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It's a celebration of women's hoops this week, as we look back at the "early days" of the Women's National Basketball Association - including stops with the oft-forgotten Utah Starzz and San Antonio Silver Stars - with three-time league all-star Marie Ferdinand-Harris ( Transformed: The Winning Side of Losing ).   A first-round pick in the WNBA's fifth-ever draft in 2001, Ferdinand was a dominant...

It's a "retcon" special this week, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the most colorful and persistent franchises in American pro soccer history - with a return visit from Episode 40 guest Gary Singh ( The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes: Momentous Stories On & Off the Field ). As one of four West Coast expansion teams (along with the Los Angeles Aztecs, Seattle Sounders and Vancouv...

Veteran Minnesota sportswriter Kevin Allenspach ( Mirage of Destiny: The Story of the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars ) takes to the ice with us this week, as we look back at one of the most improbable playoff runs in NHL history - one that came the closest to giving the self-professed "State of Hockey" its first Stanley Cup championship - a title that still eludes the region to this day. Throughout...

We celebrate the launch of the new " MISL 1980s: The Story of Indoor Soccer " Substack series with its author and return ( Episode 31 ) guest Tim O'Bryhim (" Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings " & " God Save the Wings "). O'Bryhim's long-form pieces promise to bring to light myriad stories from the legendary original Major Indoor Soccer League - a pioneering pro socc...

Iowa baseball chronologist Steve Dunn (" ' Pug,' 'Fireball,' and Company: 116 Years of Professional Baseball in Des Moines, Iowa ") joins for a surprisingly rich journey into the history of professional baseball in the Hawkeye State's largest city - currently home to the Diamond Baseball Holdings-owned Triple-A affiliate of the National League's Chicago Cubs. Besides today's Iowa Cubs, the city of...

[ A dip into the archives for a fan favorite from 2019 - featuring a show-closing ode to the late, great 70s' TV game show " Celebrity Bowling "! ] + + + We hit the lanes this week to delve into the fascinating story of the nation's first and only attempt at a professional team bowling league – a seemingly anachronistic idea by today's standards, but a concept that made total sense in the early 19...

Valdosta State University history professor (and Episode 244 guest) Tom Aiello (" Dixieball: Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South ") returns after a two-year absence - for an enlightening look at the curious cultural history of the city of Atlanta's awkward relationship with professional hockey. In his new book " White Ice: Race and the Making of Atlanta Hockey ," Aiello interestingl...

We buckle up this week for a wild and revelatory ride across 50+ years of big-time soccer in the United States with one of the biggest unsung heroes of the American game - and unquestionably, one of its most prominent "keepers of the flame." The professional and personal life journey of "Soccer Tom" Mulroy ( " 90 Minutes with the King: How Soccer Saved My Life ") virtually parallels the 1970s-to-1...

We turn back the clock 48 years ago this week for a revisit of one of the most consequential contests in the history of the National Hockey League - with sports historian Ed Gruver (" The Game That Saved the NHL: The Broad Street Bullies. the Soviet Red Machine, and Super Series '76 "). The dust jacket of Gruver's new book sums it up thusly: "In late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold...

It's the adventure-filled story of how a late-60s-era Scottish top-league footballer helped start the first-ever professional soccer circuit in the then-British colony of Hong Kong - punctuated by an unexpected off-season loan to one of the most forgotten franchises in North American Soccer League history. Derek Currie (" When 'Jesus' Came to Hong Kong: The Remarkable Story of the First European F...

We press the rewind button on a most interesting 2023, and peer ahead into the uncharted waters of 2024 with our fourth-annual(-ish) Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Andy Crossley ( Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2 ); Paul Reeths ( StatsCrew.com , OurSportsCentral.com & Episode 46 ); and Steve Holroyd ( Crossecheck , Philly Classics...

After last week's ugly, team-record 63-21 drubbing by the Las Vegas Raiders, and the subsequent dismissal of its head coach and general manager - it's been a (yet another) rough season for the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers.  While family owner/scion Dean Spanos tries (again) to plot a plan forward, we look nostalgically  back to the franchise's early years in San Diego as one of the charter entries i...

We adjust our TV antenna rabbit ears back to the late 1970s for the origin story of one of the most influential firms in modern-day sports media - with Rick and Dee Ray, the founders of televised college sports juggernaut Raycom Sports . In their new George Hirthler-penned memoir " Unstoppable: A Story of Love, Faith and the Power Couple Who Ignited the College Sports Broadcasting Boom ," the Rays...

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...