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The 1960s were a tumultuous, but crucial period in the development of professional soccer in the United States and Canada - with teams from Scotland, of all places, playing a particularly interesting role. The dividing line for the modern North American pro game, of course, was the breakthrough, near-live (two-hour-delayed) NBC-TV network telecast of the 1966 World Cup final between eventual champ...

[By popular demand, an archive re-release of Episode 321 guest and " The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America " author Michael MacCambridge - from his first appearance on the show from March 2017!] Sports author/historian Michael MacCambridge (" Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports ") joins Tim Hanlon to discuss the legacy of Lamar Hunt – the most unlikely of sports executive pioneers – a...

11-year pro football offensive lineman and budding Renaissance man Steve Wright ( " Aggressively Human: Discovering Humanity in the NFL, Reality TV, and Life ") helps us check off a few new boxes in our obsessive quest for forgotten sports franchise completism. Before his post-career exploits as the 10th-place finisher in the 22nd season of the CBS reality competition series " Survivor " (" Surviv...

Veteran Tennis.com writer, Racquet Magazine columnist & " Three - A Tennis Show " podcast host Joel Drucker (" Jimmy Connors Saved My Life ") stops by to drop some serious knowledge on how the decade of the 1970s transformed the sport of professional tennis into the global juggernaut it is today - including pivotal turning points such as: The groundbreaking World Championship Tennis (WCT) and Virg...

Football biographer Mike Richman ( " George Allen: A Football Life " ) joins us for a decades-long journey back into the old-school NFL (and USFL) exploits of one of pro football's most intense and enigmatic sideline characters. From the dust-jacket of " A Football Life ": " George Allen was a fascinating and eccentric figure in the world of football coaching. His remarkable career spanned six dec...

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...

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 hi...

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:...

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...

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...

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 a...

[ 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 mog...

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...

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...

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 (brot...

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 futu...

[ 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 (p...

[ 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 Philad...

[ 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 – w...

[ 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...

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 t...

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 o...

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...

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 pr...

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 leagu...