Libsyn Directory

405: Leo Lyons & The NFL's Rochester Jeffersons - With Jeffrey Miller & John Steffenhagen

Release Date: 07/28/2025

422: The "Super Bowl Shuffle" - With Jeff Cameron

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Few sports moments have left as lasting a mark on pop culture as the 1985 Chicago Bears’ recording of the “.” This week, we go behind the music, the madness, and the myth with NFL Films Senior Producer Jeff Cameron — director of HBO’s new documentary short "" — who takes us inside the making of the iconic rap video that transformed a championship football team into cultural icons. "The Shuffle" reveals never-before-seen, behind-the-scenes footage and fresh interviews with Bears legends Mike Singletary, Jim McMahon, Willie Gault, and Gary Fencik, who recount...

421: "There Is No Place Like Dome" - With Bruce Reynolds

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Baseball may be a game of numbers, but Tampa Bay's Tropicana Field is a place of stories — and no one knows those stories better than Bruce Reynolds, longtime Rays "fan host" and author of "There Is No Place Like Dome." In this delightfully off-beat episode, we venture under the famously tattered fiberglass roof — currently undergoing repairs and slated to reopen next spring — to explore the quirks, characters, and quiet magic of a ballpark that has been loved, mocked, misunderstood, celebrated, and everything in between. Reynolds shares 16 seasons’ worth of memories: the oddball fan...

420.5: "Banned" - With Michael Ray Richardson & Jake Uitti [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

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[We mourn the passing of pro hoops great Michael Ray Richardson with an archive re-release of our conversation with the former Nets/Knicks star from last year, featuring his biography co-author Jacob Uitti.] + + + Former NBA All-Star Michael Ray Richardson and his co-author Jacob Uitti () join the show to discuss Richardson's riveting new memoir that chronicles his extraordinary journey on and off the basketball court. Hailed as “the next Walt Frazier” coming out of the University of Montana as a first-round pick (fourth overall) in the 1978 NBA Draft, "Sugar" was a force to be reckoned...

420: America's "Cricket Odyssey" - With Beth Simpson & Mark Greenslade

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Cricket and America - two words that rarely appear in the same sentence without a smirk or a shrug. Yet, as authors Beth Simpson and Mark Greenslade reveal in their new book "," the game’s roots here run deeper than most realize — and its revival is one of the great under-told stories in modern sport. We trace the sport’s improbable journey - from its 19th-century heyday, when Philadelphia was a global cricket power; to its near extinction after baseball gained popularity; and finally to its 21st-century rebirth, fueled by immigrant passion and the game's modern-day incarnation,...

419: Basketball "Prophet" Moses Malone - With Paul Knepper

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The story of Moses Malone is one of basketball’s most remarkable - and underappreciated - journeys. Rising from poverty in segregated Petersburg, Virginia, in the early 1970s, Malone became the first modern player to jump straight from high school to the pros, quickly establishing himself as one of the game’s most dominant forces. A three-time NBA MVP, relentless rebounder, and driving presence behind the rise of the early 1980s Houston Rockets and the Philadelphia 76ers’ 1983 league championship, Malone redefined greatness - quietly, humbly, and unstoppably. This week, biographer Paul...

418: More Lost Tales of the Original MISL - With Tim O'Bryhim

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Unwitting US pro soccer historian Tim O'Bryhim ("" and "") makes his third trip to the show - this time in celebration of his wild new collection of stories from the original Major Indoor Soccer League (1978-92). O'Bryhim has spent nearly a decade chronicling the MISL's wild and woolly history (including his essential ) - and his new book "" delights in its recounting of some of the truly underappreciated trials, tribulations and characters of what made this influential circuit special - and, to O'Bryhim's credit, memorable. We discuss...

417: When Minor League Baseball Almost Went Bust - With George Pawlush

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In the immediate years after World War II, the trajectory of America’s pastime looked unstoppable. By 1949, Minor League Baseball had swelled to 59 leagues, 448 teams, and some 10,000 players - the largest network in its history. But within a decade, the advent of television, suburban migration, and shifting leisure habits began to drain fans and revenue. Hundreds of teams folded, and by 1963, the entire minor-league system was on the brink of collapse. We explore that turbulent era - the golden age of small-town clubs and ballparks, the struggles of owners and players to stay...

416: Denver's "Olympics That Never Happened" - With Adam Berg

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In the late 1960s, Denver’s business and political leaders were convinced they had secured the ultimate prize in international sport: the 1976 Winter Olympic Games. With the backing of the US Olympic Committee and a successful bid before the International Olympic Committee, Colorado seemed poised to showcase itself on the world stage. But just two years later, that dream collapsed in spectacular fashion — when the state's voters did the unthinkable, and told the Olympics to go elsewhere. This week, we explore the fascinating saga of the “Olympics that never happened” with cultural...

415: The NFL's Dallas Texans - With David Fleming

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Peabody Award-nominated writer and David Fleming (“”) returns to the show to unpack one of the National Football League’s most chaotic and fascinating chapters: the disaster of the 1952 Dallas Texans. In his new book,"," Fleming chronicles the league’s first attempt to plant a professional football franchise in football-crazed Texas — a venture so ill-fated that the NFL reportedly still disavows it. Fleming guides us through the Texans’ brief and turbulent existence, from their origins as the financially struggling New York Yanks to their relocation to Dallas under the ambitious...

414: The Professional Women's Hockey League - With Karissa Donkin

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How do you build a professional women’s hockey league from the ground up — and convince the sport’s best players, skeptical investors, and hungry fans that this time it’s built to last? CBC Sports journalist Karissa Donkin, author of "," helps us dive into the backstory of the incredible Professional Women’s Hockey League. Donkin traces the roots of the PWHL back to the collapse of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League in 2019 and the rise of the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association, whose “Dream Gap” tours kept women’s hockey in the spotlight when...

More Episodes

In 1898, a 16-year-old dreamer named Leo Lyons was tossing a football around a Rochester, NY sandlot. Within two years, he wasn’t just playing—he was managing, coaching, and bankrolling a team that would become an National Football League charter member: the Rochester Jeffersons.

This week, we sit down with authors Jeffrey Miller and John Steffenhagen to explore their powerful new book, "Leo Lyons, the Rochester Jeffersons and the Birth of the NFL" - the unbelievable-but-true story of how one man’s relentless vision helped shape pro football’s earliest days.

From challenging Jim Thorpe’s Canton Bulldogs and signing Black players decades before integration, to mortgaging his house and offering Red Grange $5,000 per game, Lyons’ tale is one of grit, guts, and heartbreak.

With exclusive access to the Leo Lyons Collection, Miller and Steffenhagen uncover the backroom deals, sandlot beginnings, and forgotten heroes behind the NFL's formation.

It’s a story of ambition, obsession — and a dream that changed American sports forever.

PLUS: Tim devises a strategy to definitively get Leo Lyons into the Pro Football Hall of Fame!

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