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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPISODE 236: Las Vegas Motorsports & the Mob - With Randy Cannon

It's off to Vegas this week, baby, as we dig in to the fascinating backstory of two short-lived racetracks that lived fast and died hard trying to bring top-flight motorsports to Sin City in the late 1960s and early 1980s - with all the over-the-top theatrics, gambling connotations and underworld intrigue you'd expect from the "Entertainment Capital of the World."

Racing writer Randy Cannon ("Stardust International Raceway: Motorsports Meets the Mob in Vegas"; and "Caesars Palace Grand Prix: Las Vegas, Organized Crime and the Pinnacle of Motorsport") takes us behind the scenes of two of the city's most ambitious auto racing facilities - each designed to attract high-rolling visitors to both the tracks and the tables, long before it was kosher for sports and gaming to coexist.

     

Caesars Palace Grand Prix: Las Vegas, Organized Crime and the Pinnacle of Motorsport - buy book here

Stardust International Raceway: Motorsports Meets the Mob in Vegas - buy book here

Photo credits: Las Vegas News Bureau; Carl Gratz Collection; Revs Institute for Automotive Research, Inc.; Ernie Ohlson; John A. Wilson; Ken Eastman; Don Chase Collection; Marc Nelson; William D. Weinberger Collection; Randy Cannon Collection

EPISODE 235: The Hartford Whalers - With Pat Pickens

We pick up where we left off in our previous episodes 62 (with the "Whaler Guys") and 100 (featuring WHA-version franchise founder Howard Baldwin) for a comprehensive look into the former NHL franchise that regularly sells more branded merchandise than even some current league teams - the Hartford Whalers.

Author Pat Pickens ("The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England's [Second] Greatest NHL Franchise") walks us through the history and ongoing mystique of one of the National Hockey League's most enigmatic clubs - one whose legacy endures some 24 years after its odd and bittersweet relocation to Raleigh (via Greensboro), North Carolina in 1997.

The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England’s (Second) Greatest NHL Franchise - buy book here

EPISODE 234: "Big-Time Soccer" - With Rachel Viollet

We take another crack at the history and mythology of the late, great North American Soccer League - this time through the eyes of sports filmmaker Rachel Viollet, whose new documentary "Big-Time Soccer: The Remarkable Rise & Fall of the NASL" makes its US debut at New York's Kicking + Screening film festival later this week.

If that surname sounds familiar, it won't surprise you that Rachel is also the daughter of the late Dennis Viollet - one of the legendary Manchester United "Busby Babes" of the late 1940s & early 1950s - who later went on to become one of the pioneering coaches in the 1970s-era NASL.

With managerial roles overseeing Washington, DC's Diplomats and two flavors of Tea Men in both New England and Jacksonville, the elder Viollet unwittingly provided his young daughter with a bird's-eye childhood purview into a vibrant and hugely entertaining pro soccer circuit, whose influence is still felt in today's MLS and beyond.

Featuring dozens of first-person interviews, rare video footage, and a mountain of exhaustive research, "Big-Time Soccer" is a love letter to both the best and the worst of the NASL - and the legacy it left behind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPISODE 232: DC Hoops History - With Brett Abrams

It's a return to the Nation's Capital this week as we take a romp through Washington, DC's surprisingly rich pro basketball history with Brett Abrams (The Bullets, the Wizards, and Washington, DC Basketball).

While today's astute District hoops fans know the current Washington Wizards were once known as the Bullets - the name under which the franchise won its one and only NBA title back in 1978, and from which it converted to its mystically less violence-connoted label in 1997 - lesser devotees of the team are aware of its previous home (Baltimore: 1963-73), let alone its origins as the NBA's first-ever expansion club in 1961, the Chicago Packers.

Of course, true Washington basketball connoisseurs know the city's relationship with the professional game runs far deeper - dating all the way back to the mid-1920s American Basketball League "Palace Five" - owned by future Washington NFL football owner George Preston Marshall.

And in between, a host of teams - all domiciled in the NE quadrant's history-drenched Washington Coliseum (née Uline Arena) - attempted to keep pro hoops in the local sports spotlight:

• The Red Auerbach-coached Capitols (1946-51) of the NBA-antecedent Basketball Association of America;

• The half-season-lasting Tapers of Abe Saperstein's not-much-longer-lasting "new" American Basketball League (1961); and

• The exceedingly curious single season (1969-70) American Basketball Association "Caps" - the peripatetic franchise that began its life (along with the ABA's) in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks, and ended as the regionally-oriented Virginia Squires until the league's demise in 1976.

The Bullets, The Wizards, and Washington, DC Basketball - 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 230: The 1981 Springbok Rugby Union Tour - With Derek Catsam

University of Texas Permian Basin history professor Derek Catsam ("Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America's Anti-Apartheid Movement") joins to delve into the intriguing story of how a relatively low-key South African rugby tour of the United States in 1981 became an unwittingly pivotal turning point in the nation's growing collective conscience against apartheid, and an influential test of American foreign policy.

By the late 1970s, the US lagged significantly behind the rest of the Western world when it came to addressing the thorny moral, societal and diplomatic issues posed by the Republic of South Africa's racial policies, and its ruling National Party's obstinate defense of them despite increasing international condemnation.  

The September 1981 American tour of the country's perennially world-dominant "Springbok" national rugby union team - a continuation of an already tumultuous and violent summer of matches in New Zealand - markedly changed that dynamic.

Those who had been part of the US’s relatively small anti-apartheid decades-long struggle opportunistically seized the visit by one of white South Africa’s most cherished sporting and cultural institutions to mobilize against both the team, and the political regime it represented.

American protestors confronted the Springbok team at airports, chanted outside their hotels, and openly courted arrest at matches - forcing tour organizers to hastily (and bizarrely) convert publicly announced matches into near-clandestine affairs to avoid undue attention or confrontation.

What began as a modest effort to publicize an exciting but little-followed sport in the US, quickly gave rise to the solidification of the nation's soon-robust anti-apartheid movement.

Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America’s Anti-Apartheid Movement - 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

EPISODE 227: "Alliances Broken" - With Steven Potter

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

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

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

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

Alliances Broken - rent or buy digital video here

EPISODE 226: The New York Cosmos - With Steve Hunt

Your humble host does his best this week to tamp down his inner fanboy as he sits down for a bucket-list conversation with one of his favorite players from the legendary New York Cosmos of the original NASL - winger extraordinaire Steve Hunt ("I'm With the Cosmos: The Story of Steve Hunt").

Abruptly transferred into the star-studded orbit of North America's burgeoning super-club at the tender age of 20 from his hometown (Birmingham) England First Division Aston Villa side in the spring of 1977, Hunt unwittingly arrived just in time to grab a seat on the rocket ship breakout season that vaulted the Cosmos into the stratosphere of soccer not only across the US, but also worldwide.

Joining an array of international greats like Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Giorgio Chinaglia, and the incomparable Pelé, the speedy Hunt quickly became an instant sensation and vital offensive cog - not to mention a huge fan favorite - for a Cosmos unit that would soon break records both on and off the field, including an iconic MVP star turn in the club's historic Soccer Bowl '77 championship-winning match.

While he only played three seasons in Gotham, Hunt was a crucial component of NASL championships achieved in each of them (1977, 1978 & 1982) - a springboard to a triumphant return to England's top tier and national team caps.

I’m With the Cosmos: The Story of Steve Hunt - buy book here

EPISODE 225: The Cleveland Barons - With Gary Webster

We close the gap between our previous explorations of the National Hockey League's former California Golden Seals and Minnesota North Stars with a deep dive into the two-year curiosity that bridged between them - the unforgettably forgettable Cleveland Barons.

Episode 111 guest and WKKY-FM/Geneva (OH) radio jock Gary Webster ("The NHL's Mistake By the Lake: A History of the Cleveland Barons") returns the 'cast - this time to go deep into the baffling prelude, chaotic operations, and historically debatable termination/relocation of a franchise that was seemingly snake bitten even before its hasty arrival in Northeastern Ohio in the summer of 1976.

Named for a decades-old, nine-time minor league AHL championship-winning team that preceded it until 1973 - which itself had been replaced by the struggling "major league" Crusaders of the wobbly World Hockey Association - the Barons came close to folding in both of its two NHL seasons, despite the frantic efforts of two separate ownership groups, a brand-new state-of-the-art arena, and at least one league bailout.

Along the way, attendance was meager, media coverage was scant, and on-ice play was woeful - the perfect ingredients for an episode sure to please!

The NHL’s Mistake By the Lake: A History of the Cleveland Barons - buy book here

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

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

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

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

Check out “The Football Odyssey” here and here

Check out “Sports History Network” here

EPISODE 223: ABA Hoops & More - With Jim O'Brien

Pittsburgh’s dean of sportswriters Jim O’Brien (Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA the WNBA to the NCAA - A Basketball Memoir; Looking Up Again - A Basketball Memoir) has seen it all in his more than 50 years of chronicling stories across the pro and collegiate sports landscape - but perhaps no more deeply than in basketball, and in more detailed fashion than during the old American Basketball Association.

Throughout the life of the league, you could find O’Brien’s reliable ABA reportage and musings seemingly everywhere: essential weekly columns in The Sporting News; meticulous pre-season team & player profiles in the annual Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball; and the hugely influential Street & Smith’s Basketball Yearbook (which he co-founded in 1970) - where he strove to ensure the challenger circuit's coverage was equal to that of the legacy NBA's.

We merely scratch the surface of O'Brien's treasure trove of stories from the old "red-white-and-blue" in this week's episode - where you'll hear personal reminiscences of legendary ABA figures like Connie Hawkins, Julius Erving, and (Episode 132 guest) Dan Issel; the significance of the former league's recent fiftieth anniversary; and why Pittsburgh was (both in the antecedent American Basketball League, and thrice-versioned in the ABA), and then wasn't a great pro hoops city.

Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA, the WNBA to the NCAA - A Memoir - buy book here

EPISODE 222: The Inaugural International Race of Champions - With Matt Stone

As the debut season of the surprisingly entertaining Tony Stewart/Ray Evernham-led Camping World SRX Series nears its conclusion next week, we dive deeper into the rabbit hole of one of its major influences - the legendary International Race of Champions (IROC) - with longtime automotive journalist and former Motor Trend magazine Executive Editor Matt Stone (“The IROC Porsches: The International Race of Champions, Porsche’s 911 RSR & the Men Who Raced Them”).

As table-set in our previous Episode 173 with former Indianapolis and Ontario Speedway exec Dave Lockton, IROC was envisioned as the American motorsports equivalent of a major “all-star” showcase - pitting twelve of the world’s best professional drivers from racing’s top competitive circuits in a series of races in identically prepared and maintained cars, in an effort to test participants’ pure driving ability and determine the sport’s true “champion.”

Stone helps us with the backstory of IROC’s operational formation - brought to life in late 1973 by racing executives Roger Penske, Les Richter and Mike Phelps in the form of an initial four-race roadcourse series across Riverside international Raceway (three qualifying races: 10/27-28, 1973) and Daytona International Speedway (final: 2/14, 1974) - all televised in tape-delayed glory on ABC’s then-dominant sports anthology series Wide World of Sports.

Inaugural invitees: NASCAR Winston Cup champions Bobby Allison, Richard Petty & David Pearson; SCCA Can-Am road-race standouts Mark Donohue, Peter Revson & George Folker; USAC Champ (Indy) Car winners Bobby Unser, A.J. Foyt, Gordon Johncock & Roger McCluskey; and Formula One stars Denis Hulme & Emerson Fittipaldi.

And the now-iconic sports car initially selected to challenge them all: the purpose-built, virtually identical 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 - all 16 originals of which are still alive, well, hugely revered, and highly sought-after today.

The IROC Porsches: The International Race of Champions, Porsche’s 911 RSR, and the Men Who Raced Them - buy book here

EPISODE 221: Can the MASL Recapture Indoor Soccer's Glory Days? - With Michael Lewis

FrontRowSoccer.com's Michael Lewis returns after a two-year absence to help us dig into the news of the Major Arena Soccer League's hiring of three marquee names from pro indoor soccer's 1980s heyday - as it attempts to translate the sport's past glory into interest for a new generation of fans.

The additions of Shep Messing (Chairman), Keith Tozer (Commissioner) and Episode 66 guest JP Dellacamera (President, Communications/Media) to the MASL executive suite signals a major effort to stabilize the long-wobbly league and elevate the indoor game back to the level of its legendary predecessors - like the original Major Indoor Soccer League and even the old North American Soccer League.

Besides weighing in on what might happen in the months ahead, Lewis mines nearly forty years of soccer reporting to recount some of the most memorable indoor matches from his sportswriting career, including:

• The MISL's epic 1981 "Championship Weekend" at the St. Louis Checkerdome, where the hometown Steamers outlasted the Wichita Wings in a logic-defying 8-7 shootout semifinal, but lost a nail-biting 6-5 final to the New York Arrows two days later;

• 1975 NASL indoor tournament matches at Rochester's War Memorial, where goals measured only four feet high x 16 feet long;

• The MISL's 1981 All-Star Game - played at the World's Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden;

• A January 1985 Cosmos MISL home loss to the San Diego Sockers that portended the team's folding just two weeks later; and

• US National Team goalie Tony Meola's indoor debut with the New Jersey Ironmen of the one-year Xtreme Soccer League in 2008.

EPISODE 220: The National Girls Baseball League - With Adam Chu

Most baseball fans are familiar with the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from the hit 1992 movie "A League of Their Own" - but most do not know that there was another pro women's circuit that played only in the greater Chicago area at around the same time.

Documentary filmmaker Adam Chu ("Their Turn At Bat") joins the pod to discuss the fascinating story of the National Girls Baseball League (1944-54) - formed out of the city's amateur softball talent-loaded Metropolitan League in 1944 - from which the AAGPBL had recruited many of its initial players a year earlier.

Co-founded by area roofing company owner Emery Parichy, Chicago Cardinals NFL football team owner Charles Bidwell and city politician/softball enthusiast Ed Kolski, the NGBL consisted of six heavily sponsored teams (originally the Bloomer Girls, Bluebirds, Chicks, Queens, Cardinals, and Music Maids) - playing in neighborhood baseball parks across Chicago and its nearby suburbs, including Parichy's purpose-built showcase Memorial Stadium in Forest Park.

The league regularly drew over half-a-million fans annually with its exclusively underhand-pitching format (the AAGBPL allowed for overhand),

and even featured football legend Red Grange as its commissioner for its first three seasons.

Although the NGBL and AAGPBL never directly competed against each other on the diamond, they did battle fiercely for players - ultimately leading to a pact between the two to not raid each other's talent - and even a truce of sorts when players from both circuits joined together in the four–team International Girls Baseball League (IGBL) in Miami during the winter of 1952–53.

“Their Turn At Bat” - find out more about the film here

EPISODE 219: Graham "Buster" Tutt

We knock out a bunch of previously unexplored US soccer franchises of yore with the delightful Graham "Buster" Tutt ("Never Give Up: The Graham 'Buster' Tutt Story") - whose tragically derailed, but ultimately persevering pro soccer journey across three continents serves as the backdrop for intriguing tales of the modern-day American pro game's formative years.

A promising young goalkeeper for England's Charlton Athletic in the early 1970s, Tutt turned pro with the London club the day after graduating high school at age 17, ultimately making 78 first-team appearances and helping the Addicks vault from the FA's Third Division to the precipice of the First in just three seasons.

However, during a promotional bid game against Sunderland in 1976, Tutt suffered a brutal kick to the face that broke his cheekbone and nose, internally damaged his right eye, and permanently damaged his right eye - effectively ending his playing career.

Yet, after two eye operations and 18 months of difficult recovery, Tutt found redemption as a two-time Goalkeeper of the Year in the rough-and-tumble South African League - before springboarding to the burgeoning American pro soccer scene in 1980.

Join us for Tutt's Stateside adventures with the ASL Columbus Magic, outdoor/indoor NASL Atlanta Chiefs, ASL Georgia Generals & the AISA/NPSL indoor Atlanta Attack - and the sport’s legacy he’s still helping build today.

Never Give Up: The Graham “Buster” Tutt Story - buy book here