• Good Seats Still Available

  • By: Tim Hanlon
  • Podcast

Good Seats Still Available By cover art

Good Seats Still Available

By: Tim Hanlon
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  • Summary

  • “Good Seats Still Available” is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.
    2024 Good Seats Still Available
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Episodes
  • 354: Sports Phone - With Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin

    354: Sports Phone - With Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin
    Jul 29 2024
    New York sports broadcast veterans Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin ("976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground") join to help us wax nostalgic about the ground-breaking 1970s telephone service Sports Phone. From the dust jacket of "976-1313": "Sports Phone set out to change the way scores and breaking news were consumed, and in turn ended up setting the tone for the up-to-the-second updates we take for granted today. Found among those who called the service home are some of the most well-known broadcasters, reporters, public address announcers, and other prominent media figures — as well as several who’ve been successful in Hollywood and the music industry. A veritable breeding ground for these now-polished professionals, the dial-up platform that once handled 50 million calls in a year churned out talent at a level likely not seen before or since. "Brought to you by media veterans Scott Orgera and Sports Phone alum Howie Karpin, "976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground" features never-before-told tales of triumph and tragedy, a mix of hilarity, inspiration, and regret from the broadcasting hopefuls and sports junkies that comprised the brains and voices behind the pioneering operation. If you were assembling an All-Star team of media personnel, you’d only have to look as far as Sports Phone’s ranks. "As colorful as that cast of characters was, those who dialed 976-1313 regularly had their own yarns to spin. They form a tapestry of hardcore fans, award-winning actors, well-known comedians, impulsive gamblers, Broadway singers, and infamous mobsters, each with captivating stories told within these pages." + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: "Good Seats" Show & Defunct Team Merch: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.503-sports.com?aff=2 Old School Shirts.com (promo code: GOODSEATS) https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats READ EARLY AND OFTEN: 976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground (2024): https://amzn.to/4dlrtp6 FIND AND FOLLOW: Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailableFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • 353.7: The NHL’s Atlanta Flames (& More!) – With Dan Bouchard [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

    353.7: The NHL’s Atlanta Flames (& More!) – With Dan Bouchard [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]
    Jul 22 2024
    [One last dip into the vault before a flood of new episodes beginning next week; from 2020, our revealing conversation with a pro hockey great - and Atlanta Flames original!} For 1970s-era NHL hockey fans who remember the eight-year adventure known as the Atlanta Flames, few are likely to forget Dan Bouchard. A tenacious, slightly eccentric and occasionally fight-prone French-Canadian goalie, “Bouch” was an immediate standout between the pipes for the NHL’s first-ever Deep South franchise (platooning with fellow Quebecois & expansion draftee Phil Myre during the club’s first five seasons) – and a survivor in a league where hard-nosed hockey was the norm and where good goalies were at a premium. Bouchard’s big-league call-up to the Flames in 1972 came amidst a frantic period of NHL franchise expansion and relocation driven in large part by the arrival of the challenger World Hockey Association – which debuted alongside Atlanta (and the NY Islanders) that season. And while the collective memory of the original Flames remains muddied by a woeful post-season record (reliably exiting the playoffs in the first round, despite qualifying six out of their eight seasons), as well as a then (and still?) persistent narrative of Southerners’ native distaste for ice hockey – Bouchard and Atlanta were actually more competitive and popular than many of the NHL’s other 1970s forays in places like Kansas City, Oakland, Denver, and Cleveland. When Nelson Skalbania bought the Flames and moved them to Calgary in 1980, most in Atlanta and around the league assumed that the well-publicized financial struggles of the team and owner Tom Cousins (who also controlled the Omni arena and the NBA Hawks) were to blame. But as Bouchard outlines in this revealing conversation, an explosive league-wide issue was festering behind the scenes – of which he was uniquely aware and determined to address – regardless of the potential consequences to his playing career. Bouch walks us through an eye-opening story that wends its way through the defunct Quebec Nordiques (including the infamous “Good Friday Massacre” vs. the Montreal Canadiens in 1984), the original Winnipeg Jets, the scandalous downfall of a pro hockey Hall of Famer, and fighting for legendary player/coach Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion both on – and off – the ice. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable "Good Seats" Show & Defunct Team Merch: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY SPONSOR THANKS Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.503-sports.com?aff=2 Old School Shirts.com (promo code: GOODSEATS) https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND & FOLLOW Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailableFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable
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    1 hr and 50 mins
  • 353.6: NASL Soccer's Chief Architect Clive Toye [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

    353.6: NASL Soccer's Chief Architect Clive Toye [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]
    Jul 15 2024
    [By popular request, an archive re-release from August 2018, featuring our extraordinary conversation with one of the central figures of the original North American Soccer League - from its chaotic formation in 1968 to its untimely demise in 1985.] + + + Soccer America columnist (and Episode #6 guest) Paul Gardner summed up this week's National Soccer Hall of Fame guest in his May 2015 commentary: “The debt owed by American soccer to Clive Toye is a vast one. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say, flatly, that without Toye’s blind faith in the sport in the 1970s, pro soccer in the USA would have withered and died. Yes, Phil Woosnam and Lamar Hunt and Bob Hermann were there too. But in those unpromising years it was Toye’s voice -- it came in a steady flow of ridiculously optimistic press releases and grandiose plans for a future that few others even dared to ponder -- that called loudest. “The New York Cosmos general manager credited with turning that league’s fortunes around when he signed Pele to a contract in 1975. Toye, who was born in England and came to the United States in 1967 at the age of 33, was president of three North American Soccer League teams – the Cosmos, Chicago Sting and Toronto Blizzard – and general manager of the [original National Professional Soccer League and subsequent NASL] Baltimore Bays. [He] was an official of the NASL in helping it through its crisis year of 1969 and in its final months in 1985 – and helped to found the third American Soccer League in 1988. “There has always been the spirit of a showman in Toye, and surely it was that spirit that enabled Toye to overlook the virtual collapse of the old North American Soccer League and to see instead a glittering future for the sport in the USA, even to declare to anyone who was listening -- and not many were in those days -- the preposterous notion that the USA should begin preparing to stage the World Cup. “And when the NASL, by the skin of its teeth and by the mad devotion of Toye et al., did survive, it was Toye who gave the reborn league its glittering image with his invention of the Cosmos, with his canny maneuvering and dealing, who brought Pele and Beckenbauer to New York. Showmanship indeed.” Toye (A Kick in the Grass: The Slow Rise and Quick Demise of the NASL; Anywhere in the World) joins host Tim Hanlon for a lyrical and anecdote-filled journey through the pro league that he helped create, later put to rest, and which ultimately shored up the long-term foundation of the “beautiful game” in America. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: "Good Seats" Show & Defunct Team Merch: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: A Kick in the Grass: The Slow Rise and Quick Demise of the NASL (2006): https://amzn.to/3Ln1KAtAnywhere in the World (2015): https://amzn.to/3Y3TD3A SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.503-sports.com?aff=2 Old School Shirts.com (promo code: GOODSEATS) https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND & FOLLOW: Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailableFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable
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    1 hr and 45 mins
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