Marvin “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 the Yea...
Nov 04, 2019•2 hr•Ep. 137
We 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 comm...
Oct 28, 2019•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 136
We 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 highl...
Oct 21, 2019•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 135
By 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 spring d...
Oct 14, 2019•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 134
We “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 International...
Oct 07, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 133
Naismith 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, Issel spurn...
Sep 30, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 132
Multi-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 Negro Lea...
Sep 23, 2019•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 131
On 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 America’s...
Sep 16, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 130
The 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 Terry Pluto...
Sep 09, 2019•56 min•Ep. 129
Prolific 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 the N...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 128
UK 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 organized ...
Aug 26, 2019•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 127
After 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 decade...
Aug 19, 2019•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 126
Before 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 more memo...
Aug 12, 2019•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 125
Sportswriter Ron Synder ( The Baltimore Stallions: The Brief, Brilliant History of the CFL Champion Franchise ) joins to delve into the story of the mostly-forgotten team that revitalized Baltimore’s pro football history and viability. When the National Football League’s Baltimore Colts secretively absconded to Indianapolis in the wee hours of March 29, 1984, three decades of pro football history left with them. Subsequent dalliances with the USFL’s nominally “Baltimore” Stars in 1985, and ill-f...
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 124
We amp up the intellectual quotient this week with Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger ( Ballpark: Baseball in the American City ), as we delve into the inextricably historical bond between the rise of America’s favorite pastime and the evolution of the American city. From the first “saloons in the open air” of the late-1800s, such as Brooklyn, NY’s Union Grounds; to the ornate turn-of-the century wooden structures of Chicago’s Lakefront Park, Boston’s South End Grounds, a...
Jul 29, 2019•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 123
Brooklyn College women’s soccer head coach and former NASL (Memphis Rogues, New England Tea Men) and ASL (New Jersey Americans) pro player Patrick Horne ( Black Pioneers of the North American Soccer League ) joins the podcast to help shine a light on the largely unrecognized contributions of black players to both the success of North America’s first major foray into pro soccer, and the growth of the sport’s popularity in the US and Canada in the decades since. While no one disputes the significa...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 122
It’s been nearly two years since our first look at baseball’s still-revered Milwaukee Braves, and this week – courtesy of author/historian Patrick Steele ( Home of the Braves: The Battle for Baseball in Milwaukee ) – we finally get the chance to go deeper into the team that, in its brief 13-season run: never posted a losing season, won two National League pennants, and, in 1957, brought “Cream City” its first and only World Series championship. Featuring a stellar lineup of mostly Braves farm cl...
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 121
As the 2019 version of the Portland Timbers celebrates its 10th season in Major League Soccer, we spin the WABAC Machine dial back 44 years earlier to 1975 – when the club’s original namesake became an overnight sensation (figuratively and literally) in the then-20-team North American Soccer League. The last of the NASL’s five newly announced sides for that season (along with Chicago, San Antonio, Tampa Bay, and Hartford), the “Timbers” weren’t even named (via an open “name the team” contest) un...
Jul 08, 2019•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 120
We veer back this week into the still-unfolding mess that is (or was) the Alliance of American Football with ESPN.com “NFL Nation” reporter Michael Rothstein – who, along with ESPN Senior Writer Seth Wickersham – has been chronicling the demise of the once-promising league ( Inside the Short, Unhappy Life of the Alliance of American Football ), dating back to its curious pre-season earlier this winter. With Carolina Hurricanes owner and last-minute financial savior Tom Dundon recently suing the ...
Jul 01, 2019•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 119
Author and former SPORT magazine writer David Levine ( Life on the Rim: A Year in the Continental Basketball Association ) joins the ‘cast to give us our first taste of the quirky minor league basketball circuit that began as a Pennsylvania-based regional outfit in 1946 (predating the NBA’s formation by two months), and meandered through a myriad of death-defying iterations until whimpering into oblivion in 2009. Often billed throughout its curious history as the "World's Oldest Professional Bas...
Jun 24, 2019•1 hr 37 min
University of Mary Washington research librarian and baseball historian Jack Bales ( Before They Were the Cubs: The Early Years of Chicago's First Professional Baseball Team ) joins the podcast to help us dig into the surprisingly rich history of Major League Baseball’s long-time North Side Chicago franchise well prior to 1903, when they formally adopted their now-signature nickname. While even some of the most ardent of Chicago Cubs fans unwittingly believe that year to be the team’s first seas...
Jun 17, 2019•1 hr 23 min
This week, we offer a refresher course in the history of forgotten pro sports leagues with veteran newspaper editor, current long-form author and fellow defunct sports enthusiast Stephen Provost – whose recent book A Whole Different League is an essential primer for anyone seeking an entrée into the genre. Provost serves up a smorgasbord of highlights gleaned from his personal memories of and research into the various nooks and crannies of what “used-to-be” in professional team sports, including...
Jun 10, 2019•1 hr 17 min
After more than 40 years of covering the “beautiful game,” Newsday sportswriter and FrontRowSoccer.com editor Michael Lewis ( Soccer for Dummies ) knows more than a thing or two about the evolution of soccer in this country. A self-professed “Zelig of soccer,” the NYC-based Lewis has covered some of the sport’s most important events, including eight World Cups, seven Olympic tournaments, and all 23 MLS Cups (and counting) – not to mention an endless array of matches and related off-the-field act...
Jun 03, 2019•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 115
We cap off the long Memorial Day holiday weekend with a look back at one of the New York metropolitan area’s most memorable sports stadiums of yore – the Polo Grounds – with author and Minnesota Twins official scorer Stew Thornley ( The Polo Grounds: Essays and Memories of New York City's Historic Ballpark, 1880-1963 ). The “Polo Grounds” was actually the name of multiple structures across upper Manhattan during its history. As its name suggests, the original venue (1876-1889) was built for, wel...
May 27, 2019•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 114
Just weeks after its sudden collapse, we take our first look at the brief life of the Alliance of American Football with Sports Illustrated football writer and MMQB NFL podcast host Conor Orr ( The Curious Rise and Spectacular Crash of the Alliance of American Football ; More Strange Tales from the Collapse of the AAF ). Inspired by his work producing the 2017 documentary This Was the XFL for ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 series, director Charlie Ebersol concluded that the renegade league co-created by ...
May 20, 2019•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 113
Long-time South Florida Sun-Sentinel soccer columnist Jeff Rusnak joins to discuss the rich past, transitional present and promising future of one of American pro soccer’s most venerable, yet historically underrated venues – Ft. Lauderdale, Florida’s Lockhart Stadium. Originally built in 1959 as an American football and track venue for four high schools in the region and named after a former city commissioner, the modest bleacher-constructed Lockhart was unwittingly transformed into the country’...
May 13, 2019•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 112
WKKY-FM radio personality and sports author Gary Webster ( The League That Didn’t Exist ) helps us return to the curious story of the All-America Football Conference – the well-funded upstart that competed directly with the NFL in the late 1940s for supremacy of the still-fledgling sport of US pro football. After being rebuffed by the NFL to expand, influential Chicago Tribune sports editor (and baseball and college football All-Star Games’ creator) Arch Ward recruited a who’s who of wealthy bus...
May 06, 2019•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 111
Author Ken Krsolovic ( League Park: Historic Home of Cleveland Baseball, 1891-1946 ) joins the podcast to go deep into the history and legacy of Cleveland’s first major league sports stadium. Originally built for the National League’s Cleveland Spiders, team owner Frank Robison strategically built the wood-constructed League Park at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Dunham (now East 66th) Street in the city’s Hough neighborhood, where the streetcar line he owned conveniently stopped. It debuted...
Apr 29, 2019•1 hr 17 min
Professional union labor lawyer and Society for American Soccer History sports historian Steve Holroyd returns to the podcast to go deep into one of the more curious rabbit holes in North American Soccer League history. In early 1977, Ed Garvey, a labor lawyer and head of the newly-formed National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), recruited Washington Diplomats midfielder John Kerr to help gauge interest among his teammates and those of other clubs in forming a similar organization fo...
Apr 22, 2019•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 109
We’re stuck in the minors again this week – this time with Microsoft News senior managing editor and former newspaper sportswriter David Herman ( Almost Yankees: The Summer of ’81 and the Greatest Baseball Team You’ve Never Heard Of ) – as we discuss the memorable story and unique circumstances of the 1981 championship season of the International League’s Columbus Clippers, the then-flagship farm club of the New York Yankees. Longtime baseball fans will remember 1981, of course, as the year Majo...
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 108
