Q & A: Life Behind the Scenes With Dundalk's Own Nasty Nestor (Part I)

Nestor Aparicio, aka "Nasty Nestor," the outspoken and sometimes controversial 42-year-old owner of local WNST radio station, was adopted as an infant and grew up in Dundalk loving the Baltimore Orioles.

Aparicio became a father at the age of 15 while still a student at Dundalk High, just before  he started as a gopher, and later, an aspiring reporter at the old Baltimore News American. 

Aparicio recalls his difficult early life, as well as the beginnings of his career in sports journalism, in the first of three-part Q & A with Patch contributor Lem Satterfield. Parts I and II of the series are scheduled to run Wednesday and Friday, focusing on aspects of his career and the Orioles' prospects this year.

Patch: Can you tell me about your early childhood growing up in Dundalk?

Nestor Aparicio: Well, I grew up on Bank Street in Dundalk in the 1970s. The first school that I went to was Colgate Elementary School. Then I went to Holabird Middle School, and I went to Dundalk High and Dundalk Community College.

At least, it was called the community college then. I spent the first 27 or so years of my life in Dundalk. I left Dundalk in 1995. Colgate, Holabird, Dundalk High —they're all still there. As a matter of fact, they're remodeling Dundalk High.

Patch: Your father was a steelworker?

Aparicio: Yes, my dad worked at Bethlehem Steel from 1968 until 1984. His name was Bernard McGurgan. My dad was from Scranton, PA, and came down here during the world war in 1940, and lived in Essex.

My dad worked on bombers in the 1940s and 1950s. My dad died in 1992.

Patch: I understand that you were adopted?

Aparicio: I was adopted when I was an infant. A child. I was a small toddler. My mother was from Dundalk and my dad was here from Venezuela. My real father, Nestor Aparicio, he was here with family members that came over. 

There were two brothers and a cousin that came over. He met my mother, and I was the offspring, and it's pretty well documented that they didn't do a good job of taking care of me. 

My godparents adopted me. They were my mother's parents' best friends. So my maternal grandparents' best friends raised me. 

Patch: Can you talk more about your adoptive situation?

Aparicio: My dad lost a son when my stepbrother, whom I never knew, drowned during the summer of 1969. So I was a replacement child. It took me a long time to really understand that. 

Their birth child died in 1969, and had come along in 1968, and I was adopted into the family in 1971, '72, '73.

Patch: You played recreation baseball?

Aparicio: Oh yeah. I started out being a bat boy. I have pictures of myself being a bat boy with our recreation league championship teams. So, in the little leagues, you know, baseball was a big part of shaping my life. 

So, my dad was a baseball guy. My dad managed the little league at the Colgate Elementary—the Colgate Rec. We played baseball in that little league rec program. 

Patch: Did you play any other sports?

Aparicio: I played basketball and football too, but we never played soccer and we never played lacrosse. I wrestled in high school, but I wasn't very good at it. I only did that because a teacher implored me to do it. 

But it taught me self-discipline more than anything else. It also got me into shape and it helped me to get girls [laughs.] I wrestled at 112. I was little, and I had skipped a grade, too.  So I was a late bloomer. I graduated when I was 16. And I was born late in October. So when I started seventh grade, I was 10. And when I started high school, I was 13. So, I was just little. I hadn't really developed, physically, so I wrestled as a light weight. 

Patch: What position did you play in baseball?

Aparicio: I played all of the positions, but I loved to catch. So I played catcher. I wanted to see the whole field. I liked catching because I was in on every play. I liked blocking the plate and I liked throwing out runners. 

I liked calling the game with the pitcher. I liked being the guy that came out and settled the pitcher down and calmed things down a little bit. I loved catching, but my dad didn't like me catching. 

My dad was a catcher, and he always said, "You're going to take foul balls off your hands," and, "You're going to have awful knuckles if you catch." But, hey, I still have nice hands. 

I guess that playing catcher, looking back, it speaks volumes about where I am in my life, because I'm a manager of people. 

Patch: Did you have a deep affinity for the Baltimore Orioles growing up?

Aparicio: Oh, yeah. In my neighborhood, everybody played baseball. I came from a baseball neighborhood, a baseball family, and my father and I took the bus whenever we wanted to go and watch the Orioles play. 

We didn't have to have season tickets. My dad didn't believe in that. My dad liked to check the weather and see how he felt and then we would go. Based on my little league schedule and this and that, we would go. 

Going to the ballpark was something that we just did. We didn't plan it out. We didn't circle dates on the calendar or buy tickets ahead of time unless, you know, there was a give-away night and we felt like we had to. 

But we were very free-forming. The Orioles were the biggest thing in our lives and the biggest part of my household by far. I mean, there was never a game—ever—that wasn't on in my house. 

And this was back in the days when the games were on radio.

Patch: What was it like being a teenage father yourself?

Aparicio: I was 15, actually. I was 15 and 11 months. I don't know that you have any choice but to grow up quick. I think that every idea that I've ever had in my life that has been a challenge has been something that has caused me to think and to examine.

I think that that was clearly one of my first real challenges. I had a situation and I had to handle it. I knew at that  point that I didn't want to look back on my life and say, "What if."

I realized the stakes of handling it wrong. I had already had, you know, two, quite frankly, absentee parents myself that were not good parents by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, they were awful parents. 

But I was raised by two people who loved me and two people who took me in. So, you know, you just accept it. You learn to take responsibility for whatever you do in life. 

You realize that there is a solution there. You just have to find it.

Patch: Can you talk about your son?

Aparicio: My son is 26, and he'll be 27 soon. He works for my company whenever he can. He has a job. He works for a subsidiary of Home Depot. He lives in White Marsh. He's doing great. 

He went to Perry Hall High. When he was ready to go to middle school, I had owned a house in Baltimore City on Kane Street, right by Patterson High. I wanted to get him into a better school district. 

So I moved to Perry Hall in 1994-95. He went to Perry Hall Middle School and then to Perry Hall High.

Patch: Would you say that you had good role models growing up?

Aparicio: I tried to make good decisions and surround myself with the best people I could. I was lucky in that I didn't have bad role models in my life. I had good role models in my life at every level.

I had really good teachers and people with whom I am incredibly close, even 30 years later. I just always gravitated toward knowledge. I liked to learn things. 

I think that, in a lot of ways, that's something that got away from me in my 30s. The minute that you stop learning is the minute that you stop growing. That's also the minute that you're going to have problems. 

Because, the world is not going to wait for you. The world is going to keep growing and continuing to change.

Patch: How do you mean?

Aparicio: Well, you know, at the age of 42, the world is just different now, more so, even than when I was 35. Certainly, we have had to live through the tough economy and the tough depression that we've gone through.

We have had the wars and all of the things that have happened over the last five years. I think that, with me, now, having owned a business, there was just so much for me to learn. 

Certainly the technology has really become the thing that has moved me the most and I think the culture the most. You have the Droids and the iPhones and social media. 

All of that has been an area within which to put my brand. My brand is Baltimore sports media and connecting the community through sports. 

I think that the unique part of my business is that I've had to do that. I'm a connector of all people. A lot of people call me the Kevin Bacon of Baltimore. It's like everybody is a couple of people removed from me. 

Patch: Getting back to your childhood, how is your mother doing?

Aparicio: Eliza McGurgan. She still lives over over on Bank Street in Dundalk. She's 91. She lives alone. She's an amazing person. She's 4-foot-7, weighs 75 pounds. You know, she's an interesting lady. 

She's from South Carolina. My mom never drove. Her sister is 87 and drives, which is pretty scary. But my mom will be 92 in July. God bless her.

Patch: How influential was a man named Don Leifert, your high school journalism teacher?

Aparicio: Don passed away about four months ago. I'll get emotional talking about it. You know, he was my first journalism teacher. He was bullish about the possibilities of what I could do. He was very supportive.

That's all that I can say. He was an old line guy, you know, ethics, integrity, honor, fact-checking, balance. You know, you learn that stuff when you're 13 or 14, and it's instilled in you.

Patch: Was Mr. Leifert among your sources of strength growing up?

Aparicio: Well, then I went to the Baltimore News American when I was 15, and I was around John Steadman and Bernie Miklasz and John Hawkins and young guys who are fiesty journalists.

I was around the Dick Irwins of the Baltimore City police beat. And then, you're at The Baltimore Sun, and you're working with David Simon every night, Rafael Alvarez and Jack Gibbons. 

And you're working with Ken Rosenthal and Tim Kurkjian and Richard Justice and Larry Harris, then you're learning the way that it's really done. Those things that I learned in the early 1980s are things that I try to bring into my 
company.