EPISODE 469: The New York Islanders Owner Who Wasn't - With Nicholas Mennuti

For a few surreal months in 1997, John Spano owned the National Hockey League's New York Islanders.

There was just one problem: he didn’t have the money.

Author Nicholas Mennuti joins the conversation to revisit one of the most audacious cons in professional sports history, chronicled in his book "Spano: How a Hockey Superfan Conned His Way Into Owning an NHL Team."

By the mid-1990s, the Islanders had fallen far from their four consecutive Stanley Cups. Nassau Coliseum was deteriorating, payroll was thin, ownership was disengaged, fans were furious, and the franchise desperately needed a savior. Into that opening stepped Spano: a hockey obsessive with expensive tastes, powerful connections, a fabricated fortune and an uncanny ability to convince people he belonged among sports’ ownership elite.

Mennuti traces how Spano learned from the booming sports-business culture of the era, explored deals involving the Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers, secured an $80 million bank loan, won the confidence of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and ultimately took control of the Islanders despite having only a fraction of the wealth he claimed.

Even stranger, Spano may actually have had some instincts for the job. He pushed for a new Long Island arena, pursued superstar forward Mark Messier, challenged team GM Mike Milbury, renegotiated local television rights and helped create real value around a franchise he could not afford to own.

It’s a story about fraud, fandom, ambition and institutional credulity — and about how a desperate NHL franchise briefly handed its future to a man whose greatest asset may have been his absolute belief that he belonged there.

Spano: How A Hockey Superfan Conned His Way Into Owning An NHL Team - buy book here

EPISODE 468: The Many Acts of John Madden - With Scott Howard-Cooper

Few figures in American sports ever reinvented themselves as completely — or as successfully — as John Madden.

After a Hall of Fame coaching career with the Oakland Raiders that included a Super Bowl championship and one of the highest winning percentages in NFL history, Madden walked away from the sideline at just 42. What followed became an even larger legacy: groundbreaking television work, a transformative role in the rise of Fox Sports, an enduring video-game franchise, ubiquitous advertising campaigns, and a place in American popular culture that extended far beyond football.

Sportswriter and author Scott Howard-Cooper joins us to discuss his new book, "BAM!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game That Changed Sports," an exploration of Madden’s remarkable second act and the many ways he helped expand football’s reach.

Howard-Cooper recounts Madden’s reluctant entry into broadcasting, the natural teaching ability that made him uniquely effective on television, his partnership with Pat Summerall, and the enormous credibility he brought to Fox when the upstart network stunned the sports world by acquiring NFL rights. He also traces Madden’s unlikely relationship with Electronic Arts and the development of a video game that introduced generations of younger fans to football strategy — and often to Madden himself.

The conversation also explores a less-publicized side of Madden: the profound impact of Darryl Stingley’s devastating 1978 injury, Madden’s lifelong concern for player safety, and his willingness to challenge the NFL on issues ranging from youth tackle football to Thursday-night games.

It’s a look at how a football coach became a broadcaster, businessman, teacher, pop-culture icon — and one of the most universally beloved figures the NFL has ever produced.

BAM!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game That Changed Sports - buy book here

EPISODE 467: “Miami Before Messi" - With Joe Shaw

Long before Lionel Messi turned South Florida into the center of the soccer universe, another Miami team was making history — and disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived.

The Miami Fusion lasted just four seasons (1998–2001), a turbulent, often exhilarating Major League Soccer experiment that began with Colombian icon Carlos Valderrama, found an unlikely home at Fort Lauderdale’s renovated Lockhart Stadium, and ended shortly after winning the 2001 Supporters’ Shield. Led by the wonderfully unpredictable Ray Hudson, that final Fusion squad played some of the most dazzling soccer of MLS’s early years. Then it vanished.

Author and podcaster Joe Shaw revisits the franchise’s extraordinary rise and demise in his new book, "Miami Before Messi: A South Florida Soccer Tale," an ambitious oral history built on interviews with the players, coaches, executives, supporters — and, crucially, owner Ken Horowitz — who lived it.

In a revealing conversation, Shaw retraces South Florida’s earlier soccer adventures with the NASL's Miami Gatos, Toros and Fort Lauderdale Strikers; the frantic transformation of Lockhart into a pioneering soccer-specific venue; the Fusion’s star-crossed beginnings; and the remarkable collection of castoffs and characters who nearly captured an MLS championship.

Along the way, Horowitz’s previously untold account challenges conventional wisdom about who actually pulled the plug — and why — as MLS itself teetered on financial collapse.

Packed with forgotten innovations, colorful personalities, painful what-ifs and surprising historical connections, it’s the story of a franchise that helped shape American soccer’s future without surviving to enjoy it. 25 years later, with Inter Miami’s success built partly on the foundations of its forgotten predecessors, the Fusion’s brief, brilliant existence deserves another look.

Miami Before Messi: A South Florida Soccer Tale - buy book here

EPISODE 466: “This One Will Be Different”: The Stadium Subsidy Game - With J.C. Bradbury

Publicly financed stadiums have been sold for generations as civic investments, economic engines, and catalysts for growth. Yet again and again, the promises change while the underlying economics stubbornly refuse to cooperate.

This week, sports economist and longtime baseball fan J.C. Bradbury joins us to explore the arguments behind his new book, "This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums." Drawing on decades of research — and his own front-row view of the Atlanta Braves’ move from Turner Field to Cobb County — Bradbury examines how stadium financing has evolved from publicly built “concrete donuts” to today’s luxury-heavy, mixed-use developments.

At the center of the discussion is Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta, widely promoted as a new model for sports development. Bradbury explains why the surrounding restaurants, apartments, offices, and year-round activity still do not necessarily translate into net new economic growth, and why substitution — local spending simply moving from one place to another — remains the central problem.

The conversation also digs into hotel taxes, stadium districts, hidden infrastructure costs, luxury suites, political incentives, commissioned impact studies, the decline of local scrutiny, and the now-familiar 30-year stadium replacement cycle. Bradbury argues that the buildings themselves are rarely obsolete; the economics of novelty and revenue extraction are what keep the cycle moving.

It's a wide-ranging look at how sports facilities became public policy, why elected officials keep approving deals economists routinely question, and why every new generation of stadium boosters remains convinced that, somehow —  this one will be different.

This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums - buy book here

EPISODE 465: The WNBA At 30 - With Tamryn Spruill

For nearly three decades, the Women's National Basketball Association has survived expansion, contraction, indifferent media coverage, shaky ownership, low salaries and repeated questions about whether women’s professional basketball could ever become a sustainable American sports business.

And yet, here it is.

Journalist and author Tamryn Spruill joins us to discuss her essential new book, "The W: A History of the WNBA," which traces the league from its roots in the wildly successful 1996 U.S. Olympic team through its current cultural and commercial renaissance.

Spruill takes us back to a moment when the WNBA wasn’t even the only new women’s league in town. We revisit its early rivalry with the American Basketball League, the rapid expansion to 16 teams, the financial strains that followed, and the many franchises that disappeared, relocated or were simply forgotten along the way.

We also explore the league’s long struggle for visibility. Spruill explains how limited television exposure, uneven media treatment and an inability - or unwillingness - to understand the WNBA’s actual audience kept generations of elite players largely outside the mainstream sports conversation. Eventually, streaming, social media, changing cultural attitudes and more aggressive sponsorship helped players and fans build something traditional sports media often failed to create for them.

And, naturally, we spend plenty of time with the teams that “used to be” - including the Charlotte Sting, Orlando Miracle, the newly-concluded Connecticut Sun and, of course, the original Houston Comets dynasty.

The W: A History of the WNBA - buy book here

EPISODE 464: Baseball's First All-Star Game? - With Scott Reich

On September 27, 1917, some of baseball’s greatest stars descended on Fenway Park for a game that has largely disappeared from the sport’s collective memory.

Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker and others came together not for a pennant or championship, but to honor Tim Murnane — a former player, manager and baseball executive who became one of the sport’s most influential early journalists. After Murnane died suddenly that February, leaving behind a wife, six young children and significant debts, baseball rallied around his family.

The result was the Tim Murnane Memorial Benefit Game, an extraordinary afternoon featuring the powerhouse Boston Red Sox against a hand-picked team of stars from both major leagues. Players left their own teams during the season and traveled to Boston at their own expense. Before the first pitch came skills competitions that look remarkably familiar today: a home run derby, throwing contests and a race around the bases. Will Rogers rode onto the field on horseback, Fanny Brice hawked programs in the stands, and former heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan coached first base.

Author Scott Reich joins us to discuss his book "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game," which resurrects Murnane’s remarkable life and makes the case that this forgotten gathering provided a blueprint for baseball’s modern All-Star Game — sixteen years before the first official Midsummer Classic.

Along the way, Reich takes us inside baseball’s unruly formative decades, explains how Murnane became one of the game’s most trusted voices, and explores what this remarkable afternoon revealed about the sport in 1917 — when ballparks doubled as civic gathering places and baseball’s biggest stars could put pennant races aside for a cause larger than the game.

One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game - buy book here

EPISODE 463: Fort Wayne's Forgotten Sports History - With Logan Wiening

Fort Wayne, Indiana has spent more than 150 years quietly accumulating one of America’s richest—and strangest — collections of sports history. The city hosted what is widely regarded as professional baseball’s first league game in 1871, became home to the celebrated Fort Wayne Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, fielded industrial and semi-pro clubs backed by some of the city’s biggest employers, and produced a seemingly endless procession of minor-league teams whose names, logos and stories have largely disappeared.

Old Fort Baseball Co. founder Logan Wiening is trying to make sure they aren’t forgotten.

A Fort Wayne native, former NBA D-League/G League Mad Ants staffer and self-taught graphic designer, Wiening launched Old Fort in 2021 after noticing that other cities had embraced their vintage sports identities while much of Fort Wayne’s remained buried in archives, attics and old yearbooks. What began as an apparel project has evolved into something closer to a local sports-history laboratory—using carefully researched designs, storytelling, pop-up retail and community events to reconnect people with teams they remember and introduce them to ones they never knew existed.

Wiening helps trace Old Fort’s unlikely evolution and explore the remarkable sporting history underneath it: the 1871 Kekiongas, the Daisies, the GE Voltmen, the delightfully named Fort Wayne Huggie Bears and Scouts of professional slow-pitch softball, the Zollner Pistons’ industrial roots, and more.

Along the way, he explains the research rabbit holes behind resurrecting forgotten identities, the trademark complications surrounding defunct teams, why nostalgia can become civic history, and why he considers Old Fort a storytelling company whose medium happens to be apparel.

Old Fort Baseball Co. - buy cool stuff here (promo code “GOODSEATS” for 15% off!)

EPISODE 462: The Original American Soccer League - With Mark Franek

A century before MLS, decades ahead of the NASL, and long before American soccer became a regular part of the sports landscape, the United States already had a thriving professional league capable of attracting big crowds, paying real salaries and even luring talent away from Europe.

Author Mark Franek, whose new book "American Soccer Nation" traces 150 years of the game’s often-overlooked U.S. history, joins us to revisit one of its most remarkable chapters: the rise and fall of the original American Soccer League, launched in 1921 and at its peak during the Roaring Twenties.

Backed by companies such as Bethlehem Steel and other industrial powers of the era, the ASL featured colorful clubs, deep-pocketed owners and some of the best players American soccer had yet produced — including prolific scoring star Archie Stark. At its height, the league was successful enough to raid European rosters, prompting British newspapers to warn of an “American Menace.”

But prosperity gave way to infighting. Franek helps untangle the ASL’s increasingly bitter battles with U.S. soccer’s governing body over cup competition, scheduling, money and control — tensions that erupted into the so-called “Soccer War” just before the Great Depression devastated the league’s ownership base and working-class fan communities.

Along the way, we discuss how the ASL helped lay the groundwork for the U.S. team’s surprising run at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, why so much of this history has slipped from popular memory, and how many of the sport’s century-old arguments still echo today.

We also explore Franek’s work teaching soccer history at Philadelphia Union-affiliated YSC Academy, the educational roots behind "American Soccer Nation," and why he believes the current American game may finally have the infrastructure to break its long cycle of boom, bust and rebirth.

American Soccer Nation: The Remarkable 150-Year History of Yanks on a Roll, from Mob Football to the Modern Game - buy book here

EPISODE 461: Baseball's Texas League - With William H. Brewster

Long before the Texas League became one of minor league baseball’s most enduring institutions, it began as a decidedly shaky experiment in a state still trying to prove it belonged on the national sporting map.

In 1887, a barnstorming New York Giants club swept through Texas crushing local amateur teams — until John McCloskey’s imported squad of professional players, newly adopted by Austin, pulled off a stunning upset. The victory helped convince local businessmen that Texas was ready for something bigger. By the following spring, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Galveston, Austin and San Antonio had organized the first Texas League, complete with schedules, umpires, salaries and all the financial uncertainty that came with professional baseball in the 1880s.

This week, author William H. Brewster joins us to tell that remarkable origin story and discuss his new book, "The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888." Brewster takes us inside a league where gate receipts meant survival, Sunday games could make or break a club, teams folded in midseason, players jumped to surviving rosters — and the line between professional athlete and working man was still remarkably thin.

But this is also a story about Texas itself: fast-growing cities, railroads, civic ambition, racial tension and communities using baseball as proof that they had arrived. Brewster explains how a rough, improvised circuit became the historical starting point for a league that still carries “Established 1888” today — even if the path from then to now was anything but straight.

The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888 - buy book here

EPISODE 460: "Honolulu Blues" - With Joel Walkowski

In Detroit, loving the Lions has rarely been about winning. For author, comedian and Motor City native Joel Walkowski, it became something much deeper: a family inheritance, a language shared with his father, and eventually a way to understand his own struggles with addiction, recovery, disappointment and resilience. Walkowski's engaging new book, "Honolulu Blues: How Loving a Losing Football Team Created a Winning Man," weaves the tortured history of the NFL's Detroit Lions into an intensely personal story about what it means to keep showing up when life — or your football team — refuses to cooperate.

Walkowski grew up almost in sync with Barry Sanders, whose first NFL game fell on Joel’s third birthday. Trips to the Silverdome with his Lions-obsessed father came with elaborate rituals, while the franchise itself supplied an endless procession of near-misses, bizarre defeats and organizational dysfunction. As Joel’s own life began to unravel, the parallels became uncanny: the Matt Millen-era Lions bottomed out at 0-16 as his addiction deepened; Matthew Stafford’s arrival coincided with the slow process of becoming functional again; and the Dan Campbell/Jared Goff revival unfolded alongside Joel’s more serious work in recovery.

This week, Walkowski joins to explore why Barry Sanders became something of a personal “higher power,” why generations of Lions fans learned to expect heartbreak, and how football became the connective tissue between father and son. Most poignantly, he recounts watching Detroit’s long-awaited 2023 playoff breakthrough while caring for his dying father — and discovering that after a lifetime spent waiting for the Lions to win, perhaps the real payoff had been there all along.

Honolulu Blues: How Loving a Losing Team Created a Winning Man - buy book here

EPISODE 459: CNN "Sports Tonight" Pioneer Fred Hickman - With Harrison Golden

Long before ESPN's SportsCenter became a cultural institution, Fred Hickman was helping define what sports television could be. One of the fledgling Cable News Network's original on-air personalities, Hickman became nationally known alongside Nick Charles on CNN Sports Tonight, where “Nick and Hick” paired serious sports journalism with an easy, conversational chemistry that made the nightly highlights feel both authoritative and welcoming. Their signature “Play of the Day” became so recognizable that, as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a viewer in Germany held up a bedsheet urging Fred to make a united Germany that night’s selection — a wonderfully improbable measure of the show’s massive reach and influence.

This week, we revisit Hickman’s remarkable life with journalist Harrison Golden, co-author of the posthumously published memoir "Channeling: My Life On Air, Off Air, and In Living Color." Golden first knew Hickman as a kid watching Yankees coverage on the newly launched YES Network, then encountered him years later while interviewing for a local television job in Baton Rouge. The two became colleagues and friends, and after Hickman was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he entrusted Golden with helping preserve the story he wanted to leave behind.

Our conversation follows Hickman from his hometown Springfield, Illinois, to CNN’s improvisational early days; the rise and enduring bond of “Nick and Hick”; Hickman's harrowing struggle with cocaine addiction in Detroit and the second chance that brought him back to Turner HQ in Atlanta; the explosive growth and eventual fragmentation of cable sports; and later chapters at YES, ESPN and beyond. 

We also revisit Hickman's pioneering importance as one of the first Black sportscasters with sustained national visibility — and, of course, his infamous first-place vote for Allen Iverson in 2000 that kept Shaquille O’Neal from becoming the NBA’s first unanimous Most Valuable Player that year.

Channeling: My Life On Air, Off Air, and In Living Color - buy book here

EPISODE 458: "Finding Renée Richards" - With Julie Kliegman

For decades, Renée Richards lived with an intensely private struggle over her gender identity while building an accomplished life as an athlete, physician, husband and father. Through it all, tennis remained one of the few constants.

Before transitioning in the mid-1970s, Richards - then known as Richard “Dick” Raskind - had been a gifted amateur tennis player, Yale graduate, Navy veteran and successful ophthalmologist. But beneath those achievements was a lifelong conflict Richards later described as a battle between “Dick” and “Renée,” one she tried unsuccessfully to resolve through years of psychoanalysis before ultimately deciding to live as a woman.

After transitioning, Richards moved to Southern California and returned to competitive tennis, this time in women’s events. When her previous identity became public in 1976, a deeply personal journey suddenly became an international sports controversy. Tennis officials required Richards to pass a chromosome test to enter major women’s tournaments; she refused, setting off a remarkable legal battle that included an unlikely attorney in Roy Cohn, critical support from Billie Jean King and a landmark 1977 court victory allowing her to compete in the U.S. Open.

Sports journalist Julie Kliegman joins the podcast this week to tell Richards’ extraordinary and often misunderstood story through her new biography, "Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer."

Kliegman takes us through Richards’ long path toward transition, the media frenzy and cultural backlash that followed, her professional tennis career (including a 1978 turn with World Team Tennis' peripatetic New Orleans Sun Belt Nets), and later work with Martina Navratilova - as well as Richards’ complicated reassessment of the very fight that made her a historic figure.

Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer - buy book here

EPISODE 457: Boxer Michael Spinks - With Jack Hirsch

Boxer Michael Spinks was one of the most accomplished fighters of his generation, even if his career has never received quite the recognition it deserves.  A gold medalist at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Spinks became the dominant light heavyweight of his era before doing what no reigning light heavyweight champion had ever done: move up and defeat the heavyweight champion, upsetting the unbeaten Larry Holmes in 1985 and beating him again the following year.

Yet for many casual sports fans, Spinks is remembered less for everything he accomplished than for the 91 seconds it took Mike Tyson to knock him out in their massive 1988 "Once and For All" showdown. That loss became the final fight of Spinks’ career, obscuring a remarkable body of work that legendary boxing writer Jack Hirsch believes deserves far greater historical appreciation.

Hirsch joins the show to discuss his newly published authorized biography of Spinks ("Michael 'Jinx' Spinks: An Authorized Biography"), and the fascinating life behind the fighter: his unlikely path from Olympic champion to reluctant professional, his complicated relationship with promoter Butch Lewis, his historic victories over Holmes, the circumstances surrounding the Tyson fight, and the financial turmoil that emerged years after his retirement. 

We also explore Spinks’ famously low-key personality, his relationship with brother Leon, and why Hirsch places Michael firmly among boxing’s all-time greats — even if the wider sporting public has never quite given him his due.

Michael "Jinx" Spinks: An Authorized Biography - buy book here

EPISODE 456: Ted Rhodes & The United Golf Association - With Dan Taylor

Before Tiger Woods transformed golf, before Charley Sifford broke the PGA Tour's color barrier, there was Ted Rhodes — a remarkably gifted player whose career unfolded largely outside the spotlight because the game itself refused to let him in.

This week, return guest Dan Taylor joins to discuss his new book, "Out of the Rough: Ted Rhodes And His Fight Against Golf's Color Barrier,"  the remarkable story of one of the greatest golfers most sports fans have never heard of. From humble beginnings in segregated Nashville to competing against the game's biggest names, Rhodes spent decades proving his talent while confronting the barriers that kept Black golfers from the highest levels of the sport.

Taylor also explores the vital role of the United Golf Association, the organization that created competitive opportunities for Black golfers during an era when mainstream golf remained largely closed to them. Together, Rhodes and the UGA tell a story that extends far beyond fairways and scorecards, revealing an overlooked chapter in both golf history and the broader struggle for civil rights.

Along the way, we examine Rhodes' friendship with boxing legend Joe Louis, his influence on future pioneers including Charley Sifford and Lee Elder, and why even Tiger Woods recognized Rhodes as one of the figures who helped make his own historic success possible.

Out of the Rough: Ted Rhodes and His Fight Against Golf’s Color Barrier - buy book here

EPISODE 455: The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game - With Warren Rogan

For more than 40 years, the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game occupied a singular place on the annual football calendar. Each summer, the nation's top graduating college players took on the reigning NFL champions before packed crowds at Chicago's Soldier Field and a national television audience. Played 42 times between 1934 and 1976, the game became an unlikely bridge between college football and the NFL during some of the sport's most transformative years. In "College All-Stars vs. NFL Champions: The Chicago Charities Football Games," sports historian Warren Rogan ("Sports' Forgotten Heroes") explores the history, personalities and enduring legacy of this forgotten football institution.

Conceived by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward during the Great Depression, the game began as a way to help promote a young NFL still seeking to establish itself alongside the far more popular college game. Over the years, it became much more than an exhibition. The series raised more than $4 million for Chicago charities and featured future stars from the worlds of sports, politics and public life, including Kenny Washington, Jackie Robinson, future US President Gerald Ford & eventual US Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White.

From its inaugural 0–0 tie against George Halas's Chicago Bears in 1934 to the College All-Stars' memorable victory over Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers in 1963, the game produced its share of unforgettable moments before coming to an abrupt, rain-soaked end in 1976.

In this episode, we explore the history, significance and lasting legacy of one of football's most fascinating forgotten traditions — a time when the nation's best college players had one final chance to test themselves against the very best professional team in the game.

College All-Stars vs. NFL Champions: The Chicago Charities Football Games, 1934-1976 - buy book here

EPISODE 454: Baseball's Most Misunderstood Commissioner - With Dave Bohmer

Ford Frick's name may be familiar to baseball fans, but his story — and his impact on the game — have largely faded from view. Yet for more than four decades, Frick occupied a front-row seat to some of the most transformative moments in baseball history, first as a journalist and publicist, then as National League president and ultimately as Major League Baseball's third commissioner.

This week, we're joined by author Dave Bohmer, whose new book, "Ford Frick: Baseball's Third Commissioner and His Four Decades of Shaping the Game," offers a fresh and compelling reassessment of one of the sport's most misunderstood executives. Drawing on extensive archival research, Bohmer argues that Frick was far more than a caretaker commissioner, emerging instead as a pivotal figure whose influence can be found throughout the development of the modern game.

Together, we explore Frick's unlikely rise from newspaper reporter to one of baseball's most powerful figures, his leadership during the Great Depression and World War II, his involvement in the creation of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and his stewardship during an era that saw Jackie Robinson break baseball's color barrier, franchises move west, television reshape the business of sports, and expansion transform the major leagues.

We also examine the controversies that continue to define Frick's legacy — from the Roger Maris home run debate to longstanding perceptions that he served owners more than the game itself—and discuss why Bohmer believes history has understated his influence on the sport he helped shape.

Ford Frick: Baseball's Third Commissioner and His Four Decades of Shaping the Game - buy book here

EPISODE 453: The USFL's Memphis Showboats - With Keith Wood

For generations, the city of Memphis chased something bigger than a winning football team. It chased major league status.

When the USFL arrived in 1984, the Memphis Showboats became far more than a spring football franchise. For one unforgettable moment, they embodied a city's belief that it belonged on the biggest stage in professional sports.

This week, Memphis sports historian and author Keith Wood returns to the show — this time to explore the remarkable story behind his new book "The Memphis Showboats: The USFL Team & the City's Fight for Major League Status." Together, we trace the city's decades-long pursuit of professional football—from the World Football League's Memphis Southmen to the arrival of the USFL — and examine why the Showboats resonated so deeply with fans despite surviving only two unforgettable seasons.

Along the way, we revisit the vision of David Dixon, the influence of John Bassett, the recruiting coup that landed Reggie White, the innovative football mind of Pepper Rodgers, the overlooked brilliance of quarterback Walter Lewis, and the leadership of Steve Ehrhart that transformed the Showboats into legitimate championship contenders.

The Showboats lasted just two seasons. Their legend has lasted four decades. Join us as we celebrate one of the USFL's most beloved franchises — and the city that embraced it.

The Memphis Showboats: The USFL Team and the City's Fight for Major League Status - buy book here

EPISODE 452: The USFL's San Antonio Gunslingers - With Greg Singleton

The original USFL produced its share of unforgettable franchises. None was more entertaining — or more unbelievable — than the San Antonio Gunslingers.

On the field, they were gritty, competitive and remarkably resilient. Off the field? Pure chaos.

Bounced paychecks. A front office operating out of a double-wide trailer. Players racing across South Texas to cash payroll checks before the money disappeared. Coaches juggling multiple jobs. Ownership lurching from one financial crisis to the next. And somehow . . . they kept playing football.

This week, we welcome former Gunslingers public relations director Greg Singleton, author of Gunnin' for Glory, for an insider's look at one of professional football's most delightfully dysfunctional organizations. 

Singleton takes us beyond the incredulity, introducing the coaches, players and front-office personalities who somehow turned daily dysfunction into lifelong friendships. Along the way come unforgettable tales featuring penny-pinching owner Clint Manges, coaches Gil Steinke and Jim Bates, star quarterback Rick Neuheisel, and a supporting cast so colorful they almost defy belief.

Gunnin' for Glory: The Wild, Weird, Wonderful Stories of the USFL's San Antonio Gunslingers - buy book here

EPISODE 451: Baseball's History By Design - With Todd Radom

Baseball history is often told through championships, statistics and the tales of legendary players. Todd Radom sees it differently.

One of sports' foremost designers, branding experts and visual historians, Radom has spent decades exploring the artifacts that tell baseball's deeper story: logos, uniforms, ballparks, scorecards, mascots and the countless details that connect generations of fans to the game they love.

In this episode, we discuss Radom's fascinating career and his latest book, "The Ballpark and Beyond," a richly illustrated celebration of baseball's people, places and enduring culture. Along the way, we explore forgotten franchises, legendary ballparks, Negro League dynasties, baseball's ties to American history, and the surprising stories hidden in plain sight throughout the sport.

Through Radom's unique lens, baseball becomes more than a sport — it becomes a living archive of American culture. The result is a wide-ranging exploration of the people, places and forgotten connections that continue to give the national pastime its remarkable depth and texture.

The Ballpark and Beyond: An Illustrated Celebration of Baseball's Rich History - buy book here

EPISODE 450: NASCAR Champions - With Herb Branham & Holly Cain

From Red Byron’s pioneering 1949 title to the modern playoff era, NASCAR’s Cup Series championship history is really the story of the sport itself: its birth on the dirt tracks of the South, its rise through the Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon and Johnson dynasties, and its continuing evolution into today’s faster, tighter, more unpredictable championship battles. 

This week, we dig into that legacy with a conversation centered on "NASCAR Champions: Every Cup Series Champion from 1949 to Today," the new illustrated book by Herb Branham and Holly Cain. Built as a chapter-by-chapter tour through every Cup champion, the book blends vivid photography, historical sidebars and insider commentary to show how each title, whether won by a legend or a one-time champion, helped shape the sport’s identity.

Along the way, we talk about what separates the truly great champions from the merely memorable, how the championship format has changed the meaning of “best driver,” and why the Cup title has always carried a weight that extends far beyond the trophy itself.

NASCAR Champions: Every Cup Series Champion from 1949 to Today - buy book here