Just about any Canadian of a certain age will be able to tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing on September 28, 1972. That's the day when "Team Canada" (and Toronto Maple Leaf) forward Paul Henderson scored a dramatic and decisive late-third-period "goal heard around the world" to clinch the eighth and final game of an epic month-long hockey series against a similar professional all-star team from the Soviet Union - in what is today remembered as simply the "Summit Series." H...
Dec 14, 2020•2 hr 20 min•Ep. 194
A guilty pleasure this week, as we go deep into the story of iconic vintage sportswear retailer Ebbets Field Flannels - the world leader in researching, sourcing and creating 100% authentic athletic apparel - with its owner and founder Jerry Cohen. From the EFF website: "Jerry Cohen grew up in Brooklyn, not far from where the fabled stadium once stood in Flatbush. Jerry listened to his father tell stories of the colorful players of another era. He was proud of the fiercely independent neighborho...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 193
For the first time since Episode 47 with Dennis Seese , we dial back to US pro soccer's optimistic but tenuous late 1960's reboot, with Derek Liecty - the founding general manager of one the period's most successful (yet historically overlooked) teams, the Oakland (née California) Clippers. One of ten inaugural franchises in the renegade National Professional Soccer League - one of two competing attempts to launch true "Division One" soccer in North America (the other being an officially FIFA-sa...
Nov 30, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 192
We celebrate the Society for American Baseball Research's fiftieth anniversary with a look back at one of the most pivotal events in major league baseball history - and featured in the group's newly-released commemorative anthology " SABR: 50 at 50 ". Longtime Society contributor Bob Bailey ("Four Teams Out: The National League Reduction of 1900") revisits his 1990 Baseball Research Journal article describing how a fledgling 12-team, 1890s-era National League pro baseball monopoly found itself o...
Nov 23, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 191
When anyone brings up the topic of pro hockey in Philadelphia, the conversation quite naturally starts (and often stops) with the Flyers - one of the six franchises added to the NHL in the league's 1967 "Great Expansion," and the fastest of the bunch to capture the Lord Stanley's Cup, after only its seventh season. But as this week's guest Alan Bass (" Professional Hockey in Philadelphia: A History ") suggests, limiting the discussion to just the Flyers not only ignores the surprisingly long his...
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 190
We consult a higher authority this week to help us dig into the story of the NFL's former Houston Oilers - one of the American Football League's founding franchises in 1960, and the predecessor to today's Nashville-based Tennessee Titans. Before decamping for divinity school in the late 1990s and a second career as a vicar in the US Anglican church, Fr. Ed Fowler (" Loser Takes All: Bud Adams, Bad Football & Big Business ") spent over 30 years as both a writer and columnist for sports sectio...
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 189
Our resident lax experts Dave Coleman and Steve Holroyd (" Two for the Show ") return to help us dig deeper into the largely untold story of the original National Lacrosse League - the seminal mid-70s indoor circuit that helped lay the groundwork for modern-day professionalization of one of North America's oldest organized sports. Originally conceived by NHL hockey owners as a means of filling their arenas in the off-season summer months, the NLL consisted of six clubs in each of its 1974 (Maryl...
Nov 02, 2020•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 188
Pop culture writer/filmmaker Steven Blush (" American Hardcore ") joins the festivities this week to (at long last) help us delve into the enigmatic story of the original 1970s-era incarnation of World Team Tennis - including an exclusive preview of his upcoming book & documentary Bustin' Balls: World Team Tennis - Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics . From the "Bustin' Balls" book dust jacket: "Tennis. Exquisitely tailored white outfits. Formally attired spectators. Stiff upper...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 187
When legendary Red Sox slugger Ted Williams gave his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 25, 1966, he unexpectedly included a blunt admonition to the sport's establishment that something in the hallowed Hall was significantly awry - the absence of standout players from the Negro Leagues: "I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro play...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 186
Logo archivist Chris Creamer ( SportsLogos.net ) and graphic brand designer Todd Radom ( Todd Radom Design ) join this week's show to dive into the rich and fascinating visual story of the National Hockey League's nearly 103-year history - as told by the names, logos and uniforms of its teams. Their new book collaboration Fabric of the Game: The Stories Behind the NHL's Names, Logos and Uniforms is a comprehensive look into the rationale behind and the execution of the iconography of each of the...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 185
Veteran sportswriter and Birmingham, AL native Scott Adamson ( The Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football ) joins the pod to discuss his curious decades-long relationship with the various attempts at rooting pro football in the "Magic City." Birmingham's venerable Legion Field - known legendarily as the "Football Capital of the South" for its long-time association with the annual Alabama-Auburn "Iron Bowl" college season-ender - has also been home base for a parade of franchises in virtu...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 184
From the book jacket of the 2007 reissue of Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues - the seminal 1983 book by this week's guest Donn Rogosin: "In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and became a hero for [B]lack and white Americans, yet Robinson was a Negro League player before he integrated Major League baseball. Negro League ballplayers had been thrilling [B]lack fans since 1920. Among them were the legendary pitchers Smoky Joe Williams, whose fastball seemed to "come...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 183
Writer/author (and Episode 158 guest) Eric Nusbaum ( " Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between " ) returns for a second visit, this time to help us obsess about the curious story of the National League's 1899 Cleveland Spiders - the worst major league baseball team of all time. While today's current generation of baseball fans will swear that the 1962 NL expansion New York Mets (40-120 record; .250 winning percentage), the 2003 AL Detroit Tigers (43–119; .265), o...
Sep 21, 2020•57 min•Ep. 182
Little did we know when we dropped our minor league hockey tribute to the 1990s ECHL Columbus Chill in our Episode 169 with David Paitson & Craig Merz earlier this year that it would not only become our most listened-to episode of 2020 (so far), but would also unearth a project devoted to the colorful history of the forgotten teams that preceded it. Columbus native and Cincinnati creative agency professional Eric Weltner ( " International Incidents " ), previews his soon-to-be-released 80-mi...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 181
Columbia College Chicago cultural studies professor Rich King ( Redskins: Insult and Brand ) joins the podcast this week to discuss the roots and long-simmering backstory of the Washington NFL football franchise's problematic - and now former - nickname. Investigative reporter Tisha Thompson framed the situation in her recent piece for ESPN : “Daniel Snyder endured decades of protests, lawsuits and emotional appeals over the nickname of his Washington NFL team. ‘We'll never change the name,’ he ...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 180
If we ever get around to creating a Good Seats Still Available "Hall of Fame," this week's return guest will most certainly be part of its inaugural class of inductees. Dennis Murphy (“ Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues ”) is a bona fide legend in sports entrepreneurial circles - a man responsible for helping found no less than four "major" game-changing leagues across the North American pro sports landscape, including the polychromatic American Basketball Association (our previ...
Aug 31, 2020•43 min•Ep. 179
We steal away for a little summer vacation time this week - but not before sitting down for a massively enjoyable interview with fellow defunct sports enthusiast and long-time friend-of-the-show P.F. Wilson - as a guest on his comedy-tinged podcast " PF's Tape Recorder ." P.F. (née Patrick François) is also the creative engine behind one of our longest-running sponsors OldSchoolShirts.com - where our listeners can enjoy a 10% discount on everything in the store, when using the promo code " GOODS...
Aug 24, 2020•48 min•Ep. 178
We cross the virtual border northward this week to obsess about the original incarnation of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with author/team completist Curtis Walker (" Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day By Day "; " Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets "). One of the twelve founding franchises in the upstart World Hockey Association's inaugural 1972-73 season, the Jets were one of only four teams to survive the entire run of the rebel league - and to ascend into the vaunt...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 177
By popular demand, former Los Angeles Lazers president and Episode 166 guest Ronnie Weinstein returns for an eagerly-awaited "part two" conversation about his sojourn through professional indoor soccer - this time centered on the intriguing story of the 1990s-era Continental Indoor Soccer League he helped create and operate. Loosely borne from the 1992 collapse of the Major ( née Indoor) Soccer League, the idea for what ultimately became the CISL actually germinated from Weinstein's last days ru...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 51 min•Ep. 176
Cycling writer/historian Peter Nye ( Hearts of Lions: The History of American Bicycle Racing ) joins the podcast this week to help us understand the long and curious backstory behind the 1989 launch of the Tour de Trump - a major world-class cycling event that, for a brief period, aspired to become the American equivalent of the sport's iconic Tour de France. Once the king of sports in the US at the turn of the 20th century (prominent cycling competitions in the early 1900s routinely drew thousa...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 175
As the National Women's Soccer League concludes its deftly assembled 2020 Challenge Cup tournament (with congrats to the Houston Dash on their first-ever major trophy), we enlist sportswriter/soccer insider Beau Dure (" 2012: The Year That Saved Women's Soccer ") to help us make sense of the confoundingly discontinuous history of the women's pro game in the US over the last 20 years - and the unwitting origin story of the NWSL. Against the backdrop of an undeniably prolific US Women's National T...
Jul 27, 2020•1 hr 47 min•Ep. 174
Longtime sports/information technology entrepreneur/executive Dave Lockton joins this week to discuss his managerial adventures in the geographically fragmented and provincially fractious auto racing scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s – including the founding of the groundbreaking Ontario Motor Speedway, and its role in the ideation of the ultimate “all-star” professional driving competition – the International Race of Champions (IROC). Sports fans of a certain age will surely remember the old ...
Jul 20, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 173
We point our GPS coordinates this week to the endearingly enigmatic city of New Orleans, for an overdue look into the Big Easy’s chaotic pro sports franchise history – with Historic New Orleans Collection writer (and recovering sports scribe) Nick Weldon (“ A Streetcar Named Basketball ”). Although a mainstay of baseball’s minor and Negro leagues since the dawn of the sport’s professional era in the late 1800s (including Louis Armstrong’s well-outfitted, attention-grabbing, but largely lamentabl...
Jul 13, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 172
Pittsburgh-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 was ne...
Jul 06, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 171
When 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 departing DC...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 170
We 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 largely ...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 169
Negro 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 African-A...
Jun 15, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 168
While 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 history, t...
Jun 08, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 167
The 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 Lazers bega...
Jun 01, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 166
It’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 mid-si...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 165
