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The Roarin' Twenties was a time of Prohibition, jazz, gangland murder - and, for baseball, an age of superstitious magic - when even future Hall of Fame players believed that rubbing the hump of a hunchback would guarantee a hit at the plate. Irreparably disfigured by a childhood playground seesaw accident, South Philadelphia teenager Hughie McLoon never grew taller than 49 inches; but in an era w...

There's one question Cam Perron (" Comeback Season: My Unlikely Story of Friendship with the Greatest Living Negro League Baseball Players ") has heard over and over again: "How does a white kid from a suburb of Boston become friends with all of these former Negro League baseball ­players?" An ardent Red Sox fan, Perron grew up during the '00s loving history, and from an early age, had a knack for...

Founded as the "Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League" for its first season in post-war 1946 - and later (1970-78) known as the Eastern Basketball Association before eventually morphing into the NBA's semi-official minor-league Continental Basketball Association - the Eastern Professional Basketball League was the probably greatest pro hoops circuit you've never heard of. The EPBL was a fast-pace...

Author Dan Taylor (" Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball ") joins the pod for an in-depth look at one of baseball's most uniquely inventive teams - known for its star-studded celebrity ownership structure (including the likes of Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, George Burns, and Cecil B. DeMille) - and warm embrace of movie industry publicity during the 19...

International Tennis Hall of Fame Museum director Doug Stark ( The SPHAs: The Life and Times of Basketball's Greatest Jewish Team ) joins this week's 'cast for an authoritative exploration of one of his first loves - pro basketball's pioneering Philadelphia SPHAs.   Originally organized in 1918 as a local amateur team by South Philadelphia High School grads Eddie Gottlieb, Harry Passon and Hughie...

Youngstown State professor Denis Crawford (" The Life and Teams of Johnny F. Bassett: Maverick Entrepreneur of North American Sports ") joins the 'cast for a jam-packed deep dive into the life of one of the most underrated, yet enormously influential pro sports figures of the 1970s/80s.   A third-generation scion of a prominent Canadian industrialist family steeped in both media and sports team ow...

We fire up the GPS for a trek back to the City of Brotherly Love this week for a fond - but decidedly one-of-a-kind - remembrance of Philadelphia's oddly beloved "octorad"-styled outdoor sports mecca known as Veterans Stadium.   Memoirist, Philly native and actual (Vietnam War) vet Tom Garvey ( " The Secret Apartment " ) joins us to delve into his incredible story of living in a self-fashioned apa...

Arizona State calculus professor Scott Surgent (" The Complete World Hockey Association, 11th Edition "; " The World Hockey Association Fact Book " ) joins this week to discuss his personal passion project of documenting everything statistical from the fascinatingly ephemeral World Hockey Association - despite never having witness a single game during its brief seven-year run (1972-79).   Like man...

After a severely challenging, COVID-hampered 2020, it wasn't altogether surprising to hear NBA Commissioner Adam Silver openly muse with reporters at year's end about the potential for adding a new franchise or two to help shore up the league's finances.   "I'd say it's caused us to maybe dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion," Silver said back in Decem...

We continue our dogged pursuit of the history of baseball's Negro Leagues with a stop this week in the suburban Philadelphia borough of Darby, PA - for a look at the famed Hilldale Club with SABR Seymour Medal-winning historian Neil Lanctot ( " Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball " ).   Established as an amateur boys team in 1910 by...

Philadelphia's dean of baseball writers Rich Westcott (" The Mogul: Eddie Gottlieb, Philadelphia Sports Legend and Pro Basketball Pionee r ") steps outside the batter's box this week to help us go deep into the story of one of pro basketball 's most foundational figures, Eddie Gottlieb. Armed with a great smile and a razor-sharp memory, the Ukranian-born and South Philly-raised Gottlieb was a mult...

Author Geoff Williams ( C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America ) joins for the stranger-than-fiction story of the cross-country long-distance running event/endurance contest that only the Roarin' 20s could have spawned.   On March 4, 1928, a motley assortment of nearly 200 marathon pros, amateur sports enthusiasts and random publicity-seekers to...

After overwhelming response to our Episode 194 exploration ​of hockey's epic 1972 "Summit Series," we gas up the Zamboni for a return visit into Canada/Russian competition lore - this time for the equally intriguing (but often overlooked) sequel Summit Series of 1974 - with sports author/historian Craig Wallace ( The Forgotten Summit: A Canadian Perspective on the 1974 Canada-Soviet Hockey Series...

We sit down with the eldest scion of Los Angeles' legendary Dr. Jerry Buss family sports empire for a wide-ranging discussion about its early construction, day-to-day operations, eventual unwinding - and its ongoing legacy via the current NBA World Champion Lakers, of which (along with his five siblings) he is a part-owner.   Along the way, Johnny takes us through his personal adventures in places...

Former Denver Post columnist and long-time sports writer/author Terry Frei (" Third Down and a War to Go ;" " '77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age " + plenty more ) joins to discuss the briefly curious life (1976-82) of NHL hockey's Colorado Rockies - Frei's first-ever professional newspaper beat assignment back in the day. As originally recounted in his eyebrow-raising 2010 memoir Playin...

Filmmaker and Maryland-native Troy Lowman (" The Ghosts of 33rd Street ") helps us kick off the new year with a look back at the pro football franchise that still looms large over the city of Baltimore's sports exploits - the Colts. While the Ravens have been carrying the region's modern-day NFL torch since their messy arrival/conversion from the original Cleveland Browns franchise in 1996, few re...

[ A re-release of fan favorite episode from January 2020! ] Prolific rock/R&B drummer/musician Steve Ferrone (Average White Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) joins to delve into the backstory of helping write/craft the official theme song for the New York Cosmos – the latest chapter in our irregular series devoted to Tim's longstanding fascination with the North American Soccer League's most...

We bid an emphatic good riddance to a crappy 2020 with our second-annual holiday roundtable spectacular featuring the return of fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Andy Crossley ( Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2 ); Paul Reeths ( OurSportsCentral.com , StatsCrew.com & Episode 46 ); and Steve Holroyd (Episodes 92 , 109 , 149 & 188 ) – for a spirited roundtable discussion about the past, present and po...

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 professiona...

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...

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...

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 arti...

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 Hist...

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, B...

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 t...