376: The 5th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!
Release Date: 12/30/2024
391: The NASL's Chicago Sting (& More!) - With Karl-Heinz Granitza
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Live and direct from Pottsdam, it's the one-and-only Karl-Heinz Granitza — the prolific German striker who became the face of the North American Soccer League's iconic Chicago Sting -- and a transformative figure in American soccer during his seven outdoor seasons across the late 1970s & early 1980s. A 2003 National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee and one of the NASL's all-time leading scorers, Granitza opens up about his remarkable journey from West Berlin to the Windy City -- where his powerful left foot, fiery personality, and unshakable will to win helped ignite a...
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390: Sports Broadcaster Jim Lampley
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It's a bucket-list conversation this week with legendary sports broadcaster Jim Lampley as he shares insights and anecdotes from his new memoir, "." With a career spanning five decades, Lampley takes us behind the scenes of some of the most indelible moments in modern-day sports broadcasting, offering a first-person, blow-by-blow account of history-making assignments, iconic calls, and never-before-told stories - including: Becoming the first live sideline reporter for a nationally televised college football game; Rising to ABC Sports heir apparency behind legends...
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389: The 1925 NFL Champion(?) Pottsville Maroons - With David Fleming
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It's our long-overdue dive into one of the most controversial stories in National Football League history — the tale of the Pottsville Maroons and its stolen 1925 championship — with ESPN journalist and author David Fleming, whose acclaimed 2007 book "" is newly apropos on the 100th anniversary of what many consider to be pro football's most egregious historical blunder. Fleming guides us through the dramatic rise and fall of the Maroons — an Eastern Pennsylvania coal-country semi-pro team born of grit, visionary coaching, and the raw determination of hard-working, hardscrabble...
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388: "1978: Baseball & America in the Disco Era" - With David Krell
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We boot up our trusty this week for a trip back to 1978 -- a year when baseball provided a much-needed escape for a nation in flux. We sit down with David Krell, author of "," to relive one of Major League Baseball’s most unforgettable seasons — one filled with historic milestones, dramatic showdowns, and larger-than-life personalities. From Bucky Dent’s legendary home run that crushed Red Sox fans’ hearts to Reggie Jackson’s World Series heroics, 1978 was a year of baseball drama at its finest. We discuss Ron Guidry’s dominance (25-3, 1.74 ERA), Pete Rose’s 44-game hit...
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387: The BAA, NBL & the Merger That Created the NBA - With Josh Elias
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Sports historian Josh Elias stops by for a deep unraveling of the often misunderstood story behind the 1949 merger that created the National Basketball Association (NBA) as we know it today. Drawing from his historically essential 2024 book , Elias takes us back to the pivotal moment when the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL) merged, uniting disparate big-city teams with small-town clubs - and setting the stage for professional basketball’s future in the US. We dive into the tensions between East Coast metropolises and Midwestern...
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386: The NHL's Unlikely First Season - With Bob Duff
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We go North of the border this week for the curious story of the dramatic and chaotic origins of the National Hockey League with hockey historian and long-time Windsor Star sports columnist Bob Duff (""). While today’s NHL is a global powerhouse celebrating over a century of hockey history, its very first season (1917-18) was a near disaster. Born out of a backroom maneuver to oust controversial Toronto owner Eddie Livingstone, the league’s inaugural outing was anything but smooth. From a player shortage caused by World War I conscription, to the sudden collapse of the...
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385: Batavia's Baseball "Homestand" - With Will Bardenwerper
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America’s pastime has long been more than just a game - it’s a reflection of the country itself. But what happens when the heart and soul of small-town baseball is threatened by the forces of modern sports economics? We sit down with New York Times-bestselling author () and former Army Ranger Will Bardenwerper to discuss his new book - a poignant memoir that explores the fate of minor league baseball in Batavia, New York, and what it reveals about the state of America today. Bardenwerper takes us behind the scenes of a declining Rust Belt town’s fight to keep its baseball...
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384: Basketball's Nomadic Nets - With Rick Laughland
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Strap in and try to keep up, as we attempt to follow the peripatetic 58-year journey of one of the NBA's most wandering franchises - with New York-area sports beat reporter Rick Laughland (""). Today's Brooklyn Nets club began its life in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans - a charter member of the American Basketball Association, playing at the Teaneck Armory. A year later, they moved to Long Island (LI Arena, then Island Garden, then Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum) to become the New York Nets, winning two ABA championships (1974, 1976) behind superstar Julius Erving. Absorbed...
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383: The Original San Jose Earthquakes - With Eric Gouldsberry
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We're positively kvelling over the brand new anthology from this week's guest Eric Gouldsberry - "" - which vividly (and lovingly) portrays the thrilling early days of the original San Jose Earthquakes franchise (1974-84) of the old North American Soccer League, and the transformative impact it brought to the Bay Area's fast-growing Santa Clara Valley. Through his personal journey as a devoted fan and with never-before-seen images captured by his father - "official unofficial" team photographer Ray Gouldsberry - Eric brings to life the magic of a team that ignited an untapped soccer fan base...
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382: The ABA Players' "Waiting Game" - With Michael Husain
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After a decidedly meh NBA All-Star Weekend, we rewind back to one of the league's most influential historical tributaries - the American Basketball Association (1967-76) - and the criminally little-known story of how its demise left a generation of pioneering pro players out in the cold. Michael Husain is the writer, director, and co-producer of the groundbreaking documentary - which spotlights the relentless efforts of the determined non-profit , as it fights to help reclaim the overdue benefits and back pay the forgotten star athletes of the ABA were promised as part of their absorption...
info_outlineBuckle up for our yearly mélange of amusement and bemusement at the fringes of the pro sports establishment, as we simultaneously marvel at and lament some of the most curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to stumble into oblivion, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including:
- Spring football's unified UFL
- Arena Football League 2.0 RIP (and Arena Football One 2025)
- MLB's now-Sacramento-and-someday-Las Vegas (maybe) Athletics
- The NHL's Utah Hockey Club (fka Arizona [née Phoenix] Coyotes, via the WHA's original Winnipeg Jets)
- Major League Cricket
- Baseball's genre-bending Savannah Bananas - and its soon-to-launch Banana Ball Championship League
- Indoor soccer's new Baller League
- Premier League Lacrosse's pivot to city teams and a new women's division
- The new League One Volleyball (LOVB) takes on the 2nd-year Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF)
- NWSL soccer
- PWHL hockey
PLUS: Can Diamond Baseball Holdings (41 MiLB teams and counting!) be stopped?
AND: Will Michael Jordan, et al. break up the NASCAR stock car monopoly?
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