It's an episode that's hopefully as " Good! Like Nedicks! " - as we take a biographical look back at the rich and influential life of pioneering New York City sports broadcaster Marty Glickman - with biographer/Yeshiva University history professor Jeffrey Gurock ( " Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend "). From the " Marty Glickman " dustjacket: "For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broad...
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 323
Veteran New York-based sports writer/public relations pro Charles Cuttone has seen just about everything in his nearly 50 years of promoting professional sports across the Gotham sports scene - dating all the way back to 1974 as a fresh-faced elementary school intern with the World Football League's ill-fated New York Stars. While the WFL gig (and team, for that matter) didn't last long, it was his next experience that following spring - with a rag-tag but ambitious pro soccer outfit called the ...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 322
After an absence of over six years and more than 300+ episodes, sportswriter extraordinaire Michael MacCambridge (" Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports "; " America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation "; " Chuck Noll: His Life's Work ") makes his triumphant return to the podcast - this time to celebrate the release of his brand new, instant sports history classic, " The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America ." It's just about everything you'd expect from the aut...
Oct 16, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 321
Veteran Fox Sports and MSG Networks play-by-play man Kenny Albert (" A Mic for All Seasons ") joins host Tim Hanlon for a cornucopia of career memories from his 30+ year journey in sports broadcasting – including, of course, obligatory stops along the way for various "forgotten" teams, events and even TV networks of yore. Now celebrating his third decade with Fox, the Emmy Award-winning Albert has regularly called Sunday games for every season of the network's NFL coverage - as well as for its t...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 10 min
We explore the traumatic events of Major League Baseball's notorious 1994-95 players' strike - with Chico State history professor Bob Cottrell (" The Year Without a World Series: Major League Baseball and the Road to the 1994 Players' Strike "). More than 900 regular season games, the entirety of the playoffs, and, for the first time in 90 years, the sport's signature World Series - were all lost to the work stoppage, which began on August 12, 1994. The strike ended late into the 1995 preseason,...
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 319
We head "True North" to the Canadian province of Manitoba this week in search of heretofore undiscovered historical nuggets from the WHA and original NHL versions of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with veteran journalist/author Geoff Kirbyson. Kirbyson's accounts of the Jets' early years in the revolutionary World Hockey Association from 1972-79 (" The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness "), and the club's original 17 ...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 318
[ A scheduling snafu this week gives us a perfect excuse to re-release this hidden gem from November 2019 - enjoy!] You 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 Hollywo...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 43 min
The National Football League is back in full swing, and what better way to celebrate than with a deep dig into the primordial ooze from which it and the broader endeavor of professional football evolved - with Gregg Ficery, author of the new and immediately essential tome " Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football's Missing Origin Story ." From the revelatory new book's dust jacket: Professional football's backstory was lost, until now. In the beginning, in 1892, pro football was born. Then it effectively ...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 317
Hollywood history maven Erin Carlson (" No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of " A League of Their Own": Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood ") stops by the podcast to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic motion picture that comically (and lovingly) brought the largely forgotten story of the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to the big screen - simultaneously preserving and making history in the process. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Draf...
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 316
While the NCAA is still the predominant pipeline for rookie basketball talent looking to break into pro hoops, the 2023 NBA Draft showed just how far legitimate alternate pathways have come - especially for eager high school players unwilling (or unable) to go the traditional college route. Three of this year's top-five first-round picks came from two relatively new entities - Overtime Elite (brothers Amen [4th overall, Houston Rockets] & Ausar [5th, Detroit Pistons] Thompson); and NBA G Lea...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 315
Domestically, American football has never been more popular (or prosperous) than it is today - yet questions continue to circle among the ownership class of the NFL as to how the pro game can continue to grow outside the confines of its current 32-team franchise structure. While the feasibility of pursuing more club expansion within the US is hotly debated, there is no denying that the true future of the league's fortunes rests on its ability to more reliably tap into the massive fan fervor for ...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 314
[ We round out our last week of summer vacation with a re-release of this listener-favorite episode from June 2019 - enjoy! ] 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 iteratio...
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 37 min
[ A summer vacation re-release of a fan favorite episode from March 2019! ] We celebrate our second anniversary with the intriguing background story of the original Major Indoor Soccer League, with the man who started it all – Ed Tepper. A commercial real estate developer by trade, Tepper actually got his start in pro sports ownership as the owner of the original National Lacrosse League’s Philadelphia Wings – only to switch allegiances to an inchoate indoor offshoot of the world’s most popular ...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 44 min
[ A summer vacation re-release of a fan favorite episode from September 2018! ] The Buffalo Braves were one of three NBA expansion franchises (along with the Portland Trail Blazers and Cleveland Cavaliers) that began play in the 1970–71 season. Originally owned by a wobbly investment firm with few ties to Buffalo, the Braves eventually found a local backer in Freezer Queen founder Paul Snyder – who, by the end of the first season, had inherited a team that was neither good (penultimate league re...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 32 min
[ A summer vacation re-release of a fan favorite episode from January 2020! ] It's 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 Francisc...
Jul 24, 2023•1 hr 23 min
We discover the story of the Twin Cities' forgotten, but undeniably first, NFL franchise(s) with the help of football writer/historian R. C. Christiansen (" Mill City Scrum: The History of Minnesota's First Team in the National Football League "). From the " Mill City Scrum " book jacket: "In the flour milling city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group of first-generation American teenagers team up to play football in the sandlots. They call themselves the Marines, and with no high school or colleg...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 313
Younger fans of today's Memphis Grizzlies can be forgiven for thinking the NBA franchise has spent the entirety of its 28-year existence playing its still-evolving brand of pro hoops in the FedExForum. But this week's guest - documentary filmmaker and Vancouver, BC native Kat Jayme (" The Grizzlie Truth ;" " Finding Big Country ") - is here to remind us that the "Grizz" actually got its start as one of two 1995 Canadian expansion teams (the other: the still-vibrant Toronto Raptors), scratching o...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 312
om groundbreaking trades to team-saving negotiations, Bob Whitsitt (" Game Changer: An Insider's Story of the Sonics’ Resurgence, the Trail Blazers’ Turnaround, and the Deal that Saved the Seahawks ") has been in the captain's seat for some of the most pivotal moments in Pacific Northwest pro sports franchise history. But before helping rebuild Seattle's SuperSonics into an NBA Finals team in the mid-90s, tame the combustible personalities of the late 90s/early 2000s Portland Trail Blazers, and ...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 311
University of Maryland physical cultural studies professor Michael Friedman (" Mallparks: Baseball Stadiums and the Culture of Consumption ") cozies up to the pod machine this week for a thinking man's look into the evolution of the grand old American ballpark - and a provocative thesis of how designers of this generation of baseball stadiums are embracing theme park and shopping mall design to prioritize commerce and consumption over the game played inside them. + + + BUY EARLY & OFTEN: Mal...
Jun 26, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 310
El Paso Chihuahuas Triple-A baseball play-by-play broadcaster Tim Hagerty (" Root for the Home Team: Minor League Baseball's Most Off-the-Wall Team Names and the Stories Behind Them " and " Tales from the Dugout: 1,001 Humorous, Inspirational and Wild Anecdotes from Minor League Baseball ") joins the show this week to spotlight some of the most memorable names and events in "forgotten" minor league history. When Hagerty isn't calling games for the San Diego Padres top minor league affiliate, he ...
Jun 19, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 309
American followers of the "beautiful game" undoubtedly know the name Thomas Rongen - but can easily be forgiven for not remembering just exactly how. Of course, there's his current color commentary work for today's Major League Soccer Inter Miami CF - but fans of a certain age will recall the Dutch-born, mop-topped midfielder from his on-field (and in-arena) antics during the halcyon days of the old North American Soccer League alongside international greats like Johan Cruyff, George Best and Al...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 308
Sports historian Bill Ryczek ( Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball's National Association ; Crash of the Titans: The Early Years of the New York Jets and the AFL ) returns after a five-year absence to help us unpack the intriguing story of 1884 - arguably the wildest season in major league baseball history. In his latest tome, " Baseball's Wildest Season: Three Leagues, Thirty-Four Teams and the Chaos of 1884 ," Ryczek details a fragile professional game pioneered by a still-fle...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 307
With the 28th season of Major League Soccer well under way - featuring the debut of the league's 29th franchise (St. Louis CITY SC) and the expansion announcement of its soon-to-be 30th (San Diego) - it's hard to believe that the entirety of MLS was on the verge of collapse after just its sixth campaign in 2001. Instead of pulling the plug entirely in 2002, two clubs - the charter 1996 Tampa Bay Mutiny and expansion 1998 Miami Fusion - were sacrificed, leaving Florida bereft of top-level pro soc...
May 29, 2023•1 hr 53 min•Ep. 306
If anyone's qualified to weigh in with authority on the current Oakland A's relocation imbroglio, it is our guest this week - long-time professional sports marketing executive and Bay Area-based industry consultant Andy Dolich (" Goodbye, Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and A Sports Town's Fight for Survival "). Dolich spent 15+ years in the Athletics' front office from 1980-94 during the Walter Haas era - inheriting the remnants of Charlie Finley's parsimonious ownership, helping usher in "Billy ...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 305
We answer some of our voluminous viewer mail this week, as listener Rob Hawksford joins for an intriguing look back at Portland, Oregon's pro soccer scene in the 1990s - when summertime indoor clubs known as the Pride (Continental Indoor Soccer League, 1993-97) and the Pythons (Premier Soccer Alliance, 1998 & World Indoor Soccer League, 1999) kept the sport alive after the collapse of the iconic outdoor NASL/WSA Timbers in 1990. Starting out as a game-day volunteer for the Pride during the C...
May 15, 2023•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 304
It's a reassignment back to the minors again this week, as baseball writer Dale Tafoya (" One Season in Rocket City ") joins the 'cast for a look back at the unforgettable inaugural 1985 season of the Southern League's Huntsville Stars - the Oakland As' talent-laden, then-Double-A affiliate that took both the city and the sport by storm. Named after Huntsville’s celebrated space industry, the Stars became one of the biggest attractions in all of Minor League Baseball that season - boasting a dug...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 303
With the New Jersey Devils still in contention in this year's NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, we turn the dials on our George Michael Sports Machine back to the late 1970s/early 1980s with hockey historian Greg Enright (" Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL's Colorado Rockies ") - for a deep dive into the Newark, NJ-based franchise's tenuous six-year incarnation as Denver's Colorado Rockies (1976-82). It's a story that traverses four separate owners, six different coaches, a constant thre...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 302
Long-time Chicago White Sox fan and unwitting basement documentarian Matt Flesch joins the pod this week to discuss the story behind his extraordinary new three-part YouTube documentary " Last Comiskey " - a video love letter to the South Siders' final 1990 season in the venerable park once known as the "Baseball Palace of the World." From Dan Day Jr.'s review on " The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog ": "The 1990 Chicago White Sox were not a championship team - they didn't even make the playoffs. But ...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 301
We celebrate our 300th trip around the track with a special roundtable conversation on the colorful history of NASCAR racing - with award-winning stock car reporter-historians Kelly Crandall, Jimmy Creed, Mike Hembree, and Al Pearce (" NASCAR 75 Years "). In addition to looking back at some of the most iconic moments in the circuit's first 75 years, we also get an inside look at how their new historical opus came together - as well as honest assessments of where NASCAR stands in the American pro...
Apr 17, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 300
We point the Good Seats Wayback Machine back a hundred years to the Roaring '20s - for a look at baseball's then-New York Giants and their larger-than-life owner Charles Stoneham - with baseball biographer Rob Garratt ( " Jazz Age Giant: Charles A. Stoneham and New York City Baseball in the Roaring Twenties "). From the dust jacket of Jazz Age Giant : "Short, stout, and jowly, Charlie Stoneham embodied a Jazz Age stereotype—a business and sporting man by day, he led another life by night. He thr...
Apr 10, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 299
