EPISODE 330: The 4th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

We press the rewind button on a most interesting 2023, and peer ahead into the uncharted waters of 2024 with our fourth-annual(-ish) Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2); Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46); and Steve Holroyd (Crossecheck, Philly Classics & Episodes 92, 109, 149, 188 & 248).

Takes of varying temperatures fly as we review some of the most curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to wobble into obscurity, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including:

• USFL 2.0 + XFL 3.0 = TBD 2024

• Oakland A's to Las Vegas (maybe)

• Major League Cricket

• Savannah Bananas

• MiLB ownership consolidation

• Premier Lacrosse League: from tour to teams

• Professional Box Lacrosse Association (RIP)

• Women's pro volleyball

• MLS vs. US Soccer

• NBA, NHL & MLB expansion/relocation rumors

• NWSL expansion & TV deal

• Women's hockey 3.0: PWHL

PLUS, we speculate on the dubious reincarnation of the Arena Football League!

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 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!

EPISODE 274: "Absurd" Pro Soccer History - With Pablo Maurer

The Athletic Major League Soccer staff writer Pablo Maurer steps into our vortex of what-used-to-be in professional sports this week, with a look back at some of the more confounding and overlooked stories of the not-so-distant past of US pro soccer.

It's our deepest dives yet into memorable North American Soccer League gems like 1977's one-year wonder Team Hawaii; 1983's divisive US Men's National Team-as-pro-franchise Team America; the curious Stateside detours of world greats like Bayern Munich superstar Gerd Müeller, Dutch legend Johan Cruyff and Manchester United icon George Best - plus, of course, the NASL's inventive ahead-of-its-time 35-yard-line Shootout tie-breaker.

We also tackle some of the already forgotten early days of Major League Soccer - including its own version of the Shootout; LA's ill-fated "first" second franchise Chivas USA; and impossible-to-forget franchise monikers like Wiz, Burn, Clash, and MetroStars.

PLUS: the unheralded pre-MLS rules experiments of the mid-90s USISL minor league pyramid.

AND: the incomparable (if not incomprehensible) Socker Slam!

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 215: "Toffee Soccer" - With David France & Rob Sawyer

We admit that when our friends at Liverpool's deCoubertin Books reached out recently with an advance look at their upcoming title devoted to the history of one of England's most venerable top-flight soccer clubs, we weren't immediately sold on the premise, nor its applicability to our (admittedly) odd brand of sports curiosity.

But after just a few minutes with the meticulously detailed "Toffee Soccer: Everton and North America," we became not only intrigued by the rich, storied saga of Everton F.C.'s 143-year journey into what is now known as the English Premier League - but downright fascinated with its surprising contributions to the development of the game in North America.

Toffee co-authors David France and Rob Sawyer join the podcast this week to shine light on the little-known, but undeniable connection between the "Blues" and the rise of the modern-day pro game in the US & Canada.

From the club's unexpected 1961 runner-up finish in the influential International Soccer League, to its subsequent supply of dozens of top players to the foundational North American Soccer League of the 70s/80s, to its recent embrace of world-class American players like Landon Donovan and Tim Howard - the "People's Club" has been an unwittingly integral part of soccer's Stateside history - far beyond Goodison Park.

Toffee Soccer: Everton and North America - buy book here

EPISODE 160: “Soccertown USA” – With Tom McCabe & Kirk Rudell

Film producers Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell (“Soccertown USA”) join the podcast this week to discuss their newly released documentary about the modest working-class New Jersey town with an outsized influence on the history of the sport of soccer in the United States.

In the mid-1980s, as the domestic pro game began to fade with the demise of the once-hot North American Soccer League, and FIFA’s passing over of the US as potential replacement host for the 1986 World Cup – it was three kids from largely-unheralded Kearny, NJ who helped save it.

Native sons Tab Ramos, John Harkes, and Tony Meola – who formed the backbone of a Men’s National Team that willed its way to breakthrough success in both the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, and laid the groundwork for the pro game’s rebirth in 1996 with the launch of Major League Soccer – were products of a uniquely rich soccer-passionate culture dating back to the town’s Scottish immigrant influx in the 1870s.

Kearny’s storied heritage as a fertile American soccer hotbed – spirited factory-sponsored leagues, ASL cup-winning “pro” teams, strong youth programs, a vibrant street-soccer scene, and even local heroes in the 1970s NASL (including a member of the mighty New York Cosmos virtually next door) – not only nurtured these three pioneers of the game, but also continue to help inspire future generations to play and support the “beautiful game.”

EPISODE 144: Year-End Holiday Spectacular – With Paul Reeths & Andy Crossley

We put the wraps on an event-filled 2019 with our first-annual holiday roundtable spectacular featuring the return of fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46) and Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2) – for a spirited discussion about the past, present and potential future of “forgotten” pro sports teams and leagues.

It’s a no-holds-barred look back on some of the year’s most notable events and discoveries, including:

• The short rise and quick demise of the Alliance of American Football;

• Major League Soccer’s (unsustainable?) expansion to thirty teams;

• The folding of the Arena Football League – again;

• Major League Baseball’s minor league contraction plan; AND

• Raiders NFL football moves on from Oakland for good.

As well as some predictions on what might transpire in 2020, as:

• The second coming of Vince McMahon’s XFL kicks off in February;

• Baseball celebrates the Negro Leagues’ 100th anniversary;

• Las Vegas takes its biggest sports gamble yet with the Raiders;

• The MLS Players’ Association flexes its pre-season bargaining muscles;

• The Chargers and Clippers grapple with second-fiddle status in LA; AND

• Mark Cuban’s Professional Futsal League . . . well, your guess is as good as ours!

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EPISODE 130: St. Louis: The Original Soccer City USA – With Dave Lange

On August 20, 2019, the city of St. Louis, MO was officially awarded the 28th franchise in Major League Soccer, with an anticipated inaugural season beginning in 2022.  And while the club begins its efforts to get its team name, new downtown stadium and initial soccer operations in place, we take some time this week to reflect on the city’s deep and rich soccer history – perhaps unmatched by any locale in the United States.

Dave Lange (Soccer Made in St. Louis: A History of the Game in America’s First Soccer Capital) joins the ‘cast to trace the undeniably symbiotic relationship between the Gateway City and the Beautiful Game – as well as its impact on the development of the sport (especially professionally) across America.

As we root for the new St. Louis MLS team (our name suggestion: Gateway FC!) to meaningfully recognize and incorporate this important past, Lange helps tide us over in the interim as he discusses:

• The St. Louis transplant who help launch both the USA’s first governing body for the sport, as well as its first professional league (the American Soccer League) during the Roaring Twenties;

• The deep-rooted amateur, scholastic and collegiate landscape that kept the city at the center of the nation’s soccer development (including occasional US national team flashes of brilliance);

• The seminal, but oft-forgotten St. Louis Stars of the 1967 NPSL and 1968-77 NASL;

• How “soc-hoc” evolved into a professional indoor soccer explosion in the 1980s & 90s with St. Louis (Steamers, Storm, Ambush) as its epicenter; AND

• The “invisible hand” of Anheuser Busch executive Denny Long.

PLUS:  There “Ain’t No Stoppin’” our tribute to the MISL’s iconic St. Louis Steamers!

Soccer Made in St. Louis: A History of the Game in America’s First Soccer Capital - buy here

EPISODE 127: A British View of US Pro Soccer History – With Tom Scholes

UK sportswriter Tom Scholes (Stateside Soccer: The Definitive History of Soccer in the United States) joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the surprisingly long, colorfully vibrant and regularly misunderstood history of the world’s most popular sport in America.

While even the most erudite of the game’s international scholars mistakenly (though understandably) define the US pro game’s epicenter as the chaotic, post-1966 World Cup launch of the North American Soccer League – the roots of organized soccer actually date as far back as the American Civil War, around the time when the first rules around “American football” were also coming into focus.

In fact, US soccer’s actual first “golden age” can be traced to the Roaring 1920s when immigrant-rich corporate teams in the first American Soccer League rivaled the nascent National Football League in popularity, and US national teams regularly qualified for the first-ever FIFA World Cups in 1930 (finishing third) and 1934.

While a heavily ethnic successor ASL and regional semi-pro circuits kept American soccer’s flickering flame alive (not to mention an international headline-grabbing 1950 World Cup upset of then-world power England), the organized game in the United States continued to grow – albeit regionally niche and nationally inchoate – especially at the pro level.

Yet, the Bill Cox-created International Soccer League of the early 1960s proved that American fan interest in top-flight professional soccer played by the world’s premier clubs was real – setting the kindling for the NASL’s eventual wildfire during the following decade, yet eventual flameout in 1984.

Since then, Scholes suggests, the US has finally entered its third golden age of soccer – as the no-longer “new” Major League Soccer closes in on its 24th consecutive season of growth (recently adding history-rich St. Louis as its 28th North American market) – while the women’s national team extends its unprecedented dominance on the international stage.

Still, soccer’s future success in America is by no means guaranteed – and the frequent travails of America’s long history with the game provide ample lessons of what might ultimately lie ahead.

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Stateside Soccer: The Definitive History of Soccer in the United States - buy here

EPISODE #112: The Once & Future Soccer Legacy of Ft. Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium – With Jeff Rusnak

Long-time South Florida Sun-Sentinel soccer columnist Jeff Rusnak joins to discuss the rich past, transitional present and promising future of one of American pro soccer’s most venerable, yet historically underrated venues – Ft. Lauderdale, Florida’s Lockhart Stadium.

Originally built in 1959 as an American football and track venue for four high schools in the region and named after a former city commissioner, the modest bleacher-constructed Lockhart was unwittingly transformed into the country’s first de facto “soccer specific stadium” when the (original) North American Soccer League’s Miami Toros moved 32 miles north from the cavernous Orange Bowl to become 1977’s Ft. Lauderdale Strikers.

The Strikers became a South Florida sports phenomenon during their seven NASL seasons at the crackerbox Lockhart, boasting world-class talent (Gordon Banks, Gerd Müller, Teófilo Cubillas, George Best) and magnetic personalities (Ron Newman, Ray Hudson) that quickly endeared the club and the sport to an adoring fan base.

Numerous lower division clubs kept the soccer flame alive after the Strikers moved (to Minnesota in 1983) and the NASL died – until 1998, when Major League Soccer investor-operator Ken Horowitz debuted the curiously-named “Miami” Fusion expansion franchise at a refurbished Lockhart, featuring Colombian star Carlos Valderrama.  Despite winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield in 2001 under the dynamic coaching of former Striker fan-favorite Hudson, the league contracted the Fusion after just four season – and the stadium again became the intermittent home to lower-league teams (and even FAU college football) until 2016.

But Lockhart refuses to give up the ghost, as an aggressive demolition and rebuild of the abandoned facility now becomes the focal point of a new David Beckham/Jorge Mas-owned MLS franchise called Inter Miami CF set to debut in 2020 – sans a permanent home in the city of Miami proper. 

Will Lockhart again rekindle the original Striker magic – perhaps even permanently?

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EPISODE #66: Sports Broadcaster JP Dellacamera

Fox Sports soccer play-by-play broadcaster extraordinaire JP Dellacamera joins the podcast this week to discuss a pioneering career in sports announcing spanning over 30 years – including calling this year’s 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia – his ninth consecutive men’s quadrennial assignment since Mexico ’86.

Widely acknowledged as the original voice of US Soccer, Dellacamera’s calls have become synonymous with some of modern-day American soccer’s most indelible moments – including his accounts of the US Women’s National Team’s dramatic penalty kick shootout victory over China in the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and Paul Caligiuri’s historic “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” against Trinidad & Tobago in the final game of 1989 CONCACAF qualifying that punched the US Men’s National Team’s ticket for Italy ’90 – ending a 40-year World Cup finals drought, and reorienting the sport’s trajectory in the ‘States for decades to come.

The road to broadcasting global soccer’s marquee events has by no means been a straight and narrow one, however, and we (of course) chat with Dellacamera about some of the more memorable “forgotten” stops made along the way, including:

• Talking his way into his professional debut calling local TV games for the 1978 NASL expansion Detroit Express;
• Handling radio play-by-play for the American Soccer League’s ALPO dog food-sponsored Pennsylvania Stoners;
• Parlaying years of minor league hockey broadcast experience into lead announcing duties for indoor soccer’s Pittsburgh Spirit of the fledgling MISL;
• Cementing his stature as the voice of US women’s soccer as the play-by-play lead for the 2001 launch of the WUSA; and   
• Returning to his first love of pro hockey – finally at the NHL level – with the short-lived Atlanta Thrashers.  

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EPISODE #64: American Soccer’s “Dark Ages” with Writer Michael J. Agovino

It wasn’t easy being a soccer fan in the United States in the 1980s. 

While the 24-team North American American Soccer League ushered in the decade with an air of stability and momentum (the NASL even sold a pennant labeling the game the “Sport of the 80’s”), it wasn’t long before big-time American pro soccer was dangerously on the ropes (the NASL shrank to just nine franchises by 1984) – and then seemingly gone for good when the league officially sank into oblivion in early 1985.  For a nascent generation of US fans newly hooked on the world’s “beautiful game,” it felt like an abandonment – and an air of disillusionment beset the American soccer scene in the immediate years that followed. 

For Bronx-born writer Michael J. Agovino (The Soccer Diaries: An American's Thirty-Year Pursuit of the International Game), the demise of the NASL and its global flagship New York Cosmos franchise was simply the last nail in the coffin of his soccer “coming of age” during the early 80s – the conclusion of an arc of tragedies: the US Soccer Federation’s unsuccessful bid to replace Colombia as host of the 1986 World Cup; the US national team’s failure to even qualify for the quadrennial event; and the unfathomable death of 41 fans in a riot at the 1985 European Cup Final in Brussels’ Heysel Stadium. 

As Agovino framed it: “Soccer – my new friend – was dead.”

Undaunted, Agovino’s love affair with soccer persisted, while Americans slowly got wise – qualifying for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, hosting the event in 1994, and re-birthing the pro game with Major League Soccer in 1996 – and ultimately turned it into one of the most popular sports in the country.

We chat with Agovino about US soccer’s mid-1980s “dark ages” and subsequent phoenix-like rise from seeming oblivion, including memorable stops like: New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal; the NASL’s Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup; the 1991 Cosmos Reunion Game; Tony Tirado’s lyrical Spanish (and broken English) SIN-TV broadcasts; “Soccer Made in Germany;” and the legacy/enigma of Giants Stadium.

Thanks Audible, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com and Podfly and for your support of the show!

The Soccer Diaries: An American's Thirty-Year Pursuit of the International Game - buy book here

EPISODE #40: The Three Acts of Pro Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes with Columnist Gary Singh

Long-time Metro Silicon Valley columnist and San Jose, California native Gary Singh (The San Jose Earthquakes: A Seismic Soccer Legacy) joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the confusing journey and three distinct incarnations of one of American soccer’s most colorful and persistent professional franchises.  

As one of four West Coast expansion teams (along with the Los Angeles Aztecs, Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps) added for the North American Soccer League’s breakthrough 1974 season, the original San Jose Earthquakes were an immediate hit both on the field (finishing second in the all-new Western Division, and led by the league’s leading scorer Paul Child) and in the stands, where they drew in excess of 15,000 fans a game to a less-than-modern Spartan Stadium – more than double the league average.  Though never regular championship contenders, the ‘Quakes cultivated a rabidly loyal fan base that became the envy of clubs across the league – until the NASL’s ultimate demise ten years later. 

Elements of the club soldiered on semi-professionally in the following years, but the appellation (along with some of the previous cast) returned in earnest in 1999, when the management of San Jose’s struggling (and unpopularly named) Major League Soccer “Clash” sought to rekindle some of the original magic – and by 2001, the second iteration of the Earthquakes were contending for and winning MLS Cup and Supporters’ Shield titles.   

However, stymied by an inability to construct a soccer-specific stadium in the area, owner-operator Anschutz Entertainment Group pulled up stakes and relocated the club to Houston for 2006 – taking further championships with them.  Nonplussed San Jose fans revolted – and a new “expansion” franchise was quickly announced by MLS officials, with plenty of structural caveats that ensured today’s now-third incarnation of the ‘Quakes rightfully retains all of its accumulated heritage and rich legacy.

The San Jose Earthquakes: A Seismic Soccer Legacy - buy book here

EPISODE #24: Soccer “Renaissance Man” Dr. Joe Machnik

Fox Sports soccer rules analyst and newly minted National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Joe Machnik (So You Want to Be a Goalkeeper; So Now You Are a Goalkeeper) has done just about everything across the American soccer landscape in his 60+ year career.  As a player, coach, referee, administrator, match commissioner, and soccer camp (No.1 Soccer Camps) pioneer, “Dr. Joe” has had a direct hand in helping achieving some of the sport’s major milestones in the US at virtually every level – amateur, collegiate, professional, and international.  Entwined within that legacy were memorable stops in oft-forgotten places like the original Major Indoor Soccer League, the scrappy American Indoor Soccer Association, and the chaotic early days of Major League Soccer – all of which host Tim Hanlon obsessively grills Machnik on in this episode, including his:

• Instrumental role in crafting and codifying the professional indoor soccer rulebook for the MISL;
• Championing of the MISL’s novel move to hire full-time professional referees;
• Indisputable memory of the 1981 MISL All-Star Game at New York’s Madison Square Garden, and its role in helping birth Arena Football;
• Coaching travails with the once-mighty New York Arrows, depleted by major player trades and an ownership change;
• Frequent bus rides in the decidedly minor league AISA; AND
• Fortuitous friendship with an AISA arena owner in Rockford, IL that led to a pivotal role in stabilizing the launch of Major League Soccer.

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