’re doing a book on where this Baltimore thing is with new ownership, and where the ravens are and where Lamar stands in the center of so much of this. It’s a fascinating time to be chronicling Baltimore sports. Even as a former journalist, John, I don’t know
John Feinstein 02:33
I’m not a former journalist. Nestor, I still write for the post, and my books are built on journalism. So I’m not a former I call myself a former journalist. I don’t call myself a former journalist. I am a journalist, and I will always be one, for better or worse. But, you know, I look at the Orioles and I’m a huge baseball fan, as you know, and several years ago, I was ready to write off Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde. I mean, I remember seeing an interview with Mike Elias where he kept talking about the kids they had in the minors. This was the year they won 52 games, and that they were coming, and then they were going to see a turnaround. And I was like, Yeah, right. And you hear that speech all the time from losers, and guess what? I was wrong, and he was right, because those kids have come and they’re stars now. They’re not just major leaguers. I mean, the Washington Nationals keep talking about their younger players as if they’re all going to be in the Hall of Fame. Well, I think some of these Orioles might be in the Hall of Fame. They’re they’re very good. They won, as you said, 101 games last year. I was in New in New York a couple weeks ago, and I heard some of the New York sports talk guys saying, Ah, what have the Orioles ever done? They got swept in the playoffs. Well, they were in the playoffs last year. The Yankees weren’t. And these were Yankee people, and I think the progress that they’ve made in the last three years is remarkable. It’s certainly fun to watch. I mean, they’re a fun baseball team to watch. They will be in postseason again this year. What they will do in post season? Nobody knows, and the people who can tell them about not succeeding in postseason, and the criticism that comes with that are the Ravens. Because the Ravens have been very good for a long, long time now. They’ve had a couple down years in the last 20 but they’ve been a playoff team more often than not. They have one of the best quarterbacks in football in Lamar Jackson, who they drafted when nobody else wanted to take him because he was black. And you know, that was the year when four of the top 10 picks were white quarterbacks, and Lamar got taken by Ozzie Newsome with 32nd pick. And we all know what’s happened since then. And he to me, there are two quarterbacks right now who are lock Hall of Famers. One is obviously Patrick mahomes, and the other is Lamar. I. I think Lamar is going to be in the Hall of Fame and before he’s done. I also think he’s going to win a Super Bowl before he’s done. I think Eric the Costa, has done very good work replacing Ozzy, who, by the way, should be voted into the Hall of Fame as a GM. He’s already in the Hall of Fame as a player. He should be in the Hall of Fame as a general manager. And Eric’s done really good work. He was the one who supported Ozzie on the notion of drafting Lamar, and they’re going to be a good team again this year. They’re always a good team. They’ve lost some key guys on defense, but the defense will be there, you know, it’ll be there. Nestor and the pickups on the offense could be critical. But again, Lamar was terrific last year. They lost to a great team in Kansas City in the playoffs. Tough loss to take. You were at home, but still not exactly a failed season. When you go 14, what was it 413, and four in the regular season and make it to the conference final.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:01
John, I was born at 68 and, you know, raised in the seven, mid 70s here. And my dad, you know, by the time I came along, Johnny, you was gone. My dad was pissed at the Colts, but, but Bert Jones was good. And I, you know, those years were good. And then the Orioles were always sort of knocking on the door 7983 but it was always my dad talking about 69 and 70 and Wes unsell Yankees, excuse me, Mets and Orioles and like that. 6970 71 period, where the Colts bowl three and five. You remember it better? I’m an infant at that point. Yeah, that’s never happened here. And when I think of like Pittsburgh in 79 where they had the Bradshaw stargel thing that’s, you know, memorialized there. And in other places like Boston, where they’ve won a lot, or they have a bunch of teams, they have four teams there. New York has more than that. New York has seven teams, right? So there’s lots and lots of chances, maybe eight times to do the math, but there’s a lot of chances to win here. We have two teams. We only have one team for back when you’re at the Washington Post in the early days, sort of chronicling all that, and bashati famously said he would have bought the Terps if he could have, because they were the other sort of entity for Baltimore, as I worked in the sun in the 80s and the 90s, this time, I look around and say, This is the good time. Does it get any better than guaranteed playoffs in baseball? I’ve been on air 33 years, we’ve never had a July where we look at it and say we’re in the playoffs in October, not even in 97 the really good years you had to win your way in. It feels like the wild cards and all that. But it does feel like this city is sort of ramping up for something, losing the bridge, all the politics, all the other things, awful things that have gone on here. These sports teams have a chance to really do something and galvanize their they have a new owner on the baseball said, there’s all of this fresh air with with all of it, but the expectations are, man, if there’s not a parade here soon, there’s, you know what? I mean, there’s a little bit of that too. And look, the Ravens could go 17 and, oh, and unless they win the AFC Championship game. It’s a bad year here.
John Feinstein 08:02
Yeah, no, that. That’s what happens when you’re good. The expectations get higher and higher, and you are expected to be a champion, by the way. Trivia question for you, you’re a Baltimore guy who replaced Johnny united, the quarterback for the Colts.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:17
Well, Marty domris, yeah, my first game was Marty domris,
John Feinstein 08:23
where did Marty domest go to college?
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:26
You got me on that? Colombian, you’re doing the Ivy League thing on me. Are you right? Exactly? Smart guys? Where’s Ryan Fitzpatrick in all of this? Probably doing some gambling ad right now.
John Feinstein 08:38
He probably is doing a gambling ad right now, and he’s one of the smarter guys I ever met. But the point is the point to your point, rather than my trivial point. This is a very good time in Baltimore sports. And by the way, New York has nine teams, three hockey teams, two football teams, two basketball teams and two baseball teams. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:58
don’t you know, 222, and three. That’s how I got the math all left up.
John Feinstein 09:02
But, but, you know, the Orioles have been rebuilt. Michaelias rebuilt them and and to his credit, he rebuilt them, and he rebuilt them when the ownership wasn’t exactly Sterling. And we’re going to see what happens with the Rubenstein ownership. We don’t know yet. It’s too soon to make any real judgments one way or the other, just as it’s too soon to make any real judgments with the football ownership in Washington, although anybody would be better than Dan Snyder. Dan Snyder arguably the worst owner in the history of sports, right up there with Donald Sterling. So so we’ve witnessed
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:37
stuff here, I guess is what I’m saying.
09:39
Oh yeah,
09:40
just calling a
John Feinstein 09:41
press conference. Search me being older than you, those Orioles, 6970 71 they only won one. Were only one, one World Series. But God, they were good. The year, they lost to the Mets. I think they won 109 games, and the Mets beat him in the World Series. Mets won 100 games. They were pretty good. But, uh. This is a very good time to be a Baltimore sports fan. I wish there was still a basketball team in Baltimore. The bullets left a long time ago, and they stink right now, as the wizards, as you know. And that’s what seems to happen. You go to Washington, and then you stink. Well, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:15
brought that up a minute ago with Leon just I mean, since the last time you and I got together, he held a press conference taking the team that says district across the river, and I mean these owners, as we find out, because I talked about hofburger to John Eisenberg at length this week with his bird tapes. He talked about EBW and all of that. You could speak to Poland, and I could speak to Poland, taking my basketball team from me as a five year old, right? And then ursay And all of that, there’s a whole different level of expectation in a town like Baltimore, where we’ve been kicked around a little bit as far as what you’re going to do with your $600 million the state just gave both of these guys the shot. He built this black wing club that they’re doing over there, but new ownership for the baseball team, I didn’t know that I was going to live long enough to see it, and I don’t even know what the level of expectation is, because it was different 30 years ago, when there was no nationals, and no thought that the Nationals might ever exist. At that point, maybe you were always convinced that that was going to happen. I don’t know that it ever felt like, sort of like manifest destiny that the nationals were going to exist had Angelo’s operated at the right but, but what I’m guess, I’m saying is Rubenstein inherited a different circumstance, certainly financially for baseball here. Well, he
John Feinstein 11:33
certainly has, and and he’s inherited a very good team. And you hope he won’t be one of those owners who thinks that because he’s made a lot of money, he knows baseball, or he thinks he he’s made a lot of money, so he thinks he knows football. Those are the worst owners. Snyder, prime example number one. But I think that, by the way, I remember being at football games in RFK Stadium in 1985 that said baseball 1987 because they were convinced they were getting a baseball team in 1987 it was only 18 years more before they did finally get a baseball team. That’s what
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:09
all those old home run derby things were about, where we see all those cool videos, right? That was all about luring gambling,
John Feinstein 12:15
right? Luke Gatling hit a 241 foot home run in one of those old timers games. So and Washington went a long time without a baseball team. They did get a World Series championship in 2019 Mike Rizzo is still taking vows for that while they’re on their way to their fifth straight losing season. You know, I think he you have to give him credit for winning the World Series. You can’t take that away, just as you have to give the capitals credit for winning the Stanley Cup the year before. But the the nationals have been bad for five straight years, and the Washington media is still patting Rizzo on the back for 2019 and when somebody gets blamed for the mediocrity of the Nationals, it’s always Davy Martinez. Fire, Davey. Fire, Davey, well, who gave him the team Rizzo gave him the team Rizzo traded Juan Soto. You don’t trade Juan Soto under any circumstances. I know Scott Boris is Dr Evil, but you keep him around. You keep Soto around for those two and a half years, and then you walk in and you hand Boris a blank check and say, How much Scott to get in for the next 10 years, because you can’t let a Juan Soto leave the way they did. And by the way, threw in the an all star trade Turner in the same trade for crying out loud. What was that about? But it is a I think it’s a fun time to be in Baltimore, because you’re going to have postseason. All you can ask of a team is get to post season. What happens in postseason is never predictable. Who would have thought the Arizona Diamondbacks would have been in the world series last year? I mean, you just don’t know, because it’s a different sport, especially in baseball where you go from five starting pitchers to three starting pitchers, where you change the lineup, where relief pitchers come in every single day, if needed, um, Mike Messina, I asked Mike Messina once, when he was with the Yankees, why was it the Yankees made postseason every year he was there, which they did, and except for, I believe, his last year, 2007 2008 excuse me, um, but couldn’t win a World Series. And you know, they haven’t won a World Series now since 2009 but why? Why couldn’t they win a World Series when they made postseason, when they spend all that money? And his answer was, was pretty simple. He said, it’s a different sport in the playoffs than it is over 162 games. Well, football’s a different sport in one and out than over 17 games. So there’s no guarantees when you get to postseason, but the thing you ask of a team, if you’re a fan, I think, is get to postseason, and then let’s see what happens. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:49
John, I would say with the new ownership, and this is what you talk about with the Nationals, and I don’t want to say with the capitals, because I think that’s a different, different sport, just on the baseball side. Can. City happens quick, you win, and then you crash, and you can’t sign everybody in the smaller markets. And for me, I’m really focused on Mr. Rubenstein is thinking about doing to usurp more time and money from Baltimoreans, quite frankly, that you know what I mean, not $65 per month, and we’re gonna go down there and sit for free and sneak our own food in and whatever things that create revenue in a place where Dick cash cried to me for 15 years that they did not have fortune 500 companies here that, Skybox this, and Skybox that, and the Washington is always going to suck more money. And I’m that’s just a fact. I mean, I’ve, you know, been in media here 33 years. I’ve seen how the money gets Washington’s first priority. And if you’re buying markets, you buy New York, Philadelphia and Washington only think about buying Baltimore, you know, if you’re doing that. So that’s the Orioles challenge. That’s baseball’s challenge, with mass and being worthless and these RSNs falling apart. And the model of we’re going to sell a lot of tickets for a lot of money, or we’re going to sell beer for $15 or we’re going to sell skyboxes. I don’t know what the model is with baseball, but to your point, it can’t be. We couldn’t afford to keep gunner Henderson, or we can’t afford to keep gunner Henderson and Adley rutschman. And to your point, anybody holding Rubenstein up thinking he’s getting Henderson or westburg sign these Boris clacks that’s never going to happen until the end. So it’s really going to be hard, other than just winning, which they can do, but building this sustainable thing that they’ve been trying to do in Pittsburgh and Kansas City and Tampa and all these other places. And fail baseball has really struggled to do that in places outside of, let’s say St Louis
John Feinstein 16:44
sustainable is a good work because it’s very difficult Nestor. You’re right, especially in smaller markets. That’s interesting. The Royals won the World Series in 2015 crashed completely, lost 100 plus games, I think, for three years in a row. Excuse me, but now they’ve been able to rebuild to where they have a good chance to be a playoff team. They’re a good baseball team. Are they great? No, probably not, but neither were the Diamondbacks last year, and they ended up in the World Series. And you see, Pittsburgh is respectable again, and they made the playoffs three years in a row. Crashed. Now they’re back to being a solid team, and they may have the best pitcher in baseball, and I hope to God, we don’t hear an announcement in three weeks that he’s having Tommy John because he’s a lot of fun to watch Paul schemes. But you are right, especially in the smaller markets, because unlike football, where there’s revenue sharing, and the smaller markets, have a chance to make a lot of money too. As you know, the Ravens have been able to make a lot of money teams in smaller more Kansas City is not a big market by any means. They’ve won three of the last four Super Bowls thanks in large part to Ryan pace, who decided to draft what’s the name of the kid they drafted with the second pick, ahead of mahomes and Watson I block on his name, but they took him with it. They traded up to get the second pick. The bears did and and they drafted the kid from North Carolina, who, of course, was a dud. So that’s the difference between football and baseball. It is not as hard to sustain in football as it is in baseball. As I mentioned, the Ravens have been a solid franchise for 25 years now.
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:22
Well, baseball’s the one sport where you can look your fans in the eye and say, we don’t have the money for that. And somehow that’s acceptable because of the original sin of where they were 30 years ago when they had a had a strike and never really level set payroll anywhere. John Fox News here, he has two books coming out. We get them both in, um, a little bit on the Duke. I’ll let you do this. I
John Feinstein 18:47
don’t think there are many of your viewers, Nestor, who are going to buy the Duke book.
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:52
I well, but they, you know? I mean, they used to call poor Dick Vitale Dookie V around here. I
John Feinstein 18:57
don’t know what you are, which is not just in Baltimore,
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:01
this relationship I you know, I mean, Gary Williams holds court with you, so you must not have thought you were too in with, you know?
John Feinstein 19:07
Well, he knew that I respected, and I think there are pretty good reasons to respect. And I first knew shewski When he was an Army, just as I first knew Gary when he was an American. And I developed relationships with those coaches before they coached at Duke and Merrill. And, you know, I did go to Duke, and I don’t plead guilty to that. I, you know, Duke’s a good school. I went there, I got a degree, and I’ve had a pretty decent career. I’ve also argued with Duke’s leadership over many things through the years, including their mishandling of the lacrosse thing, including the fact that the last two presidents before this one didn’t care about sports at all. You’re
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:49
a real journalist. You can love something and still criticize it and what? Yeah, and I
John Feinstein 19:54
can, and I have and and Gary is a good guy, and he’s a. Great coach, Mike and Gary both Hall of Fame coaches. It’s not an accident. Mike did dominate Gary, and Gary’s the first one to admit it. You know, for all of Gary’s complaining about officials and Duke and things, when he got in the Hall of Fame, he called me and asked me if shewski would do his induction speech. So that’s how much he respected and shezeki has always respected him too. So that Minnesota
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:23
game was rough, that’s all I’m going to say. Yeah. Well, I think of all of it, I think
John Feinstein 20:27
when you lose by 11, you can’t whine about the officiating. But the larger point is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and I was asked by Duke University Press to write a book about the five championships, and that’s what the book is. It’s called Five banners. Now let’s talk about the Ivy League book.
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:45
I hate all five of them, and good luck with your book. You mentioned Ivy League and Ivy League football. So I, you know, I’ve been covering a game 30 years, and I think of the Ivy Leaguers that I’ve met, Burke, you know that there comes a part of it that if you’re an ivy Leaguer and playing in the NFL, Ryan Fitzpatrick, we remember you right? I don’t know how many guys from Brown made it or whatever through the course of time, but, um,
John Feinstein 21:13
you know where John Heisman went to college. Go ahead, Brown.
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:17
Okay, there you go. So a few things I know about Rhode Island for you to do an Ivy League book. You’re an immersive cat. Man, you’re like a method actor, like Jack Nicholson, sort of like I saw your ish. Man, I saw you for a year embedding in with Billick, with the Ravens on the sidelines and the whole deal. Like you play the part, you get into the role, you try to understand all of it, then you come out of it. And I guess, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining you go off to some place in Colorado. It’s all working. No play makes John adult boy, and you come out with a book the Ivy League football thing. Give me the angle on that. Well,
John Feinstein 21:52
the Ivy League football thing really began when I was a kid growing up in New York City. I used to ride the subway, the number one subway to Baker field, which is where Columbia played. And Columbia was terrible, but you played four bucks for a ticket, and you sat on the 40 yard line, and the Ivy League had good teams. Remember the Yale team with Brian Dowling and Calvin Hill when I was a kid, and they had teams that were actually ranked in the top 25 before there was an FBS and an FCS. You know, Cosmo yacovasi, you won’t remember him. Was a great player at Princeton, but I always follow the Ivy League. And 24 years ago now, I did a book, as I think you know, on Patriot League basketball that was called the last amateurs. Not a single player on those teams went on to play in the NBA, but they all had stories to tell. There was no David Robinson left at that no David had graduated Benny in 1987 from navy. But there were, there were good players, but not NBA players, and they’re very competitive. And they had stories to tell. And excuse me, the book ended up being a best seller, and so I went to my editor two years ago now, this spring, and I said, like to do a book on the Ivy League. I’ll bet there a lot of great stories there. And to his credit, he had read the last amateurs, and he said, Let’s do it. And Nestor, I interviewed 82 players at the eight schools, and these were active players last year. Active players last year 2021, player who wasn’t a good interview. Then some were good, some were very good, some were great. And I had so much fun doing it, I didn’t have fun on I 95 driving up between Hanover, New Hampshire and here and back.
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:32
Good pizza in New Haven. Every time eating a good pizza, that’s what you do in new pizza
John Feinstein 23:37
was very good. Sally’s is great. Um, what’s the other place? It’s down here. Now, that’s very good. That started in New Haven 100 years ago, but there’s one of Virginia,
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:47
right? I gotta get down there. Yeah, a piece of pizza or something like that, or something. It’s called somebody’s
John Feinstein 23:52
not it, but, yeah, okay, they’ll come back to me before we’re done. But anyway, the point is, I had a great time. There were great stories to tell the league. The thing that people forget, the league averages about 12 players per year in the NFL. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s the best known because he was there for 17 years, played for nine teams and was a starter much of the time. But there were others you mentioned. Matt Burke. There are kids who played last year at the Ivy League who were drafted. They had a kid out of Yale who was a third round pick who will certainly play in the league this year. There was another kid who was a fifth round pick. So, um, it was a fascinating book to do. Sorry about this, cough. Oh, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:36
think it’s Pete’s pizza. But go ahead. Yes. Okay, okay. So
John Feinstein 24:40
anyway, the point is that there was a three way tie for first place, one of the schools that tie, Yale and Harvard. Not surprising, but Dartmouth, coming off a terrible year. Their coach, buddy Stevens, who had been there for years, a Dartmouth grad, was killed in a bike accident. He didn’t die, right? Away, but the accident was in March. He died in September. His assistant, Sammy McCorkle, took over. He was a coach for a year, initially an interim coach, and they tied for first, and he was Coach of the Year by the end of the year. I mean, Dartmouth was a great story, and whether it’s college, pro High School. It was an amazing story, what they were able to do. Excuse me, no
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:24
worries. Jeff Feinstein is our guest. He has a book in November on the ancient eight in ivy league football. One of
John Feinstein 25:31
the reasons I called it that Nestor is because in today’s world, the Ivy League is about the only league I trust to never change. It’ll always be eight teams. It won’t be 910, six, seven, it won’t expand. It’s the ancient eight. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:46
I took you down the road of Orioles, and you even mentioned the Snyder word to me and all that. Um, I think of you and Kyle’s first, and we went back and forth on golf and the Saudi money and all the ugliness of all of that. Um, I don’t want to say they’re wrecking sports for me and get off my lawn. Moment. I’m going to be writing next month about what it’s like to be locked out after 40 years of doing it professionally as you’ve done it now, being discredited as a journalist through all of this, but sports and the changes in sports, and I’m trying to think of things I might like about. I like that. Baseball games get over two and a half hours. I mean, I’m trying to think of a handful of things that have happened this century where I look at it and say, that’s made sports better. I’m watching the Olympics right now, and I don’t I barely recognize it as I see it. But college sports, the whole premise of amateur and not and turning on March Madison, seeing everybody on the television that’s doing all the dribbling. None of those people are making any money. And everybody down to the well, a lot of them are making money now, now, but I’m talking about for our whole lifetime, right? This last five years, since covid, Since Gary said somebody will regulate it at some point. I remember seeing that a couple years ago, and this n, i L and the wild wild west. I You’re writing these Duke books now, and you’re covering I wrote one
John Feinstein 27:06
Duke book. I’ve written 50 books, and you’re giving me a hard time. Couple Duke
Nestor J. Aparicio 27:09
books, but one, there’s not going to be anymore. This is a different world that I don’t recognize, and quite frankly, I’m not sure I’m interested in it. I’m not sure I’m attracted. I
John Feinstein 27:23
understand why you feel that way. And the story that that says it all to me is Jay Wright. JAY WRIGHT won two national titles in three years. He went to four Final Fours, and he retired at 62 why? Because he was tired of the whole thing. He was tired of the NHL. He was tired of the transfer portal. He was trying, tired of negotiating with agents for high school players, which is legal, by the way, thanks to the Condoleezza Rice committee, that was a disaster. Well, the guys that
Nestor J. Aparicio 27:51
used to be hustlers and pimps for these guys are now bag man are now like they’re legally legitimized. They’re
John Feinstein 27:58
illegal. Yeah, somebody asked me if Rick Patino was going to do well at St John’s, I said, Sure, because all the rules that he broke through the years don’t exist anymore. And he can do whatever the heck he wants, and he can get all that money from Wall Street, from his pals there for n i L, something went down wrong. Nestor Aparicio, all right, brother,
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:14
we’ll get you a glass of water. Sometime soon, we’ll get you some other glasses of
John Feinstein 28:17
water. But the the You’re right. I have trouble. It used to be by the time a guy was a senior, whomever it was, you knew him, you knew his family, you knew his friends, you knew what he was majoring in. Now nobody’s around for more than a year or two. You don’t get to know them. You know, I Okay. I went to Duke. I know grand Hill as well as I’ve known any athlete ever. He was at Duke for four years. His parents were great people ask
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:47
him to give me my press credential with the Orioles. Now that he’s an owner, I’ll talk to him about please do Thank you. Yes, journalist, journalist to journalist,
John Feinstein 28:54
but, but the point is, you knew these guys. Honestly, I can’t tell you anybody who’s going to play for Duke or Maryland or any of the other schools I’ve followed through the years this coming year, because everybody’s gone, everybody’s transferred, everybody’s, well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:11
the transfer portal thing is become this, this demon ish type of thing that’s about these kids getting paid. And listen, I’m a capitalist. I mean, you know, I’m not, I’m not as anti Republican or anti money. I want people to make money. I was, I was kidded. Fang Mitchell, back in 1998 we have a deal with cop and state here, where their flagship we and and I had fangs kids in my studio in 1998 after they beat Texas and went up to Pittsburgh and did their thing right, and they came down. And there’s a picture of me with 15 of the kids, all big, tall kids, 1998, I’m 29 then they’re all 19, and fangs in there. They’re all eating pizza that I gave them, and thanks it, man, don’t be putting that in the newsletter. Nasty. We’re breaking the rules. You gave them free pizza. And I’m thinking, My God, I gave. Even free pizza, and I broke NCA, I violations are going to come and take your 15 seated win away. And now where we are, I don’t I just don’t recognize in
John Feinstein 30:11
a utopia, Nils are the right thing. The players deserve to share some of the millions that the schools are are making. Same thing with the transfer portal. Kids should be able to transfer if they play football or basketball the same way a kid who plays the tuba can transfer. Those are correct rules, but, but they’re a Pandora’s Box. They’ve opened a Pandora’s box, and problem is you can’t close the Pandora’s box. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Nils. You can’t take that away. Clearly, the transfer portal makes things fairer for players. But I did a story on a player last year, good kid who was playing his fourth school in four years. I mean,
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:56
there was no perception you were a good kid if you were on your fourth school in four years,
John Feinstein 31:00
a good kid. He is a good kid. He’s now at his fifth, fourth school in five years, because he stayed at VCU. But
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:07
if you had a kid that had four jobs in four years and kept moving up and moving, you know, up the rung and taking another 25 grand and raised this year, and you did good for you, yeah, that’s America, right.
John Feinstein 31:18
And so my point is that you’re right, and I’m right that it is harder to care about big time college athletics now than it used to be. But it can’t be changed. It’s not going to be changed, and that’s one reason why I enjoyed the Ivy League book so much, because you didn’t have Nils, you didn’t have kids transferring after a year. There was a quarterback at Harvard who the first half of the season, was probably the Player of the Year in League. He was he could run four, 540, he could throw. They were undefeated. Then teams figured him out, and he got benched. He’s a junior. He was a junior. He got benched for a sophomore. Normally, that kid would have been out of school five minutes after he got benched, or at the very least at the end of the semester. You don’t walk away from a Harvard degree. He’s going to play this year as a receiver. He’ll be a senior. He’ll graduate in the spring, because you don’t walk away from an Ivy League school once you’re there. And that there’s a purity to that the kids all love to play football. They would love to be in the NFL someday, but they know if they’re not in the NFL, they’ve got an Ivy League degree. That’s a pretty valuable thing
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:32
when I think of whatever assaults have ever been made on my sports sensibilities, whether it’s a baseball strike when I was 13, or steroids or whatever, the pox on any of the houses of cheating, and Lance Armstrong and all that. You’re a golf guy, and I’m not a golf guy, sort of famously. I do work with classic five here, and I encourage everybody go out and hit it’s a great thing to do, especially if you got a better back than I have at this point. You’ve written books about it. You studied the game. You’re considered one of the great scholars and authors in the sport. I can’t think of anything even Trump with African American players and Colin Kaepernick, which is and all the crap that Snyder did, which is awful stuff that’s going on in sports. I can’t think of anything uglier that would muddy up the sport or a sport, or sport you even love to play, let alone witness or bet on, or whatever, golf at the top of this, and the Saudi money and the politics and Trump’s involvement in that, and just all of it that the Saudi saw this thing that they could go after that could really sort of stir up things in America with their money.
John Feinstein 33:38
Yeah, and it’s blood money. We all know it is. I mean, Phil Mickelson, who was the first important guy to sign on with, with Liv said, quote, they’re murderous mother blankers, and we know that. I know that, but this is a chance to change golf. Well, they have changed golf,
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:58
but we never shared a byline with kashati Like you did, right, right,
John Feinstein 34:02
but, but not, not, not well. He worked for the Washington Post
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:07
like so did you? Yes, that’s what I mean. On your side of the fence, your comrades was murdered violently by
John Feinstein 34:15
nobody copped me up. I was lucky, but, well, you weren’t on that beat. I was not on that beat, you’re right, and I didn’t know as much about it as he did. But the point is that Liv has not been good for golf. The best players aren’t playing against each other, except in the majors, and nobody really cares about Liv. David Faraday, my good friend who I wrote a book about, is on the Liv telecast. I don’t watch. It’s 54 holes. That’s not a real tournament, and these guys already have hundreds of millions of dollars in their pocket no matter what they do. So why should I care? It’s like, why should I care about a kid playing college ball who’s going to be gone in a year? I mean, everybody’s all excited at Duke about this. Kid from Maine, whose name I’m forgetting, big kid, and they say he’s going to be the number one pick in the draft next, next June. Okay, fine. What I’m supposed to emotionally be invested in a guy who’s going to be at Duke for less than a year? Why? I’m supposed to be invested in 54 hole golf tournaments that where the money comes from, one of the worst regimes in the world. Why?
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:21
But that money they gave it was meant for nothing, other than to be disruptive and to buy a toy that was considered to be we’re gonna buy a piece of America and come back here and swing it around, yeah? And that’s literally, as I see it. I can’t imagine. They don’t care about golf. They care more about horse racing, probably, you know, you know, or the Olympics, in a sports sense, things they couldn’t buy, right? Like, like, like, like, the Qataris illicitly buying a little cup, right
John Feinstein 35:47
in soccer, right? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And that’s why they call it money
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:53
washing, because it didn’t come from their passion for soccer, you know.
John Feinstein 35:57
No, it certainly didn’t. And, you know, but I don’t see the PGA Tour hasn’t, exactly, you know, covered itself in glory with the way it’s handled it. It waited too long before it got involved. Then it went behind the player’s back to make a deal. Rory McIlroy stood right in front of Jay Monahan for all that time and saying, You want Jay Monahan, you got to go through me. Well, Jay Monahan, let them come up from behind him and stick the knife in his back, and if I’m Rory McIlroy, I’d never speak to Jay Monahan again. Rory is a good guy. He forgives people. I don’t, and it’s a disaster right now. Golf is a disaster. I mean, they were acting like the Olympics on Sunday. Were one of the great events ever seen. So Scottie Scheffler won another tournament. That doesn’t matter, because it’s not a major and I didn’t get excited. I got a little excited about Djokovic because he’d done everything in tennis, except when an Olympic gold medal. And tennis has been around the Olympics longer than golf. But still, my theory on the Olympics, which some people agree with some people don’t, is if, if it’s not the biggest event in a sport, it shouldn’t be in the Olympics. And the only reason you can say right away, well, what about basketball? The only reason basketball should still be there because it’s been there since 1932 that’s a different deal.
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:15
John Feinstein is the author of all things. He’s got two books coming out. What’s the next one? Where are you gonna You can embed with next
John Feinstein 37:22
and, sorry, good question. I am sitting here quietly right now having finished those two books, having a little bit of a break, trying to come up with my next topic. I’ve got about five ideas, but I’m not sure which one I’m gonna try.
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:34
I would love for you to come up to Baltimore, in bed with the Orioles, and figure out everything Angelo’s left behind and everything that Elias in my Dell’s brain, and the three World Series they’re going to win, and how they’re going to resurrect the city and build up the Inner Harbor and and save my city.
John Feinstein 37:48
I, you know, I’ve had a lot of fun in Baltimore, both that Memorial Stadium and then at Camden yard, so coming up to Baltimore to do a project would not be the worst thing in my life.
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:00
All right, well, good luck with your Duke thing and and then I wish you a lot of honest luck on the you don’t
John Feinstein 38:06
need. You mean it when you say the ancient eight. I appreciate it. Can Duke,
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:10
by their way into, I mean, from a Duke perspective of buying championships and doing the things that need to be done in college basketball, is Duke equipped to play that game?
John Feinstein 38:19
Yeah, they got, they’ve got the N i l money to get, get good players, they do. And
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:24
we’re going to have 22 this is five years from SB, 20 teams that play real basketball, be like the NBA, 2030 teams, and then the
John Feinstein 38:30
rest of them are play games I’ll watch.
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:34
Haha. Well, we got it for you up here with UMBC and copping. It’s Allison Loyola, my Morgan, my guys aren’t going anywhere. My bit, my big fives, all good here. How about that?
John Feinstein 38:44
I’m all for it, 100%
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:46
John Feinstein, great author. Check out his work. I got a bunch of his books back here. I’m still working my way through that Messina Glavin tomb from years ago, long book, yeah, right, that’s what I’m saying. It was a big book. But if you love the ravens, go pick his ravens book up from the early days of the shoddy ownership as well, and a whole bunch of Brian Billick fun stuff in there as well. Always good to visit. Always good to talk a little golf with. Somebody knows a lot more about it than I am, than I do. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
