EPISODE 291: The Savannah Bananas - With Jesse Cole

We channel our inner yellow tuxedo this week for a revealing conversation with the inimitable minor league baseball impresario Jesse Cole - and a look into the phenomenon behind his ground-breaking Savannah Bananas franchise - as it migrates from its collegiate summer Coastal Plain League roots into an audacious (and already sold-out) cross-country barnstorming tour featuring its own wildly entertaining brand of "Banana Ball."

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PRE-ORDER Jesse Cole's new book (with Don Yaeger):​ ​​"​Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas​"​

BUY Jesse's inspirational best-sellers: "​Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience​"​ AND ​"​Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out​"​ NOW!

          

Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas - Pre-Order book here

Fans First: Change the Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience - Buy book here

Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful By Standing Out - Buy book here

EPISODE 288: Minor League & Independent League Baseball - With Miles Wolff

In 2014, Major League Baseball's Official Historian John Thorn and veteran baseball journalist Alan Schwarz published an authoritative and thought-provoking list of "Baseball’s 100 Most Important People​"​ - including more than its fair share of surprisingly influential figures.

Nestled between National Baseball Hall of Famers "Hammerin'" Hank Greenberg and "King" Kelly at number 79 on that list is this week's guest:

“More than anyone, Miles Wolff is responsible for the modern renaissance of minor-league baseball, as it emerged from the lean years of the 1960s and ’70s to the boom of the 1980s and ’90s. Wolff bought the Carolina League’s Durham Bulls for just $2,666 in 1979, nurtured it into a local success, and owned the franchise as it became a national symbol of the minor leagues after the release of the film ​"​Bull Durham​"​ in 1988. He sold the team in 1990 for $4 million just as the minors began to flourish again.

“A baseball purist at heart, Wolff grew frustrated at the money- and marketing-driven approach exhibited by the regular minor leagues, whose clubs were beholden to the major-league organizations to which they fed players. (Communities rarely got to know the best players, because they were promoted to the next level within three or sixth months.) So in 1993, Wolff re-established the Northern League, a circuit in the upper Midwest made up of teams that operated outside the sphere of Organized Baseball. The Northern League’s six clubs signed players — often minor-league veterans on their way down or overlooked collegians — to stock their rosters. The Northern League was an instant success and spawned imitators across the country.

“Wolff’s first baseball job came in 1971 as the general manager of the Double-A Savannah (Georgia) Braves, and he subsequently was a GM in Anderson, South Carolina., and Jacksonville, Florida.

“Wolff also owned Baseball America, the Durham-based magazine of the minor leagues, for most of its lifetime. He bought the magazine from founder Allan Simpson in 1982 and served as president and publisher until selling the company in 2000.”

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PRE-ORDER Miles Wolff's soon-to-be-released memoir​ "​There's a Bulldozer on Home Plate: A 50-Year Journey in Minor League Baseball​"​ AND/OR the upcoming final (4th) edition of the indispensable "Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball: A Complete Record of Teams, Leagues and Seasons, 1876-2019​" ​NOW!

There’s a Bulldozer on home Plate: A 50-Year Journey in Minor league Baseball - buy book here

The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball: A Complete Record of Teams, leagues and Seasons, 1876-2019 - buy book here

EPISODE 286: Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium - With the "Ground Crew"

​We're back from our extended Thanksgiving break with an inside look at the venerable sports venue that single-handedly elevated 1960s-era Atlanta to "major league" status, and cemented its place among the most important American cities.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium - known simply as "Atlanta Stadium" when it opened in 1965 - was the long-time home of Major League Baseball's Braves (1966-96), the National Football League's Falcons (1966-91), two incarnations of the North American Soccer League's Atlanta Chiefs, and college football's postseason Peach Bowl (1968-92).

And nobody knew its inner workings better than the facility's hard-working "ground crew" who tended to the whims and vicissitudes of the teams, players, owners, and even fans that called the stadium home for 30+ memorable years.

1970s stadium crew members Harvey Lee Frazier and David Fisher - along with "as-told-to" author Austin Gisriel ("Ground Crew Confidential") - join the podcast to share a bevy of little-known "behind-the scenes" memories of the facility that helped put Atlanta on the map - with the help of influential figures like Hank Aaron, Phil Woosnam, Ted Turner, the Beatles, and even high-wire great Karl Wallenda.

Ground Crew Confidential - buy book here

EPISODE 282: New York Baseball Stadiums of Yore - With Bob Carlin

Fans of Americana music may recognize the name Bob Carlin as one of the country's leading practitioners of the classic "clawhammer" style of banjo. His myriad recordings, historical writings and frequent performances across the US and around the world have won him plaudits from old-time banjo scholars and aficionados alike.

But when he's not downpicking in the studio or performing on stage, Carlin is likely to be found elsewhere on the road, obliging one of his life's other passions - chronicling the histories of North American "lost" baseball parks.

Carlin's new book, "New York's Great Lost Ballparks," gives us the perfect excuse to delve into both ends of the Empire State's (and the Big Apple's) sizable trove of past professional baseball diamonds - from the iconic and memorable (like the Bronx's original Yankee Stadium, and the four versions of Manhattan's fabled Polo Grounds), to upstate Binghamton's oft-forgotten Johnson Field (RIP: 1968), the decades-long home of the Parlor City's various minor league league teams (e.g., Bingos, Brooms and Triplets).

And, of course - everything in between!

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New York’s Great Lost Ballparks - buy book here

EPISODE 275: Kansas City As & Houston Colt .45s Memories - With Addie Beth Denton

As a young girl growing up in tiny, rural Throckmorton, Texas in the mid-1950s, memoirist Addie Beth Denton ("108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up With Baseball") had only a vague understanding of what her father and uncle did for a living - except that they seemed to always be talking about baseball.

Only as she grew older did she come to realize all that discussion - not to mention her bevy of annual summertime excursions to professional parks all over the country - was much more than just a passing family curiosity.

In fact, she discovered that her uncle Harry Craft had not only been a respectable big-league outfielder with the Cincinnati Reds for nearly six seasons (1937-42) before joining the Navy in the war effort - but was now in the midst of a fledgling managerial career that saw him skippering numerous New York Yankees farm clubs, as well as two of the majors' newest: the 1955 Kansas City As (relocated from Philadelphia) and the 1962 expansion Houston Colt .45s.

Along the way, Denton recalls innumerable childhood brushes with baseball greatness - Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Billy Martin, Rusty Staub - all of whom credited Craft for his valuable tutelage during their careers.  

And unwittingly willed a lifetime of memories and love for the game for a certain Texas farm girl.

108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up With Baseball - buy book here

EPISODE 272: "A League of Their Own" - With Desta Tedros Reff

We spotlight the new Amazon Prime Video series "A League of Their Own" - an inventively reimagined telling of the story of the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (and originally made famous in the 1992 Penny Marshall-directed motion picture of the same name) - with writer and executive producer Desta Tedros Reff.

Decidedly more "dramedy" in tone than the comedic approach of the namesake film (or even its short-lived, lesser-remembered CBS-TV primetime sitcom spinoff the following year), the new League still builds its rich storyline around the AAGPBL's four-time champion Rockford (IL) Peaches - while notably incorporating race and gender identity themes not previously addressed (or even acknowledged) in the original.

Tedros Reff takes us inside the myriad of challenges behind the making of the series, including: the persistent curveballs thrown by COVID-era production scheduling; the purposeful approach to historical accuracy (yes, various scenes were shot in Rockford); and the obvious, but important risks of reframing the lighthearted plot of a modern-day film classic into an authentic narrative befitting the true legacy of the league's pioneering women players.

“A League of Their Own” - watch on Prime Video here

EPISODE 271: Minor League Baseball's "Grinders" - With Mike Capps

Life has come full circle for TV news reporter-turned-Triple-A baseball play-by-play broadcaster Mike Capps ("Grinders: Baseball's Intrepid Infantry") - now the longtime radio voice of the Pacific Coast League's Round Rock Express.

As a kid in early-1960s North Texas, Capps grew up immersed in the exploits of Dallas-Fort Worth's minor league Rangers, Cats and Spurs - intrigued by rotating rosters of determined pay-your-dues hopefuls bouncing up and down between baseball's majors and minors - players his grandfather called the "engine" of the sport.

After an intense award-winning professional career covering hard news for local Metroplex TV stations and early 1990s Gulf War-era CNN, Capps found solace and renewed purpose in those early childhood memories of the "grinders" of the game he fell in love with - reinventing himself in their mold into a second post-journalism work life as an (also) award-winning baseball play-by-play man for minor-league clubs in outposts like Tyler, TX (the former Texas-Louisiana League WildCatters), Sioux Falls, SD (Canaries), Atlantic City, NJ (the former Atlantic League Surf), and Nashville (Sounds).

By 2000, Capps' press box grinding paid off with an offer by Nolan Ryan to help inaugurate suburban Austin's expansion Express as its radio voice and director of broadcasting - a run that's lasted some 3000+ games (and counting).

     

Grinders: Baseball’s Intrepid Infantry - buy book here

The Scout: An Insider’s of Professional Baseball In Its Glory Days - buy book here

EPISODE 268: Behind the Scenes - With Charlie Evranian

Chicago sports fans of a certain age may remember the name Charles Evranian atop the masthead of the executive suite (behind inimitable owner Lee Stern, of course) of the 1981 outdoor version of the North American Soccer League's Chicago Sting - when that club delivered the first major pro championship to the Windy City since 1963's NFL Bears.

(Not to mention the team's first two barn-burning indoor NASL seasons at the former "Madhouse on Madison".)

But Evranian's time leading the Sting of the early 1980s was merely a brief mile-marker along a fascinatingly peripatetic 20+ year journey across a litany of (mostly forgotten) teams and leagues in both the majors and minors of professional sports management - laden with unbelievable twists and turns that only a podcast of a certain genre could love.

Charlie takes us on a wild ride alongside the likes of legendary front office figures like Bill Veeck, Ted Turner, Pat Williams, and Earl Foreman - for memorable stops including:

• leading baseball's Class A Greenwood (SC) Braves to two league championships;

• co-founding AHL hockey's minor league Richmond Robins;

• reinventing the mid-70s' Chicago White Sox; AND

• cleaning up an endless array of messes as the Major Indoor Soccer League's deputy commissioner.

EPISODE 264: Baseball's Union Association - With Justin Mckinney

Society for American Baseball Research historian/chronicler Justin Mckinney (Baseball's Union Association: The Short, Strange Life of a 19th-Century Major League) joins the podcast this week to weigh in on the debate that continues to swirl around baseball's curious one-season Union Association - namely, was it a truly major league?

As first broached in our Episode 73 with Jon Springer, the National League was less than a decade old back in 1884, and the rival American Association, which had been established two years earlier, was nipping at its heels. "Organized Baseball" had just been formed to help codify the still-gestating professional version of the game.

​But when a maverick millionaire and spurned team-owner aspirant named Henry Lucas established a new third major league that year - the Union Association - the pro game erupted into chaos.

​Come for the pennant-winning St. Louis Maroons (who won 94 of their 113 regular season games, and bested the second-place Cincinnati Outlaw Reds by a whopping 21 games), but stay for the litany of replacement teams (e.g., Wilmington Quicksteps, St. Paul Saints, Altoona Mountain Citys, Kansas City Cowboys, etc.) that folded just as soon as they arrived.

Baseball;s Union Association: The Short, Strange Life of a 19th-Century Major League - buy book here

EPISODE 261: Baseball's Most Unlikely Hall of Famer? - With Tom Alesia

"Dave Bancroft should not be in the Hall of Fame."

That's how this week's guest Tom Alesia's new book "Beauty at Short: Dave Bancroft, the Most Unlikely Hall of Famer and His Wild Times in Baseball's First Century" starts - a curious way to begin the first (and only) biography of one of Cooperstown's most underappreciated inductees.

A competent, if not unremarkable major league shortstop (Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants, Boston Braves, Brooklyn Robins), and manager (Braves; All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Chicago Colleens, South Bend Blue Sox) - Bancroft was well short on statistical credentials (e.g., .279 lifetime batting average; just 32 career HRs; .406 managerial winning percentage) to warrant obvious inclusion.

But his solid play with the two-time World Series winning Giants in the early 1920s came in handy when two of his fellow players from those teams - Bill Terry and Frankie Frisch - became influential members of the Hall's Veterans' Committee in the late 1960s, and squinted hard to tap their collegial teammate for induction in 1971.

Part of a stable of early 1970s enshrinees labeled as Terry and Frisch "Giant cronies" (e.g., Jessie Haines, Chick Hafey, Ross Youngs, George Kelly, Jim Bottemley, Freddie Lindstrom), Bancroft was nonetheless one of his era's more prominent and popular figures - a "player's player," both on and off the field.

By the end of this conversation with Alesia, you'll understand why Bancroft's membership in the Hall of Fame actually makes sense.

Beauty at Short: Dave Bancroft, the Most Unlikely Hall of Famer and His Wild Times in Baseball’s First Century - buy book here

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 254: American League Baseball Expansion/Relocation History - With Andy McCue

Long-time Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) contributor and "Mover and Shaker: Walter O'Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball's Westward Expansion" author Andy McCue joins the podcast to discuss his provocative new book "Stumbling Around the Bases" - a persuasive account of the American League's consistently haphazard approach to expansion and franchise relocation during baseball's modern era:

​"​From the late 1950s to the 1980s, baseball’s American League mismanaged integration and expansion, allowing the National League to forge ahead in attendance and prestige. While both leagues had executive structures that presented few barriers to individual team owners acting purely in their own interests, it was the American League that succumbed to infighting—which ultimately led to its disappearance into what we now call Major League Baseball. "Stumbling Around the Bases" is the story of how the American League fell into such a disastrous state, struggling for decades to escape its nadir and, when it finally righted itself, losing its independence.

​"​The American League’s trip to the bottom involved bad decisions by both individual teams and their owners. The key elements were a glacial approach to integration, the choice of underfinanced or disruptive new owners, and a consistent inability to choose the better markets among cities that were available for expansion. The American League wound up with less-attractive teams in the smaller markets compared to the National League—and thus fewer consumers of tickets, parking, beer, hot dogs, scorecards, and replica jerseys.

​"​The errors of the American League owners were rooted in missed cultural and demographic shifts and exacerbated by reactive decisions that hurt as much as helped their interests. Though the owners were men who were notably successful in their non-baseball business ventures, success in insurance, pizza, food processing, and real estate development, didn’t necessarily translate into running a flourishing baseball league. In the end the National League was simply better at recognizing its collective interests, screening its owners, and recognizing the markets that had long-term potential.​"​

     

Stumbling around the Bases: The American League’s Mismanagement in the Expansion Eras - buy book here

Mover and Shaker: Walter O'Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball's Westward Expansion - buy book here

EPISODE 252: "A False Spring" - With Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut where, in the mid-1950s, he became a highly pursued pro baseball prospect as a young pitching phenom in local Little League and as a high school ace at Fairfield Prep.

On July 9, 1959, after being pursued by more than a dozen Major League Baseball organizations (MLB's first amateur draft didn't start until 1965), Jordan signed a then-record $36,000 "bonus baby" bounty to join the National League's Milwaukee Braves - where he reported to the McCook Braves of the Class D Nebraska State League, playing alongside future big leaguers Phil Niekro and Joe Torre.

Despite being one of the minors' hardest-throwing pitchers at the time, Jordan floundered through three seasons across obscure Braves posts such as Waycross (GA), Davenport (IA), Eau Claire (WI) and Palatka (FL), and by the end of 1961, was out of the game for good - a victim of injury, hubris and the realities of adulthood.

Baseball's loss was ultimately sports journalism's gain, as Jordan pivoted hard into a prolific, long-form, non-fiction writing career that began in earnest with the publishing of 1975's clear-eyed memoir "A False Spring" - which Time magazine called “one of the best and truest books about baseball, and about coming to maturity in America,” and Sports Illustrated has consistently listed as one of the best sports books of all time.

Like his brusque, straight-ahead writing style, Jordan holds back nothing in this wide-ranging conversation - featuring a multitude of stories featuring some of modern-day sports' most fascinating characters such as softballer Joan Joyce, Tom Seaver ("Tom Seaver and Me"), pro volleyballer/hoopster Mary Jo Peppler ("Broken Patterns"), Wilt Chamberlain, Renee Richards, and even the 56-year-old version of himself attempting a comeback with the the independent Northeast League's Waterbury Spirit in 1997 ("A Nice Tuesday: A Memoir").

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

               

A False Spring - buy book here

Tom Seaver and Me - buy book here

Broken Patterns - buy book here

A Nice Tuesday: A Memoir - buy book here

EPISODE 247: The St. Louis Browns - With Ed Wheatley

After hiding in plain sight for the better part of five years, we finally take an initial swing at the deeply fascinating story of baseball's original "lovable losers" - the St. Louis Browns.

St. Louis native and keeper of the flame Ed Wheatley ("St. Louis Browns: The Story of a Beloved Team" & "Baseball in St. Louis: From Little Leagues to Major Leagues") knows a thing or two about this most forlorn, but curiously beloved American League franchise of yore (1902-53); as the President of the St. Louis Browns Historical Society, it is his passion and duty to burnish the memory and celebrate the contributions of the Brownies - despite its half-century of mostly forgettable on-field performance.

Before organized baseball forced then-owner Bill Veeck to sell the club to a Baltimore syndicate in 1953 to ultimately become today's similarly lamentable Orioles, the Browns battled the cross-town Cardinals for St. Louis' baseball attention - often at the city's venerable Sportsman's Park, which they both claimed as home for the better part of 30 years, including an all-St. Louis World Series in 1944 (won, of course, by the Redbirds).

Despite only one playoff appearance in 52 seasons ("First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League"), the Browns still had their share of fans, as well as some of baseball's most memorable characters - like Branch Rickey (as a player, manager and even GM), Hall of Famers "Gorgeous” George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby, one-armed utility outfielder Pete Gray, and, of course, the one-at-bat wonder of 3-foot, 7-inch Eddie Gaedel.

     

St. Louis Browns: The Story of a Beloved Team - buy book here

Baseball in St. Louis Browns: From Little Leagues to Major Leagues - buy book here

EPISODE 245: Integrating the Negro Leagues - With Sean Forman

We geek out this week with Sports Reference, LLC founder and president Sean Forman ("The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition") for an inside look into the complex and detailed process of integrating the statistics of the recently elevated Negro Leagues into the official records of Major League Baseball.

Advocated for decades by countless baseball researchers and historians - and buoyed by MLB's long-overdue proclamation in December 2020 that seven of Black baseball's segregated professional leagues between 1920-1948 finally deserved "major league" status - the incorporation of Negro League player data into the sport's overall statistical record has been both swift and meticuluos.

Forman talks us through how the company's vaunted Baseball Reference team partnered with Negro League stats specialist Seamheads.com to onboard and combine data from the Negro National League (I) (1920–1931); the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928); the American Negro League (1929); the East-West League (1932); the Negro Southern League (1932); the Negro National League (II) (1933–1948); and the Negro American League (1937–1948).

And how the process will remain iterative for some time to come.

The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition - 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 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 231: The 1956 Los Angeles Angels - With Gaylon White

We revisit LA's spirited pre-majors Pacific Coast League rivalry (begun in Episode 208: The Hollywood Stars - With Dan Taylor) with a look at the team ultimately responsible for the demise of both - the Los Angeles Angels.

Baseball author Gaylon White (“The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels”) helps us set the table for the club’s background story as the city’s preeminent minor league baseball franchise - seen through the lens of its triumphant pennant-winning season of 1956, its penultimate before the National League’s Dodgers took over town.

Comprised of major league castoffs and unproven rookies, the Angels that season were centered around a bulky, beer-loving basher of home runs named Steve Bilko - a former St. Louis Cardinal whose headline-grabbing exploits at the plate led the PCL in eight different categories and the club to a dominating 107-61 record - 16 games ahead of their nearest challenger.

In addition to earning national Minor League Player of the Year honors that season, Bilko also became an instant celebrity in Los Angeles - earning as much (if not more) than some of his better-known major league colleagues, as well as unwitting fame the eponymous lead character for of the Emmy Award-winning Phil Silvers Show.

When the Angels and the Stars left town in 1958, so did Bilko - this time for a few more cups of coffee in the bigs, including, ironically, the first two seasons of the major (AL) league expansion version of the Angels in 1961-62 - the inaugural season of which was played in the same Wrigley Field that housed him and its predecessor.

The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels - buy book here

EPISODE 229: US Soccer's First Pro Leagues - With Brian Bunk

Quiz any fan of soccer in the US as to the origin of the professional game on American soil, and you're likely to get a myriad of answers - usually rooted in generational identity.

​If you're under 30, the 1996 launch of Major League Soccer looks like a logical starting point - 25 years old, 29 teams strong, and dozens of soccer-specific stadiums befitting a "major" sports league.

Older MLS fans in places like Seattle, Portland, and San Jose point out the original versions of their current clubs being domiciled in something called the North American Soccer League - which featured a bevy of international stars and drew huge crowds in the late 1970s/early 1980s as the then-"sport of the future."

Others with longer memories (and often soccer-playing lineages) will recall the decades-long, ethnically-flavored heartbeat of the sport known as the American Soccer League - dating back to 1933, or even 1921, depending on your guideposts.

But, as soccer historian Dr. Brian Bunk ("From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States") reveals to us this week, the true birth of the pro game dates all the way back to 1894 - when not one, but two leagues sought to bring England's popular fast-growing sport to the colonies - introduced (interestingly) with the financial backing and operational resources of baseball's National League.

From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States - 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