Good Seats Still Available

American followers of the "beautiful game" undoubtedly know the name Thomas Rongen - but can easily be forgiven for not remembering just exactly how. Of course, there's his current color commentary work for today's Major League Soccer Inter Miami CF - but fans of a certain age will recall the Dutch-born, mop-topped midfielder from his on-field (and in-arena) antics during the halcyon days of the o...

Sports historian Bill Ryczek ( Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball's National Association ; Crash of the Titans: The Early Years of the New York Jets and the AFL ) returns after a five-year absence to help us unpack the intriguing story of 1884 - arguably the wildest season in major league baseball history. In his latest tome, " Baseball's Wildest Season: Three Leagues, Thirty-Fou...

With the 28th season of Major League Soccer well under way - featuring the debut of the league's 29th franchise (St. Louis CITY SC) and the expansion announcement of its soon-to-be 30th (San Diego) - it's hard to believe that the entirety of MLS was on the verge of collapse after just its sixth campaign in 2001. Instead of pulling the plug entirely in 2002, two clubs - the charter 1996 Tampa Bay M...

If anyone's qualified to weigh in with authority on the current Oakland A's relocation imbroglio, it is our guest this week - long-time professional sports marketing executive and Bay Area-based industry consultant Andy Dolich (" Goodbye, Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and A Sports Town's Fight for Survival "). Dolich spent 15+ years in the Athletics' front office from 1980-94 during the Walter Haa...

We answer some of our voluminous viewer mail this week, as listener Rob Hawksford joins for an intriguing look back at Portland, Oregon's pro soccer scene in the 1990s - when summertime indoor clubs known as the Pride (Continental Indoor Soccer League, 1993-97) and the Pythons (Premier Soccer Alliance, 1998 & World Indoor Soccer League, 1999) kept the sport alive after the collapse of the iconic o...

It's a reassignment back to the minors again this week, as baseball writer Dale Tafoya (" One Season in Rocket City ") joins the 'cast for a look back at the unforgettable inaugural 1985 season of the Southern League's Huntsville Stars - the Oakland As' talent-laden, then-Double-A affiliate that took both the city and the sport by storm. Named after Huntsville's celebrated space industry, the Star...

With the New Jersey Devils still in contention in this year's NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, we turn the dials on our George Michael Sports Machine back to the late 1970s/early 1980s with hockey historian Greg Enright (" Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL's Colorado Rockies ") - for a deep dive into the Newark, NJ-based franchise's tenuous six-year incarnation as Denver's Colorado Rockies...

Long-time Chicago White Sox fan and unwitting basement documentarian Matt Flesch joins the pod this week to discuss the story behind his extraordinary new three-part YouTube documentary " Last Comiskey " - a video love letter to the South Siders' final 1990 season in the venerable park once known as the "Baseball Palace of the World."   From Dan Day Jr.'s review on " The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog...

We celebrate our 300th trip around the track with a special roundtable conversation on the colorful history of NASCAR racing - with award-winning stock car reporter-historians Kelly Crandall, Jimmy Creed, Mike Hembree, and Al Pearce (" NASCAR 75 Years ").   In addition to looking back at some of the most iconic moments in the circuit's first 75 years, we also get an inside look at how their new hi...

We point the Good Seats Wayback Machine back a hundred years to the Roaring '20s - for a look at baseball's then-New York Giants and their larger-than-life owner Charles Stoneham - with baseball biographer Rob Garratt ( " Jazz Age Giant: Charles A. Stoneham and New York City Baseball in the Roaring Twenties ").    From the dust jacket of Jazz Age Giant :   "Short, stout, and jowly, Charlie Stoneha...

ESPN multi-platform writer/reporter/host Ryan McGee (" Welcome to the Circus of Baseball: A Story of the Perfect Summer at the Perfect Ballpark at the Perfect Time ") joins us this week to reminisce about his early-career experiences as a $100-a-week intern with 1994's Class A South Atlantic League Asheville Tourists - a proud minor league baseball team in the heart of North Carolina's Blue Ridge...

It's more International Hockey League (1945-2001) memories this week as Episode 181 guest Eric Weltner returns for a look back at one of minor league hockey's most dominant, yet curiously ephemeral franchises - the Cincinnati Mohawks (1952-58). Not to be confused with the middling AHL team of the same name that pre-dated them by three years, the IHL Mohawks were the class of their circuit during t...

In 1991, twenty-something baseball fanatics Bill Craib and Sue Easler did something no one else had ever done before - they went to a game at all 178 major and minor league baseball parks in one season. Craib and Easler drove nearly 54,000 miles and shot home-movie-style video (remember VHS?) at each stop - selected footage of which was featured on a segment that became known as "Bill & Sue's Exce...

It's an early Spring Break hiatus for us this week - but not before sitting down for a very fun interview with CFL America blog/podcast publisher and friend-of-the-show Greg James - as a guest on his popular Sports History Network podcast " From the 55 Yard Line ." Tim and Greg go deep into the origin story of Good Seats Still Available , as well as a veritable audio potpourri of hot takes on what...

We head West this week to pay a visit to the "California Sports Guy" Dan Cisco (" California Sports Astounding: Fun, Unknown, and Surprising Facts from Statehood to Sunday "), and stir up a rich bouillabaisse of little-known factoids about defunct, previously domiciled and otherwise forgotten teams and leagues who once called the Golden State home.   Discover the reason why Oakland was chosen as a...

Legendary Boston sports photographer Steve Babineau (" Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later ") joins the pod this week to discuss his new, lovingly-curated collection of largely never-before-seen images of the colorful 1970s challenger hockey league that helped kick-start a life-long love for photography - and a 50+ year career behind the lens shooting some of the game's bi...

[After an entertaining "inaugural" weekend of the XFL's third incarnation, we dig into the archives for this 2019 conversation with author Brett Forrest - and a rewind to the league's original season back in 2001!] As another NFL season closes, we shift gears toward the forthcoming Alliance of American Football – the first of two new leagues attempting to again extend the pro game into viable Spri...

On the eve of the most significant changes to Major League Baseball's rules and scheduling, we continue our lament of 2021's radical streamlining of the minor leagues and obsess about the demise of its oldest circuit - the New York-Penn League - with City University of New York history/philosophy/political science professor Michael Sokolow (" Bush League: The Brooklyn Cyclones, Staten Island Yanke...

We channel our inner yellow tuxedo this week for a revealing conversation with the inimitable minor league baseball impresario Jesse Cole - and a look into the phenomenon behind his ground-breaking Savannah Bananas franchise - as it migrates from its collegiate summer Coastal Plain League roots into an audacious (and already sold-out) cross-country barnstorming tour featuring its own wildly entert...

[It's a quick trip to the Bay Area this week for an archive fan favorite from 2017, featuring a true American sports original!] A merica's most famous professional sports cheerleader "Krazy" George Henderson ( Still Krazy After All These Cheers ) joins Tim Hanlon to discuss some of the wackiest adventures from his 40+ years of live performances – and how a self-described shy, mediocre schoolteache...

While American tackle football has long been considered an exclusively male sport, this week's guest Russ Crawford (" Women's American Football: Breaking Barriers On and Off the Gridiron ") takes us on an eye-opening journey over the decades that highlights the persistent and still-growing interest of women playing the game - including professionally.   Anecdotal evidence abounds of amateur footba...

We point our GPS towards the Garden State this week, for a return to the days of pro hoops in places like the "RAC" (Piscataway's Rutgers Athletic Center), the "Rock" (Newark's Prudential Center), and the strangely iconic Meadowlands - as we look back at 35 seasons of the oft-forgotten New Jersey incarnation of NBA basketball's peripatetic Nets franchise with sports historian Łukasz Muniowski ( "...

In 2014, Major League Baseball's Official Historian John Thorn and veteran baseball journalist Alan Schwarz published an authoritative and thought-provoking list of " Baseball's 100 Most Important People ​ "​ - including more than its fair share of surprisingly influential figures. Nestled between National Baseball Hall of Famers "Hammerin'" Hank Greenberg and "King" Kelly at number 79 on that lis...

[ We kick off our holiday break this week with a deep descent into the "Good Seats" archives - and an eyebrow-raising revisit of the enigmatic Continental Indoor Soccer League of the 1990s with former play-by-play broadcaster Kenn Tomasch! ] Former sportscaster and fellow defunct pro sports enthusiast Kenn Tomasch joins host Tim Hanlon to dig deep into the two-season saga of the Indiana (née India...

​ In 1966, when a still- young Dallas Cowboys franchise ended six years of NFL futility with its first winning season and a championship game appearance, the team's founder /owner Clint Murchison , Jr. was already dreaming bigger.   In order to vault his club into the league's elite, Murchison knew he needed a better home situation than as a renter at the aging Cotton Bowl in Dallas' Fair Park - o...