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Society for American Soccer History board director Steve Holroyd returns to help us decipher the last decade of the enigmatic second incarnation of the American Soccer League (1933-1983) – the longest-lasting “professional” soccer circuit in US history prior to today’s MLS. A smaller-scaled reboot of the original ASL (1921-33) that, for a time, rivaled the fledgling sport of pro football in terms of fan interest – “ASL II” began its more-modest life playing in the urban centers of the Eastern Seaboard during the height of the Great Depression.  For much of its 50-year existence, the ASL was a relatively loose but heartily competitive amalgam of ethnically-identified clubs concentrated primarily in the immigrant-heavy neighborhoods of the industrial Northeast.  Teams came and went with regularity – and changing identities or even folding in the middle of a season was not uncommon. As the “big league” NASL gained popularity in the early 1970s, the American Soccer League began to expand its geographic footprint

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, “Bouch” was an immediate standout between the pipes for the NHL’s first-ever Deep South franchise (platooning with fellow Quebecois & expansion draftee Phil Myre during the club’s first five seasons) – and a survivor in a league where hard-nosed hockey was the norm and where good goalies were at a premium. Bouchard’s big-league call-up to the Flames in 1972 came amidst a frantic period of NHL franchise expansion and relocation driven in large part by the arrival of the challenger World Hockey Association – which debuted alongside Atlanta (and the NY Islanders) that season.  And while the collective memory of the original Flames remains muddied by a woeful post-season record (reliably exiting the playoffs in the first round, despite qualifying six out of their eight seasons), as well as a

Following the 1957 season, two of baseball's most famous teams – the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants – left the city they had called home since the 1880s and headed west to the Golden State of California. The dramatic departure and bold reinvention of the Dodgers (to Los Angeles) and the Giants (to San Francisco) is the stuff of not only professional baseball lore, but also broader American culture – brash and (especially among generations of New Yorkers) unforgivable acts of betrayal committed by greedy owners Walter O'Malley and Horace Stoneham.  But, as this week’s guest Lincoln Mitchell (Baseball Goes West: The Dodgers, the Giants, and the Shaping of the Major Leagues) argues, the broader chronological story of America’s biggest-ever pro sports franchise relocation was, and is, not a one-way narrative. While a traumatic blow to the societal psyche of the New York metropolitan region, the transplanting of two longtime National League rivals was not only inevitable (as the nation’s economic and dem

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 famous franchise. Pop music aficionados know Ferrone as part of the “classic” mid-70s lineup of AWB (along with Hamish Stuart, Alan Gorrie, “Onnie” McIntyre, Roger Ball, and “Molly” Duncan); as a two-decade+ member of the Heartbreakers (1994-2017); and from a prodigious body of studio session work with a literal who’s-who of pop music’s biggest talent (Chaka Khan, Rick James, Eric Clapton, Stevie Nicks, and the Bee Gees, just to name a few).  But long-time Cosmos soccer fans may also remember Ferrone’s semi-invisible hand in the creation and performance of the club’s rhythmic anthem that blared from the Giants Stadium PA system after goals and anchored the team’s WOR-TV t

We kick off the new year with a return to the gridiron, and a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the brash, but ultimately ill-fated United Football League of 2009-12 – with its only commissioner, Michael Huyghue (Behind the Line of Scrimmage: Inside the Front Office of the NFL). Formed in 2007 out of big-budget dreams to establish a national top-tier, Fall-season minor league pro football circuit by high-wattage investors like San Francisco investment banker Bill Hambrecht, Google executive Tim Armstrong and Dallas Mavericks owner/firebrand Mark Cuban (who later backed out, along with initially-rumored financier T. Boone Pickens) – the UFL was also conveniently timed to capitalize on fallout from any potential labor/owner strife prior to the 2011-12 NFL season, when the league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expired.  The bet backfired when a correctly-anticipated owner lockout of players quickly ended in July of 2011, ensuring no regular season disruption or drama. Over the course of its

We celebrate the arrival of 2020 with an archive re-release of one our favorite interviews of 2019 - New York Yankees broadcaster John Sterling. Strap in for a rollicking revisit to forgotten pro sports stops like the NBA Baltimore Bullets, WHA New York Raiders/Golden Knights, ABA New York Nets, the WFL New York Stars/Charlotte Hornets - and even the long-lost Enterprise Sports Radio network!

We put the wraps on an event-filled 2019 with our first-annual holiday roundtable spectacular featuring the return of fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46) and Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2) – for a spirited discussion about the past, present and potential future of “forgotten” pro sports teams and leagues. It’s a no-holds-barred look back on some of the year’s most notable events and discoveries, including: The short rise and quick demise of the Alliance of American Football; Major League Soccer’s (unsustainable?) expansion to thirty teams; The folding of the Arena Football League – again; Major League Baseball’s minor league contraction plan; AND Raiders NFL football moves on from Oakland for good. As well as some predictions on what might transpire in 2020, as: The second coming of Vince McMahon’s XFL kicks off in February; Baseball celebrates the Negro Leagues’ 100th anniversary; Las Vegas takes its b

Baseball biographer Jeremy Beer (Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player) joins the podcast this week to discuss the life and career of one of baseball’s greatest, though largely unsung, players – and provide us a convenient excuse for a deeper dive into the endlessly fascinating vagaries of the sport’s legendary Negro Leagues. Buck O’Neil once described Oscar Charleston as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one,” while baseball historian Bill James ranked him as the fourth-best player of all time – inclusive of the Major Leagues, in which he never played.  During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba as well one of black America’s most popular celebrities.  Yet even among serious sports fans, Charleston is virtually unknown today. In a lengthy career spanning 1915-54, Charleston played against, managed, befriended, and occasionally brawled with baseball greats like Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Jesse Owens, Roy Campanel

Journalist-author/Alabama native Bill Plott (Black Baseball's Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons) joins the show to help us discover more about the legendary Negro League franchise regarded by most baseball historians as the “jewel of Southern black baseball." The first Black Barons team began in 1920 as charter members of the Negro Southern League, an eight-member circuit that largely mirrored the all-white minor-league Southern Association – right down to the sharing of ballparks.  Three years later, Birmingham made the leap to Rube Foster’s major league Negro National League, black baseball’s highest professional level at the time – soon to feature eventual All-Star legends like George “Mule” Suttles and Leroy “Satchel” Paige. The team survived the Great Depression by bouncing between the major Negro National and minor Negro Southern leagues during the 1930s, finally returning to the bigs in 1940 via the newly ascendant Negro American League. The 1940s was the zenith of the franchise's history

We mourn the unexpected passing of University of Arizona men's ice hockey media broadcaster & World Hockey Association history flamekeeper Tim Gassen - with our previous Episode 75 interview from August 18, 2018. RIP Tim - your passion for the WHA will be dearly missed!  

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 1960s when pro bowling was in ascendance and the sport was seemingly everywhere on television. Bowlers Journal columnist and historian J.R. “Dr. Jake” Schmidt (The Bowling Chronicles: Collected Writings of Dr. Jake) joins the podcast to lay out the curious backstory, short-lived season(s) and unwitting legacy of the National Bowling League (1960-62) – an ambitious, but altogether logical attempt to professionalize bowling in the style of America’s other major team sports, and capitalize on the big money purses beginning to fuel national TV competitions during the late 1950s. Amidst a bevy of popular made-for-TV competitions that featured various takes on head-to-head play – like NBC’s weekly Championship Bowling, and primetime’s Make That Spare (ABC) and Jackpot Bowling

Author and unwitting pro football historian Joe Ziemba (When Football Was Football: The Chicago Cardinals and the Birth of the NFL) help us set the record straight on the often-misunderstood history of the first incarnation of pro football’s oldest continuous club – now know as the Arizona Cardinals. Arguably the least successful franchise in National Football League history, the Chicago version of the Cardinals originated years before the start of the NFL (née American Professional Football Association) as the Morgan Athletic Club – a dominant entry in Chicago’s fledgling amateur football leagues owned by house painter/plumber/visionary Chris O’Brien. In 1920, O’Brien’s club ponied up $100 to become a charter member of the APFA, quickly developing a pointed rivalry with a fellow founding franchise called the Decatur Staleys – soon to become the cross-town Chicago Bears two years later. Despite technically winning its first NFL championship in 1925 (controversially declared by Commissioner Joe Carr after the

Veteran Missouri-area sportswriter Troy Treasure (Icing on the Plains: The Rough Ride of Kansas City’s NHL Scouts) joins the podcast this week to delve into the mostly forgotten (and woeful) two-season saga of the 1974 National Hockey League expansion franchise now known as the New Jersey Devils. Along with the Washington Capitals, the Scouts were the last additions in the NHL’s aggressive expansion cycle begun in 1967, and a logical progression for a metro area historically steeped in minor league hockey.  While team president Edwin Thompson sought to call the club “Mo-Hawks” to reflect the geographical bond between neighboring Missouri and Kansas, Chicago’s similar-sounding Black Hawks squawked in opposition – leading to a community-sourced renaming to “Scouts” after a famous statue overlooking the city. A construction-delayed (and livestock/rodeo-occupied) Kemper Arena forced the team to play its first month of games on the road (record: 0-7-1), until a 11/2/74 home debut (loss) to Chicago.  Their first

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 moguls behind its creation at the time certainly cannot. The IVA was the brainchild of prolific Hollywood television and film producer David Wolper (Roots, The Thorn Birds and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to name a mere few) – who became smitten with the sport while filming documentary footage of the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Wolper quickly recruited a who’s who of well-connected LA-based investors – including ABC-TV (later Paramount and Fox) chief Barry Diller, as well as Motown music studio founder/movie producer aspirant Berry Gordy – and by 1975, a five-team California and Southwest-centric league bowed before modest, but enthusiastic crowds. Ironically, with nary a television contract in sight (despite players Mary Jo

Marvin “Bad News” Barnes was considered a future Hall of Fame basketball player before he even graduated from college.  A standout at Providence (averaging 20.7 points and 17.9 rebounds a game, and leading the Friars to the NCAA Final Four in 1973), Barnes was a consensus 1974 All-American with the world at his fingertips. Although Barnes enjoyed two flamboyantly successful years in the American Basketball Association with the colorful Spirits of St. Louis – where he won 1974-75 Rookie of the Year honors, as well as All-Star accolades both seasons – his career quickly fizzled in the post-merger NBA, where he wore out his welcome with the Detroit Pistons, Buffalo Braves, Boston Celtics, and San Diego Clippers in just four years.  By 1980, Barnes’ unpredictable idiosyncrasies – fueled by chronic drug and alcohol abuse – had turned a can’t-miss pro basketball superstar into a prematurely past-his-prime has-been. Longtime Boston sportswriter Mike Carey ("Bad News": The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes, Pro Baske

We amp up the intellectual quotient this week with University of Illinois journalism professor emeritus Matt Ehrlich (Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era), who joins for a heady discussion around the most unlikely, yet intertwined of pro sports rivalries – and the turbulent 1960s from which it originated. Although Oakland, CA and Kansas City, MO are geographically distant and significantly different in numerous ways, their histories actually have more in common than meets the eye, Ehrlich argues, as both cities during the Sixties: Shared big-city inferiority complexes (blue-collar Oakland constantly overshadowed by the richer, more culturally diverse San Francisco across the Bay; bucolic Kansas City perceived as the quintessentially Midwestern “cow town”); Experienced contentious race and labor relations; Countered “white flight” suburbanization with ambitious urban renewal efforts; and, notably: Featured civic-championing newspaper sports editors and government officials e

We pick up where we left off in Episode 89 (The NBA Buffalo Braves – With Tim Wendel), with the continuing story of one of pro hoops’ most forlorn franchises – today known as the Los Angeles Clippers. Author Mick Minas (The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers) joins the podcast from his home in Melbourne, Australia to help us go deep into the travails of a club labeled by many as the NBA’s most historically dysfunctional – and by some as simply cursed. From its highly convoluted cross-country relocation to San Diego in 1978 to its still-chaotic life as Los Angeles’ “other” NBA team (and the Staples Center’s third-priority sports tenant) – the Clippers have had enough wayward turns of fate to fill an entire league, let alone a single franchise: The high-profile 1979 coup of All-Star center (and San Diego native) Bill Walton, whose career literally and figuratively crumbled under the weight of chronic foot injuries; League fines, investigations and lawsuits against team owner Dona

By popular request, we begin our exploration of the enigmatic 1990s international experiment known (initially) as the World League of American Football with a deep dive into its first championship team – the London Monarchs – with author Alex Cassidy (American Football's Forgotten Kings: The Rise and Fall of the London Monarchs). Resurrected from an idea originated (but never launched) by the NFL in 1974 called the “International Football League,” the WLAF was formed in 1989 as both a spring developmental circuit as well as an operational test bed for full-fledged expansion of American football into markets outside the United States. Eventually comprised exclusively of European teams by 1995 (later under the banners “NFL Europe” from [1998-2006] and “NFL Europa” [2007]), the first two seasons of the WLAF also featured a Canadian franchise (the Montreal Machine) as well as six in the US – most of which (Orlando, Birmingham, Sacramento, San Antonio, Raleigh-Durham [1991], and Columbus, OH [1992]) were historica

We “celebrate” the 2019 Miami Marlins’ National League-worst 57-105 season with a look back to colorful 1950s-era Triple-A minor league franchise that laid the groundwork for South Florida’s eventual ascension to the majors in 1993. Author and SABR historian Sam Zygner (The Forgotten Marlins: A Tribute to the 1956-1960 Original Miami Marlins and Baseball Under the Palms: The History of Miami Minor League Baseball) joins the podcast to discuss the flamboyant, but little-remembered International League club that introduced Miami to its first taste of high-level regular season baseball.  During their five years of existence, the original Marlins featured outsized personalities such as eccentric manager (and former St. Louis Cardinals’ “Gashouse Gang” member) Pepper Martin, hard-living lefty pitcher Mickey McDermott, maverick baseball promoter Bill Veeck, and even the mythically ageless Negro League hurler (and eventual Hall of Famer) Satchel Paige.    In between, the Marlins featured a who’s who of battle-harden

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame legend Dan Issel joins this week’s ‘cast to discuss his All-Star career in the American Basketball Association with two of the league’s most (relatively) stable franchises – the Kentucky Colonels and the Denver Nuggets.  And a brief cup of coffee with one its shakiest, in between. After an outstanding, twice-named All-American collegiate career at the University of Kentucky (where he still remains as all-time leading scorer) in the late 1960s, Issel spurned a draft call by the NBA’s Detroit Pistons for a chance to stay in the Commonwealth with the John Y. Brown-owned, Louisville-based Colonels. Joining an already solid lineup (including future Hall of Famer Louis Dampier), Issel immediately lit up the 1970-71 ABA with a league-leading 29.9 points-per-game – powering Kentucky to the ABA Finals (losing to the Utah Stars in seven games), and a share of the league’s Rookie of the Year title. An eventual six-time ABA All-Star (including his and the league’s final season wi