What Lies Ahead For The Bird Tapes (For Starters, There’s A Holiday Sale)

The year 2025 wasn’t good for the Baltimore Orioles, to say the least. But it’s been a great year for the Bird Tapes, my Orioles history project on Substack.

I’ve published almost two dozen new interviews with former Oriole players, executives and connected journalists. I’ve posted dozens of new written pieces about various aspects of the club’s history. I’ve watched my subscriber base continue to swell. In a wonderful surprise, Baltimore Magazine gave the Bird Tapes a shout-out for media excellence in its annual “Best of Baltimore” edition.

It’s exciting and gratifying, and more is coming. I have no idea what’s in store for the Orioles in 2026 — hopefully better days with manager Craig Albernaz — but as we prepare to flip the calendar to a new year in a few weeks, I do know what lies ahead for the Bird Tapes. Here’s a preview:

NEW INTERVIEWS -– As you may recall, the Bird Tapes exists because I had a shoebox full of plastic microcassette tapes gathering dust in my office closet — tapes containing old interviews with former Oriole players, managers, executives and others, all recorded when I was writing a book about the team that was published in 2001. After getting those vintage interviews digitized and up to modern audio standards, I posted them during the first year of the Bird Tapes. When I exhausted that supply last spring, I started recording and posting new interviews with different figures from different eras of Oriole history. I’ve posted 21 new interviews in 2025, and I’ll continue to publish new interviews in 2026. I can already confirm that conversations with Buck Showalter, Mike Mussina, Roy Firestone, Charles Steinberg, Billy Ripken, Mike Bordick and Jane Leavy will be among the many coming to your earbuds.

MORE WRITING ABOUT ORIOLES HISTORY -– In 2025 I wrote articles about the birth of the Orioles Bird, the real-life “Natural” who played first base for the Orioles in the ’50s, memories of Rex Barney and numerous other threads of Oriole history, including profiles of Billy Hitchcock, Tom Phoebus, John Miller, Billy O’Dell and Frank Bertaina, among many. A recent two-part series on Wally Bunker, authored by Jim Considine, was very popular. In 2026 I’ll continue to dig into the crevices of the club’s history and find stories and people to highlight.

MORE INTERVIEWS IN THE PODCAST STREAM — In April 2025 I started posting all of my new interviews as podcast episodes, giving you far more listening options. (You can hear them in Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify and/or download them to a device.) Since then, I’ve been steadily taking the interviews I presented in the first year of the Bird Tapes, before I started the podcast, and re-publishing them as podcast episodes, giving subscribers more ways to listen. As of now, 32 of the 55 interviews in the Bird Tapes archive are available as podcast episodes. I’ll continue to add to the podcast stream in 2026, re-publishing my vintage interviews with Peter Angelos, Johnny Oates, Davey Johnson, Steve Barber, Dick Hall, Don Buford and many others. (Spoiler alert: Coming soon, during the week of December 15-19, I’ll re-publish all three parts of my 2025 interview with broadcaster Jon Miller as podcast episodes. I’m calling it Jon Miller Week.)

ORIOLES HISTORY QUIZZES – Get ready. The first one is coming soon. See how much you really know.

BIRD TAPES LIVE — A new content stream. Substack makes it easy for me to go live either on my phone or from my desktop, and I’ll do just that when I feel the urge to comment on something out of the Orioles’ past — or maybe even their present. You’ll be notified ahead of time and all you have to do is tune in.

MY STUFF – A new stream of written content. That dusty shoebox of plastic microcassettes I mentioned above was perched on a shelf in my office closet and, well, there’s lots of other rare stuff in that closet that fans of the Orioles might find interesting — the residual traces of my decades-long career as a sports journalist, author and unabashed sports fan. I’ll show you what I’ve got.

PERSONAL ESSAYS — I’ve been very fortunate to navigate two distinct rails as a writer, authoring books (I’ve published 11) and daily journalism (I’ve written more than 5,000 columns, features and articles for the Baltimore Sun and other entities). Along the way I’ve authored some pieces that didn’t quite fit on either rail — on an array of subjects, including football, horse racing, my terrible eyesight, my family’s experience with baseball, and more. I’ll publish some of them in 2026. Just think of them as the Bird Tapes’ version of a pitcher throwing a changeup.

Now, about that holiday sale…

Since I started the Bird Tapes in 2024, I’ve charged $66 for annual subscriptions and $6 for monthly subscriptions. Heading into Year 3, I’m permanently lowering the cost of an annual subscription to $60. And I’ll take 25 percent off that price for rest of December 2025, putting annual subscriptions on sale for $45. Click on the “subscribe now” button below to sign up at that rate or upgrade to paid if you’re already a free subscriber. You can also give a Bird Tapes subscription as a gift. I’m also lowering the price of a founding subscription from $125 to $100 going forward if you want to offer the full measure of support for what I’m doing. Monthly subscriptions will remain $6.

I appreciate all of the subscribers, both free and paid, who’ve helped turn the Bird Tapes into a Substack bestseller, and my goal is to provide content that satisfies everyone. Many of the written posts have been — and will continue to be — available to all subscribers, and the same goes for my interviews with former newspaper beat writers who covered the Orioles — a very popular interview series since its debut earlier this year. But there are advantages to having a paid subscription. My interviews with former Oriole players, managers and executives are for paid subscribers, and going forward, some content that starts out free will drop behind a paywall after a few days. Basically, a paid subscription guarantees you 24/7 access to everything I’m producing.

Whatever level you choose, I’m glad to have you along and look forward to another great year at the Bird Tapes. Again, the $45 rate for an annual subscription will be available through December.

SUBSCRIBE HERE

Subscribe to The Bird Tapes here: birdtapes.substack.com/subscribe

You’ll receive instant access to vintage audio interviews with Orioles legends, including:

Jon Miller
Davey Johnson
Earl Weaver
Fred Lynn
Al Bumbry
Peter Angelos
Rick Dempsey
Elrod Hendricks
Mike Flanagan
Eddie Murray
Ken Singleton
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Boog Powell
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Paul Blair
Dennis Martinez
Harry Dalton
Ernie Harwell

And many more to come, added weekly

SUBSCRIBE HERE