EPISODE 267: Pro Football's Kenny Washington - With Dan Taylor

Fresno Grizzlies baseball TV play-by-play broadcaster (and Episode 208 guest) Dan Taylor ("Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball") returns to the podcast - this time with the story of one of the most unheralded players in pro football history.

In his new book "Walking Alone: The Untold Journey of Football Pioneer Kenny Washington," Taylor writes the first solo biography devoted to collegiate star and original Los Angeles Rams standout running back Kenny Washington (1918-71) - perhaps the best known of the pro game's "Forgotten Four" (the others: Woody Strode, Bill Willis, and Marion Motley) - collectively recognized as the first Black athletes to permanently break pro football's color barrier in 1946.

Of the group, it was Washington - a one-time UCLA teammate of Jackie Robinson in both baseball and football - who officially re-integrated the NFL by signing with the just-relocated-from-Cleveland Rams (he convinced the club to later sign Strode).

While Willis and Motley were doing similarly with the challenger All-America Football Conference (and later NFL-absorbed) Cleveland Browns - ultimately earning them selections to the Pro Football Hall of Fame - Washington has yet to join them in such recognition, despite being the first of any of them to achieve the feat.

Of course, there is MUCH more to the story - including Washington's prolific minor league football exploits, frequent small-part film roles, and local LA celebrity status. By the end of this episode, you too will be convinced that Washington deserves a place in the Canton's hallowed Hall.

Walking Alone: The Untold Journey of Football Pioneer Kenny Washington - buy book here

EPISODE 263: "The Football History Dude" - With Arnie Chapman (Vacation Special)

We're taking a few days of early summer vacation this week - but not before sitting down for a very fun interview with pro football enthusiast and friend-of-the-show Arnie Chapman - as a guest on his popular Sports History Network podcast "The Football History Dude."

Tim and Arnie dive into some of the most memorable football-related episodes of "Good Seats Still Available" thus far - and wax nostalgic on mutually favorite former circuits like the World Football League, the first XFL, the World League of American Football, and the original USFL, among others.

Please enjoy this conversation we recorded a few weeks back - and be sure to check out all the other great podcasts across the Sports History Network!

Check out “The Football History Dude” here and here

Check out “Sports History Network” here

EPISODE 260: The World Football League - With Ryan Hockensmith

We revisit the endlessly fascinating World Football League - and its enigmatic founder/first commissioner Gary Davidson - with ESPN.com senior writer Ryan Hockensmith ("The Renegade Who Took On the NFL [And the NBA and the NHL]").

Drawing on recent interviews with Davidson, former NFL defectors Larry Csonka & Paul Warfield, and previous podcast guests Howard Baldwin & Upton Bell, Hockensmith delves into some of the more memorable (and a few of the truly unbelievable) historical moments in the WFL's brief mid-1970s existence - all one-and-a-half seasons of it.

The tales are tall, but the history is real - and Hockensmith makes it seem as fresh and vivid as the original events themselves nearly 50 years after its flashy debut and quickly spectacular flameout.

Breaking the Game Wide Open - buy book here

EPISODE 259: Howard Baldwin Returns!

Hollywood film producer (Ray; The Game of Their Lives; Sudden Death) and original New England/Hartford Whalers founder/owner Howard Baldwin (Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood) returns after a three-year absence to help fill in some of the gaps left over from Episode 100, and to dish on "new" territory from his hard-to-believe career, including:

  • The contagious indefatigable spirit of WHA founder Dennis Murphy

  • Who really paid for Bobby Hull's headline-grabbing contract (and who didn't)

  • How Houston and Cincinnati went from being "in" the June 1978 WHA-NHL "merger," to being "out" of the senior league's "expansion" a year later

  • The early 1990s saga of the HC CSKA Moscow "Red Army" team (aka the "Russian Penguins")

  • Why the way to San Jose stopped first in Pittsburgh and then Minnesota; AND

  • The World Football League's (almost) "Boston Bulls"

Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood - buy here

 

“Red Penguins” - streaming video from Amazon Prime Video here

EPISODE 258: The (Original) USFL's Washington Federals - With Jake Russell

With the rebooted (though still potentially trademark-infringing) USFL now in full swing, we take a look back at one of the clubs from the original version that didn't make the cut this time around - the Washington Federals.

Washington Post sports reporter Jake Russell ("As the USFL Restarts, A Look Back at the Washington Federals") takes us inside his pursuit to decode the numerous curiosities of one of the first league's poorest-performing franchises - both on the field (a 7-22 record over two seasons), and in the stands (the USFL's second-worst average home attendances each year at venerable RFK Stadium).

Snakebitten from the start by: an initial owner who instead swapped for a franchise in Birmingham, AL; a convoluted, decision-slowing three-company joint venture/limited-partnership ownership structure; and a newly ascendant Redskins team celebrating its first NFL title in 41 years just weeks before the new team's debut - the Federals' journey in the USFL was beset by revenue shortfalls, poor timing and just plain bad luck.

Still, the Feds had their moments - and Russell takes us inside some of his conversations with notable names in the team's brief, but colorful history (including one of the league's best logo/color schemes) like veteran QB Kim McQuilken, rookie QB Mike Hohensee, RB Craig James, and WR Joey Walters.

EPISODE 255: Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium - With Stew Thornley

Baseball historian, Minnesota Twins official scorer and Episode 114 guest Stew Thornley ("Metropolitan Stadium: Memorable Games at Minnesota's Diamond on the Prairie"), returns for a fond look back at the semi-iconic structure that helped secure "major league" status for the Twin Cities in the early 1960s.

Known simply as "The Met" by area locals (or even the "Old Met" to distinguish from the downtown Minneapolis Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome that effectively replaced it in 1982), Bloomington's Metropolitan Stadium opened in April of 1956 with the stated hope of luring a Major League Baseball franchise to the region - just as the sport was beginning to chart its modern-era manifest destiny.

While ultimately luring Calvin Griffith's Washington Senators to become the Twins in 1961 - as well as the expansion NFL football Vikings that same year - the Met was mostly the exclusive home of the minor league American Association Minneapolis Millers for its first five years of existence, save for a handful of annual NFL preseason exhibition games and two regular season Chicago Cardinals matches in 1959.

In 1976, it also became the popular outdoor home of the North American Soccer League's Minnesota Kicks - and its legions of young tailgate-crazy fans.

Ahead of its time in the mid-50s, Met Stadium was nearly obsolete by the end of the 70s - decent for baseball, not so much for football - and rumors of at least the Vikings absconding for another to-be-built stadium in the area (including concepts for a domed enclosure or a new football-only facility between it and the nearby indoor Met Center) swirled around the community as early as 1970.

Alas, after only 21 seasons each for the Twins and the Vikings (six for the Kicks), Metropolitan Stadium succumbed to poor maintenance and the allure of a new, winter-proof Metrodome. Demolished in 1985, the Met gave way to what is now the country's largest shopping center - the Mall of America.

Metropolitan Stadium: Memorable Games at Minnesota’s Diamond on the Prairie - buy book here

EPISODE 253: "Out of Their League" - With Dave Meggyesy

A pro football​ player who protests against the actions of his government, is shunned by ​the league establishment, and eventually ​winds up out of the ​game, working for social justice. ​ No, it's not Colin Kaepernick​; it's the 1960s NFL saga of a former St. Louis Cardinals linebacker named Dave Meggyesy.

A 17th-round draft pick in 1963 out of Syracuse, Meggyesy was a steady presence and reliable performer for seven mostly mediocre Cardinal seasons (save for a 1964 season-ending Bert Bell Benefit [aka "NFL Playoff"] Bowl victory over Green Bay) - when​ he quit at the height of his career​, ​repulsed by a game he saw rife with problems and injustices, and a nation fighting an increasingly futile war in Vietnam.

In 1970, he wrote​ a bombshell exposé of a book called​ ​"​Out of Their League​"​ – a blistering assault on football and ​the institutions that enabled it - in which ​he detailed ​multiple ills of the game, many of which still exist today. ​

Racism, corruption, militarism, institutionalized violence, drug abuse, collegiate "amateurism," and the relentless inevitability of injuries and their lasting effects - blunt and searing insights that​ ​​not only ​shocked ​fans of the NFL, ​but also​ ​shook up the broader 1970s ​sport​s establishment.​​

​Still​​, at its heart,​ ​Meggyesy's​ memoir ​wa​s also a moving de​piction​ of ​his individual​ struggle​ for social justice and personal liberation​, the contents of which were both ahead of its time - and as timely as ever.​

Out of Their League - buy book here

EPISODE 250: Arena Football's New York Dragons - With Gregg Sarra

We reminisce about the original Arena Football League and its curious dalliances with the New York metropolitan area, with veteran Newsday sports writer/columnist Gregg Sarra - who not only regularly covered franchises like the 1997-98 New York CityHawks and the Long Island-based New York Dragons (2001-08), but also even played an actual game with one of them - and lived to tell (and write) about it.

After beat-reporting two woeful seasons' worth of CityHawks games at the "World's Most Famous Arena" (Madison Square Garden had hastily lobbied the league for its own expansion club when it got wind of a team coming to the nearby New Jersey Meadowlands: the Red Dogs) - Sarra was both surprised and giddy when he heard yet another team would be coming to the market - this time to his hometown Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The Dragons were actually the relocated Iowa Barnstormers (1995-2000) - a smaller-market sensation owned by league founder (and episodes 43 & 44 guest) Jim Foster - who sold the franchise to New York Islanders NHL owner Charles Wang, with the blessing of an AFL management eager to finally succeed in the nation's largest media market.

On April 8, 2001, Sarra got the literal "inside story" of the new club - when, at Wang's suggestion, he suited up for and saw last-minute action in the Dragons' first-ever home preseason match - a Plimptonian participatory experience that gave his Newsday readers a true sense of what the indoor game was all about.

Did you know that every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at https://linkedin.com/GoodSeats.

Paper Dragon: A Reporter Learns What It’s Like to Get in the Arena with the Pros - And Finds He’s Got the Write Stuff - read article here

EPISODE 246: The Pittsburgh Maulers - With Tom Rooney

As we continue to debate the general wisdom of resurrecting the intellectual property of the original short-lived 1980s version of the United States Football League - as well as question the viability of launching yet another spring pro football circuit - our attention this week turns to one of the eight chosen "franchises" for the new USFL launching this April.

Of course, memorably well-supported originals like the Tampa Bay Bandits, New Jersey Generals, Birmingham Stallions, and the only two clubs to ever win USFL championships - the Stars (once in Philadelphia, once in Baltimore) and the Michigan Panthers - make some semblance of sense.

But the lamentable one-year Pittsburgh Maulers?

Longtime sports promotions executive Tom Rooney - nephew of famed Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, and former Maulers front office executive - joins for a nostalgic trip back to Three Rivers Stadium ("One and Dumb: The Story of the Maulers" from Three Rivers Stadium: A Confluence of Champions) and shares just why this mostly forgotten team from 1984 just might be worth bringing back to life.

Three Rivers Stadium: A Confluence of Champions - buy book here

EPISODE 243: The 3rd Annual Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

​We try to make sense of a decidedly bipolar 2021 with our third-annual Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46); Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2); and Steve Holroyd (Episodes 92, 109, 149 & 188).

Join us as we discuss the past, present and potential "futures" of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - starting with a look back at some of the year’s most notable events, including:

  • COVID-19's continued wrath across the entirety of pro sports;

  • Cleveland says goodbye Indians - and hello Guardians;

  • The dubious reincarnation of the USFL;

  • Relocation threats from MLB's Oakland Athletics, the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, and half a season's worth of the Tampa Bay Rays;

  • NWHL women's hockey reorg/rebrand to Premier Hockey Federation;

  • NPF women's softball suspends operations after 17 years; AND

  • The passing of challenger league pioneer Dennis Murphy.

Plus, we say goodbye to ESPN Classic!

EPISODE 242: Pittsburgh's Civic Arena ("The Igloo") - With Dave Finoli

Our "tour" of lost pro sports venues continues with another stop in the Keystone State, this time for a loving look back at the life and times of Pittsburgh's legendary Civic Arena - aka "The Igloo" - with Steel City native Dave Finoli (editor, "Pittsburgh's Civic Arena: Stories from the Igloo").

Originally constructed in 1961 for the city's Civic Light Opera, the Arena was an ahead-of-its-time architectural marvel - distinctively adorned by a massive 3,000-ton retractable steel-roof dome that was world's first of its kind - making not just an attractive venue for music and entertainment, but big-time sports of all kinds.

Over time, the Igloo became synonymous with its longest-running tenant - the NHL's Penguins - who became the building's main occupant as an expansion franchise in 1967, and saw three (of its total five) Stanley Cup title runs.

But, of course, we remember the other teams that also called the Civic Arena home - including: basketball's Rens, Pipers & Condors; World Team Tennis' Triangles; soccer's Spirit & Stingers; arena football's Gladiators; lacrosse's Bulls & CrosseFire; and even roller hockey's oft-forgotten Phantoms.

And don't forget Dr. J's Pisces too!

Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena: Stories From the Igloo - buy book here

EPISODE 240: The USFL Returns (Sort Of) - With Scott Adamson

After months of speculation, the first concrete pieces of confirmation of a possible return of the United States Football League were issued by Fox Sports' PR department last week. Despite a press release claiming to contain "everything you need to know" about the new USFL, a ton of important questions about the what, when, how, and even where of the proposed spring league still remain.

What is known is that Fox will be a major equity owner of the new circuit, and will contribute a number of its senior executives from its sports ranks to help run the enterprise. Brian Woods, founder of the four-year-old developmental Spring League - and recent acquirer of a bevy of original USFL league and team trademarks - will head up football operations.

The new league will have eight (presumably location-branded) teams and play a ten-game season schedule in a single city - currently rumored to be Birmingham, Alabama - on weekends from April to mid-June.

Other than that, it's still anybody's guess as to where players and coaches will come from (or how much they might make), what teams (and cities) will be resurrected, what rules (and potential innovations) might look like - and just what the mighty NFL (or even the still-promised XFL 3.0 in 2023) might be thinking.

We check in with our man in Birmingham, episode 184 guest Scott Adamson ("The Home Team: My Bromance With Off-Brand Football") to mutually speculate about what positives might come from a reincarnated USFL - and why it's hard not to be cynical about a potential return to the "glory days" of the 1980s.

The Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football - buy book here

EPISODE 238: The National Women's Football League - With Britni de la Cretaz & Lyndsey D'Arcangelo

We return to the fascinating story of the pioneering National Women’s Football League (1974-88-ish) - and its overlooked role in the surprisingly resilient world of women’s pro football - with sportswriters Britni de la Cretaz & Lyndsey D'Arcangelo ("Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League")

The modern women’s pro game started modestly enough in 1967, when a Cleveland-based talent agent named Sid Friedman launched a barnstorming outfit known as the “Women’s Professional Football League” in which a team of women (eventually nine) toured the country playing men’s clubs in exhibitions and charity events – even as halftime entertainment at NFL and CFL games.

Frustrated by the lack of seriousness accorded their efforts, a number of breakaway players and teams bolted from Friedman's grip in 1974 to form a decidedly (and competitively) legit seven-team league; by 1976, the NWFL had ballooned to 14 franchises from coast-to-coast, including three in football-mad Texas – led by the “Herricanes” of Houston (our Episode 154 with filmmaker Olivia Kuan).

Though lacking sustainable budgets, major media coverage or appreciable crowds, the NWFL featured a passionate and determined breed of player – drawn to an unprecedented opportunity to play real men’s-style tackle football for pay and buttressed by an emerging progressive era of Title IX, the Equal Rights Amendment and rampant sports league entrepreneurialism.

D'Arcangelo and de la Cretaz share insight into this little-known but ultimately influential league, especially from the stories of its players - whose spirit, tenacity and simple "love for the game" helped set the template for the eventual mainstream arrival of women's pro sports in the decades that followed.

Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League - buy book here

EPISODE 237: Pro Sports in Atlanta - It's Complicated (With Clayton Trutor)

By the time you hear this week's episode, the Atlanta Braves just may be celebrating their second-ever World Series trophy since moving from Milwaukee in 1956. 

If so, it would be the team's first title in 26 years, and only the second time in the region's modern sports history - or fourth, if you include the titles won by the now-defunct NASL's Atlanta Chiefs in 1968 and Major League Soccer's Atlanta United three years ago - that "The ATL" has been able to boast of any true major pro sports championship. 

That kind of futility can make any sports fan question their sanity, and as this week's guest Clayton Trutor ("Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta―and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports") tells us - in Atlanta's case, that self-doubt dates all the way back to the mid-1970s when one of its major newspapers dubbed the city "Loserville, USA".

As Trutor describes it, Atlanta's excitement around the arrival of four professional franchises during a dynamic six-year (1966-72) period quickly gave way to general frustration and, eventually, widespread apathy toward its home teams.  By the dawn of the 80s, all four of the region's major-league franchises were flailing in the standings, struggling to draw fans - and, in the case of the NHL's Flames, ready to move out of town.

While that indifference/malaise has dissipated somewhat in the decades since then (save for a second attempt at the NHL with the short-lived Thrashers), the dearth of team titles continues to loom over Atlanta's pro sports scene.

The resurgent Braves and their paradigm-changing Truist Park complex may just help change all that.

Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta - And How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports - buy book here

EPISODE 233: “The NFL Today” - With Rich Podolsky

Veteran sportswriter and Sports Broadcast Journal columnist Rich Podolsky ("You Are Looking Live!: How 'The NFL Today' Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting") joins the pod this week for an inside look at the TV pregame show that modernized how America experiences nationally televised pro football.

While the concept of NFL pregame coverage dates back to the earliest days of the medium, it wasn't until 1974 that the format was produced live for the first time in full "wrap-around" fashion via the The NFL on CBS - with studio hosts Jack Whitaker and Lee Leonard providing pregame features, as well as halftime and postgame scores and highlights from around the league.

But it was during the following season - when CBS Sports producers hired up-and-coming play-by-play sportscaster Brent Musburger, former Miss America winner Phyllis George, and ex-Philadelphia Eagle player Irv Cross to anchor the proceedings - that things really got interesting. 

Three magnetic personalities from differing sports experiences and perspectives - soon joined by professional gambler Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder in 1976 - helped drive the now-renamed "The NFL Today" to must-watch status among both die-hard NFL fans and casual viewers alike.  And with it: sky-high ratings and Emmys for CBS' NFL coverage.

Along the way, headline-grabbing drama among the show's stars became commonplace - including George's shocking departure from the show in 1978 (replace briefly by former Miss Ohio USA Jayne Kennedy) and equally surprising return two years later; a post-show, bar-room fist-fight between Musburger and Snyder in 1980; and Snyder's infamous comments about Black athletes during a 1988 Martin Luther King Day interview that immediately ended his career.

You Are Looking Live!: How “The NFL Today” Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting - buy book here

EPISODE 228: Candlestick Park - With Steven Travers

Described as a "festive prison yard" by famed New Yorker baseball essayist Roger Angell during the 1962 World Series, San Francisco's famed Candlestick Park was equally loved and hated by sports teams and fans alike during its 43-year-long run as the dual home of baseball's Giants and the NFL's 49ers.

​Curiously (and perhaps illegally) built on a landfill ​atop​ a garbage dump ​at the edge of San Francisco Bay, the "'Stick"​ was notorious for ​its​ tornadic winds​, ​ominous fogs​​ ​and uncomfortably chilly temperatures - especially in its first decade as an open-facing, largely baseball-only park.

​Though fully enclosed in 1971 to accommodate the arrival of the football 49ers (replacing the stadium's grass surface with the more-dual-purpose Astroturf to boot), the aesthetics changed little - made worse by the elimination of the park's previously lovely view of San Francisco's downtown.

B​ut there were sports to ​be had. While the Giants only won two NL pennants during their time at Candlestick (despite some huge talent and multiple future Hall of Famers), the 49ers brought perennial playoff-caliber football to the venue - including five NFL titles and a record 36 appearances on ABC's "Monday Night Football" - before leaving for Santa Clara in 2014.

Sportswriter Steven Travers ("Remembering the Stick: Candlestick Par​k: ​1960–2013​")​ takes us back in time to recount the good, bad and downright bizarre of one of the Bay Area's most unique sports venues.

Remembering the Stick - Candlestick Park: 1960-2013 - buy book here

EPISODE 227: "Alliances Broken" - With Steven Potter

It's been more than two years since we last checked in on the spectacular flame-out of the Alliance of American Football back in April 2019 - enough time, perhaps, to begin the process of dissecting how something so fresh and innovatively promising went so speedily to hell in a hand-basket.

Documentary filmmaker Steven Potter ("Alliances Broken") joins this week's 'cast to discuss his brand new movie - the first extended look at the dramatic and ultimately catastrophic story arc of a league that seemingly had everything going for it (charismatic founder, solid venture investors, big-name coaches, pedigreed football administrators, national television contracts, even a supposedly ground-breaking mobile betting app) - until all of a sudden, it didn't.

Originally hired by the AAF's Orlando Apollos to help with video content creation and local market social media promotion, Potter unwittingly became an inside chronicler of a league that rapidly (and bizarrely) went from a legitimate beacon of hope for players looking to extend their chances at pro football careers to a gargantuan debacle that hundreds of former employees and a litany of creditors are still trying to process the ramifications of.

The evolving "history" of the Alliance is still relatively new, and Potter helps us get the first few chapters solidified while the memories of those who were there are still fresh.

Alliances Broken - rent or buy digital video here

EPISODE 224: "The Football Odyssey" - With Aron Harris (Vacation Special)

We're absconding for a few days of summer vacation this week - but not before taking time to sit down for a thoroughly enjoyable interview with pro football enthusiast and friend-of-the-show Aron Harris - as a guest on his popular Sports History Network podcast "The Football Odyssey."

Tim and Aron obsess about all things defunct football - including spring circuits of the past (and still); challenger league rules innovations; sharing stadiums with baseball - and of course, the incomparable and incomprehensible World Football League.

Please enjoy this conversation we recorded a few weeks back - and be sure to check out all the other great podcasts across the Sports History Network!

Check out “The Football Odyssey” here and here

Check out “Sports History Network” here

EPISODE 206: The Life & Teams of Johnny F. Bassett - With Denis Crawford

Youngstown State professor Denis Crawford ("The Life and Teams of Johnny F. Bassett: Maverick Entrepreneur of North American Sports") joins the 'cast for a jam-packed deep dive into the life of one of the most underrated, yet enormously influential pro sports figures of the 1970s/80s.

A third-generation scion of a prominent Canadian industrialist family steeped in both media and sports team ownership, John F. (Johnny) Bassett distinguished himself from his elders as a marketing-savvy showman with a P.T. Barnum-esque flair for spectacle and a penchant for challenging the traditional conventions of professional sports - notably with teams in leagues predicated on bucking the establishment:

  • The World Hockey Association's Toronto Toros and Birmingham Bulls;

  • The World Football League's Toronto Northmen/Memphis Southmen;

  • World Team Tennis' Toronto-Buffalo Royals; AND

  • The United States Football League's Tampa Bay Bandits

Through all his adventures, Bassett catered to the common fan, demanded fair treatment of athletes, and forced traditionalist sports owners to take hard looks at the way they did business.

Crawford helps us unpack some of Bassett's most notable escapades, including: a quixotic attempt to compete with the NHL's Maple Leafs; raiding the NFL for Miami Dolphins stars Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield; battling the Canadian government over American football; an audacious attempt at marketing pro hockey in the Deep South; and his bitter rivalry with a greedy Donald Trump for the soul of the USFL.

Support the show by downloading the DraftKings app NOW and using promo code GOODSEATS to join the free One Million Dollar College Hoops Survivor Pool!

The Life and Teams of Johnny F. Bassett: Maverick Entrepreneur of North American Sports - buy book here

EPISODE 196: Baltimore's "Ghosts of 33rd Street" - With Troy Lowman

Filmmaker and Maryland-native Troy Lowman ("The Ghosts of 33rd Street") helps us kick off the new year with a look back at the pro football franchise that still looms large over the city of Baltimore's sports exploits - the Colts.

While the Ravens have been carrying the region's modern-day NFL torch since their messy arrival/conversion from the original Cleveland Browns franchise in 1996, few residents of Charm City would dispute the deep roots and lasting contributions of the legendary club that preceded them from 1953-83 - including three memorable NFL championships and a Super Bowl [V] title.

Before surreptitiously absconding for the greener financial pastures of Indianapolis in the snow-whipped overnight/morning hours of March 28-29, 1984, the Colts had largely been the darlings of Baltimore sports fans for much of their 30 years - only to be undone by a long-festering brew of owner greed, stadium economics and political miscalculation.

Lowman helps us unravel the elongated story arc of the once-beloved Baltimore Colts franchise, why the club ultimately left, and how that which has replaced it since will never fully equal what once was.

Support the show by getting four free months of NordVPN when you use promo code GOODSEATS at checkout!

The Ghosts of 33rd Street - rent/buy film here