EPISODE 394: The 1985 "Show-Me" World Series - With Marshall Garvey

Though it seems like only yesterday, this season marks the 40th anniversary of one of baseball's most misunderstood and overshadowed Fall Classics - the surprisingly competitive seven-game 1985 World Series. 

While most remember the all-Missouri "Show-Me Series" for umpire Don Denkinger's blown call at first base in Game 6, baseball historian Marshall Garvey joins us to discuss why that single moment, while a significant turning point, shouldn't define what was otherwise a colorfully spirited battle between two well-matched in-state rivals. 

In his new book, "Interstate ’85: The Kansas City Royals, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Show-Me Showdown That Rewrote Baseball History," Garvey peels back four decades of myth and oversight to uncover the full, rich tapestry of the "I-70 Series" — a provincial, emotionally charged showdown between two teams forever linked by more than just geography.

Through more than two dozen exclusive interviews with key figures like George Brett, Ozzie Smith, Bud Black, and even Don Denkinger himself, Garvey explores the human stories, cultural context, and remarkable on-field drama that have long deserved more attention.

Interstate '85: The Royals, The Cardinals, and the Show-Me World Series - buy here

EPISODE 150: Major League Baseball Expansion – With Fran Zimniuch

Baseball writer Fran Zimniuch (Baseball's New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961-1998) help us sketch out a nearly forty-year survey of the major leagues’ fitful journey from a regional set of 16 teams confined to just ten US Northeast and Midwest cities, to the 30-club colossus that today stretches across 27 markets across North America.

While the sport’s modern-day wanderlust began in earnest during the 1950s as the Braves moved to Milwaukee, the Browns left for Baltimore (new name: Orioles), the A’s traded Philadelphia for Kansas City, and New York’s Giants and Brooklyn’s Dodgers made haste for California – Major League Baseball entered the 1960s with an urgent need to expand into new markets as the rival Continental League threatened to beat them to the punch.

In 1961, the American League added its own Los Angeles franchise with the Angels, and a new expansion version of the Washington Senators hastily replaced their original predecessors, having absconded to the Twin Cities.  Two more teams joined the following year – New York’s Mets and Houston’s Colt .45’s (later renamed Astros). 

The addition of four new clubs in 1969 pushed the boundaries even further: the San Diego Padres, Kansas City Royals, Montreal Expos, and (ultimately one-year wonder) Seattle Pilots.

Seattle’s MLB redemption came in 1977 when the expansion Mariners joined the American League roster, along with Canada’s second franchise – the Toronto Blue Jays.

Baseball’s last expansion push came in the 1990s, when Colorado and Florida (now Miami) joined the National League in 1993, and Arizona and Tampa Bay were added the NL and AL respectively in 1998.

While rumors of potential relocation of big-league baseball’s current members is always fodder for the off-season Hot Stove (the fate of the Rays in Tampa-St. Pete, in particular), Zimniuch and host Tim Hanlon ponder if further expansion to new markets is in the cards – and if so, where and when?

What better reason to plan your Spring Training getaway at VisitArizona.com!

Baseball’s New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961-98 - buy here

EPISODE 136: Kansas City vs. Oakland – With Matt Ehrlich

We amp up the intellectual quotient this week with University of Illinois journalism professor emeritus Matt Ehrlich (Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era), who joins for a heady discussion around the most unlikely, yet intertwined of pro sports rivalries – and the turbulent 1960s from which it originated.

Although Oakland, CA and Kansas City, MO are geographically distant and significantly different in numerous ways, their histories actually have more in common than meets the eye, Ehrlich argues, as both cities during the Sixties:

• Shared big-city inferiority complexes (blue-collar Oakland constantly overshadowed by the richer, more culturally diverse San Francisco across the Bay; bucolic Kansas City perceived as the quintessentially Midwestern “cow town”);

• Experienced contentious race and labor relations;

• Countered “white flight” suburbanization with ambitious urban renewal efforts; and, notably:

• Featured civic-championing newspaper sports editors and government officials eager to attract top-level pro franchises in a quest for “major league” status.

Ehrlich suggests that each city’s driving ambitions to secure professional sports teams – and the national attention and civic pride that came with them – helped mutually ignite fierce rivalries (AFL/NFL football’s Chiefs and Raiders; baseball’s first-Kansas City-then-Oakland As) that thrilled local fans.  But even with Super Bowl victories and World Series triumphs, major league sports proved little defense against the broader urban challenges roiling the country during the tumultuous 60s & 70s.

Ehrlich’s thesis features a cast of legendary sports characters like Len Dawson, Al Davis, Lamar Hunt, George Brett, Charlie Finley, and Reggie Jackson – and is a chronicle of two emergent major league cities forced to balance soaring civic aspirations with the harsh urban realities of racial turmoil, labor conflict, and economic crises.

Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era - buy here