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We raise our sports history IQ a few points this week with an enlightening conversation around the broader cultural importance and underlying social significance of the very venues in which our favorite games are played - with Columbia University professor Frank Guridy (" The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play ").   The book's promotional intro sets it up best:   "What com...

Buckle up for a wild ride through some of the most forgotten franchises in recent minor league hockey history - with a colorful lifer who literally fought his way to becoming the NHL's oldest (32) opening-day rookie (with the Boston Bruins), only to see it all fall apart to a concussion after just three games.   This is the raw and savage story of Bobby Robins (" Sex, Drugs, Pucks, and Souls: A Sa...

We head back to the diamond this week for a look into the "extraordinarily ordinary" baseball life of 1950s-era infielder Danny O'Connell with biographer Steve Wiegand ( " The Uncommon Life of Danny O'Connell: A Tale of Baseball Cards, "Average Players," and the True Value of America's Game "). Wiegand's story is a rich exploration of a player often overlooked in history due to his status as a "co...

New York sports broadcast veterans Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin (" 976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground ") join to help us wax nostalgic about the ground-breaking 1970s telephone service Sports Phone .   From the dust jacket of "976-1313" : "Sports Phone set out to change the way scores and breaking news were consumed, and in turn ended up setting the tone for the up-t...

[One last dip into the vault before a flood of new episodes beginning next week; from 2020, our revealing conversation with a pro hockey great - and Atlanta Flames original!} For 1970s-era NHL hockey fans who remember the eight-year adventure known as the Atlanta Flames , few are likely to forget Dan Bouchard .  A tenacious, slightly eccentric and occasionally fight-prone French-Canadian goalie, "...

[By popular request, an archive re-release from August 2018, featuring our extraordinary conversation with one of the central figures of the original North American Soccer League - from its chaotic formation in 1968 to its untimely demise in 1985.] + + + Soccer America columnist (and Episode #6 guest) Paul Gardner summed up this week's National Soccer Hall of Fame guest in his May 2015 commentary:...

[An archive re-release favorite from September 2017, featuring one of professional baseball's most enigmatic leagues!] Inc. Editor-at-Large David Whitford ( Extra Innings: A Season in the Senior League ) joins host Tim Hanlon to retrace his journalistic odyssey covering the inaugural season of the short-lived, Florida-based Senior Professional Baseball Association (SPBA) in the winter of 1989-90. ...

Most US and Canadian domestic soccer fans are certain that the second incarnation of the North American Soccer League (2011-17) officially met its untimely demise in early 2018, just a few months after the first-year San Francisco Deltas beat the New York Cosmos in the 2017 Soccer Bowl - and amidst a seemingly desperate/last-minute antitrust lawsuit alleging collusion between US Soccer and Major L...

We celebrate the legendary career and outsized influence of one of baseball's most recognized voices, with veteran LA sportswriter Tom Hoffarth ( Perfect Eloquence: An Appreciation of Vin Scully ). From the " Early Days " dustjacket:   "When Vin Scully passed away in 2022, the city of Los Angeles lost its soundtrack. If you were able to deliver a eulogy for him, what might it include? What impact...

It's time to fire up the old Jerrold cable box for a trip back to the pre-launch and early first on-air days of cable TV's pioneering Entertainment and Sports Programming Network - better known as ESPN - with founding producer and channel memoirist Peter Fox (" The Early Days of ESPN: 300 Daydreams and Nightmares "). From the " Early Days " dustjacket: "The tales of early ESPN people who gambled t...

First-time sports historians Tom Delise and Jay Seaborg (" Foxy Ned Hanlon: The Baseball Life of a Hall of Fame Manager ") join the podcast for a biographical look at one of baseball's most innovative managerial minds - and who just may be related to your humble host! "Foxy" Ned Hanlon was one of the major leagues' earliest tactical visionaries, who recognized the value of speed and strategy in ge...

Cultural historian and best-selling British author Kassia St. Clair (" The Secret Lives of Color "; " The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History ")  joins the podcast for a look back at the fascinating, improbable and culturally paradigm-shifting 1907 Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge - as featured in her new book " The Race to the Future: 8,000 Miles to Paris - The Adventure That Accelerated the...

[An essential fan favorite from 2018 - with the dean of "forgotten sports" promotion!]   If someone ever decides to build an American sports promotion Hall of Fame, the inaugural class will undoubtedly be led by this week's special guest,  Doug Verb .  In a career spanning more than 40 years in professional sports management, Verb's remarkable career has included spearheading marketing, promotion,...

Baseball historian and Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) contributor Eric Vickrey (" Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, the Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash That Changed Everything ") joins the podcast for a look back at one of the worst tragedies in the history of US pro sports.   From the dust jacket of Vickrey's new book: "On June 24, 1946, a bus carrying the  Spok...

We celebrate the 94th birthday of legendary  Soccer America columnist Paul Gardner ( The Simplest Game: The Intelligent Fan's Guide to the World of Soccer ; Soccer Talk: Paul Gardner on Soccer ) with this special archive re-release (and our 6th-ever episode!) from 2017. The universally acknowledged "dean" of American soccer writers waxes nostalgic on his unlikely journey from fledgling British pha...

During the late 1960s, Dean Tolson (" Power Forward: My Journey from Illiterate NBA Player to a Magna Cum Laude Master's Degree ") emerged as a standout prep basketball talent during his junior and senior years at Central High School in Kansas City, Missouri. His prowess on the court attracted the attention of a bevy of college recruiters, leading him to accept a full scholarship offer from the ne...

It's our first journey into the chaotically exciting history of "professional" roller derby with former skater and long-time keeper-of-the-flame Scott Stephens (" Rolling Thunder: The Golden Age of Roller Derby & the Rise and Fall of the L.A. T-Birds" ). From the moment he laced up his first pair of roller skates at age six in mid-1960s Los Angeles, roller derby became more than just a sport to St...

It's a special mea culpa episode this week, as we welcome back Szczecin University (Poland) history professor and Episode 289 guest Łukasz Muniowski ( Turnpike Team: A History of the New Jersey Nets 1977-2012 ) for a deep dive into the drama of the NBA's Vancouver Grizzlies move to Memphis in 2001 - and an assessment of the winners and losers some 23+ years since.   While Muniowski 's current titl...

[ A dip into the archives for a one of our first-ever episodes from 2017 - by request!] Author Matt Algeo ( Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles – "The Steagles" – Saved Pro Football During World War II ) joins Tim Hanlon all the way from Maputo, Mozambique to discuss the marriage of convenience that literally saved the National Football League from collapse in 1943. Algeo describes...

Former ESPN ad researcher, and current Elon University professor of communications and sport management David Bockino ( Game On: How Sports Media Grew Up, Sold Out, and Got Personal with Billions of Fans ) helps us trace the evolution of the sports media industry - with historical points of interest both obvious (e.g., the 1958 NFL Championship Game; " Sports Illustrated " magazine; ABC's " Monday...

We reach back into the vaunted Good Seats library stacks this week for a deep dive into one of Tim's favorite sports reference books - Roadside Baseball: The Locations of America's Baseball Landmarks - with its (prodigious non-fiction) author Chris Epting .   Now in its third edition, Roadside is everything you'd imagine from the title: a detailed, geographic cataloging of over 500 important event...

Sharing something special, an episode of the new podcast "Ways to Win" - where coaches Craig Robinson and John Calipari use their on-court wisdom to solve off-court problems. In this first episode (recorded before the start of the NCAA basketball tournament!), there's no better way to kick off March Madness than with President Barack Obama (and Craig's favorite brother-in-law), who drops by to bre...

We bust some brackets this week in honor of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, with a look back at the old East Coast Athletic Conference and the coaching cradle of city of Boston - with return ( Episode 237 ) guest Clayton Trutor (" Boston Ball: Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, Gary Williams, and the Forgotten Cradle of Basketball Coaches ").   Before the formation of the original Big East...

We squint hard this week for a look into the story of American "professional" wrestling's formative years - with pop culture writer Jon Langmead ( Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling ).   Langmead takes us inside the raucous period roughly between the mid-1870s to the early-1940s - where genuine competitive wrestlers and opportunistic amusement-...

Harper's Contributing Editor and novelist/historian extraordinaire Kevin Baker (" The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City ") brings his blended affection for (and evocative portrayals of) both "The Big Apple" and the "National Pastime" - to make a compelling case for New York City as the rightful center of the baseball universe. From Alan Moores' review in Booklist :   "Baseball fan...