TimeStamped with Robert Barbieri

Two things carry the name Jules Rimet: the most famous trophy in sports, and the man who dreamed up the World Cup. This is the story of how both of them vanished. The trophy survived a world war in a shoebox under a man's bed, was stolen in London and found by a dog named Pickles, was secretly swapped for a forgery FIFA itself would later buy at auction — and then, one night in Rio in 1983, di...

In the summer of 1950, the United States sent a team of part-timers to the World Cup: a mailman, a schoolteacher, a man who drove a hearse, and a dishwasher from Haiti named Joe Gaetjens. On a bumpy field in Belo Horizonte, they beat England, the Kings of Football — 1–0. It's still one of the greatest upsets the sport has ever seen, and almost nobody back home noticed. With the World Cup on ho...

He was the most feared heavyweight on earth.  A champion the public was taught to hate before he threw a punch. Promoters, managers, and the men behind them all had a claim on Sonny Liston: when he fought, who he fought, how much of the purse he’d ever see. Everyone got a piece. This is the story of a fighter who belonged to everyone but himself. I’m Rob Barbieri. This is TimeStamped.

For twenty-five years, the best basketball team in the world played out of a commercial high school in Edmonton, Alberta. They were women. They almost never lost. And the man who invented the game said no one — anywhere — played it better. This week, the Edmonton Commercial Graduates: a dynasty that dominated for a quarter-century, went undefeated at the 1924 Paris Olympics in a sport that wouldn’...

In January 1907, a mill town on the edge of Lake of the Woods — population barely four thousand — beat the Montreal Wanderers and lifted the Stanley Cup. They held it for sixty-three days. No town that small has touched it since. This is the story of the Kenora Thistles: a roster of local boys and who climbed to the top of hockey in the last window the sport ever allowed it. We trace how they got...

In 1935, a halfback from the University of Chicago won a trophy that didn’t yet bear John Heisman’s name. A few months later, he became the first overall pick in the first NFL Draft — and turned pro football down flat. This is the story of Jay Berwanger: the most decorated college player of his era, a man Gerald Ford once called the best he ever lined up against, and a name most football fans toda...

On a February night in 1948, the Harlem Globetrotters walked into Chicago Stadium and beat the world champion Minneapolis Lakers — George Mikan, Jim Pollard, and all. Or did they walk in with all that? This week, TimeStamped goes back to a game that’s been called everything from a curiosity to the moment that integrated pro basketball. The truth, as usual, is more complicated — and more interestin...

In 1946, Jackie Robinson played his first season of integrated organized baseball — not in Brooklyn, but in Montreal. Eight years later, a 19-year-old Roberto Clemente did the same. Both wore the uniform of the Montreal Royals, the AAA franchise that called Delorimier Stadium home for thirty-two years and produced one of the most consequential pipelines in the history of the sport. Then, fourteen...

In 1925, a football team from a coal mining town in Pennsylvania went 10-2, beat the best team in the league head-to-head, and had their championship stripped by a commissioner. Their best player was a coal miner who’d been underground since he was eleven. Red Grange called him the best he ever faced. This is the story of the Pottsville Maroons — the most dominant team in early NFL history, the ch...

In 1921, three football teams from Western New York were among the founding members of what would become the NFL. One played a single game and vanished. One held the best record in the league and had its championship stolen. And the third was run by a teenager who invented the first team logo in professional football, helped redesign the ball itself, and lost his house trying to keep his franchise...