Thanks for checking our section of purple cyberspace and for having interest in purchasing Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story via WNST.net. It’s been a labor of love for me — researching, writing and presenting the building of a NFL championship.

In 2001, I wrote Purple Reign: Diary of a Raven Maniac and I’ve had many inquiries regarding reprinting it and packaging it with the new book on the 2012 Ravens. So, below are the options to purchase both books as well as a 6-CD collection of our best WNST radio interviews with the many stars and interesting people from Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII. It will have original audio from 1990′s with Ray Lewis, Brian Billick, Jon Ogden as well as a two-hour life retrospective when I sat down with Arthur B. Modell in 2004. We’ll also include highlights from the past two years with Joe Flacco, Ray Rice, Torrey Smith, John Harbaugh and others. It will be nearly seven hours of conversation with Baltimore Ravens who have hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.

As for the new book, we anticipate delivery to your mailbox in time for Father’s Day. The book will be more than 350 pages, chock full of stories, background, behind-the-scenes information told in 22 chapters from the firing of Brian Billick to the hiring of John Harbaugh to the drafting of Joe Flacco and Ray Rice to the 2012 season and the Super Bowl XLVII win and parade down Pratt Street and celebration inside the stadium back in February.

And the best part of the book or books? They both have happy endings. If you love the Baltimore Ravens, you’ll love the book(s).

It’s the best work of my career and I know once you read it you’ll agree.

If you’d like to read an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story, click here…

Here’s our shopping cart for all things Purple Reign, new and old:

Purple Reign V.I.P. Box Set

Includes:

Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story (2013)

Purple Reign: Diary of a Raven Maniac (2001) vintage edition

WNST Purple Reign Radio Memories (6 CD’s)

RAY 2:52/BELIEVE IN JOE New Orleans poster

Full color 12X18 poster of Purple Reign 2 cover (featuring fabulous artwork of local sports cartoonist Mike Ricigliano) that is suitable for autographs/framing or your mancave wall

And if you buy this deluxe package, make sure you let me know how to personalize the new book for you below:

$59.95 plus S&H

How do we sign Purple Reign 2?

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Purple Reign Both Books Hardbound

Includes:

Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story (2013)

Purple Reign: Diary of a Raven Maniac (2001)

$49.99 plus S&H

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Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story BOOK ONLY (hardback)

$26.95 plus S&H

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Purple Reign: Diary of a Raven Maniac BOOK ONLY (hardback)

$24.95 plus S&H

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Purple Reign Radio Memories — a 6 CD set of WNST purple interviews with stars & heroes of Super Bowl XXXV & Super Bowl XLVII

Nearly seven (7) hours of classic audio conversations including the life story of Arthur B. Modell in his words

$19.95 plus S&H

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Both Purple Reign: Faith, Family & Football – A Baltimore Love Story

&

Purple Reign: Diary of a Raven Maniac

WILL BE AVAILABLE as E-books in the digital format of your choice. Please fill out the form below and we’ll email you the appropriate links for your reader of choice (Amazon, Kindle, iBook, Nook, etc.) when the book becomes available in early June. We cannot take pre-orders for digital books at this time because of service restrictions from the providers. Plus, when you buy the e-book, you must buy it from their direct platform.

WNST proudly announces our pre-game Pep Rally and Tailgate Party of the Year in San Diego next weekend as our Miller Lite/Jiffy Lube Purple Roadtrips make our return to the west coast.

On Saturday, Nov. 24th, WNST will partner with The West Wing (Los Angeles’ biggest purple Baltimore ex-pats) from 3 p.m. til 7 p.m. at The Tilted Kilt in Gaslamp District next to Petco Park. Join Nestor Aparicio and a myriad of Ravens fans for a social afternoon of Baltimore love.

Admission is FREE and Tilted Kilt will have the following specials for all Baltimore Ravens fans:

$14 — Miller Light pitchers 60 oz. pitchers
$3.00 Miller Light drafts
$3.00 Crab fries
$4.00 Purple juice (served shot style)
$9.99 One pound of Crab Wings

On Sunday, The West Wing is throwing a massive party in the parking lot of Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium.

Their purple tailgate party will be in parking lot P2 — as in Party Too — everyone is welcome to join the party, but must buy a ticket if they want the catered food and beers.

Tickets for the tailgate and/or the bus ride from Hard Rock Hotel to game and back can be purchased by email: ravenswestwingers@gmail.com or via their website at http://thewestwingla.com/

Until 1992, I knew Steve Sabol the same way you knew him. I grew up watching his weekly NFL Films highlight shows, personality pieces and the famed NFL bloopers, which often featured his hosting, narrative and chippy sense of humor. It’s safe to say for any kid like me who grew up in the 1970′s and 1980′s, he had a job we’d all dreamed about.

Over the past 20 years I’ve gotten to know Steve Sabol, and even did two years’ worth of radio every Monday from his Mount Laurel, N.J. headquarters with Brian Baldinger, who literally had a key to the NFL Films building to watch film.

Like every person he ever met, affected or shared some kindness and his genuine love of football and the NFL (and everything it entailed), I’ll miss Steve Sabol greatly. He was such a super nice man and such a fun person to talk about football with whenever we crossed paths.

The first time I met Sabol was at the Metrodome for Super Bowl XXVI, when I shook his hand below the press box as a fan. Once the Ravens came into existence we crossed paths at the Super Bowl each year and often at league events. From 1999 to 2001, I saw him a little more frequently as I got to know and love Exit 4 of the New Jersey Turnpike when I was nationally syndicated on Sporting News Radio.

He was a giant, an original, an icon and a titan in the world of NFL football and how fans consumed it. Of course, that was a legacy left by his father, “Big Ed” Sabol, who was finally (and rightfully) inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year. He just colorized his father’s initial vision of football as a narrative and an ever-evolving story of the NFL.

I interviewed Steve Sabol at least 25 times over the years and he was a regular guest of ours at Radio Row at most Super Bowls between 1995 and 2011.

His final visit to me is captured below from Feb. 5, 2011 and most of the conversation was about his father’s pending nomination for Canton. It was kinda neat to watch it again today because we talked so much about John Steadman as well.

Steve had a stoke four weeks later and never recovered from brain cancer.

About 20 minutes after this interview, his personal assistant approached me about becoming a regular on NFL Films “Top 10″ shows and said that Steve wanted me on the shows. Since then, I’ve done a few dozen episodes. Because I’ll probably never win any sort of award in my life and because my Pop would’ve been most proud of me being on those TV shows, it’s the highest “honor” I’ve ever received in my career.

To think that I got a true “thumbs up” from Steve Sabol makes me smile.

To think that through the tragedy with his health over the past 18 months that I never saw him again and got to personally thank him makes me even sadder than the news of his death did a few hours ago.

Hopefully, this chat will make you smile and remember why we all loved Steve Sabol.

Can our WNST Baltimore Sports Media Superstars pass the test? You can be the judge now with all of the action from Monday’s packed live show at Hooters in Towson right here at WNST.net: