Good Seats Still Available

Tim Hanlon

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Sport
Updated weekly

"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.

3 hr ago

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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888": https://amzn.to/4gGepPt SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
4 hr ago · Bonus

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31 Aug

"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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "Honolulu Blues: How Loving a Losing Football Team Created a Winning Man": https://amzn.to/4gGRKRM SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
24 Aug

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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "Channeling: My Life On Air, Off Air, and In Living Color": https://amzn.to/4ghFCIg SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
17 Aug

"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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis's Trans Pioneer": https://amzn.to/45slUTV SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
9 Aug

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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "Michael 'Jinx' Spinks: An Authorized Biography": https://amzn.to/4xs4dQ5 SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
3 Aug

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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "Out of the Rough: Ted Rhodes And His Fight Against Golf's Color Barrier": https://link.amazon/B011VTLCa SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/
27 Jul

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. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK: "College All-Stars vs. NFL Champions: The Chicago Charities Football Games: 1934-1976": https://amzn.to/4fmad6S SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

"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.

Creator

Tim Hanlon
Years Active

2017 - 2026
Episodes

501
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2025 Good Seats Still Available
Show Website

Good Seats Still Available