EPISODE 325: Pro Tennis' Polychromatic 1970s - With Joel Drucker

Veteran Tennis.com writer, Racquet Magazine columnist & "Three - A Tennis Show" podcast host Joel Drucker ("Jimmy Connors Saved My Life") stops by to drop some serious knowledge on how the decade of the 1970s transformed the sport of professional tennis into the global juggernaut it is today - including pivotal turning points such as:

• The groundbreaking World Championship Tennis (WCT) and Virginia Slims Circuit tours that brought standardized scheduling, big-time media exposure and unprecedented prize money to both the men's and women's pro games for the first time;

• 1973's paradigm-shifting intergender "Battle of the Sexes" competition between inveterate hustler Bobby Riggs and female icon Billie Jean King - an international spectacle whose result both transcended tennis and changed the face of American sports; and

• World Team Tennis - the innovative, ahead-of-its-time rethink of how the pro game could be played - featuring city-domiciled, co-ed, team-oriented match play on colorful playing surfaces in front of raucous crowds in major indoor arenas from coast to coast.

Jimmy Connors Saved My Life: A Personal Biography -  buy book here

EPISODE 324: Football's Enigmatic Coach George Allen - With Mike Richman

Football biographer Mike Richman ("George Allen: A Football Life") joins us for a decades-long journey back into the old-school NFL (and USFL) exploits of one of pro football's most intense and enigmatic sideline characters.

From the dust-jacket of "A Football Life":

"George Allen was a fascinating and eccentric figure in the world of football coaching. His remarkable career spanned six decades, from the late 1940s until his sudden death in 1990 at the age of seventy-three. Although he never won a Super Bowl, he never had a losing season as an NFL head coach and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002.

"In 'George Allen: A Football Life', Mike Richman captures the life and accomplishments of one of the most successful NFL coaches of all time and one of the greatest innovators in the game. A player’s coach, Allen was a tremendous motivator and game strategist, as well as a defensive mastermind, and is credited with making special teams a critical focus in an era in which they were an afterthought. He had a keen eye for talent and pulled off masterful trades, often for veteran players who were viewed to be past their prime, who then had great seasons and made his teams much better.

"In addition to his coaching feats, Allen had an idiosyncratic and controversial personality. His life revolved around football 24/7. One of his quirks was to minimize chewing time by consuming soft foods, giving himself more time to prepare for games and study opponents. He lived and breathed football; he compared losing to death. Allen had contentious relationships with the owners of the two NFL teams for which he was the head coach, the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams. Richman explores why he was fired by those teams and whether he was blackballed from coaching again in the NFL."

George Allen: A Football Life -  buy book here

EPISODE 323: Play-By-Play Pioneer Marty Glickman - With Jeffrey Gurock

It's an episode that's hopefully as "Good! Like Nedicks!" - as we take a biographical look back at the rich and influential life of pioneering New York City sports broadcaster Marty Glickman - with biographer/Yeshiva University history professor Jeffrey Gurock ("Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend").

From the "Marty Glickman" dustjacket:

"For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, and many of today’s most famous sportscasters were Glickman disciples. To this very day, many fans who grew up listening to his coverage of Knicks basketball and Giants football games, among the myriad of events that Glickman covered, recall fondly, and can still recite, his descriptions of actions in arenas and stadiums.

"In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. This lively biography details this traumatic event and explores not only how he coped for decades with that painful rejection but also examines how he dealt with other anti-Semitic and cultural obstacles that threatened to stymie his career. Glickman’s story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement."

          

Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend -  buy book here

Glickman -  buy DVD here

Sports on New York Radio: A Play-By-Play History -  buy book here

EPISODE 322: The New York Cosmos' "Pelé Years" - With Charles Cuttone

Veteran New York-based sports writer/public relations pro Charles Cuttone has seen just about everything in his nearly 50 years of promoting professional sports across the Gotham sports scene - dating all the way back to 1974 as a fresh-faced elementary school intern with the World Football League's ill-fated New York Stars.

While the WFL gig (and team, for that matter) didn't last long, it was his next experience that following spring - with a rag-tag but ambitious pro soccer outfit called the New York Cosmos - that both solidified a budding career interest in sports PR, and yielded a ring-side seat to one of the most indelible stories in 1970s sports history.

In his new book "Pelé, His North American Years: A Tribute" - visually co-created with the exquisite imagery of legendary sports photographer George Tiedemann - Cuttone recounts the three-season, two-and-a-half-year phenomenon known as Pelé - and how the world's then-greatest player (and arguably, most famous athlete) transformed not only a earnest club and its backwater league, but also a "foreign" game into the mainstream consciousness of American sports.

Pelé, His North American Years: A Tribute -  buy book here

EPISODE 321: The 1970s - With Michael MacCambridge

After an absence of over six years and more than 300+ episodes, sportswriter extraordinaire Michael MacCambridge ("Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports"; "America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation"; "Chuck Noll: His Life's Work") makes his triumphant return to the podcast - this time to celebrate the release of his brand new, instant sports history classic, "The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America."

It's just about everything you'd expect from the author of what is arguably the most definitive look yet at the decade that undeniably shaped the modern trajectory of sports in America - including (of course) a bevy of challenger leagues, defunct teams, one-of-a-kind events that only the Seventies could produce!

The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America -  buy book here

EPISODE 320: Fox Sports/MSG Networks Broadcaster Kenny Albert

Veteran Fox Sports and MSG Networks play-by-play man Kenny Albert ("A Mic for All Seasons") joins host Tim Hanlon for a cornucopia of career memories from his 30+ year journey in sports broadcasting – including, of course, obligatory stops along the way for various "forgotten" teams, events and even TV networks of yore.

Now celebrating his third decade with Fox, the Emmy Award-winning Albert has regularly called Sunday games for every season of the network's NFL coverage - as well as for its telecasts of Major League Baseball, college football, boxing, thoroughbred horse racing, and (between 1995-99) NHL hockey.

Simultaneously, the versatile Albert has been a fixture in New York local sports broadcasting as a regular TV and radio voice for the NHL Rangers and the NBA Knicks for MSG Networks - and is the lead play-by-play hockey announcer for TNT's national NHL broadcast package.

If that weren't enough, Albert has been a regular broadcast presence for NBC's network coverage of the Winter (since 2002) and Summer (since 2016) Olympics, and, since 2010, lead-announces Washington Commanders preseason NFL games on local DC television.

Despite all of those marquee assignments, we (naturally) obsess over some of Albert’s more memorable “forgotten” gigs along the way, including:

• College moonlighting with the United States Basketball League's (USBL) Staten Island Stallions;

• Fight song memories of the American Hockey League's Baltimore Skipjacks;

• His first "jacket" with DC's original regional sports network, Home Team Sports;

• Following the NHL national broadcast puck across a litany of now-defunct TV networks like Outdoor Life Network, Versus & NBC Sports Network; AND

• The national record for live play-by-play sportscasts in 3-D!

A Mic for all Seasons: My Three Decades Announcing the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and the Olympics - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 319: The 1994-95 Baseball Players' Strike - With Bob Cottrell

We explore the traumatic events of Major League Baseball's notorious 1994-95 players' strike - with Chico State history professor Bob Cottrell ("The Year Without a World Series: Major League Baseball and the Road to the 1994 Players' Strike").

More than 900 regular season games, the entirety of the playoffs, and, for the first time in 90 years, the sport's signature World Series - were all lost to the work stoppage, which began on August 12, 1994.  

The strike ended late into the 1995 preseason, when then-US District Court judge Sonia Sotomayor granted an injunction sought by the players' association to prevent club owners from using replacement players.  The ruling forced both sides to come to an agreement, and regular-season play resumed with a delayed and truncated 144-game schedule at the end of April. (Ironically, MLB umpires decided to go on strike just as the two sides settled their dispute, so the 1995 season opened with regular players - but replacement umpires!)

Among the strike's biggest victims (besides the fans!):

• The Montreal Expos had the best record in baseball when the strike was called in 1994. They were forced to dismantle their expensive squad in a fire sale before the 1995 season, a decision that ultimately led to the franchise's relocation within a decade.

• Tony Gwynn missed his best chance to achieve a .400 batting average in 1994. He was hitting .394 for the season and had maintained a .417 pace in the 25 games leading up to the suspension of play.

• Matt Williams had a legitimate opportunity to break Roger Maris' single-season home run record of 61 in 1994. Williams had hit 43 home runs when the strike halted the season, ending his pursuit of the record.

• The Colorado Rockies, in their final season at Mile High Stadium in 1994, were drawing impressive crowds, averaging 57,570 fans per game. They were on track to potentially break baseball's attendance record of 4.48 million, set by the team the previous year.

• Michael Jordan, known for his basketball career, was playing for the Double-A affiliate Birmingham Barons when the MLB strike began in 1994. There was speculation that he might have been given the opportunity to play for the Chicago White Sox, his major league parent team, that September if the strike had not occurred.

The strike also marked the end of the "independent Commissioner" era, as the owners, hesitant to contend with an arbiter who might challenge their unwavering stances, opted to appoint one of their own, Bud Selig, as acting Commissioner.

the Year Without A World Series: Major League Baseball and the Road to the 1994 Players’ Strike - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 318: The WHA & Original NHL Winnipeg Jets - With Geoff Kirbyson

We head "True North" to the Canadian province of Manitoba this week in search of heretofore undiscovered historical nuggets from the WHA and original NHL versions of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with veteran journalist/author Geoff Kirbyson.

Kirbyson's accounts of the Jets' early years in the revolutionary World Hockey Association from 1972-79 ("The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness"), and the club's original 17 seasons in the National Hockey League from 1979-96 ("Broken Ribs and Popcorn: How the Winnipeg Jets became the best team in the NHL's most offensive era to not win the Stanley Cup"), are must-reads for fans of either incarnation of the original team - and even for curious Arizona Coyotes or current-generation Jets (née Atlanta Thrashers) followers befuddled by the NHL's "official" history. 

     

The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness - Buy Book Here

Broken Ribs and Popcorn: How the Winnipeg Jets became the best team in the NHL's most offensive era to not win the Stanley Cup - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 317: Before the NFL - With Gregg Ficery

The National Football League is back in full swing, and what better way to celebrate than with a deep dig into the primordial ooze from which it and the broader endeavor of professional football evolved - with Gregg Ficery, author of the new and immediately essential tome "Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football's Missing Origin Story."

From the revelatory new book's dust jacket:

Professional football's backstory was lost, until now. In the beginning, in 1892, pro football was born. Then it effectively died in infamy in 1906. It was resurrected nearly a decade later and soon became the American Professional Football Association in 1920 (renamed the National Football League in 1922). Few are even familiar with the basics of the historical narrative: the star players, the rivalries, and the game's brutality.

After its infancy in Pennsylvania, fanatic passion and media hype started exploding around the country for the greatest teams ever assembled in what became known as the Ohio League. More suddenly, the league died because of a gambling scandal. Nobody has ever been sure who was behind it or who were the heroes who saved the game. Careers and lives were ruined, and the game's legacy was left suspended in time without resolution. As of the NFL's 100th anniversary, nobody knows the true narrative that led up to its founding. Gridiron Legacy brings the story to light for the first time with a treasure trove of new research and never-before-published photographs from the career of one of the game's early champions. It is the greatest sports story never told.

Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football’s Missing Origin Story - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 316: “A League of Their Own” - With Erin Carlson

Hollywood history maven Erin Carlson ("No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of "A League of Their Own": Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood") stops by the podcast to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic motion picture that comically (and lovingly) brought the largely forgotten story of the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to the big screen - simultaneously preserving and making history in the process.

No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of “A League of Their Own” - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 315: The Junior Basketball Association - With Brandon Williams

While the NCAA is still the predominant pipeline for rookie basketball talent looking to break into pro hoops, the 2023 NBA Draft showed just how far legitimate alternate pathways have come - especially for eager high school players unwilling (or unable) to go the traditional college route.

Three of this year's top-five first-round picks came from two relatively new entities - Overtime Elite (brothers Amen [4th overall, Houston Rockets] & Ausar [5th, Detroit Pistons] Thompson); and NBA G League Ignite (Scoot Henderson [3rd, Portland Trail Blazers]) - with three others from Ignite chosen in Round Two.

Neither is more than three years old, yet their collective impact on professional player development has been immediate and undeniable.  But they weren't the first to attempt the model.

Brandon Williams ("The JBA League: A League of Our Own") joins the pod this week to both explain and dissect the inner workings of the true pioneer of the college-alternative route - 2018's Junior Basketball Association - the brainchild of Lonzo/LiAngelo/LaMelo-sired and Big Baller Brand founder/impresario LaVar Ball.

The JBA League: A League of Our Own - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 314: The UK (Hearts) the NFL - With Ben Isaacs

Domestically, American football has never been more popular (or prosperous)  than it is today - yet questions continue to circle among the ownership class of the NFL as to how the pro game can continue to grow outside the confines of its current 32-team franchise structure.  

While the feasibility of pursuing more club expansion within the US is hotly debated, there is no denying that the true future of the league's fortunes rests on its ability to more reliably tap into the massive fan fervor for pro pigskin building in international markets.

Ben Issacs ("The American Football Revolution: How Britain Fell in Love with the NFL") makes the case that the UK might be one of the most logical regions to put on the league's shortlist - buttressed by a surprisingly strong history of interest in and support for the game - especially in London, where nearly three dozen regular season games have been played since 2007.

In fact, the British Isles have been fascinated with American football for much longer than that - and Isaacs takes us through some of the evidence, including: the NFL's American Bowl pre-season exhibition series during the 1980s; the post-season 1984 USFL Wembley Stadium matchup between the champion Philadelphia Stars and the Burt Reynolda/Tim Bassett-owned Tampa Bay Bandits (for the long-forgotten "Jetsave Challenge Cup"); the ill-fated league-sponsored World League of American Football (with the 1991 World Bowl champion London Monarchs); and the reconstituted NFL Europe/Europa and its still-revered Scottish Claymores.

The American Football Revolution: How Britain Fell in Love with the NFL - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 313: The NFL's Minneapolis Marines & Red Jackets - With R. C. Christiansen

We discover the story of the Twin Cities' forgotten, but undeniably first, NFL franchise(s) with the help of football writer/historian R. C. Christiansen ("Mill City Scrum: The History of Minnesota's First Team in the National Football League").

From the "Mill City Scrum" book jacket:

"In the flour milling city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group of first-generation American teenagers team up to play football in the sandlots. They call themselves the Marines, and with no high school or college experience, they learn to dominate their opponents using the same offense as the University of Minnesota Gophers. 

"The Marines later emerge as an independent professional team, and they claim city, state, and regional championship titles, but World War I sends Marines players across the globe. When they return, the Marines face player defections, bad publicity, and low fan support. 

"A former player and team captain and the manager of the Marines decides to bet his own fortune and the team’s future on a new National Football League. The Minneapolis Marines, later named the Minneapolis Red Jackets, play six years in the NFL and leave their mark on the history of pro football in Minnesota.

"Long before Minnesota had the Minnesota Vikings, they had the Minneapolis Marines."

     

Mill City Scrum: The History of Minnesota’s First in the National Football League - Buy Book Here

Border Boys: How Americans from border colleges helped western canada win a football championship - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 312: The Vancouver Grizzlies - With Kat Jayme

Younger fans of today's Memphis Grizzlies can be forgiven for thinking the NBA franchise has spent the entirety of its 28-year existence playing its still-evolving brand of pro hoops in the FedExForum.

But this week's guest - documentary filmmaker and Vancouver, BC native Kat Jayme ("The Grizzlie Truth;" "Finding Big Country") - is here to remind us that the "Grizz" actually got its start as one of two 1995 Canadian expansion teams (the other: the still-vibrant Toronto Raptors), scratching out its initial six seasons of chaotic existence in Cascadia country.

Despite five coaches, a woeful .219 winning percentage, a raft of questionable draft picks, and an economically challenging US/Canadian exchange rate - Jayme fondly remembers a team from her late 1990s youth which Vancouver embraced with unbridled enthusiasm - yet wonders not only why they left GM Place for Beale Street, but also what might have been had they stayed put in Rain City.

The Grizzlie Truth - Watch Trailer Here

Finding Big Country - Watch Trailer Here

Finding Big Country - Stream Full Movie Here

EPISODE 311: Bob Whitsitt

From groundbreaking trades to team-saving negotiations, Bob Whitsitt ("Game Changer: An Insider's Story of the Sonics’ Resurgence, the Trail Blazers’ Turnaround, and the Deal that Saved the Seahawks") has been in the captain's seat for some of the most pivotal moments in Pacific Northwest pro sports franchise history.

But before helping rebuild Seattle's SuperSonics into an NBA Finals team in the mid-90s, tame the combustible personalities of the late 90s/early 2000s Portland Trail Blazers, and oversee the development of soccer-inclusive Seahawks Stadium (now Lumen Field) - "Trader Bob" cut his professional sports management teeth as an intern-turned-exec with the fledgling post-ABA Indiana Pacers, as well as a stabilizing behind-the-scenes front office force that guided a tenuous Kansas City Kings NBA club to a new home in Sacramento in the mid-80s.

In this first installment of an eventual two-parter, we grill Whitsitt on his early days climbing the sports exec ladder, and set the table for his eventual "game-changing" work in Cascadia country.

Game Changer: An Insider’s Story of the Sonics’ Resurgence, the Trail Blazers’ Turnaround, and the Deal that Saved the Seahawks - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 310: "Mallparks" - With Michael Friedman

University of Maryland physical cultural studies professor Michael Friedman ("Mallparks: Baseball Stadiums and the Culture of Consumption") cozies up to the pod machine this week for a thinking man's look into the evolution of the grand old American ballpark - and a provocative thesis of how designers of this generation of baseball stadiums are embracing theme park and shopping mall design to prioritize commerce and consumption over the game played inside them.

Mallparks: Baseball Stadiums and the Culture of Consumption - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 309: Minor League Monikers - With Tim Hagerty

El Paso Chihuahuas Triple-A baseball play-by-play broadcaster Tim Hagerty ("Root for the Home Team: Minor League Baseball's Most Off-the-Wall Team Names and the Stories Behind Them" and "Tales from the Dugout: 1,001 Humorous, Inspirational and Wild Anecdotes from Minor League Baseball") joins the show this week to spotlight some of the most memorable names and events in "forgotten" minor league history.

When Hagerty isn't calling games for the San Diego Padres top minor league affiliate, he can usually be found digging deep down a variety of research rabbit holes, in a never-ending quest to refine his encyclopedic "double-asterisk" knowledge of baseball factoids and historical lore.

For us, it's a callback to minor-league teams of yore like the: Tucson Toros, Huntsville Stars, Mobile (AL) BayBears, Portland Beavers, Hutchinson Salt Packers, Ilion (NY) Typewriters, Montpelier (VT) Goldfish, Kalamazoo Celery Pickers, Saskatoon Berrypickers, Greenville (MS) Cotton Pickers, Porterville (CA) Orange Pickers, New Orleans Baby Cakes, New Orleans Pelicans, Midland (TX) Cubs, Texarkana (TX & AR!) Casket Makers, Agua Prieta (Sonora, MX & Douglas, AZ!) Charros, Corsicana (TX) Oil Citys, Bluefield (WV) Blue Jays, Princeton (WV) Rays, and Pittsfield (MA) Astros - among others.

And, of course, we get Hagerty's take on the current state of MiLB, now that Major League Baseball is fully in charge - and where it's likely headed in the years to come.

          

Tales From the Dugout: 1,001 Humorous, Inspirational & Wild Anecdotes from Minor League Baseball - Buy Book Here

Root for the Home Team: Minor League Baseball’s Most Off-the-Wall Team Names and the stories behind them - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 308: Soccer Sojourns - With Thomas Rongen

American followers of the "beautiful game" undoubtedly know the name Thomas Rongen - but can easily be forgiven for not remembering just exactly how.

Of course, there's his current color commentary work for today's Major League Soccer Inter Miami CF - but fans of a certain age will recall the Dutch-born, mop-topped midfielder from his on-field (and in-arena) antics during the halcyon days of the old North American Soccer League alongside international greats like Johan Cruyff, George Best and Alan Willey on clubs like the Los Angeles Aztecs, Washington Diplomats, and two flavors of Strikers - Fort Lauderdale and Minnesota. 

Younger aficionados might place their earliest recollections of a fiery presence on the sidelines coaching a wide array of pro clubs ranging from successor ASL/APSL versions of the Strikers in the late 80s/early 90s, to early MLS sides like the 1996 Tampa Bay Mutiny, 1997-98 New England Revolution, 1999-2001 DC United, or even 2005's version of Chivas USA - not to mention his two stints helming the US Men's U-20 National team before and after.

However, most will undoubtedly know Rongen from his memorable turn as the head coach of the American Samoa national team during FIFA World Cup qualifying in 2011 - forever immortalized in the epically joyous 2014 documentary "Next Goal Wins", and soon to be refashioned as a major motion picture drama of the same name this fall - in which he wills one of the world's perennial soccer minnows into surprising respectability.

We cover all of it - and more - with one of the country's most endearing soccer personalities!

EPISODE 307: "Baseball's Wildest Season" - With Bill Ryczek

Sports historian Bill Ryczek (Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball's National Association; Crash of the Titans: The Early Years of the New York Jets and the AFL) returns after a five-year absence to help us unpack the intriguing story of 1884 - arguably the wildest season in major league baseball history.

In his latest tome, "Baseball's Wildest Season: Three Leagues, Thirty-Four Teams and the Chaos of 1884," Ryczek details a fragile professional game pioneered by a still-fledgling National League that found itself not only challenged by a two-year-old lower-priced, Sunday-playing, beer-allowing American Association - but also an upstart third circuit called the Union Association whose president just happened to also own its most dominant franchise.

1884 saw the first incarnation of an inter-league "World Series" (the NL Providence Grays defeating the AA New York Metropolitans); the majors' first-ever African-American player (the AA Toledo Blue Stockings' Moses Fleetwood Walker); a (still-standing) record start to a season (the UA's 20-0 St. Louis Maroons) - and more drunken brawls, mid-season team relocations, player league-jumping, and underhand pitching than any time in big league history.

Baseball’s Wildest Season: Three Leagues, Thirty-Four Teams and the Chaos of 1884 - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 306: Miami Fusion Roundtable - With Joe Shaw, Jim Rooney & John Trask

With the 28th season of Major League Soccer well under way - featuring the debut of the league's 29th franchise (St. Louis CITY SC) and the expansion announcement of its soon-to-be 30th (San Diego) - it's hard to believe that the entirety of MLS was on the verge of collapse after just its sixth campaign in 2001.

Instead of pulling the plug entirely in 2002, two clubs - the charter 1996 Tampa Bay Mutiny and expansion 1998 Miami Fusion - were sacrificed, leaving Florida bereft of top-level pro soccer for the first time in a generation, and a league fighting to stay afloat for at least another season.

We'll tackle the Mutiny story on a future show - but this week, it's all about the surprisingly important four-season life of the Fusion - a team that never played in its namesake hometown, but left an indelible mark in South Florida soccer history.

Joe Shaw, host of the new podcast series "25 for 25: The Story of the Miami Fusion From Those Who Lived It", joins along with former club captain/fan favorite Jim Rooney and team assistant coach John Trask for a taste of what it was like in those exciting, but still-uncertain early years MLS's existence.

If you remember the original NASL's Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, or fancy yourself a fan of today's Inter Miami CF - you will LOVE this conversation!