Good Seats Still Available
375 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 98 ratings“Good Seats Still Available” is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.
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Episodes
171: Pittsburgh's Pro Hoops History – With Stephen J. Nesbitt
July 06, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBPittsburgh-based The Athletic sportswriter Stephen J. Nesbitt (“How the Pipers, Condors and Pro Basketball in Pittsburgh Went Extinct”) joins to help us dig into the surprisingly rich (though mostly woeful) history of professional hoops in the Steel City. Though the game has long thrived at the collegiate level (Pitt’s Panthers began playing in 1905; the Duquesne Dukes in 1914), the city’s record of success at the pro level has been distinctly more fleeting. In fact, some would argue it w...
170: The 1969 Washington Senators – With Steve Walker
June 29, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 119 MBWhen the original version of the modern-era Washington Senators announced its intention to relocate to Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1960 to become the Twins the following season, Major League Baseball moved up part of its planned 1962 expansion by a year to help stave off dual competitive threats of both a new challenger Continental League and the potential loss of its longstanding federal antitrust exemption. To placate regulators, the American League reworked its plans and replaced the depart...
169: The Columbus Chill – With David Paitson & Craig Merz
June 22, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 131 MBWe take a rare dip into the minors this week with the intriguing story of hockey’s Columbus Chill – the 1990s sensation that took the East Coast Hockey League and the Ohio capital’s sports scene by storm, and helped set the table for Columbus’s ascension into top-tier “major league” status by the dawn of the 2000s. Historically overshadowed by the scale, prowess and outsized culture of its hometown Ohio State University Buckeyes athletics programs, Columbus’ pro sports landscape in 1991 la...
168: Cumberland Posey’s Negro League Homestead Grays – With Jim Overmyer
June 15, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBNegro League ace historian/author Jim Overmyer (Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles; Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City) returns for a deep dive into the extraordinary dual-sport career of Negro League baseball AND Black Fives-era basketball legend Cumberland Posey – including the two dominating teams he founded, owned, managed, and played for – baseball’s Homestead Grays and basketball’s Loendi Big Five. Considered the best Afric...
167: The “Down Goes Brown” History of the NHL – With Sean McIndoe
June 08, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 120 MBWhile we ruminate on what a potential resumption of the National Hockey League’s delayed 2020 regular season (and playoffs) might look like in the months ahead, we pause to look back at the rich, but altogether confounding history of the world’s premier pro hockey circuit with Down Goes Brown blog scribe and Athletic columnist Sean McIndoe (The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL: The World's Most Beautiful Sport, the World's Most Ridiculous League). Over its often-illogical 103-year histor...
166: MISL Soccer’s Los Angeles Lazers – With Ronnie Weinstein
June 01, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 120 MBThe Major Indoor Soccer League’s rocket red ball bounces back our way this week for an Eighties-style rewind into the story of the Los Angeles Lazers – as seen through the eyes of one of its chief front office architects, Ronnie Weinstein. Claimed from dormancy (as the previous Philadelphia Fever) by LA sports baron Dr. Jerry Buss – owner of the 1980 NBA champion Lakers, NHL Kings, 1981 TeamTennis champion Strings, and the building that housed them, Inglewood’s “Fabulous” Forum – the Lazer...
165: Pioneers of AAGPBL Baseball – With Kat Williams
May 25, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 119 MBIt’s our deepest dive yet into the legendarily one-of-a-kind All-American Girls Professional Baseball League with Marshall University Professor of Women’s Sport History Kat Williams (The All-American Girls After the AAGPBL: How Playing Pro Ball Shaped Their Lives). Widely acknowledged as the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States, the pioneering AAGPBL featured more than 600 female players over the course of its twelve seasons between 1943-54 – spanning 15 m...
164: Negro League Baseball’s Atlantic City Bacharach Giants – With Jim Overmyer
May 18, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 125 MBThe curious story of baseball’s Atlantic City (NJ) Bacharach Giants originates from a unique intersection of racism, tourism, and politics. In 1915, an independent semi-pro “Atlantic City Colored League” was formed to provide an entertainment outlet for the city’s 11,000+ black residents – with the hope being they would attend the games and stay off the boardwalk, a then-booming summer haven for white tourists. Two black businessmen active in the local Republican political machine ask...
163: Once Again, The XFL is Done (Or Is It?) – With ESPN’s Kevin Seifert
May 11, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 97.8 MBESPN.com NFL Nation reporter Kevin Seifert stops by to help us perform a preliminary autopsy on the surprisingly sudden death of the XFL – WWE founder Vince McMahon’s second attempt at creating a viable alternative professional football league to that of the mighty NFL. A confident, but visibly mellower McMahon announced the league’s unlikely rebirth at a video press conference on January 28, 2018 (two months before a similar launch by the rival Alliance of American Football) – with resolu...
162: Les Expos de Montréal – Avec Danny Gallagher
May 04, 2020 14:07 - 1 hour - 113 MBWe journey north of the border this week to get our first at-bats with the 35-year adventure formerly known as the Montreal Expos, with author and de facto team historian Danny Gallagher (Always Remembered: New Revelations and Old Tales About Those Fabulous Expos). Created in expansionary haste by the National League in 1969, MLB’s first-ever Canadian franchise was named after the city’s futuristic “Expo 67” World’s Fair, and expected to be domiciled in a new domed stadium by 1972 after a ...
161.5: Basketball’s Marvin “Bad News” Barnes – With Mike Carey (Archive Re-Release)
April 30, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 110 MBWe mourn the unexpected passing of longtime Boston-area sportswriter & Marvin "Bad News" Barnes biographer Mike Carey ("Bad News": The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball's Original Renegade) - with our previous Episode 137 interview from November 3, 2019.
161: Jim Bouton: Baseball Original – With Mitch Nathanson
April 27, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 151 MBFrom the day he first stepped into the New York Yankee clubhouse in 1962 at the age of 23, Jim Bouton was baseball’s deceptive revolutionary. Behind the all-American boy-next-door good looks and formidable fastball, lurked an unlikely maverick with a decidedly signature style – both on and off the diamond. Whether it was his frank talk about MLB front office management and player salaries, passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or efforts to convince the Johnson Administration to bo...
160: “Soccertown USA” – With Tom McCabe & Kirk Rudell
April 20, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBFilm producers Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell (“Soccertown USA”) join the podcast this week to discuss their newly released documentary about the modest working-class New Jersey town with an outsized influence on the history of the sport of soccer in the United States. In the mid-1980s, as the domestic pro game began to fade with the demise of the once-hot North American Soccer League, and FIFA’s passing over of the US as potential replacement host for the 1986 World Cup – it was three kids fr...
159: Chronicling Pro Sports’ “Major” Leagues – With Tom Brucato
April 13, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBIndustrial writer and fellow defunct sports enthusiast Tom Brucato (Major Sports Leagues) joins this week’s installment of the podcast to delve deep into his all-new update of what can only be described as the Encyclopedia Britannica of forgotten pro sports teams and leagues. The ultimate reference work for the discriminating sports historian, the Second Edition of Major Sports Leagues features the most comprehensive listing of (over 1600) “major league” teams to have ever played across 10...
158: “Stealing” Dodger Stadium – With Eric Nusbaum
April 06, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBLA’s Dodger Stadium – opened in April 1962, and now the third-oldest home ballpark in Major League Baseball – is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant semi-rural Mexican American communities – Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop – collectively known as Chavez Ravine. In the early 1950s, all was condemned via eminent domain to make way for a utopian public housing project called Elysian P...
157: The NASL’s Chicago Sting – With Willy Roy (Part Two)
March 30, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 103 MBWhen 32-year-old Willy Roy and two of his NASL St. Louis Stars teammates were acquired by the still-yet-to-play expansion Chicago Sting in February 1975, the club had just four signed players and a hit movie-inspired logo to its name. No one knew what to expect, and Chicago’s twin pro soccer flame-outs less than a decade earlier – the White Sox-owned USA/NASL Mustangs (1967-68) and the Roy-led 1967 NPSL Spurs – didn’t exactly inspire confidence the Sting would be any different. Indeed, ...
156: National Soccer Hall of Famer Willy Roy
March 23, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 92.3 MBThough he was born in Germany and still retains the distinctive vocal stylings to prove it, National Soccer Hall of Fame player/coach great Willy Roy has always been a Chicago kid in both heart and heritage. A post-WWII transplant to the Windy City at the age of six, Roy became a standout youth and young adult player in his adopted hometown – and by the mid-1960s, was honing his scoring skills and drawing national attention in the hard-nosed, Chicago-based National Soccer League with th...
155: The Continental Basketball Association’s Albany Patroons – With Brendan Casey
March 16, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBWith the entirety of pro sports in unprecedented lock-down mode, we offer some respite with a rewind back to the curiously borderline major league Continental Basketball Association (1946-2009), and one of its most successful franchises – the original Albany Patroons (1982-92). Video production firm owner/sports doc filmmaker/Cap City native Brendan Casey (“The Minor League Mecca”) helps us trace the story arc of a team that spent ten memorable seasons punching above its weight both on and...
154: The National Women’s Football League’s Houston Herricanes – With Olivia Kuan
March 09, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 108 MBHollywood cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Olivia Kuan (Brick House) joins to discuss the revealing story of the Houston "Herricanes" of the pioneering National Women’s Football League (1974-88) – and their overlooked role in the historically rich and surprisingly resilient world of women’s pro football. The modern women’s pro game started innocently enough in 1967, when Cleveland talent agent Sid Friedman launched a barnstorming “Women’s Professional Football League” in which a t...
153: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – With Anika Orrock
March 02, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 105 MBAward-winning illustrator, cartoonist and unwitting baseball historian Anika Orrock (The Incredible Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) joins to discuss her delightfully visual take on the pioneering circuit that not only helped save America’s pastime – but also became the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States. With the US deep into WWII, attendance at Major League Baseball games by 1943 was dwindling and minor leagues were suspendi...
152: The Senior Professional Baseball Association – With Peter Golenbock
February 24, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 108 MBSpring training is finally under way, and we celebrate the National Pastime with a return visit to the 1989-90 curiosity known as the Senior Professional Baseball Association – with one of its few dedicated chroniclers, prolific sports author Peter Golenbock (The Forever Boys). The brainchild of real estate developer (and former college player) Jim Morley, the SPBA was envisioned as a kind of Senior PGA golf-type circuit for ex-Major League Baseball players aged 35 and older (32+ for catch...
151: “God Save the (Wichita) Wings” – With Adam Knapp & Mike Romalis
February 17, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 97.2 MBWe gear up for this week’s world premiere of God Save the Wings – the long-awaited documentary about one of the original Major Indoor Soccer League’s most improbable success stories – with co-producers Adam Knapp (Out Here in Kansas) and Mike Romalis (Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings). The Wichita Wings were the smallest-market franchise of not only the fledgling MISL, but also of any major US pro sports circuit when they joined the league in its second sea...
150: Major League Baseball Expansion – With Fran Zimniuch
February 10, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBBaseball writer Fran Zimniuch (Baseball's New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961-1998) help us sketch out a nearly forty-year survey of the major leagues’ fitful journey from a regional set of 16 teams confined to just ten US Northeast and Midwest cities, to the 30-club colossus that today stretches across 27 markets across North America. While the sport’s modern-day wanderlust began in earnest during the 1950s as the Braves moved to Milwaukee, the Browns left for Baltimore (new name: ...
149: “America’s” Soccer League – With Steve Holroyd
February 03, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 154 MBSociety for American Soccer History board director Steve Holroyd returns to help us decipher the last decade of the enigmatic second incarnation of the American Soccer League (1933-1983) – the longest-lasting “professional” soccer circuit in US history prior to today’s MLS. A smaller-scaled reboot of the original ASL (1921-33) that, for a time, rivaled the fledgling sport of pro football in terms of fan interest – “ASL II” began its more-modest life playing in the urban centers of the East...
148: The NHL’s Atlanta Flames (& More!) – With Dan Bouchard
January 27, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 152 MBFor 1970s-era NHL hockey fans who remember the eight-year adventure known as the Atlanta Flames, few are likely to forget Dan Bouchard. A tenacious, slightly eccentric and occasionally fight-prone French-Canadian goalie, “Bouch” was an immediate standout between the pipes for the NHL’s first-ever Deep South franchise (platooning with fellow Quebecois & expansion draftee Phil Myre during the club’s first five seasons) – and a survivor in a league where hard-nosed hockey was the norm and wher...
147: The Dodgers & Giants Bolt West – With Lincoln Mitchell
January 20, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 134 MBFollowing the 1957 season, two of baseball's most famous teams – the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants – left the city they had called home since the 1880s and headed west to the Golden State of California. The dramatic departure and bold reinvention of the Dodgers (to Los Angeles) and the Giants (to San Francisco) is the stuff of not only professional baseball lore, but also broader American culture – brash and (especially among generations of New Yorkers) unforgivable acts of betr...
146: The NY Cosmos Theme Song – With Musician Steve Ferrone
January 13, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 106 MBProlific rock/R&B drummer/musician Steve Ferrone (Average White Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) joins to delve into the backstory of helping write/craft the official theme song for the New York Cosmos – the latest chapter in our irregular series devoted to Tim’s longstanding fascination with the North American Soccer League’s most famous franchise. Pop music aficionados know Ferrone as part of the “classic” mid-70s lineup of AWB (along with Hamish Stuart, Alan Gorrie, “Onnie” McInty...
145: The United Football League – With Michael Huyghue
January 06, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 115 MBWe kick off the new year with a return to the gridiron, and a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the brash, but ultimately ill-fated United Football League of 2009-12 – with its only commissioner, Michael Huyghue (Behind the Line of Scrimmage: Inside the Front Office of the NFL). Formed in 2007 out of big-budget dreams to establish a national top-tier, Fall-season minor league pro football circuit by high-wattage investors like San Francisco investment banker Bill Hambrecht, Google execut...
144.5: New York Yankees Broadcaster John Sterling (Archive Re-Release)
January 01, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBWe celebrate the arrival of 2020 with an archive re-release of one our favorite interviews of 2019 - New York Yankees broadcaster John Sterling. Strap in for a rollicking revisit to forgotten pro sports stops like the NBA Baltimore Bullets, WHA New York Raiders/Golden Knights, ABA New York Nets, the WFL New York Stars/Charlotte Hornets - and even the long-lost Enterprise Sports Radio network!
144: Year-End Holiday Spectacular – With Paul Reeths & Andy Crossley
December 23, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 156 MBWe put the wraps on an event-filled 2019 with our first-annual holiday roundtable spectacular featuring the return of fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46) and Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2) – for a spirited discussion about the past, present and potential future of “forgotten” pro sports teams and leagues. It’s a no-holds-barred look back on some of the year’s most notable events and discoveries, including: The ...
143: Negro League Superstar Oscar Charleston – With Jeremy Beer
December 16, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBBaseball biographer Jeremy Beer (Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player) joins the podcast this week to discuss the life and career of one of baseball’s greatest, though largely unsung, players – and provide us a convenient excuse for a deeper dive into the endlessly fascinating vagaries of the sport’s legendary Negro Leagues. Buck O’Neil once described Oscar Charleston as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one,” while baseball historia...
142: Birmingham’s Black Barons – With Bill Plott
December 09, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 115 MBJournalist-author/Alabama native Bill Plott (Black Baseball's Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons) joins the show to help us discover more about the legendary Negro League franchise regarded by most baseball historians as the “jewel of Southern black baseball." The first Black Barons team began in 1920 as charter members of the Negro Southern League, an eight-member circuit that largely mirrored the all-white minor-league Southern Association – right down to the sharing of ball...
141.5: The WHA Hall of Fame With Tim Gassen (Archive Re-Release)
December 06, 2019 02:37 - 1 hour - 117 MBWe mourn the unexpected passing of University of Arizona men's ice hockey media broadcaster & World Hockey Association history flamekeeper Tim Gassen - with our previous Episode 75 interview from August 18, 2018. RIP Tim - your passion for the WHA will be dearly missed!
141: The National Bowling League – With Dr. Jake Schmidt
December 02, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 132 MBWe hit the lanes this week to delve into the fascinating story of the nation’s first and only attempt at a professional team bowling league – a seemingly anachronistic idea by today’s standards, but a concept that made total sense in the early 1960s when pro bowling was in ascendance and the sport was seemingly everywhere on television. Bowlers Journal columnist and historian J.R. “Dr. Jake” Schmidt (The Bowling Chronicles: Collected Writings of Dr. Jake) joins the podcast to lay out the c...
140: NFL Football’s Chicago Cardinals – With Joe Ziemba
November 25, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 132 MBAuthor and unwitting pro football historian Joe Ziemba (When Football Was Football: The Chicago Cardinals and the Birth of the NFL) help us set the record straight on the often-misunderstood history of the first incarnation of pro football’s oldest continuous club – now know as the Arizona Cardinals. Arguably the least successful franchise in National Football League history, the Chicago version of the Cardinals originated years before the start of the NFL (née American Professional Footba...
139: The NHL’s Kansas City Scouts – With Troy Treasure
November 18, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 116 MBVeteran Missouri-area sportswriter Troy Treasure (Icing on the Plains: The Rough Ride of Kansas City’s NHL Scouts) joins the podcast this week to delve into the mostly forgotten (and woeful) two-season saga of the 1974 National Hockey League expansion franchise now known as the New Jersey Devils. Along with the Washington Capitals, the Scouts were the last additions in the NHL’s aggressive expansion cycle begun in 1967, and a logical progression for a metro area historically steeped in mi...
138: The International Volleyball Association – With Jay Hanseth
November 11, 2019 09:00 - 1 hour - 142 MBYou can be forgiven if you never heard of the International Volleyball Association – the mid-1970s co-ed pro circuit that aimed to draft off the rising popularity of Olympic and beach volleyball during America’s wildest sports decade – but the high-wattage media and entertainment moguls behind its creation at the time certainly cannot. The IVA was the brainchild of prolific Hollywood television and film producer David Wolper (Roots, The Thorn Birds and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory t...
137: Basketball’s Marvin “Bad News” Barnes – With Mike Carey
November 04, 2019 08:00 - 2 hours - 165 MBMarvin “Bad News” Barnes was considered a future Hall of Fame basketball player before he even graduated from college. A standout at Providence (averaging 20.7 points and 17.9 rebounds a game, and leading the Friars to the NCAA Final Four in 1973), Barnes was a consensus 1974 All-American with the world at his fingertips. Although Barnes enjoyed two flamboyantly successful years in the American Basketball Association with the colorful Spirits of St. Louis – where he won 1974-75 Rookie of...
136: Kansas City vs. Oakland – With Matt Ehrlich
October 28, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 118 MBWe amp up the intellectual quotient this week with University of Illinois journalism professor emeritus Matt Ehrlich (Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era), who joins for a heady discussion around the most unlikely, yet intertwined of pro sports rivalries – and the turbulent 1960s from which it originated. Although Oakland, CA and Kansas City, MO are geographically distant and significantly different in numerous ways, their histories actually have more in ...
135: The Curse of the Clippers – With Mick Minas
October 21, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 140 MBWe pick up where we left off in Episode 89 (The NBA Buffalo Braves – With Tim Wendel), with the continuing story of one of pro hoops’ most forlorn franchises – today known as the Los Angeles Clippers. Author Mick Minas (The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers) joins the podcast from his home in Melbourne, Australia to help us go deep into the travails of a club labeled by many as the NBA’s most historically dysfunctional – and by some as simply cursed. From its high...
134: The World League of American Football’s London Monarchs – With Alex Cassidy
October 14, 2019 07:00 - 1 hour - 133 MBBy popular request, we begin our exploration of the enigmatic 1990s international experiment known (initially) as the World League of American Football with a deep dive into its first championship team – the London Monarchs – with author Alex Cassidy (American Football's Forgotten Kings: The Rise and Fall of the London Monarchs). Resurrected from an idea originated (but never launched) by the NFL in 1974 called the “International Football League,” the WLAF was formed in 1989 as both a spri...
133: Baseball’s Original Miami Marlins – With Sam Zygner
October 07, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 108 MBWe “celebrate” the 2019 Miami Marlins’ National League-worst 57-105 season with a look back to colorful 1950s-era Triple-A minor league franchise that laid the groundwork for South Florida’s eventual ascension to the majors in 1993. Author and SABR historian Sam Zygner (The Forgotten Marlins: A Tribute to the 1956-1960 Original Miami Marlins and Baseball Under the Palms: The History of Miami Minor League Baseball) joins the podcast to discuss the flamboyant, but little-remembered Internati...
132: ABA Basketball Memories – With Hall of Famer Dan Issel
September 30, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBNaismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame legend Dan Issel joins this week’s ‘cast to discuss his All-Star career in the American Basketball Association with two of the league’s most (relatively) stable franchises – the Kentucky Colonels and the Denver Nuggets. And a brief cup of coffee with one its shakiest, in between. After an outstanding, twice-named All-American collegiate career at the University of Kentucky (where he still remains as all-time leading scorer) in the late 1960s, Isse...
131: Calling Balls & Strikes in Baseball’s Negro Leagues – With Byron Motley
September 23, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBMulti-talented singer-songwriter, photographer, and soon-to-be sports history documentarian Byron Motley joins the show this week to discuss his late father’s colorful career as an umpire in baseball’s legendary Negro Leagues – the subject of his 2007 collaborative oral history, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars. A child of Depression-era rural Alabama, a teenaged Bob Motley migrated north in the early 1940s to his uncle’s home in Dayton, OH in search of work – and a tryout as a Negr...
130: St. Louis: The Original Soccer City USA – With Dave Lange
September 16, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 119 MBOn August 20, 2019, the city of St. Louis, MO was officially awarded the 28th franchise in Major League Soccer, with an anticipated inaugural season beginning in 2022. And while the club begins its efforts to get its team name, new downtown stadium and initial soccer operations in place, we take some time this week to reflect on the city’s deep and rich soccer history – perhaps unmatched by any locale in the United States. Dave Lange (Soccer Made in St. Louis: A History of the Game in Ame...
129: ABA Basketball's Origin Story – With Founder Dennis Murphy
September 09, 2019 08:00 - 55 minutes - 76.9 MBThe American Basketball Association was not founder Dennis Murphy’s original intent. Thwarted in his attempt to get the fast-growing city of Anaheim, CA (he was mayor of nearby Buena Park) into the fledgling American Football League during the mid-1960s, Murphy quickly pivoted his attention to basketball – reasoning that with only 12 teams in the staid, yet long-established National Basketball Association, there surely must have been room for more. “What the hell,” Murphy told author Te...
128: NASL Soccer’s Chicago Sting – With Mike Conklin
September 02, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 144 MBProlific Chicago Tribune sportswriter Mike Conklin (Goal Fever!; Transfer U.) joins the podcast to help us go deep into the story of the North American Soccer League’s twice-champion Chicago Sting – a club he covered extensively and exclusively from its little-noticed launch in late 1974 all the way through its breakthrough Soccer Bowl ’81 title. The personal passion project of prominent Chicago commodities trader Lee Stern, the Sting came to life as one of five expansion franchises for th...
127: A British View of US Pro Soccer History – With Tom Scholes
August 26, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 118 MBUK sportswriter Tom Scholes (Stateside Soccer: The Definitive History of Soccer in the United States) joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the surprisingly long, colorfully vibrant and regularly misunderstood history of the world’s most popular sport in America. While even the most erudite of the game’s international scholars mistakenly (though understandably) define the US pro game’s epicenter as the chaotic, post-1966 World Cup launch of the North American Soccer League – the roots of organi...
126: CBA Basketball’s Fort Wayne Fury – With Rob Brown
August 19, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 139 MBAfter extraordinary listener response to our Episode #118 with David Levine a few months back, we bounce-pass our way back to the endlessly intriguing Continental Basketball Association for this week’s conversation – this time with a focus on the league’s travails during the 1990s, courtesy of the Fort Wayne (IN) Fury and its former radio voice/media relations director Rob Brown. More than forty years since the relocation of the NBA’s seminal Pistons from the Summit City to Detroit (and a ...
125: San Jose Sharks Broadcaster Randy Hahn
August 12, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 113 MBBefore embarking on his incredible 29-year (and counting) run as play-by-play lead for NHL hockey’s San Jose Sharks, NBC Sports California sportscaster Randy Hahn was first known to 1980s pro soccer audiences as the versatile radio and TV voice behind the short-lived Edmonton Drillers of the North American Soccer League as well as the dynastic San Diego Sockers of both the NASL and the Major Indoor Soccer League. We descend deep into the Good Seats audio archives to revisit some of the mor...