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410: The NBA's Waterloo Hawks - With Tim Harwood

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Release Date: 09/01/2025

431: 431: "Return of the King" - With Tom Aiello

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Valdosta State University history professor (and Episodes  and guest) Tom Aiello is back — this time for an intriguing look at one of the most politically and culturally charged nights in American sports history: Muhammad Ali’s comeback fight against Jerry Quarry on October 26, 1970, in Atlanta. After nearly three and a half years in professional exile, Ali returned to the ring having lost far more than his world heavyweight title. His refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War had stripped him of his license to box, cost him his prime athletic years, and turned...

info_outline 430: 430: "Everybody Loses" - With Danny Funt

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This week, we pull back the curtain on one of the most seismic shifts in American sports and culture: the explosive rise of legalized sports gambling. Once condemned as a corrosive menace to the integrity of competition, betting on games is now a pervasive part of how fans watch, interact with, and spend on sports. But at what cost?  Our guest, journalist Danny Funt, has spent years investigating the forces behind America’s betting boom. His new book, "," lays bare how fantasy sports startups, professional leagues, and tech platforms helped normalize wagering — transforming...

info_outline 429: The Negro Leagues' Memphis Red Sox - With Keith Wood show art 429: The Negro Leagues' Memphis Red Sox - With Keith Wood

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Author and baseball historian Keith Wood () joins the show to explore the rich yet often overlooked story of the Memphis Red Sox, one of Black baseball’s most resilient and community‑rooted franchises. From their semi-pro origins in the early 1920s to their run through the Negro Southern, National &  American Leagues, the Red Sox embodied sustained Black ownership and stability in a turbulent era for segregated sports.​ Wood details how the Martin family, a group of influential African American professionals, uniquely controlled both the club and its home...

info_outline 428: 428: "Stadium City" - With Helen Morgan Parmett

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Sports stadiums are often framed as engines of civic pride, economic development, and shared spectacle. But what if they are something more consequential — and more complicated — than that? In this episode, we’re joined by University of Vermont professor Helen Morgan Parmett, author of , for a wide-ranging conversation that rethinks stadiums not merely as venues for games, but as powerful urban media infrastructures shaping how cities function, govern, and imagine themselves. Drawing on case studies from Atlanta, Seattle, and Minneapolis, Parmett explores how modern stadiums operate as...

info_outline 427: 427: "Baseball in the Roaring Twenties" - With Thomas Wolf

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Baseball's 1926 World Series was more than just a championship showdown — it was emblematic of America in a decade defined by financial excess, social rebellion, and societal reinvention. We explore that dramatic showdown through "," a riveting new book by historian and author Thomas Wolf. Wolf takes us beyond the box scores of this unforgettable seven-game clash between Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees and Rogers Hornsby’s St. Louis Cardinals. He traces Ruth’s improbable resurgence from a disastrous 1925 season — a comeback that reignited the public imagination—and...

info_outline 426.5: The NASL Players’ Strike of 1979 – With Steve Holroyd [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE] show art 426.5: The NASL Players’ Strike of 1979 – With Steve Holroyd [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

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[We say goodbye to a crappy 2025 with a fond remembrance of frequent guest and long-time friend-of-the-show Steve Holroyd - whose untimely passing earlier this year still stings mightily. In this classic ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE from April 2019, we tapped Steve's encyclopedic knowledge of US soccer history for an essential look at an oft-overlooked event in the life of the original North American Soccer League (1968-1985), that arguably marked the "beginning of the end" of that influential circuit.] + + + Professional union labor lawyer and Society for American Soccer History sports historian...

info_outline 426: The 6th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular! show art 426: The 6th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

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It's our year-end Holiday Roundtable Spectacular, featuring a look back at the year's newest additions to "what used-to-be" in big-time sports (RIP Pro Volleyball Federation, Utah Hockey Club, three UFL teams, half of Major League Rugby, and the NCAA's LA & Bahamas Bowls); AND semi-educated guesses as to what might be ahead for 2026 - with three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Paul Reeths (, ; ); Kenn Tomasch (, ; ); and Scott Adamson (;  & ). Buckle up for our annual mashup of amusement and bemusement at the fringes of the pro sports establishment, as we...

info_outline 425: Fox Sports Soccer Rules Analyst Dr. Joe Machnik show art 425: Fox Sports Soccer Rules Analyst Dr. Joe Machnik

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He’s been called “American soccer’s renaissance man,” and in this episode, Dr. Joe Machnik returns to trace the remarkable arc of a life spent pushing the sport forward in the United States. When Machnik first joined us for back in 2017, he brought a rare, firsthand view of American soccer’s highs and lows. Today, with his new memoir, "" freshly in hand, we revisit that conversation with even richer context and perspective. Dr. Joe’s story began in Brooklyn, where an immigrant neighborhood and a love of the game planted the seeds for a career that would — like the domestic...

info_outline 424: Baseball's Most Outrageous Promotions - With Joseph Natalicchio show art 424: Baseball's Most Outrageous Promotions - With Joseph Natalicchio

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Baseball has long been America’s pastime — and the stage for some of the wildest, most outrageous marketing stunts in sports history. From the postwar era through the 1970s, team owners and promoters pushed the limits of spectacle to fill seats, generate buzz, and entertain fans, often blurring the line between creativity and chaos. This week, "" author Joe Natalicchio joins for a wild ride across some of the sport’s most infamous attempts to spice things up at the ol' ballpark - where good marketing intentions went mightily awry. Natalicchio takes us behind the...

info_outline 423: Philadelphia's 423: Philadelphia's "Broad Street Bullies" - With Sam Carchidi & Jeff Hare

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The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t just win hockey games in the 1970s — they changed the sport, the city, and the culture around them. In this episode, we dig into the rise, reign, and mythology of the "Broad Street Bullies," the decade-long era (1971–1981) when the Flyers transformed themselves from an NHL expansion afterthought into the toughest, most polarizing, and most beloved champions in league history. To unpack how a group of gritty, bruising, blue-collar players became civic folk heroes, we sit down with long-time Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter Sam Carchidi and...

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Long before the National Basketball Association evolved into a global spectacle, it began as an awkwardly assembled mashup featuring a hefty dollop of relatively small-market teams in places like Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Anderson, Indiana and Moline, Illinois. 

Among them were the Waterloo Hawks - the only team from Iowa ever to play in the NBA. Their story is synonymous with the fragile early days of pro hoops in the US - and it’s vividly brought back to life by this week's guest, Tim Harwood - author of the essential "Ball Hawks: The Arrival and Departure of the NBA in Iowa."

Tim and Tim retrace how the Hawks rose out of the old National Basketball League, a circuit of largely factory-backed and regional clubs scattered across the Rust Belt that provided much of the foundation for the modern professional game. In 1949, when the NBL merged with its big-city rival, the Basketball Association of America, the NBA was born - and Waterloo suddenly found itself playing against the decidedly more well-resourced likes of New York, Boston, and Chicago. The Hawks’ lone NBA season was gritty, dramatic, and short-lived, ending with the league contracting and shedding smaller markets that didn’t align with its "major-market" ambitions.

Harwood explains how Waterloo tried to keep its place in the game through the short-lived National Professional Basketball League, and why the Hawks’ disappearance after 1951 symbolized the end of the small-market era in pro basketball. What remains is a remarkable story of community pride, fleeting triumph, and the overlooked role towns like Waterloo played in shaping what the NBA would become. 

PLUS: The legend of Waterloo's Murray "Wizard" Wier! 

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