Only those that were here when it was great can remember the three million fans that annually poured into Oriole Park at Camden Yards and how much the baseball team mattered to Baltimore a generation ago. But as the MLB trade deadline and labor wars loom, we welcome Buster Olney of ESPN back “home” for a spirited visit with Nestor to discuss the current realities for David Rubenstein and Michael Arougheti to attempt to lift the franchise back to annual contention and support from the baseball fans of Maryland.

Nestor Aparicio and Buster Olney discuss the Baltimore Orioles’ struggles, the impact of new ownership, and the looming MLB labor war. Olney highlights the Orioles’ poor performance over the past decade, attributing it to a lack of trust in baseball executives and poor player development. He suggests that Cal Ripken Jr. could help rebuild fan trust. They also discuss the potential labor war, noting the owners’ push for cost certainty and the union’s fragmentation. Olney predicts a bloody labor war, with owners likely to push for salary caps. The conversation also touches on the Orioles’ trade deadline and the impact of the labor issues on the season.

[ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Text Cal Ripken that he gets to help save baseball again.

[ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Pass along the suggestion that Cal Ripken be made part of the Orioles’ effort to rebuild fan trust.

Buster Olney’s Return to Baltimore

Nestor Aparicio welcomes Buster Olney to WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and introduces the segment “Baltimore Positive.”

Nestor reminisces about Buster’s early days as a beat writer for the Baltimore Sun and their shared history covering the Orioles.

Buster mentions his recent conversations with other former Baltimore Sun colleagues, highlighting the strong tradition of baseball coverage in Baltimore.

Nestor and Buster discuss the passion of Baltimore Orioles fans and the impact of the team’s performance on the fan base over the years.

Buster Olney’s Early Career and Influences

Buster shares a pivotal moment in his career when Red Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, spoke at his high school, inspiring him to pursue a career in sports journalism.

Nestor reflects on the influence of Baltimore-based baseball journalists like Buster, Ken Rosenthal, and others on his own career and love for baseball.

Buster recounts his experience at the Baltimore Sun, where he was encouraged to write extensively about the Orioles, contributing to his development as a sports writer.

The conversation touches on the strong fan base in Baltimore and the challenges the Orioles have faced in recent years.

Challenges Faced by the Baltimore Orioles

Nestor and Buster discuss the decline in the Orioles’ performance and fan base over the past 20 years, attributing it to poor management and ownership decisions.

Buster criticizes Peter Angelos’s lack of trust in baseball executives, citing the 1996 trade deadline as a turning point where Angelos’s decisions led to the team’s underperformance.

Nestor shares his frustration with the team’s management, including the decision to tank for several years and the lack of investment in player development.

The conversation highlights the need for new ownership and management to rebuild trust with the fan base and improve the team’s performance.

Impact of Ownership on Team Performance

Buster explains how Peter Angelos’s self-made background led to his mistrust of others, which negatively impacted the Orioles’ performance and fan engagement.

Nestor and Buster discuss the current ownership situation, with John Angelos and Louis Angelos taking over, and the challenges they face in winning back the fan base’s trust.

Buster suggests that Cal Ripken Jr. could play a crucial role in rebuilding the team’s reputation and fan engagement, given his strong connection with the community and the franchise.

The conversation emphasizes the importance of player development and trust-building with the fan base as key priorities for the Orioles’ new management.

Labor Issues in Major League Baseball

Nestor and Buster shift the conversation to the upcoming labor war in Major League Baseball, expressing concern about the potential impact on the season and the sport.

Buster predicts a bloody labor war, with owners pushing for cost certainty and salary caps, and the union being weaker than it was 30 years ago.

The discussion highlights the fragmentation within the union and the challenges players face in negotiating with owners who are more unified than ever.

Nestor and Buster agree that the labor issues could significantly affect the trade deadline and the overall business of baseball, including the potential cancellation of the All-Star Game.

The Role of Cal Ripken Jr. and New Ownership

Buster suggests that Cal Ripken Jr. could be a key figure in rebuilding the Orioles’ reputation and fan engagement, given his strong connection with the community and the franchise.

Nestor and Buster discuss the potential for Cal to take on a more significant role in the team’s management, focusing on player development and rebuilding trust with the fan base.

The conversation touches on the challenges of new ownership, with John and Louis Angelos still learning about the business of baseball and the need for strong leadership.

Nestor expresses frustration with the current management, including Mike Elias, and the lack of transparency and accountability from the team’s leadership.

The Future of the Baltimore Orioles

Nestor and Buster discuss the potential for the Orioles to improve their performance and fan engagement in the coming years, with a focus on player development and trust-building.

Buster emphasizes the importance of competitive balance and the need for the Orioles to develop a strong pitching pipeline to succeed in the long term.

The conversation highlights the challenges of managing a small-market team and the need for strategic decisions to ensure the team’s success.

Nestor and Buster agree that the Orioles have the potential to become a strong team again, but it will require significant changes in management and a focus on building a winning culture.

Personal Reflections and Final Thoughts

Nestor and Buster share personal reflections on their careers and the impact of the Orioles on their lives and the lives of Baltimore fans.

Buster recounts his experiences covering the Orioles and the strong connections he formed with players and fans over the years.

The conversation ends with a discussion about the importance of honest and critical journalism in holding the Orioles accountable and keeping fans informed.

Nestor thanks Buster for his insights and contributions to the conversation, expressing his appreciation for their long-standing friendship and shared passion for baseball.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call this thing Baltimore positive. We’re positively into the summer months, which means football season kind of sort of here. At least it is for the Maryland Lottery. I will have Raven scratch offs to give away on Thursday at Costas of this week, but more than that, we’ll be at Koco’s. I’m wearing my Koco’s gear on the 26th and all over the place into August and September. All the brought to you by the Maryland Lottery, conjunction with GBMC keeping me alive and well, as well as Farnham and Dermer. They are the comfort guys. This guy’s always made me comfortable. He’s one of my very, very first guests as a radio host 35 years ago, and we’re celebrating our 28th anniversary of Baltimore Positive in WNST this week as the one-time beat writer for the San Diego Soccers. He then became sort of a half colleague at the Baltimore Sun. Although you got there kind of after I left, but we were always in the same press boxes with the Orioles and Peter Angelos and Cal Ripken, and you were the young beat reporter. And Kenny Rosenthal went on to the columnist thing, and Buster only went on to like Ken Rosenthal and Peter Schmuck, infamy as well as a lifetime of suffering baseball coverage. I’ve already had Kerchon on this week. You know, Rosenthal and I got now. I I have the pleasure of having you on. And you know, there’s some kids around here, Buster. Only when they see you on the worldwide leader, they don’t know you spent some formative, important years here in baseball in Baltimore. Correct,

Buster Olney 1:23
correct. Yeah, I was just talking to Tim Karchin literally 60 seconds before I got on with you, and I said, “Yeah, I’m gonna go. I’m doing Nestor’s show. And Tim was like, “I was just on there yesterday. Who would have guessed? Like back to back days with the Baltimore Sun. But yes, a very fine tradition. I got to get Justice on now, right? I

Nestor Aparicio 1:40
got to find him, right? Get all you guys together, right? Exactly. Before I even begin, like, and we’ll get into labor and the Orioles and Reuben, so we’re going to do all that. Angela, we’ll do we’ll do the whole thing. But you know, coming at it honestly for you, you went into this beat reporter, all that the business of baseball, eating all this up. It has been quite a life’s work, right? I mean, you you you came into this honestly loving baseball and wanting to work in and around baseball. Same as me, we loved baseball, and I think that was the thing I took out of Philadelphia a couple weeks ago, running into you for Ducci. Just all of Nightingale, all of you guys, is that man? We’ve spent our whole lives loving baseball.

Buster Olney 2:19
Yeah, and I was lucky when I was 15 years old, I was in high school and I’m figuring out I’m not going to be power forward for the Lakers. And Red Smith, who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, spoke at my high school, and it was like the light bulb went on. Like that’s what I want to do. I love sports. I love to write sports, and and so it has felt like I really haven’t had to work my whole life because I’ve been able to do exactly what I wanted to do.

Nestor Aparicio 2:42
Well, and I guess the Baltimore part of that for me to plug you and Kirchen and Rosenthal and on and up Pascarelli before that, Shaughnessy before that, all worked in Baltimore, and you know they all have Earl Weaver stories. Terry Pluto, I mean, like all of these guys, you know, I I never wanted to be you because you and I were the same age, I wanted to be them. Steadman, you know the Phil Jackman, the people before me. We all did, right? I mean, and you know, I think there’s a point for all of that where the Baltimore pipeline of Baltimore and baseball, at least in my lifetime, when I look, I’m proud of all of you. And I tell all, I told you that when I saw you two weeks ago, but Marv Moran Jr. I’m like, I can’t believe the bow tie. Like, it really was a hell of a springboard working at the Baltimore Sun and covering baseball around here.

Buster Olney 3:28
Yeah, when I worked there, I actually had, or excuse me, when I interviewed at the Baltimore Sun, the the head of the John Carroll said the one thing you’ll never hear from, and John Jack Gibbons also said this to me in my interview that the one thing you’ll never never hear from us is that we don’t have room for a Baltimore Orioles story, and that really set the tone. It was a perfect place for a young writer to develop and and stick his out his elbows. And I when I joined the Baltimore Sun, it was Cal’s first year, or Cal’s year of when he broke Lou Gehrig’s record, there was so much attention on that streak, and then the next year with Davy Johnson taking over, and you know I’m coming out of each year writing 1000 stories, you know the the Notebook, the the game story, all that stuff. It was a great place to cover baseball, and it was matched by the passion of the fans. You know, I had come from San Diego, where there wasn’t nearly that kind of passion, and then you go to Baltimore, where Brooks Robinson is living, where you know Mike Flynn again, all these former Orioles have call home. I loved it, and you know that’s why when the Orioles have gone through some lean times over the last 20 years, and people talked about their fan base. I’d be like, no, it’s a great fan base. They just need to be a little bit more inspired than what than the product that they’ve been getting. Well, the sadness

Nestor Aparicio 4:51
that my eyes have seen since you left, you know, Rosenthal lives in Phoenix. Like when you leave and you see it empty out, I. I remember Rick Vaughn. He went to Tampa and would come back on trips. Kurt Schilling would say this to me at the end of his career, like, “What the hell’s happened there? You know, like what’s going on, dude? You were on the other end of the Angelo’s fax machine, and worse than that, you weren’t for the Baltimore Sun. I’m with that masky guy down in Washington. You were a big part of him beating, trying to beat you on stories by giving it to the Post and like all that. I covered all of that, and then I wrote a book on the Peter Principles for Adam Jones, and I saw him at the All Star Game two weeks ago. He asked me one day at the All Star Game in at the Mets 13 years ago. He said, “Why does the old man hate you so much? He asked me, and I had to go back and read all of your writing and all of the writers I’m talking about throw schmuck in there all the way through to catalog what went wrong here. Since let’s say I call it John Miller and I had John on recently, like literally, I I think that you were here right in the beginning of that. From that moment on, in the speech night of Cal Ripken, there’s been, I mean, it’s been 31 years, bus. I mean, he got booed that night. He never appeared again. He’s dead. His kid. The next day, and and it still kind of haunts the franchise. And I think they think like you might think outside. Well, I remember there being 3 million people who’s going to hit a switch. There’s no there’s no magic switch here anymore. It’s not Cal Ripkins in front of it. People are just gonna we’re gonna give a bobblehead. People, it’s messy here, boss. It really is.

Buster Olney 6:28
That’s why I you know when they went through the years of tanking since when the first years Michael Ass took over, it just made me shake my head because what’s so important is I think you have to rebuild the trust of the fan base because they had the rug pulled out from underneath them, and so to willfully design a team for failure for all those years, I thought was a huge mistake. Having covered the marketplace, now I can answer your question. I’ve got my theories. I love covering Peter Angelos. Okay, I actually really enjoyed it, and I had a good, really good working relationship with him. Here’s the thing: Peter was self-made, right? Put himself, grew up in a bar, put himself through law school, and all of that. Because of all of that, the fact he had to trust himself meant that when he became an owner of the Baltimore Orioles, and he really needed to trust other people with this franchise, he couldn’t do it, right? And the absolute turning point in the franchise was at the trade deadline of 1996, when the team was not playing well. They were underperforming, and Pat Gillick, Hall of Fame general manager, is there, and he says, “You know what? We got to tear it down. We have to start turning this over. We have to start being more progressive. And Angelo’s kills trades, and what happened after that? They made the playoffs. So in a moment, Peter was right, and that meant that he no longer trusted Pat Gillick, other of the baseball executives. I can’t remember the phrase he used, but he would always kind of make fun of them a little bit. He wouldn’t listen to them as much, and that took the Orioles down the road where they went all the way through the aughts until the end of Peter’s tenure as the owner, it was. It was. He was a someone who may had so much success in life, but that worked against him as he became owner of the Orioles.

Nestor Aparicio 8:12
Hey, you know what, Buster? I’m still right about Chris Widger. He could, he wasn’t going to be a good DHer. Buster only is here. He covers baseball and remembers those late night busters at you. Can I

Buster Olney 8:25
tell you the greatest? My conversation. You can tell me

Nestor Aparicio 8:27
any story you want, man. I’ll believe it too because you’re buster only.

Buster Olney 8:30
So Peter, I mean, part of my job is the beat writer. I would talk to him every day, which is weird to hear. Later, Pat Gillick and other GMs telling me that they were often waiting and outside of Peter’s office at the law firm to have a meeting with him, and then realizing he was talking to me, and sometimes for an hour or 45 minutes, and he was talking to other reporters too. But Peter, when Kenny was writing really critical columns at the time, he and Peter wouldn’t talk, and so I would call Peter, and Peter would just go crazy for the first 10 minutes. You and your Rosenthal, and what are you doing to get that you fricking? And then he would threaten to take the press passes away. I shouldn’t let you in, and then he’d kind of wear himself out. And he would always say, “What do you think? And I said, “Peter, it’s not that’s not my job. I’m not supposed to be an editorial consultant here. And he would scream at me, and he said, “I don’t know why I’m mad at you. And then he would tell me stuff. So, so, but I knew he was. My feeling is that

Nestor Aparicio 9:31
probably is between the first and third scotch that you went from angry to I’m going to tell you something. That was my experience in my one meeting with him is that the first segment and the third segment were very different, and I’ve I’ve run them. I did two and a half hours with Peter at a bar with liquor, and and it was six months after I knew a little bit more than those baseball people, didn’t I? Because I had him on in March of ’97.

Buster Olney 10:00
Professionals. That was the phrase he would use, and it was a little bit demeaning the way he would say. Well, he called Bud Seeling a used

Nestor Aparicio 10:06
car salesman in the middle of last time’s labor, which brings me to you, Bus, because I think let’s open Pant, and we’ll get to the trade stuff and all that, which is that’s neither here nor there with a team that subfile. Yeah, you know, like to me, this is about how Rubinstein and Arigetti, who have not come in as Angelo, so he’s already got a bobblehead of himself, and he’s writing a better book than you’ve ever written on sports ownership because he’s owned a team for two years. It’s insane. This Rubenstein guy, like I, I, I don’t know what to make of it, but I know it’s not good, and I know Arigetti is the guy who thinks he knows baseball more of the Peter, but nobody knows who he is, and he he’s a big deal inside the building. But so I know all of this as because my journalist radar is up here. But I do know this that they’re going to have to manage this. They’re not going to take labor side like Peter did 34 years ago or whatever 32 years ago. And you were a part of all of that as well, but how the new owners here are going to handle this, as well as all of the new owners, as well as the nouveau riche, you know, not every Bryce Harper, but every Gunnar Henderson and every Bobby Witt, how they’re going to muscle up in this fight, because we’re not even talking about baseball on the field or the jersey colors, or anything. Pretty soon, it’s going to go back to dark clouds, and are we going to have a season? Blah blah blah. And you and I’ve been down that river several times.

Buster Olney 11:30
Yeah, and the way the ownership grew up, and and to this point, Rubinstein has been wildly disappointing for the fan base. I think he he was brought in following the Angelos era, and the thought was he’d come in, he’d be more aggressive, he would he would spend more money, and yet he has just deferred to the baseball ops, and the baseball ops hasn’t been very good. You know that at this point the Orioles have to be searching the you know researching the question of why is it that our players who we you know we we declined to to compete for multiple seasons to get access to this group of players, and they have stalled constantly. Right, so you would think that there would be more input from ownership saying, “What are you doing? Let’s go. What are we? What changes are going to make, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? The fact that Rubenstein hasn’t done that is surprising to me, and it also tells me that when we go into this labor situation, and I think you can give this, make this statement generally around baseball. There’s not a lot of leadership in the sport compared to where it was 30 years ago, and so as we assess this on hawks and

Nestor Aparicio 12:33
doves were what like that’s what made the lords of the realm. I don’t know what the hell these guys are other than bean counters, all of them, literally.

Buster Olney 12:40
And you know, and the whole thing about competitive balance. Okay, when when you hear Major League Baseball make that argument, it makes me laugh because I got calls 10 years ago from you know people in Major League Baseball are saying we have great competitive balance, and now they’re saying our competitive balance is terrible because they’re just trying to make a rhetorical argument to mask over the reality, which is they want cost certainty. This is what this is all about. If they can get cost certainty for billionaires, they’re going to push down that road. I think the labor war coming up is going to be absolutely bloody. In part because my sense is the owners know that the union is weaker than it was 32 years ago, when you know when they tried to go down this path in 94, 95, the players were in lockstep. You know, you had guys you know like who would you know be shouted down in a room whether it was a Lenny Dykstra by the other players. Those days are over. the The union is more fragmented. I think the owners are wanted to take their lunch money, and they’re coming for it. There’s no question about it. Getting going for a salary cap, and it’s going to get ugly.

Nestor Aparicio 13:49
Well, it’s Manford’s legacy too. At the end of all of this, Bud Selig’s legacy was: let’s just get everybody to get along. We’re all making money here. You know, we’re Midwest. Step into my car. Let me sell you a car, or let me sell you a car. You know, but either way, for me, this new group and the dug-in part, and I remember talking to Bashadi about this back when he spoke to me for real, and I ask him why, and I this is like in my second book, like why did you buy a football team because the Orioles, he loved the Orioles. He said wasn’t fair. I would never, I could never compete with the Yankees. I didn’t want to own a franchise that would be a poverty franchise in baseball. And the football side of this is, anytime I have a football guy like you on or a football business person on talking about labor, which I’ve had to do over 35 years and understand deeply as well. Everybody just thinks the 18th game’s coming, and they could play it on the moon if they could license it off to Amazon, and they’ll play football on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. And the union just a pushover in the NFL. Yes, and in baseball, the owners. The new owners are saying, “Well, they got that deal over there. How do we not get that deal? And as a fan, boss, as a longtime fan, not as an Aparicio whose cousin came here and fought with Bill Veck 50 years ago for five grand or whatever, I think that the the beauty of the NFL is that they they do beat the players up, and they do have the the Packers don’t lose their pitchers to to the Giants every year in the way that the Rays and the A’s and the Orioles and the Pirates become a farm system for the Yankees and the Dodgers. Been that way as long as you and I have been at 40 years. It’s been 50 years been been that way. I I do see for the good of the game if I’m doing the Bowie Kuhn thing, to say like it would be a way better sport if my team had a chance to win every year and didn’t have to tank and do all of these things, but I don’t think that’s coming, boss. I don’t. I don’t think it’s coming.

Buster Olney 15:52
I do. I do. I think there’s going to be some kind of salary restrictions as you move forward. I think the the owners are hell bent on getting that. You know, 30 years ago, I think there was no chance. But the union’s in a very different state. My colleague Jorge Castillo wrote a great piece that came out beginning of next week. I don’t know if you saw it, and it was about the lack of representation of Latin American players within the union when they changed when Tony Clark got run out as the head of the union back in February, and Bruce Meyer was brought in at that time. There, you know, there was a vote of 3830, team reps, eight executive committee reps. You know how many Latin American players were in those 30 among those 38? Zero. Okay, that’s like trying to win a presidential election when you’re talking about a future vote without having anyone from the South or the West, and this is the the most underreported story where idiots like me missed it the last time. The two biggest, probably two biggest ones in sports: Shador Sanders dropping to the fifth round. You didn’t see anybody forecast that. The number two was in the last labor negotiation for the first time. The rank and file among the players basically turned down their leadership recommendation. Executive committee voted unanimously 8-0. Reject this deal from the owners. We’re not doing that. And you know what happened? They got bulldozed by the rank and file who wanted to go back to work. And I’m not telling you this because I’m advocating one or the other. I’m just saying that there are fissures there in the union that were not there 30 years ago, and this is why I think the the owners are going to stick together. And Charles Barkley said to me, I had him on a podcast earlier this year, and I said, “You you went through a number of labor situations in your time in the NBA. What advice would you give to the players? He goes, “You know, we had Jordan, we had Magic, we had Bird, had me, and in the end, millionaires are not going to beat billionaires, and that’s the dynamic we have here. 30 billionaires, I think, are more unified than they’ve ever been before on the owner side.

Nestor Aparicio 17:54
Buster Oli is my guest from ESPN and the worldwide leader. So, what what is a perfect system? What would the players acquiesce to in regard to a salary cap? And you know, like let’s talk about the fans here. How does it benefit me? How does it how does it make the Orioles more in line with the Yankees and the Red Sox for the next 25 years instead of this basic shit show we’ve had here in baseball all along, and it’s gotten worse with the Dodgers and you know worse when the Red Sox got good, and the worse when the Blue Jays win big because they have a whole country and Getty Lee, and they’re just the markets aren’t aligned. So if they’re going to get that part of it, if they’re going to beat the players up, and I’m going to get my fanboy moment to think like we’re not going to lose our Reggie Jackson to the Yankees, and you know, I mean, I’ve spent my whole childhood losing Don Baylor and Bobby Gritch and all of that, right? Thank God we didn’t lose Cakes, never lost him, and then then didn’t lose Ripken. But I’d like to see the system get better and the competitive balance get better. What would be the guardrails to make that happen? So the history of the fire sales and the Jeff Lorias and the tanking pirates don’t exist anymore.

Buster Olney 19:02
Yeah, because the tanking in the last 15 years has been absolutely horrific. Look, the I you know, and I’m not here to advocate for a particular system or recommend. And I absolutely hear you. There are a lot of fans I think who believe that if you put a salary cap in, then the advantages that franchises like the Dodgers, like the Yankees, they won’t have them as much anymore, and I think that’s well, dude. It’s

Nestor Aparicio 19:24
going to get the fans to be on the owner side in the fight, right? Like that’s the idea, right?

Buster Olney 19:29
And they know that, which is why they’re pushing this narrative and competitive balance. So one thing I would say again, we have to remember it’s not about competitive balance. It’s really about the money. It’s about you know cost certainty. However, to your point, it’s absolutely a great way to make your case with the fans. They’re clearly trying to do it with all of these commercials they’re doing, all the rhetoric that’s coming out from the owners. They are pushing that that that narrative. Now, on the on the other side, I think from the players. Perspective: Anything to put curbs on player salaries, the union leadership-not necessarily the rank and file-union leadership is going to fight against that, which is why they don’t want a limit on a on a Juan Soto contract or a Garrett Cole contract or those guys. That’s what the union leadership has been fighting for. I think what they’re going to bump into in this negotiation, is trying to tell the I mean how many millions of relievers it feels like we have now of careers of zero to three or four years. There are 10 of those guys for every you know guy who makes $100 million, and it’s really difficult. They’re going to have a hard time the union leadership making the case to those guys that a system that rewards the middle class more is a bad idea. That’s that’s where the tipping point is going to be in this Labornick war.

Nestor Aparicio 20:47
Everybody says really bloody, lot of bloody. I’m thinking like really bloody. Well, I ain’t making Sarasota plans in early March, right? I mean, even the All Star game. When I asked the smartest people I knew two weeks ago, they’re like, yeah, Katie Griggs wants her All Star game here, but it’s going to be at least 30 because they’re thinking Chicago might get punted on next year, and there might not be an All Star game. I’m like, holy hell! It’s July of this year. We’re already canceling next year’s All Star game. We’re thinking about that and thinking we can’t get Baltimore or Toronto or Boston All Star games because they’re going to have to get punted into years. And so it’s already affecting dramatically the business of baseball. I don’t know. It’s going to affect the trade deadline this week. It is. Who wants to move money around? You know, you could speak to that a little bit. Yeah, it

Buster Olney 21:30
is affecting the trade deadline because a lot of times when any player, like all the the rentals, guys who are contracted for the rest of this year, Trevor Rogers, Taylor Ward, it’s pretty simple, right? And those are the guys are going to be traded between now and Monday. But when you start talking about guys under contract and headed every agency in 27 or 28 or 29, or they have money attached to them, a lot of the response from teams is we don’t even know what the economic system is going to be. How can you know? Do we take on this contract, expensive contract, and we don’t know if there’s going to be a salary cap or not. We don’t know if this player is going to become a free agent after five years of service time rather than six years of service time. So it’s very much complicating this trade deadline and streamlining it to most of the players being talked about are going to be these rentals.

Nestor Aparicio 22:17
Boss, let’s talk about the Orioles for a couple minutes, and not just about the trade deadline or they’re you know whether they’re in the wilder race because they are because the the league stinks so they can say they’re in. I can’t imagine them wanting to sell and and tank up the season when there might not be one next year. Let’s go to Rubinstein and Arageddie. What do you know about them? And if you were a beat writer here working this every day, what would you need to know? And part of why they get away with all of this ish is there ain’t no more you and Rosenthal and me and Jackman biting at their heels and Chris Thomas on TV taking them on. There’s no one to take them on. Like literally, there’s no one that criticizes them other than me and Locke and Fora, and we’re not we’re not real journalists anymore. You imagine that me and Locke and Fora for 42 years of me and 36 years of Lock and Four, we’re not real reporters anymore. Why did it’s not not let you and Rosenthal not in when you come? It’s it’s insane to me, but like literally, we are the only two people that are critical of Mike Elias and a second two and a half years of sub performance now, and it feels to me like Rubenstein doesn’t know anything about baseball, and he gave a vote of confidence. Like it, it just feels like mr. Mcgoish to me, being in on it and witnessing it here. What do you know about it? So it made me laugh internally when you mentioned the bobblehead because at the time that that went out, I was like, what, what, what? Like, all right, he’s so oblivious that you don’t aware that how that would come across, and you that there’s nobody around you that would say this isn’t a good idea, Dave. You know, and you’re the first owner since Marge shot to have a bobblehead since you know she Marge shot and Shotsy like that is not a good look after having a winner in which they didn’t spend any money.

Buster Olney 24:00
That has been surprising me. You would assume that someone goes into that spot understanding what you’re following and how you could distinguish yourself, which is to come in and I’m signing this picture and I’m signing this picture and I’m signing this picture. You know, which they’re they’ve been trying to do this year, but you wonder if it’s too little, too late. Look, the bottom line is, in Michaelias’s regime, is that they willfully, you know, bypass the opportunity to compete for four years. They tank for four years, which I think is horrendous because they’re charging major league prices. They’re pretending it’s a major league product, but they’re willfully putting out a subpar product because they want to pick high in the draft and have more money to spend the draft, and oh by the way, the owner gets to make a lot of money, and they didn’t. In the end, they didn’t get the payoff for that because they haven’t been able to develop the you know the guys they took at the top of the draft. And if you’re a small mid-market team, okay, and the Orioles fit that category, you know this. If you’re gonna have sustained. Success. You have to develop a pitching pipeline, and that has been an utter failure. And so I don’t, you know, I don’t really know Mike personally. I’m not going to say you know bad things about him, but I do think there’s been a general lack of adjustment to what’s been going on with the team, and it’s that that’s been surprising because this is not a two-year thing. This is not a four-year thing. It shocked me when they, you know, decided to trade guys away when they were just two games out of the wild card. They had the great season the year after that, 101 wins, and then they haven’t done anything since. Like, where’s the success that you’re going to feel good about if you move forward if you’re one of the owners. I have heard that you know Araghetti and Cal Ripken have a really good relationship. I think Cal Ripken is the portal through which the Orioles can advance, because and you know you could have basically put that title on Cal. Hey, he’s team president, right? And I don’t know who he’d hire as GM. Maybe keeps Mike. Maybe he brings in somebody, a Mike Rizzo or somebody like that. But Cal loves player development. Let Cal focus on what he loves on. Bring in a you know a GM or you know give Mike that responsibility to make transactions. But that to me is the bridge out of this morass that they’re in right now. Cal Ripken, he’s got the ability to win back the trust of the fan base.

Nestor Aparicio 26:24
Buster Ollie’s here speaking sense as always from ESPN. Didn’t like I haven’t talked to you in a long time, and Todd Radom and friendships and all that’s and I haven’t had a press pass in 20 years. I’ve only been in a room with you two or three times in 20 years. Like literally, Free the Birds was 20 years ago now, and I I was gonna say to you about and before you went under the Ripken Arigetti lane, and you’re the only one that’s gone in that lane, by the way, which is a natural lane, and you’re right about that, and it makes all the sense, and I just learned something, so thank you for that. But I was gonna ask you, like Angelos didn’t know anything about anything, but he knew enough to suck up the Rick Dempsey and Mike Flanagan and Sam Perlazzo and Tom Davis and and you and Tom Laverro and he was trying to learn around people of baseball things, boy. When Rubenstein gets up, it is a weak act, dude. It’s very very obvious he doesn’t know much about baseball, doesn’t care to know much about baseball besides sitting behind home plate and whatnot. And they’ve made him the face of it, while you’ve pointed out Araghetti’s really back with Ripken trying to like you know get get the kitchen together in the back of the house, and if that’s the case, that’s good news, I guess. If Cal’s really an answer, and no offense to Cal or his kid, but there’s plenty of people that would tell you Cal’s not cut out for that gig,

Buster Olney 27:37
and they you know I’ve heard from friends of his he loves his life. You know, does he want to take on that kind of responsibility? But I do think there’s a way to carve out a great place for Cal. And again, I go back to you know, having covered the the Orioles for those two years, you learn so much about the relationship between the core players, guys like Brooks, guys like Jim Palmer, Boog, that group of players and the fans. Well, Cal is part of that, and Cal has the trust of the fans. And if they know, look, Cal has brought somebody in. He’s going to start making changes in the farm system. My God, the biggest issue right now you have is player development. That is what Cal loves. Like he got done, you know, his playing career, and he’s still involved in that. I mean, that is truly his passion. And you can, if to me, it would be a natural to give him an opportunity to go down that lane and bring in really good people and focus on player development and try to try to get those stall players moving forward again.

Nestor Aparicio 28:39
Elias fired his manager on Preakness morning, when the team was home in Baltimore in in in in a malaise, and hid for four days before he showed up in the dugout in Milwaukee. I would have fired him on the spot, just on fundamental, not not on media, just on not front facing, being a coward. He still has his job. It feels like he’s still going to have his job, I with the work stoppage. I go back to do. Do you care if you have a job? Do you need a baseball ops guy if you ain’t no baseball? I guess you do. But Cal picking that person, all right. If Cal talks to me and I get my press pass back and I can ask him about it, I’d ask him about if he’s running things. Um, and say you know what do you like in this person? But it does concern me that it feels like Elias really is the baseball tree of all of it. First off, he was hired by the last administration, which makes him fundamentally unsafe in any business in any walk of life. I am a little shocked by it that he’s surviving all of this. And to your point, if we’re pretty sure that it’s going to be World War Three of the off season anyway, trying to bring someone else on at this point, if there is a grand plan, that sort of makes more sense to me. To at least tell me what to tell the fans, boss. You know what I mean? Like that’s what I say to them. Like educate me so I can make sense on the radio. So this can make sense to your people, and I can reinforce it. But it’s got to make sense to me. They’ve really been poor at that. Since Peter stopped calling you back in 1996,

Buster Olney 30:03
so yeah, so I think somehow you have to focus on the idea of how you bridge, build another bridge to the fans. What’s the best way that you can build that bridge of trust? Trust, and you’re right. I mean, the timing for something like that wouldn’t be great anyway. Like a baseball shut down, fans are going to be. Hey, Cal gets to

Nestor Aparicio 30:21
save baseball again.

Buster Olney 30:23
There you go. I didn’t put that together, but you’re right. On the backside of that, there would be a level. I’m going to point that

Nestor Aparicio 30:30
out when I. I’m going to text him right now. You get to save it again. You know, but Buster, we’ve been at this a long time, and this is. I mean, we’re going gallows humor about all this, but I mean, shit, dude. 30 years ago, if you and I would have gotten together and would have said this thing’s going to get wrecked, they’re not going to win playoff games, they’re never going to have an all-star game, they’re not going to have World Series here, they’re going to be a laughing stock, the stadium’s going to be empty, the TV network’s going to be broke, on and on and on. Forget just in the current thing, just trying to build this up, which started with we’re going to build a casino, we’re going to build a bar, we’re going to build a battery, we’re going to they ain’t building anything. I mean, they don’t even have a team beginning october 15. So it really is hurry up and wait. And I think that’s a tragedy for baseball in this particular era here that it’s stalled in a way, right?

Buster Olney 31:15
Yeah, I have a son who’s 22 years old. He’s sports crazy, and I tell him stories. It sounds like I’m speaking from you know some era you know 4 billion years ago. When I tell him, yeah, when I covered the Orioles, they sold out every game. That place was packed. That place was amazing. That place was the best ballpark in baseball, and everyone couldn’t wait to come and see it. And they had a team that everyone had wanted to come and see, and he looks at me like I’m nuts, like he thinks there’s no way that you know in Baltimore that you could have that, but that’s exactly what they had, and now it’s squandered, and they have to figure out a way to try to build it back up because let’s face it, you know this is this is not a big market team where you can make this the sort of mistakes you make and still have people show up every day. You have to earn their trust, and that should be the number one part of the conversation they have. How do we get fans to trust this franchise again? And that’s why I think you got to go backwards to go forward and call Cal and say, how can we make you a part of this?

Nestor Aparicio 32:23
Hey, I tell you what, I’m gonna tell. I’m passes along the Katie Griggs first chance I get. You doing any books? You doing it? I mean, just ESPN podcasting. You doing all sorts of things, and I know the Orioles fans like hate you because like you’re so honest, and and there’s just not a lot of that that goes on here. You know, just the blunt reality of how bad it’s been seems lost on the few that still support it, but not for the people that don’t and are waiting for football season. But you’re busy, man. You’re you’re you know this labor thing’s going to keep all of you busy that love the sport, right?

Buster Olney 32:52
That and the trade deadline, and you know you’re still writing stories. You’re still covering baseball. I’m here in Atlanta as I speak to you. We’ve got the you know the Braves game against the Washington Nationals tomorrow in two weeks. Got to do a Yankees game. We got trade deadline specials. So yeah, it is super busy. And sometime there’ll be a time again. I’ve done two books, but I got more in me when I’m you know when I do less of the the day to day beat writing stuff and more writing big picture type stuff. And I’m they’re definitely I’ve written chapters about, in part, in my time covering the Orioles, covering Cal, covering Peter Angelos. Because man, what I just told-I mean, I’m scratching the surface on all the specific stories that you collect through the years. Well, dude,

Nestor Aparicio 33:35
Eisenberg’s got a whole corner of the world with the bird tapes. You know, where he’s going back, and and he makes me angry because he like gets Fred Lynn on, and then I got to go chase Fred Lynn and get him on because I want to talk to Fred Lynn too because we love baseball. And so your kid’s 20 is he Yankee fan really?

Buster Olney 33:52
No, he’s a Braves fan. Oh, he’s a crazy Braves fan, and my daughter is 26, and she doesn’t care about baseball at all.

Nestor Aparicio 33:59
Yeah, my kid’s 41, and I dragged him to a couple games 20 years ago, and he’s just nah, just you know he’s he’s done, and and that we’re Aparicio, so you can imagine. But you know, shame on them for not recruiting him, as I see it. You know what I mean? It would have been easy enough for everybody here to love baseball, but what’s happened’s happened. I’m still here trying to undo it on behalf of all of us. Buster Olney’s here, ESPN holding the Orioles accountable. I love. We need more Buster Olney, more Jason Lock and Four as well. It was great seeing you, man. And I love our 35 years. And thank you for your time and your wisdom. And and I always, again, I always cheer for all of you. You know, all of us who are still trying to do this all these years later.

Buster Olney 34:38
Well, likewise. Great to talk with you,

Nestor Aparicio 34:40
Buster Ollie joining us here. I am two crab cakes. It’s good because we’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour. It’s all presented by the Maryland Lottery. I’ll have the Ravens scratch off to give away when we convene at Costas Testimonium this week, and then I’m wearing my Koco’s gear. We’re going to be there on August 26th. We’re doing a whole bunch of stuff into August, into September. Everybody’s on vacation this week. I got to get people back here. Our friends at GBMC, not on. Vacation, as well as Farnham and Dermer, they put us together on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. If there’s any breaking news around this trade deadline, you get it first on the WNST Tech Service. It’s all brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. Luke is working twice as hard. It’s like a Black Crow song this week with the Orioles and the Ravens. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. I fattened them up on pizza last week, so I gave him a week off. So he’s back on this week. We’re busy around here with sports. Stay with us.