EPISODE 294: California Dreaming - With Dan Cisco

We head West this week to pay a visit to the "California Sports Guy" Dan Cisco ("California Sports Astounding: Fun, Unknown, and Surprising Facts from Statehood to Sunday"), and stir up a rich bouillabaisse of little-known factoids about defunct, previously domiciled and otherwise forgotten teams and leagues who once called the Golden State home.

Discover the reason why Oakland was chosen as an inaugural franchise in 1960's American Football League debut - and why its original name was  hastily changed to "Raiders" just weeks before its first game.

Follow the move of the Pacific Coast League's original Hollywood Stars to San Diego in 1936 to become the Padres - and how a talented young player named Ted Williams unceremoniously ended his pitching career there before making it to the bigs.

And learn which legendary NBA basketball helped launch the International Volleyball Association's Irvine-based charter Southern California Bangers franchise in 1975 - and ultimately become the league's commissioner two years later.

PLUS, we make a bevy of unsolicited suggestions for Cisco's inevitable revised edition (and you can too)!

California Sports Astounding: Fun, Unknown, and Surprising Facts from Statehood to Sunday - 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 208: The Hollywood Stars - With Dan Taylor

Author Dan Taylor ("Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball") joins the pod for an in-depth look at one of baseball's most uniquely inventive teams - known for its star-studded celebrity ownership structure (including the likes of Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, George Burns, and Cecil B. DeMille) - and warm embrace of movie industry publicity during the 1940s/50s heyday of Hollywood's "Golden Age."

Long before Brooklyn's relocated Dodgers colonized Los Angeles with "major league" status in 1958, the Hollywood Stars (along with its fierce cross-town rival LA Angels) pioneered a host of innovations with a promotional flair that was the envy of its "near-major" Pacific Coast League competitors.

Led by Robert Cobb, owner of the legendary Brown Derby restaurant chain (and Cobb salad namesake), the Stars routinely challenged baseball conventions with a litany of paradigm-changing initiatives such as: uniforms with short pants, in-stadium cheerleaders and movie star beauty queens, between-innings infield-dragging (to boost concession sales), high-end ballpark food, and professional baseball's first regularly broadcast televised home games.

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Lights, Camera, Action: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball - buy book here