Good Seats Still Available
378 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 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
077: Before the NHL’s “Original Six” – With Andrew Ross
September 03, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 109 MBWhen quizzed on the historical origins of the National Hockey League, most fans reflexively default to the hagiographic construct known as the “Original Six” – the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Detroit Red Wings – as the seminal franchise lineup from which the modern-day NHL was ultimately built. In fact, the league traces its official roots to a much friskier start dating back to 1917 – when, out of the ownership discord ...
076: National Soccer Hall of Fame Coach Gordon Jago
August 27, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 137 MBWe continue our march towards the upcoming 50th anniversary reunion of the North American Soccer League (as part the rechristening of the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Frisco, TX on October 19-21, 2018), with one of the coaching pioneers from the league’s heyday, Gordon Jago (A Soccer Pioneer: The Autobiography of Gordon Jago). After a sparkling youth career with England’s Charlton Athletic and the national Under-20s, Jago quickly segued to coaching in the mid-1960s as an assistant coac...
075: The World Hockey Association Hall of Fame with Tim Gassen
August 20, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 117 MBBuckle up for our sophomore excursion into the legendary World Hockey Association, as we chat with the passionate founder and meticulous curator of the short-lived but influential league’s official Hall of Fame, Tim Gassen. Physically ensconced inside the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN, as well as an expansive online digital presence, the WHA Hall of Fame is the undisputed historical authority on the brief seven-season life and wild times of the iconic 1970s-era challeng...
074: NASL Soccer's Chief Architect Clive Toye
August 13, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 146 MBFamed Soccer America columnist Paul Gardner summed up this week's Hall of Fame guest in his May 2015 commentary: “The debt owed by American soccer to Clive Toye is a vast one. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say, flatly, that without Toye’s blind faith in the sport in the 1970s, pro soccer in the USA would have withered and died. Yes, Phil Woosnam and Lamar Hunt and Bob Hermann were there too. But in those unpromising years it was Toye’s voice -- it came in a steady flow of ridicu...
073: The Union Association’s Wilmington Quicksteps – with Jon Springer
August 06, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 131 MBProfessional baseball was barely into its adolescence in 1884 when a hard-playing, hard-drinking minor league club out of tiny Wilmington, Delaware―the Quicksteps―got the opportunity of a lifetime. Led by prototypical early era stars like loud-voiced outfielder/team captain Tommy “Oyster” Burns (aka the “Wilmington Growler,” who sold shellfish in the off-season), and Canadian-born curveball pioneer Edward “The Only” Nolan (who was briefly blacklisted from the National League for lying abou...
072: Baseball’s “Miracle” Boston Braves with Historian Charlie Alexander
July 30, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 91.7 MBWhen you’re the oldest continuously operating franchise in baseball (or in all of American professional sports, for that matter), you’re bound to have some stories – and the proverbial dusty boxes of history sitting in the attic of the Atlanta Braves’ SunTrust Park are certainly full of them. This week, we rope in noted baseball historian Charlie Alexander (The Miracle Braves, 1914-1916) to delve into one of the more interesting and oft-forgotten periods of Braves baseball history, when t...
071: National Soccer Hall of Fame Coach Al Miller - Part Two
July 23, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBWe conclude our conversation with National Soccer Hall of Fame coach Al Miller, who shares a wide array of additional recollections, anecdotes, musings, and insights from a legendary career across US outdoor and indoor soccer, including: An historic February 11, 1974 indoor game at Philadelphia’s Spectrum between Miller’s NASL champion Atoms and Moscow’s Red Army – generally acknowledged as the true genesis of the Major Indoor Soccer league four years later; The positives and the negative...
070: National Soccer Hall of Fame Coach Al Miller
July 16, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 92 MBIn February 1973, the suddenly ascendant North American Soccer League hurriedly awarded a new franchise to Philadelphia construction magnate Thomas McCloskey, despite the league’s fast-approaching season start date of May 1st. The result of some Super Bowl VII arm-twisting by Kansas City Chiefs (and NASL Dallas Tornado) owner Lamar Hunt after helping McCloskey secure last-minute tickets, the team that would soon become the Philadelphia Atoms had only three months to move from birth to first...
069: The “Rebel” World Hockey Association with Ed Willes
July 09, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 131 MBFresh off of kicking pro basketball’s establishment in the teeth with the launch of the upstart American Basketball Association in 1967, inveterate sports entrepreneurs Dennis Murphy (see also: World Team Tennis, Roller Hockey International) and Gary Davidson (World Football League) turned their attention to an even riper target of opportunity in 1971 – the monopolistic and monochromatic 12-team National Hockey League. Their broadside against the NHL was the audaciously aspirational World ...
068: The Birth of Major League Baseball’s World Series with SABR Historian Steve Steinberg
July 02, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 93.5 MBAt the beginning of the 20th century, the professional game of baseball had already taken on much of its modern shape – where pitching and managerial strategy dominated, and “manufactured” offense meant taught and tense contests, albeit often with limited scoring. Stretching roughly from 1901-19, the period dubbed the “Deadball Era” by baseball historians saw teams play in expansive ball parks that limited hitting for power, while featuring baseballs that were, by modern-day comparison, mor...
067: Behind-the-Scenes Tales from the Front Office with Thom Meredith
June 25, 2018 08:00 - 2 hours - 151 MBOur World Cup fever has yet to break, and we spend this week reveling in some of the heretofore unexplored (at least on this podcast) nooks and crannies of modern-day American pro soccer history with one of its most unsung front office heroes. In a career spanning over four decades, sports PR and event management executive Thom Meredith has proverbially “seen it all” across some of US sports’ most remarkable leagues, franchises and governing bodies – including remarkable (and sometimes du...
066: Sports Broadcaster JP Dellacamera
June 18, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 126 MBFox Sports soccer play-by-play broadcaster extraordinaire JP Dellacamera joins the podcast this week to discuss a pioneering career in sports announcing spanning over 30 years – including calling this year’s 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia – his ninth consecutive men’s quadrennial assignment since Mexico ’86. Widely acknowledged as the original voice of US Soccer, Dellacamera’s calls have become synonymous with some of modern-day American soccer’s most indelible moments – including his accou...
065: The CFL’s American Expansion Experiment with Sportswriter Ed Willes
June 11, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 163 MBAs Johnny Manziel’s pro football comeback journey wraps up a promising pre-season with the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, we take a moment this week to reminisce on the approaching 25th anniversary of the CFL’s bold, but ultimately ill-fated attempt to bring its exciting brand of pigskin south of the border in 1993. When the NFL put the brakes on its two-year World League of American Football experiment in the summer of 1992 (which included a franchise in Montreal, dubbed ...
064: American Soccer’s “Dark Ages” with Writer Michael J. Agovino
June 04, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 120 MBIt wasn’t easy being a soccer fan in the United States in the 1980s. While the 24-team North American American Soccer League ushered in the decade with an air of stability and momentum (the NASL even sold a pennant labeling the game the “Sport of the 80’s”), it wasn’t long before big-time American pro soccer was dangerously on the ropes (the NASL shrank to just nine franchises by 1984) – and then seemingly gone for good when the league officially sank into oblivion in early 1985. For a n...
063: Baseball's Federal League with Author Dan Levitt
May 28, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 132 MBIn late 1913, the newly formed Federal League of Base Ball Clubs – more simply known as the “Federal League” – declared itself a third major professional baseball league in competition with the established circuits of organized baseball, the National and American Leagues. Led by inveterate baseball promoter John T. Powers, and backed by some of America’s wealthiest merchants and industrialists, the Federal League posed a real challenge to baseball’s prevailing structure at the time – offer...
062: The Whaler Guys
May 21, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBIt’s been 21 years since the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers abruptly bolted for the (supposedly) greener pastures of North Carolina and a rechristened life as the Carolina Hurricanes, but don’t tell that to superfans Peter Hindle and Jerry Erwin – the self-professed “Whaler Guys” – who have made it their personal mission since 2011 to keep the memory of the franchise they love alive, and, with any luck, bring top-tier pro NHL hockey back to the Nutmeg State. As the hosts of the...
061: Sports Promoter Doug Verb
May 14, 2018 07:00 - 3 hours - 214 MBIf someone ever decides to build an American sports promotion Hall of Fame, the inaugural class will undoubtedly be led by this week’s special guest, Doug Verb. In a career spanning more than 40 years in professional sports management, Verb’s remarkable career has included spearheading marketing, promotion, publicity, and television for some of the most innovative and memorable leagues and franchises of the modern era. One of the founding executives of both the pioneering Major Indoor So...
060: Baseball’s League That Never Was: The Continental League with Professor Russ Buhite
May 07, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 115 MBBy the summer of 1959, the absence of two former National League franchises from what was once a vibrant New York City major league baseball scene was obvious – and even the remaining/dominant Yankees couldn’t fully make up for it. Nor could that season’s World Series championship run of the now-Los Angeles Dodgers – a bittersweet victory for jilted fans of the team’s Brooklyn era. Fiercely determined to return a National League team to the city, mayor Robert Wagner enlisted the help of ...
059: Pro Soccer’s Dean of Media Relations, Jim Trecker
April 30, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 158 MBWith a career spanning more than four decades, the National Soccer Hall of Fame’s 2017 Colin Jose Media Award-winner Jim Trecker has been part of the American sports media relations landscape since the late 1960’s. After a chance part-time undergrad job in Columbia University’s modest sports information department, Trecker traded his initial career ambitions in French language education for what ultimately became an unmatched professional journey in public relations at the highest levels of...
058: The Intersection of Sports & Art with Artist/Designer Wayland Moore
April 23, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 87 MBInternationally acclaimed multi-media artist/illustrator/designer Wayland Moore joins the podcast from his studio in suburban Atlanta to discuss his nearly six-decade career as one of America’s most recognizable commercial artists – including some of his most notable works in the realm of professional sports. Designer of such iconic team logos such as pro soccer’s Atlanta Chiefs (National Professional Soccer League, 1967; North American Soccer League, 1968-73 & 1979-81); and, most legend...
057: The Pro Football Life of Upton Bell
April 16, 2018 07:00 - 2 hours - 174 MBUpton Bell grew up at the knee of the National Football League’s second-ever commissioner – his father, the legendary Bert Bell – who not only saved professional football from financial ruin in the aftermath of World War II, but also became one of its greatest innovators. Originator of the iconic phrase “on any given Sunday,” the senior Bell created lasting contributions to the NFL, such as the first pro football draft, scheduling parity, television revenue-sharing, and sudden-death overtim...
056: The Players’ League of 1890 with Professor Bob Ross
April 09, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 129 MBWith Major League Baseball finally back in full swing, we dial the Wayback Machine all the way back to the year 1890, when the professional version of America’s Pastime was still nascent, its business model was largely unproven, and the players of the day seethed at their team owners’ increasingly restrictive operating practices – to the point of dramatic and open revolt that ultimately set the contentious tone of owner-player relations for baseball and all of US pro sports for generations t...
055: Russ Cline and the Birth of Modern-Day Indoor Box Lacrosse
April 02, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 95.6 MBOur first-ever (and long-overdue) exploration of the sport of professional lacrosse begins with a conversation with one of the godfathers of the modern indoor game, Russ Cline – founder (along with partner and fellow Kansas City sports promoter Chris Fritz) of 1987’s seminal four-team Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League (soon renamed the Major Indoor Lacrosse League) – and the progenitor of today’s vibrant National Lacrosse League that spans 11 cities across the US and Canada. Cline walks obsess...
054: Effa Manley & the Negro National League’s Newark Eagles with Biographer Bob Luke
March 26, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 81.4 MBBaseball historian Bob Luke (The Most Famous Woman in Baseball: Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues) joins host Tim Hanlon to delve into the intriguing story of the first (and still only) woman to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame – and the second Negro National League’s Newark Eagles franchise she successfully co-owned (with husband Abe) and general managed from 1936-48. A student of the sport since early childhood with a keen sense of promotion, marketing and player wel...
053: NHL Hockey’s Minnesota North Stars with Author Adam Raider
March 19, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 135 MBIn this week’s episode, we skate back to the National Hockey League’s 1967 “Great Expansion,” when the league ambitiously doubled in size from its “Original Six” to incorporate a half-dozen new franchises – including the seemingly most obvious and overdue market of all: the hockey-mad state of Minnesota and its cultural epicenter, Minneapolis-St.Paul. With a skilled management team led by amateur hockey pioneer Walter Bush, the Minnesota North Stars fielded a team-minded and quickly respe...
052: The Wild & Wacky World Football League with Author Mark Speck - Part Two
March 12, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBWe conclude our conversation with WFL researcher Mark Speck (WIFFLE: The Wild, Zany and Sometimes Hilariously True Story of the World Football League; World Football League Encyclopedia; . . .And a Dollar Short: The Empty Promises, Broken Dreams, and Somewhat-Less-Than-Comic Misadventures of the 1974 Florida Blazers), as we find the league limping its way through an inaugural 1974 campaign that featured two mid-season franchise relocations (Houston to Shreveport, and New York to Charlotte), ...
051: The Wild & Wacky World Football League with Author Mark Speck
March 05, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 127 MBPerhaps no defunct league in modern-day professional sports history endured a more ignominious storyline and spectacular demise than that of the World Football League – a uniquely disastrous attempt to establish a summer-into-autumn rival to the National Football League during the mid-1970’s. Brimming with confidence from his co-founding exploits with two previous (and at the time, still very-much-alive) challenger pro circuits – the American Basketball Association in 1967, and the World H...
050: National League Baseball’s Detroit Wolverines with Author Brian “Chip” Martin
February 26, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBWhile the Detroit Tigers hold the record as the oldest continuous one-name, one-city franchise in the American League (debuting as one of the league’s “Classic Eight” charter clubs in 1901), they were not the first team to play major league baseball in the Motor City. That distinction actually goes to the Detroit Wolverines of the late 19th-century National League, which took to the field for the first time against the visiting Buffalo Bisons on May 2, 1881 in front of a curious crowd of 1,...
049: “Rock & Roll” NASL Soccer with Author Ian Plenderleith
February 19, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 116 MBBy many accounts, the North American Soccer League was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon in the history of the world game – and, during its 1970s heyday (although it began shakily in 1968 and ended in shambles after the 1984 season) – a league years ahead of its time. More than just Pelé and the star-studded, bigger-than-life New York Cosmos, the NASL lured international soccer’s biggest names like Johan Cruyff, Eusebio, George Best, and Franz Beckenbauer to play the “beautiful game” the way it wa...
048: How the ABA’s Indiana Pacers Helped “Change the Game” – with Bob Netolicky & Robin Miller
February 12, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 118 MBFour-time American Basketball Association All-Star Bob Netolicky and former Indianapolis Star sportswriter Robin Miller join host Tim Hanlon to share some of their most memorable (and heretofore untold) first-person accounts of playing and traveling with the thrice-ABA-champion Indiana Pacers – and promote their upcoming book We Changed the Game, penned in partnership with original team co-founder/owner Dick Tinkham. Despite three championships, five finals appearances and the strongest fa...
047: US Pro Soccer’s 1960s-Era Rebirth with Author Dennis Seese
February 05, 2018 08:00 - 2 hours - 169 MBThe history of professional soccer in the United States is richer and far more complex than today’s generation of Major League Soccer fans might realize. Multiple ethnically-infused pro leagues existed as far back as the early 1900s – but when the American Soccer Association collapsed in Depression-Era 1933, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s when the next serious attempt to bring full-fledged, top-flight Division One professional soccer to US shores was pursued in earnest. In 1966, suddenly ...
046: The United States Football League with Author Paul Reeths
January 29, 2018 08:00 - 2 hours - 153 MBFor the first time since Episode #11, we return to the brief, but unforgettable streak of pro football lightning known as the United States Football League, with the author of its definitive history, Paul Reeths (The United States Football League, 1982-1986). The brainchild of New Orleans plywood manufacturer/car dealer/World Championship Tennis co-founder/Superdome director/art-and-antiques dealer David Dixon, the USFL splashily announced its intention to bring big-league, springtime pr...
045: The ABA’s Indiana Pacers with Sportswriter Mark Montieth – Part Two
January 22, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 110 MBVeteran sportswriter Mark Montieth (Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis) returns to the podcast (Episode #41) to help complete the story of the Indiana Pacers’ nine-year sojourn through the American Basketball Association – including its shaky transition into a merger-expanded NBA in 1976. Arguably the most stable and successful franchise in the ABA’s short but colorful history, the franchise nearly collapsed under its own weight after its inaugural Natio...
044: Arena Football League Founder Jim Foster - Part Two
January 15, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 124 MBWe conclude our two-part journey into the early history of the Arena Football League with founder and inventor Jim Foster, who recounts some of the most notable events of the league’s formative years – including a memorable 1987 “demonstration season” featuring: The February debut “Showcase Game” in suburban Chicago’s Rosemont Horizon between the hometown Bruisers and the Miami Vise – highlights of which later dominated ESPN’s SportsCenter; A return to the Horizon for the first-ever natio...
043: Arena Football League Founder Jim Foster
January 08, 2018 08:00 - 2 hours - 191 MBAs the new year beckons, the fate of the Arena Football League – one of America’s most innovative modern-day professional sports concepts – hangs in the balance. With only four teams (the mutually-owned Washington Valor and Baltimore Brigade, defending champion Philadelphia Soul, and a still-unnamed Albany, NY squad) confirmed for the upcoming 2018 season, the AFL will play with exactly the same number of franchises that comprised its inaugural “demonstration” season back in 1987 – and a me...
042: Entertainer Pat Boone and the ABA’s Oakland Oaks
January 01, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 93.4 MBWe usher in the holidays and round out our debut season with the inimitable Pat Boone – an American entertainment legend and inveterate business entrepreneur, with a life-long passion for the sport of basketball. In a career spanning over six decades (and counting!), the incomparable Boone has just about done it all in the fields of music, film, television, and stage, as well as the pursuit of a wide variety of business interests – including being the majority owner of the American Basketba...
042: Entertainer Pat Boone and the ABA’s Oakland Oaks
December 25, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 93.4 MBWe usher in the holidays and round out our debut season with the inimitable Pat Boone – an American entertainment legend and inveterate business entrepreneur, with a life-long passion for the sport of basketball. In a career spanning over six decades (and counting!), the incomparable Boone has just about done it all in the fields of music, film, television, and stage, as well as the pursuit of a wide variety of business interests – including being the majority owner of the American Basketba...
041: ABA Basketball’s Indiana Pacers with Sportswriter Mark Montieth
December 18, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 118 MBLong-time Indianapolis pro hoops beat reporter Mark Montieth (Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis) joins host Tim Hanlon to delve into the intriguing story behind the efforts of late-1960s civic leaders to re-establish a top-tier professional franchise in the capital city of basketball-mad Indiana after a curious 14-year absence. One of eleven charter franchises in 1967’s upstart American Basketball Association, the Indiana Pacers literally and figurative...
040: The Three Acts of Pro Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes with Columnist Gary Singh
December 11, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 129 MBLong-time Metro Silicon Valley columnist and San Jose, California native Gary Singh (The San Jose Earthquakes: A Seismic Soccer Legacy) joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the confusing journey and three distinct incarnations of one of American soccer’s most colorful and persistent professional franchises. As one of four West Coast expansion teams (along with the Los Angeles Aztecs, Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps) added for the North American Soccer League’s breakthrough 1974 seas...
039: The Continental Indoor Soccer League’s Indianapolis Twisters with Broadcaster Kenn Tomasch
December 04, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 93.6 MBFormer sportscaster and fellow defunct pro sports enthusiast Kenn Tomasch joins host Tim Hanlon to dig deep into the two-season saga of the Indiana (née Indianapolis) Twisters of the Continental Indoor Soccer League – the mid-90s summertime indoor soccer circuit hatched by a collective of team and arena owners from the NBA and NHL to keep their facilities humming during their respective “off”-seasons. CISL franchises controlled by entities outside the big-league fraternity were also part of...
038: Women’s Professional Baseball with Film Producer/Director Jon Leonoudakis
November 27, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 96.2 MBDocumentary film producer/director Jon Leonoudakis (The Wrecking Crew!) joins Tim Hanlon to discuss Season Three of his digital video series The Sweet Spot: A Treasury of Baseball Stories – devoted to the plight of women in the pursuit of playing America’s pastime. Over this season’s nine episodes, Shutout! The Battle American Women Wage to Play Baseball tackles the tortuous journey of women in baseball from multiple angles – including notable attempts at professional play over the last cen...
037: The NHL’s California Golden Seals with Author Steve Currier
November 20, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 87.5 MBIce hockey makes its long-awaited return to the podcast, as host Tim Hanlon revisits the legendarily forlorn California Golden Seals franchise of the late 1960s/early 1970s National Hockey League, with author Steve Currier (The California Golden Seals: A Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams). Part of the NHL’s “Great Expansion” of 1967, the Seals never posted a winning record in any of its 11 years of existence (including its last two seasons as the Cle...
036: Dead-Ball-Era Baseball’s “Chief” Meyers & the New York Giants with Author Bill Young
November 13, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 64.5 MBAuthor/historian Bill Young (John Tortes “Chief” Meyers: A Baseball Biography) returns to the podcast to discuss the life and legacy of one of Major League Baseball’s most intriguing personalities from the sport’s “dead-ball era” of the 1900s/10s. The sturdy, hard-hitting battery-mate (and eventual vaudeville stage partner) of Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Matthewson – as well as a fixture in some of legendary New York Giants manager John McGraw’s most successful teams – “Chief” Meyers was ...
035: National Soccer Hall of Famer Paul Child
November 06, 2017 08:00 - 1 hour - 77.3 MBFormer NASL, MISL, CISL (and even ASL) soccer great Paul Child becomes the fifth National Soccer Hall of Famer to join the podcast – and regales host Tim Hanlon with a bevy of eyebrow-raising anecdotes from a 25+ pro career as a player and coach across teams and leagues in both the outdoor and indoor versions of the game, including: • Taking a chance to get first-team play as a 19-year-old via loan with the Atlanta Chiefs in the fragile 1972 North American Soccer League; • ...
034: The National Basketball League with Author Murry Nelson
October 30, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBBasketball historian and Penn State professor emeritus Murry Nelson (The National Basketball League: A History) returns to the podcast – this time to dive into the deep end of one of the modern-day NBA’s most important formative tributaries. The National Basketball League was forged out of an industrial collective of independent “company teams” that dotted the Midwest in the mid-1930s – and through the corporate patronage of firms like Goodyear, Firestone and General Electric, became a ...
033: Early Baseball’s National Association with Author Bill Ryczek
October 22, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 97.4 MBAuthor Bill Ryczek (Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association) makes a return visit to the podcast – this time to regale host Tim Hanlon in the intriguing story of the raucous early days of organized baseball’s first attempt at forming and sustaining a true professional league. Birthed in early 1871 from a hodgepodge, post-Civil War-era amalgam of amateur teams, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players – or “National Association” – became ...
032: Major League Baseball’s Milwaukee Braves with Documentarian/Writer Bill Povletich
October 16, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 76.9 MBThe lineage behind what is today’s Atlanta Braves is one of the longest, deepest and most uniquely enduring in all of professional baseball. With early roots dating back to the launch of 1871’s National Association (when they were based in Boston, and known simply as the “Red Stockings”), the later-renamed Braves franchise boldly moved to the greener pastures of Milwaukee in 1953 – where for 13 years, the team never endured a losing season, won two National League pennants, and, in 1957, br...
031: Indoor Soccer’s Wichita Wings with Mike Romalis and Tim O’Bryhim
October 09, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 85.2 MBWichita, Kansas natives Mike Romalis and Tim O’Bryhim (Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings) join host Tim Hanlon to talk about their current book – and upcoming documentary – focused on the improbable story of the Major Indoor Soccer League’s smallest-market (Nielsen-ranked #66) club that became the first major league professional sports team in Kansas history. The MISL’s Wichita Wings defied conventional logic, as world-class soccer players from places like Eng...
030: The Senior Professional Baseball Association with Author David Whitford
October 02, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 65.2 MBInc. Editor-at-Large David Whitford (Extra Innings: A Season in the Senior League) joins host Tim Hanlon to retrace his journalistic odyssey covering the inaugural season of the short-lived, Florida-based Senior Professional Baseball Association (SPBA) in the winter of 1989-90. Whitford recalls the early-career events leading up to his plum writing assignment, and the process by which he went about chronicling this unique, but ultimately ill-fated eight-team circuit for former pro players o...
029: The American Soccer League’s Cincinnati Comets with Writer/Photographer Ronny Salerno
September 25, 2017 07:00 - 1 hour - 77.9 MBWhile the meteoric rise of the United Soccer League’s FC Cincinnati franchise caught many pro sports observers by surprise, keen observers of soccer’s unique history in the Queen City note that the foundation of the team’s current success actually dates back to 1972, when an ambitious little club called the Cincinnati Comets won the American Soccer League championship in the team’s inaugural season. Cincinnati writer/photographer/native Ronny Salerno (The Extraordinary Story of the Cincinnat...