EPISODE 190: Philadelphia Hockey Beyond the Flyers - With Alan Bass

When anyone brings up the topic of pro hockey in Philadelphia, the conversation quite naturally starts (and often stops) with the Flyers - one of the six franchises added to the NHL in the league's 1967 "Great Expansion," and the fastest of the bunch to capture the Lord Stanley's Cup, after only its seventh season.

But as this week's guest Alan Bass ("Professional Hockey in Philadelphia: A History") suggests, limiting the discussion to just the Flyers not only ignores the surprisingly long history of the game in the "City of Brotherly Love" prior to their arrival, but also neglects the club's lasting impact more broadly on Philly's sports scene ever since.

​For example, few fans know that the Flyers were actually not the first NHL franchise in Philadelphia. That "honor" instead went to the 1930-31 debacle known as the Quakers - a hastily relocated cellar-dwelling team from Pittsburgh (the Pirates), owned by a Depression-era bootlegger (Bill Dwyer), fronted by a temporarily retired lightweight boxing champion (Benny Leonard), and producer of one of the worst seasons in the league's 103-year history (4-36-4 record; .136 winning percentage).

Or that the city nearly got its second shot at the NHL in 1946-47, when franchise rights holders of the dormant Montreal Maroons couldn't secure funding for a new arena on the site of the old Baker Bowl.

Or even that for decades before the Flyers' arrival, Philadelphia was a reliable home to a wide range of colorful minor league franchises with names like Arrows, Comets, Ramblers, Rockets and Falcons - and even after (Firebirds, Phantoms).

And we won't even mention the World Hockey Association's home ice-challenged flirtations with the market - the inaugural 1972-73 season's Philadelphia Blazers (Civic Center/Convention Hall) and 1973-74's mid-season relocated New York Golden Blades-to-Jersey Knights (suburban Cherry Hill [NJ] Arena)!

Professional Hockey in Philadelphia: A History - buy book here

EPISODE 189: The Houston Oilers - With Fr. Ed Fowler

We consult a higher authority this week to help us dig into the story of the NFL's former Houston Oilers - one of the American Football League's founding franchises in 1960, and the predecessor to today's Nashville-based Tennessee Titans.

Before decamping for divinity school in the late 1990s and a second career as a vicar in the US Anglican church, Fr. Ed Fowler (Loser Takes All: Bud Adams, Bad Football & Big Business) spent over 30 years as both a writer and columnist for sports sections at major newspapers such as the Austin American-Statesman, Kansas City Star, Chicago Daily News, and finally, the Houston Chronicle - where he spilled plenty of ink on the trials and tribulations of Houston's first professional football team.

The Oilers were owned throughout their existence by Houston oil industry entrepreneur Bud Adams - and dominated the AFL's early years by winning titles in 1960 and 1961, and barely missing out on a third (a double-OT loss to the Dallas Texans in the 1962 AFL Championship Game).

Post-merger, the Oilers spent the bulk of the '70s as NFL also-rans until the coach “Bum” Phillips-led "Luv Ya Blue" era (1978-80), that netted two straight (though losing) AFC Championship Game appearances and featured stars like Elvin Bethea, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson and rookie RB sensation Earl Campbell.

Though the team consistently made the playoffs from 1987-93 behind the QB wizardry of CFL star Warren Moon, the Oilers posted losing records in virtually every season otherwise.

Adams, who first threatened to move the team in the late 1980s, followed through at the end of the 1996 season and relocated the Oilers to Tennessee - where they became the "Tennessee Oilers" for the 1997 (Memphis) and 1998 (Vanderbilt Stadium) seasons, before permanently converting to the "Titans" in 1999. 

The Titans retained the team's previous history and records, and the Oilers name was officially retired by then-league Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, preventing the name from ever returning. 

The NFL would return to Houston just three years later with a new franchise, the Texans.

Loser Takes All: Bud Adams, Bad Football & Big Business - buy book here

EPISODE 188: The Original National Lacrosse League - With Dave Coleman & Steve Holroyd

Our resident lax experts Dave Coleman and Steve Holroyd (Two for the Show) return to help us dig deeper into the largely untold story of the original National Lacrosse League - the seminal mid-70s indoor circuit that helped lay the groundwork for modern-day professionalization of one of North America's oldest organized sports.

Originally conceived by NHL hockey owners as a means of filling their arenas in the off-season summer months, the NLL consisted of six clubs in each of its 1974 (Maryland Arrows, Montreal Quebecois, Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Griffins, Syracuse Stingers, Toronto Tomahawks) and 1975 (Maryland, Montreal, Philadelphia - and the relocated Long Island Tomahawks, Quebec Caribous, and Boston Bolts) season.

While sizable crowds flocked to the league's fast-paced, rough-and-tumble summertime box lacrosse action in Philadelphia, suburban DC's Landover, Maryland, and Montreal - the NLL's other franchises found the going much tougher.

When it came time for a planned third season in 1976, however, three of the league's six clubs were already bankrupt, and the Quebecois were rendered homeless by the Montreal Summer Olympics, which had annexed the Forum as its boxing venue.

There would not be another professional lacrosse league in North America until the birth of the Eagle Pro Box League in January 1987 - the precursor to today's NLL.

EPISODE 187: The Original World Team Tennis - With Steven Blush

Pop culture writer/filmmaker Steven Blush ("American Hardcore") joins the festivities this week to (at long last) help us delve into the enigmatic story of the original 1970s-era incarnation of World Team Tennis - including an exclusive preview of his upcoming book & documentary Bustin' Balls: World Team Tennis - Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics.

From the "Bustin' Balls" book dust jacket:

"Tennis. Exquisitely tailored white outfits. Formally attired spectators.  Stiff upper lips and utterly antiquated attitudes that made the sport accessible only to wealthy WASPs.

"'Tennis is the perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility,' said legendary rule-breaker Billie Jean King in 1973.

"By 1974, Ms. King and a group of investors made up of fans, promoters, and at least one used-car salesman crashed the country clubs and well-manicured courts with the creation of World Team Tennis - and eliminated proper etiquette in tennis forever.

"Tennis stars from the far reaches of the world came to Cleveland, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and showed a new breed of fans that the emotional passion and physical violence on the court were as entertaining as any Sunday afternoon football.  Between cursing out judges, encouraging personal grudges, and the "anything goes" milieu of the 70s, World Team Tennis busted through all race, sex and gender barriers.

"Bustin' Balls is the entirely true story of the most controversial, influential and fantastic sports league you never heard of."

Bustin’ Balls: World Team Tennis 1974-78 - Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics - buy book here

EPISODE 186: Negro Leaguers & Baseball's Hall of Fame - With Steven Greenes

When legendary Red Sox slugger Ted Williams gave his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 25, 1966, he unexpectedly included a blunt admonition to the sport's establishment that something in the hallowed Hall was significantly awry - the absence of standout players from the Negro Leagues:

"I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here - only because they weren't given a chance."

The "Splendid Splinter" was referring to two of the most famous names in the Negro Leagues, who were not given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. (Gibson died early in 1947 and never played in the majors; Paige's brief major league stint came long past his prime.) Williams biographer Leigh Montville called the broadside "a first crack in the door that ultimately would open and include Paige [in 1971] and Gibson [1972] and other Negro League stars in the shrine."

The Hall has been playing catch-up ever since - and as this week's guest Steven Greenes (Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame: The Case for Inducting 24 Overlooked Ballplayers) argues - still has plenty of ground to cover if it is to fully memorialize the contributions of some of the best talent to have ever played the game.

Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame: The Case for Including 24 Overlooked Ballplayers - buy book here

EPISODE 185: NHL Hockey by Design - With Chris Creamer & Todd Radom

Logo archivist Chris Creamer (SportsLogos.net) and graphic brand designer Todd Radom (Todd Radom Design) join this week's show to dive into the rich and fascinating visual story of the National Hockey League's nearly 103-year history - as told by the names, logos and uniforms of its teams.

Their new book collaboration Fabric of the Game: The Stories Behind the NHL's Names, Logos and Uniforms is a comprehensive look into the rationale behind and the execution of the iconography of each of the league's major historical franchise lineages - from the respective journeys of today's 32 teams to the forgotten former clubs of yore.

Of course, we go long and hard into the visual foibles of the latter - who can forget the Cleveland Barons, Kansas City Scouts, Colorado Rockies, California/Oakland/Bay Area/California Golden Seals, the Atlanta Thrashers, or even the New York/Brooklyn Americans?

But there are plenty of revealing tidbits and surprising twists for fans of today's NHL franchises - including directionless Stars, wayward Flames, cartoonish Ducks - and a hot debate on just where team histories should go when they pull up stakes for greener pastures.

Fabric of the Game: The Stories Behind the NHL’s Names, Logos and Uniforms - buy book here

EPISODE 184: Birmingham's Quixotic Quest for Pro Pigskin - With Scott Adamson

Veteran sportswriter and Birmingham, AL native Scott Adamson (The Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football) joins the pod to discuss his curious decades-long relationship with the various attempts at rooting pro football in the "Magic City."

Birmingham's venerable Legion Field - known legendarily as the "Football Capital of the South" for its long-time association with the annual Alabama-Auburn "Iron Bowl" college season-ender - has also been home base for a parade of franchises in virtually every major challenger pro football league since the 1970s, including:

• The World Football League "World Bowl" champion Birmingham Americans (1974);

• 1975's de facto title-winning Birmingham Vulcans of the reincarnated second edition WFL;

• The USFL's perennially competitive Birmingham Stallions (1983-85);

• The World League of American Football's Birmingham Fire (1991-92);

• 1995's Birmingham Barracudas of the Canadian Football League;

• The woeful Birmingham Thunderbolts of 2001's original XFL; AND

• The playoff-qualifying Birmingham Iron of the 2019's short-lived Alliance of American Football

Adamson helps us dig into Birmingham's checkered history with the pro game, the pathology of its fandom over that time, why the city is reliably found on new/startup league short lists, and whether the XFL's return in 2022 might portend yet another chance - this time with a brand new Protective Stadium as a lure.

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

EPISODE 183: Negro League Baseball's "Invisible Men" - With Donn Rogosin

From the book jacket of the 2007 reissue of Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues - the seminal 1983 book by this week's guest Donn Rogosin:

"In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and became a hero for [B]lack and white Americans, yet Robinson was a Negro League player before he integrated Major League baseball. Negro League ballplayers had been thrilling [B]lack fans since 1920. Among them were the legendary pitchers Smoky Joe Williams, whose fastball seemed to "come off a mountain top," Satchel Paige, the ageless wonder who pitched for five decades, and such hitters as Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, 'the Ruth and Gehrig of the Negro Leagues.'"

"Although their games were ignored by white-owned newspapers and radio stations, [B]lack ballplayers became folk heroes in cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC - where the teams drew large crowds and became major contributors to the local community life. This illuminating narrative, filled with the memories of many surviving Negro League players, pulls the veil off these 'invisible men' who were forced into the segregated leagues. What emerges is a glorious chapter in African American history and an often overlooked aspect of our American past."

Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues - buy book here

EPISODE 182: National League Baseball's Cleveland Spiders - With Eric Nusbaum

Writer/author (and Episode 158 guest) Eric Nusbaum (Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between) returns for a second visit, this time to help us obsess about the curious story of the National League's 1899 Cleveland Spiders - the worst major league baseball team of all time.

While today's current generation of baseball fans will swear that the 1962 NL expansion New York Mets (40-120 record; .250 winning percentage), the 2003 AL Detroit Tigers (43–119; .265), or even the 2018 AL Baltimore Orioles (47-115; .290) might each own the record for on-field futility - none come close to the stunningly woeful 20-134 (.130) performance turned in by Cleveland's first major league team, one that preceded and indirectly influenced today's AL Indians.

The Spiders were a consistently competitive team in the 1890s - loaded with eventual Hall of Fame talents like Bobby Wallace, Jesse Burkett and legendary pitching ace Cy Young. Attendance and ticket revenue, however, were terrible - hindered significantly by Ohio blue laws that prohibited lucrative games on Sundays.

So in the 1898 off-season, team owner-brothers Frank & Stanley Robison took advantage of the NL's liberal "syndicate" ownership rules, purchased the financially teetering but far better-drawing St. Louis Browns, and shipped their more talented Spiders roster to the Gateway City as the "Perfectos" - leaving their Cleveland franchise to founder for 1899, all by design.

Nusbaum takes us through the various layers of ignominy that beset the Spiders' last season of existence, including: losing 40 of their last 41 games (and 70 of their last 74); drawing so poorly by June (a mere 179 per game) that all home games were moved to either neutral sites or visiting teams' home parks; and even proffering a local hotel cigar stand clerk to pitch their final game in Cincinnati (a 19-3 loss).

Plus, how the Spiders helped today's Indians get their now increasingly controversial nickname.

Sports Stories - subscribe here

EPISODE 181: Columbus' IHL Hockey Heritage - With Eric Weltner

Little did we know when we dropped our minor league hockey tribute to the 1990s ECHL Columbus Chill in our Episode 169 with David Paitson & Craig Merz earlier this year that it would not only become our most listened-to episode of 2020 (so far), but would also unearth a project devoted to the colorful history of the forgotten teams that preceded it.

Columbus native and Cincinnati creative agency professional Eric Weltner ("International Incidents"), previews his soon-to-be-released 80-minute documentary of "old-time hockey gold" devoted to the three clubs in the rock 'em, sock 'em International Hockey League that called Ohio's capital city (and the scruffy Ohio Expo Fairgrounds Coliseum) home during the late 1960s and early 1970s:

• The Columbus Checkers (1966-70): the city's first-ever professional hockey franchise - a "Plan B" sports ownership pursuit for Cleveland's entrepreneurial Schmeltzer brothers, after just missing out on the NBA's Boston Celtics;

• The Columbus Golden Seals (1971-73): Charlie O. Finley's malnourished attempt to create a feeder team for his floundering California NHL namesake - whose woeful 25-117 record set IHL futility records; and

• The Columbus Owls (1973-77): mortgage executive Al Savill's franchise rehab that handed full managerial reigns to local hockey legend "Moe" Bartoli - undermined by Savill's 1975 purchase of the NHL Penguins.

International Incidents - find out more about the film here

EPISODE 180: Washington NFL Football's "R-Word" - With Rich King

Columbia College Chicago cultural studies professor Rich King (Redskins: Insult and Brand) joins the podcast this week to discuss the roots and long-simmering backstory of the Washington NFL football franchise's problematic - and now former - nickname.

Investigative reporter Tisha Thompson framed the situation in her recent piece for ESPN:

“Daniel Snyder endured decades of protests, lawsuits and emotional appeals over the nickname of his Washington NFL team. ‘We'll never change the name,’ he told USA Today in 2013. ‘It's that simple. NEVER -- you can use caps.’

“Then, in a blinding rush this summer, the name long criticized by Native Americans and others was gone.

“But the change didn't feel sudden to the coalition of Native American groups that started working long ago to force Snyder's hand by investing in the corporations that pay hundreds of millions of dollars for sponsorship deals.”

Amplified by a renewed national furor over racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd - and opportunely reflexive corporate commitments to diversity and inclusion (particularly team sponsors like Nike, PepsiCo and stadium name rights holder FedEx) - the movement to retire the Washington NFL franchise's derogatory Native American name of over 80 years has been seemingly swift and sudden.

Instead, King helps us understand why the team's (and NFL's) dramatic decision is not only not a knee-jerk capitulation to trendy "political correctness" - but actually an overdue reckoning for a nickname steeped in systemic racism and cultural insensitivity.

What remains to be seen is how both pro football and the Washington franchise rectify the situation - and, importantly, how each appropriately squares it with the ignominious history that preceded it.

Redskins: Insult and Brand - buy here

EPISODE 179: WHA Hockey "Lost & Found" - With Dennis Murphy

If we ever get around to creating a Good Seats Still Available "Hall of Fame," this week's return guest will most certainly be part of its inaugural class of inductees.

Dennis Murphy (“Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues”) is a bona fide legend in sports entrepreneurial circles - a man responsible for helping found no less than four "major" game-changing leagues across the North American pro sports landscape, including the polychromatic American Basketball Association (our previous Episode 129), and this week's focus: the raucous World Hockey Association. (The others: World Team Tennis and Roller Hockey International.)

This week's shorter-than-normal episode was originally intended to be our second full-length discussion with "Murph" - and our first exclusively devoted to the founding and operation of the WHA - until events last year conspired against it.

A scheduling snafu resulted in a shorter window of conversation than originally intended, and the recording itself was feared lost during our internal archives transfer process weeks later.

However, in the process of doing background research for our recent episode on the original Winnipeg Jets with Curtis Walker, we were lucky enough to stumble across the fully intact audio file on a redundant backup server - which we now present as the bulk of this week's episode.

What it lacks in length is more than made up with in depth and surprising detail from the now-93-year-old Murphy's still-sharp memory of hockey's "rebel league."

Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues - buy here

Game Changer: The Dennis Murphy Story - watch here

EPISODE 178: "PF's Tape Recorder" - With P.F. Wilson (Vacation Special)

We steal away for a little summer vacation time this week - but not before sitting down for a massively enjoyable interview with fellow defunct sports enthusiast and long-time friend-of-the-show P.F. Wilson - as a guest on his comedy-tinged podcast "PF's Tape Recorder."

P.F. (née Patrick François) is also the creative engine behind one of our longest-running sponsors OldSchoolShirts.com - where our listeners can enjoy a 10% discount on everything in the store, when using the promo code "GOODSEATS" at checkout.

Tim and P.F. obsess about all things defunct - including Gary Davidson's WFL Waterloo, the directionally challenged "New York/New Jersey" moniker, long-forgotten college bowl games, who/what (really) killed the USFL, and the MISL's (barely) one-season wonder New Jersey Rockets.

Please enjoy this conversation we recorded a few weeks back - and thanks to both P.F. and OldSchoolShirts.com for their support of the show!

Check out “PF’s Tape Recorder” here

Buy early & often from OldSchoolShirts.com (promo code: GOODSEATS) here

EPISODE 177: The (Original) Winnipeg Jets – With Curtis Walker

We cross the virtual border northward this week to obsess about the original incarnation of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with author/team completist Curtis Walker ("Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day By Day"; “Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets" ).

One of the twelve founding franchises in the upstart World Hockey Association's inaugural 1972-73 season, the Jets were one of only four teams to survive the entire run of the rebel league - and to ascend into the vaunted NHL after its demise in 1979.

They were also, arguably, the WHA's most successful club - winning three of the league's seven-ever AVCO Cup championships, while finishing as playoff runners-up twice. (We'll get into the story of the Houston Aeros' two titles and one finals loss in another episode!)

Walker helps us proverbially "scratch the surface" of the Jets' intriguing history in not only the WHA (including the credibility-validating, league-collective-funded signing of Bobby Hull; the Swedish-flavored "Hot Line" contributions of Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson; and a franchise-saving "Save the Jets" community campaign in 1974) - but also the National Hockey League, where the club largely struggled to reclaim their earlier glory - especially when facing their long-time regional nemesis, the Edmonton Oilers.

Of course, we tackle the delicate issue of where the original Jets' legacy should credibly reside: with the lamentable Arizona Coyotes (the franchise moved to Phoenix in 1996); the current Jets team (the relocated Atlanta Thrashers since 2011); or in the collective memories of the fans that routinely packed the rafters of the old Winnipeg Arena.

     

Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets (1979-96) - buy book here

Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day-By-Day - buy book here

EPISODE 176: The Continental Indoor Soccer League – With Ronnie Weinstein

By popular demand, former Los Angeles Lazers president and Episode 166 guest Ronnie Weinstein returns for an eagerly-awaited "part two" conversation about his sojourn through professional indoor soccer - this time centered on the intriguing story of the 1990s-era Continental Indoor Soccer League he helped create and operate.

Loosely borne from the 1992 collapse of the Major (née Indoor) Soccer League, the idea for what ultimately became the CISL actually germinated from Weinstein's last days running the Lazers in the spring of 1989. It was then when team (and legendary Lakers/Kings/Forum) owner Jerry Buss - while pulling the plug on his money-losing MISL club - opined on the stronger financial merits of a league based in the summer, when the NBA & NHL were out of season, and arena owners were eager to fill dates with quality sports product.

Weinstein took Buss' words to heart, and with his mentor's support - along with that of fellow sports mogul Jerry Colangelo - convinced more than a dozen major league team and arena owners of the viability of the concept.

By its second season, the CISL was drawing more than a million fans to its games across the country - and for at least a while, the prescience of Buss and the passion of Weinstein proved to be a winning combination.

EPISODE 175: Cycling's Tour de Trump – With Peter Nye

Cycling writer/historian Peter Nye (Hearts of Lions: The History of American Bicycle Racing) joins the podcast this week to help us understand the long and curious backstory behind the 1989 launch of the Tour de Trump - a major world-class cycling event that, for a brief period, aspired to become the American equivalent of the sport's iconic Tour de France.

Once the king of sports in the US at the turn of the 20th century (prominent cycling competitions in the early 1900s routinely drew thousands of paying spectators, attracted significant wagering action and stretched across multiple days), bicycle racing fell precipitously from the national sporting spotlight in the decades that followed - until major outdoor stage races backed by progressive sponsors like Celestial Seasonings and Coors rekindled interest during the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Buoyed by building enthusiasm for the sport from CBS' increased television coverage of the Tour de France in the US, an unlikely alliance - sports TV host/music composer John Tesh, college basketball analyst/entrepreneur Billy Packer, Olympic sports management executive Mike Plant, and a bombastic, egocentric real estate baron-cum-personal branding nightmare named Donald Trump - conceived an East Coast "Tour de Jersey" in an attempt to compliment and eventually rival the French spectacle.

After Packer convinced an already-controversial Trump to lend his name to the enterprise, sizable increases in media attention, rider interest, corporate sponsorship, and prize money were assured - at least until Trump's (first set of) corporate financial woes forced him to bail after only two Tours.

Still, the later-renamed Tour Du Pont lasted six more seasons, all the while elevating competitive cycling to a level the US had not seen in decades - and, arguably, hasn't since.

Hearts of Lions: The History of American Bicycle Racing - buy book here

EPISODE 174: WUSA, WPS & NWSL Soccer – With Beau Dure

As the National Women's Soccer League concludes its deftly assembled 2020 Challenge Cup tournament (with congrats to the Houston Dash on their first-ever major trophy), we enlist sportswriter/soccer insider Beau Dure ("2012: The Year That Saved Women's Soccer") to help us make sense of the confoundingly discontinuous history of the women's pro game in the US over the last 20 years - and the unwitting origin story of the NWSL.

Against the backdrop of an undeniably prolific US Women's National Team - a program that has produced four FIFA Women's World Cup titles, four Olympic gold medals and currently (and regularly) sits atop the FIFA Women's World Rankings - the path to building and sustaining a viable top-tier women's domestic pro league over that time has proven surprisingly quixotic.

While the reasons are myriad, Dure navigates us through:

• The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA): the big-money, TV-backed, John Hendricks-boostered attempt to create a first-ever pro league in the wake of 1999's breakthrough USWNT's World Cup title - but quickly burned through over $100MM and flamed out after just three seasons;

• Women's Professional Soccer (WPS): the pragmatic but woefully under-funded attempt to resurrect a circuit - this time with momentum from a 2008 Olympic Gold Medal - but done in by a wobbly investor base, none more dubious than "magicJack" owner-operator Dan Borislow; AND

• Today's NWSL: which, through the backstopping efforts of the US Soccer Federation, kept the burning embers of the WPS alive to help reconstruct what is now a seemingly thriving seven-year-old loop that will add its 10th (Louisville) and 11th (LA) franchises in the next two seasons.

     

2012: The Year That Saved Women’s Soccer - buy book here

Enduring Spirit: Restoring Women’s Soccer to Washington - buy book here

EPISODE 173: Ontario Speedway, The International Race of Champions & More – With Dave Lockton

Longtime sports/information technology entrepreneur/executive Dave Lockton joins this week to discuss his managerial adventures in the geographically fragmented and provincially fractious auto racing scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s – including the founding of the groundbreaking Ontario Motor Speedway, and its role in the ideation of the ultimate “all-star” professional driving competition – the International Race of Champions (IROC).

Sports fans of a certain age will surely remember the old IROC series – which ran for 30 seasons starting in 1973 – where the best drivers from the world’s top auto racing disciplines raced one another in equally prepared and equitably crewed cars to determine motorsports’ “ultimate” annual champion.  Multi-circuit veteran Tony Stewart (who won the final IROC XXX in 2006) certainly does – he and fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Ray Evernham are teaming to reinvent the format next summer with a nationally televised six-race, short-track series to air in prime time on CBS called the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX).

The basis for the IROC concept dates back to Lockton’s time as President/CEO and chief visionary of Ontario’s “Indianapolis of the West” – a stalled mid-1960s pipe dream that Lockton helped resuscitate, leveraging his budding professional driver representation firm and his Indianapolis Speedway/USAC governing body relationships into a state-of-the-art, all-purpose West Coast racing mecca just east of Los Angeles.

Among the innovations Lockton and team pioneered at Ontario (which included a private stadium club with annual memberships, corporate suites, crash-absorbent retaining walls & safety fences, and computerized real-time timing/scoring/positioning data) was a first-of-its-kind pro-am celebrity race – featuring a co-mingling of Hollywood luminaries and professional drivers competing in similarly prepared vehicles – the foundational element of what would soon become the signature IROC series.

PLUS: Hugh Downs keeps it together; Evel Knievel makes his case; and the short-lived sports commissioner career of Gerald Ford!

EPISODE 172: The Forgotten Pro Teams of New Orleans – With Nick Weldon

We point our GPS coordinates this week to the endearingly enigmatic city of New Orleans, for an overdue look into the Big Easy’s chaotic pro sports franchise history – with Historic New Orleans Collection writer (and recovering sports scribe) Nick Weldon (“A Streetcar Named Basketball”).

Although a mainstay of baseball’s minor and Negro leagues since the dawn of the sport’s professional era in the late 1800s (including Louis Armstrong’s well-outfitted, attention-grabbing, but largely lamentable 1931 barnstorming “Secret Nine” club), Louisiana’s largest city has been considered more of a football town over the last half-century – especially after the arrival of the NFL Saints in 1967.

But it’s the pursuit (and occasional success) of pro basketball that has captured the fancy of local sports entrepreneurs most in the intervening decades – providing the Crescent City with some of its most fascinating, yet oft-forgotten sporting exploits:

• The American Basketball Association’s Buccaneers (1967-70) – a charter member, who came within one game of winning the league’s first-ever title, before moving to Memphis two seasons later;

• The National Basketball Association’s Jazz (1974-79) – an expansion franchise known mostly for the dazzling on-court wizardry of local LSU hero “Pistol” Pete Maravich, and not much else;

• The Women’s Professional Basketball League’s Pride (1979-81) – ready-made to take advantage of the region’s strong female collegiate roots and presumptive US women’s success at the (eventually boycotted) 1980 Olympics; AND

• The arrival of the NBA’s Hornets (now Pelicans) in 2002 – finally cementing the long-term viability of pro basketball in New Orleans.

Weldon helps us dig in to all of these points on NOLA’s pro hoops history curve – but also some tantalizing tangents like the one-year incarnation of the USFL’s New Orleans Breakers, and even the “Sun Belt” Nets of the original mid-1970s World Team Tennis.

EPISODE 171: Pittsburgh's Pro Hoops History – With Stephen J. Nesbitt

Pittsburgh-based The Athletic sportswriter Stephen J. Nesbitt (“How the Pipers, Condors and Pro Basketball in Pittsburgh Went Extinct”) joins to help us dig into the surprisingly rich (though mostly woeful) history of professional hoops in the Steel City.

Though the game has long thrived at the collegiate level (Pitt’s Panthers began playing in 1905; the Duquesne Dukes in 1914), the city’s record of success at the pro level has been distinctly more fleeting.  In fact, some would argue it was never better than the pre-integration Black Fives era of the 1910s/20s, when eventual Naismith Hall of Famer Cumberland Posey led his Monticello (1912) and Loendi Big Five (1919-23) clubs to five “Colored” Basketball World Championships.

As professional (and eventually integrated) leagues took root in the decades that followed, Pittsburgh’s attractive demographic profile made it a natural choice for inaugural – yet ultimately short-lived – franchises in virtually every major hardwood circuit that came calling, including:

• The never-playoff-qualifying Pirates (1937-39) and re-born Raiders (1944-45) of the NBA-precedent National Basketball League;

• The lamentable Ironmen (1947-48) of the NBA tributary Basketball Association of America;

• The Connie Hawkins-led Renaissance (“Rens”) of the one-and-a-half-season (1961-62) American Basketball League; and especially;

• The head-scratching Pipers of the legendary American Basketball Association – who, despite winning the league’s first championship behind regular-season and playoff MVP Hawkins in 1968 – relocated to Minneapolis, moved back to Pittsburgh, and finally re-branded as the “Condors” for two forgettable last seasons (1970-72).

With a checkered pro history like that, it’s little wonder that the basketball team most memorably associated with the City of Bridges wasn’t even a real club – the Pittsburgh Pisces (née Pythons) of the 1979 sports/disco fantasy cult film classic The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

               

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh - rent via Amazon Prime here

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh - buy DVD here

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh - buy soundtrack here

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh - buy book here