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Hollywood cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Olivia Kuan (Brick House) joins to discuss the revealing story of the Houston "Herricanes" of the pioneering National Women's Football League (1974-88) – and their overlooked role in the historically rich and surprisingly resilient world of women's pro football.

The modern women's pro game started innocently enough in 1967, when Cleveland talent agent Sid Friedman launched a barnstorming "Women's Professional Football League" in which a team (later nine) of women toured the country playing men's clubs in exhibitions and charity events – sometimes even as NFL and CFL game halftime entertainment.

Led by the breakaway Toledo Troopers, the decidedly (and competitively) legit NWFL began play in 1974 with six teams; by 1976, the league had ballooned to 14 franchises from coast-to-coast, including three in football-mad Texas – led by the "Herricanes" of Houston.

Though devoid of sustainable budgets, major media coverage or appreciable crowds, the Herricanes (and the league itself) featured a passionate breed of player – drawn to an unprecedented opportunity to play real men's-style tackle football for pay – buttressed by emerging progressive era of Title IX, the Equal Rights Amendment and rampant sports league entrepreneurialism.

Most were ecstatic simply to play "for the love of the game" – a common theme that emerges quickly in Kuan's early research and principal production for Brick House, beginning with the Herricanes' starting safety – her own mother Basia.

It's not too late to plan your baseball Spring Training getaway at VisitArizona.com!

Award-winning illustrator, cartoonist and unwitting baseball historian Anika Orrock (The Incredible Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) joins to discuss her delightfully visual take on the pioneering circuit that not only helped save America's pastime – but also became the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States.

With the US deep into WWII, attendance at Major League Baseball games by 1943 was dwindling and minor leagues were suspending operations as the nation's war effort siphoned able-bodied men from pro baseball diamonds across the country. To keep interest in the sport alive, Chicago Cubs owner Philip Wrigley spearheaded the formation of an all-female league that featured a spirited blend of competitive moxie and girl-next-door femininity that delighted hundreds of thousands of fans throughout the Midwest and garnered significant national publicity.

The quality of play was surprisingly competitive, aided by ex-big league managers like Jimmy Foxx and Max Carey. The AAGPBL also doubled as a kind of finishing school for its players – all of whom were expected to maintain high moral standards, rules of conduct and even a Helena Rubinstein-contracted beauty regimen – in an effort to project positive and patriotic female images both on and off the field.

Orrock's Incredible Women blends funny, charming, yet powerful vignettes told by the players themselves, with a whimsically stylized graphic design that delivers a remarkably detailed (and all-ages-accessible) oral history of the pioneering league's 12-year run – and unique place in baseball history.

PLUS: The grocery-list stylings of San Francisco Giants' radio voice Jon Miller!

It's not too late to plan your own baseball Spring Training getaway at VisitArizona.com!

Spring training is finally under way, and we celebrate the National Pastime with a return visit to the 1989-90 curiosity known as the Senior Professional Baseball Association – with one of its few dedicated chroniclers, prolific sports author Peter Golenbock (The Forever Boys).

The brainchild of real estate developer (and former college player) Jim Morley, the SPBA was envisioned as a kind of Senior PGA golf-type circuit for ex-Major League Baseball players aged 35 and older (32+ for catchers), played at Spring training facilities throughout Florida during the traditional baseball off-season.

Featuring former All-Star player/labor pioneer Curt Flood as commissioner – and a talent roster that included future Hall of Fame players and managers, Major League batting champions, and Cy Young-winning pitching aces – the "Senior League" drew in big names and sizable media attention, but minuscule crowds.

The eight inaugural teams — the Bradenton Explorers, Fort Myers Sun Sox, Gold Coast Suns, Orlando Juice, St. Lucie Legends, St. Petersburg Pelicans, West Palm Beach Tropics, and Winter Haven Super Sox — averaged just 921 fans per game, roughly half of what Morley and his fellow owners envisioned.

The Dick Williams-managed Tropics were the league's 72-game regular season leaders, but it was the Pelicans – the team Golenbock just happened to be following for Forever Boys – who won the step-laddered post-season playoffs to capture what ultimately became the SPBA's first- and last-ever champion.

Plan your own baseball Spring Training getaway at VisitArizona.com!

We gear up for this week's world premiere of God Save the Wings – the long-awaited documentary about one of the original Major Indoor Soccer League's most improbable success stories – with co-producers Adam Knapp (Out Here in Kansas) and Mike Romalis (Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings).

The Wichita Wings were the smallest-market franchise of not only the fledgling MISL, but also of any major US pro sports circuit when they joined the league in its second season (1979-80) – becoming the first-ever major league professional sports team in Kansas history, and, ultimately, the MISL's most durable.

The Wings defied conventional logic, as world-class soccer players from places like England, Denmark, Argentina, and Ecuador treated sold-out Kansas Coliseum crowds with spirited play that made them a perennial playoff contender and one of the league's most successful franchises.

Although they never captured a championship in their 13 MISL seasons (nor during nine subsequent seasons in the successor NPSL), the Wings were still the perennial darlings of their "Orange Army" of rabid fans – much to the chagrin (and envy) of their big-city rivals.

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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!

Society for American Soccer History board director Steve Holroyd returns to help us decipher the last decade of the enigmatic second incarnation of the American Soccer League (1933-1983) – the longest-lasting "professional" soccer circuit in US history prior to today's MLS.

A smaller-scaled reboot of the original ASL (1921-33) that, for a time, rivaled the fledgling sport of pro football in terms of fan interest – "ASL II" began its more-modest life playing in the urban centers of the Eastern Seaboard during the height of the Great Depression.

For much of its 50-year existence, the ASL was a relatively loose but heartily competitive amalgam of ethnically-identified clubs concentrated primarily in the immigrant-heavy neighborhoods of the industrial Northeast. Teams came and went with regularity – and changing identities or even folding in the middle of a season was not uncommon.

As the "big league" NASL gained popularity in the early 1970s, the American Soccer League began to expand its geographic footprint and more professionally emulate its younger cousin. By 1972, the league had mostly abolished its ethnic team names (out: Newark Ukrainian Sitch, New York Greeks; in: New Jersey Brewers, New York Apollo), and league president Eugene Chyzowych began steering the ASL to a more pronounced embrace of American players, while aggressively pursuing national expansion.

The league even hired former Boston Celtics basketball legend Bob Cousy as commissioner in a bid to raise the ASL's national PR profile. Freely admitting he knew little about soccer, Cousy nevertheless elevated the league's ambitions – adding franchises to the West Coast by 1976 and relocating league headquarters to media-friendly Manhattan.

Still, "America's Soccer League" was mostly relegated to de facto second division status vs. the bigger-budgeted NASL; it was not uncommon for ASL teams to lose top players to the freer-spending NASL – though a number of aging marquee players like Eusebio, Rildo, and Phil Parkes found the reverse path just as remunerative.

Ultimately, the ASL's major league aspirations were financially unsustainable (just like the NASL's), and the league collapsed after the 1983 season – ushering in a dark period for the pro game that lasted until the launch of Major League Soccer in 1996.

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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.

Thank you VisitArizona.com for sponsoring this week's episode!

Following the 1957 season, two of baseball's most famous teams – the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants – left the city they had called home since the 1880s and headed west to the Golden State of California.

The dramatic departure and bold reinvention of the Dodgers (to Los Angeles) and the Giants (to San Francisco) is the stuff of not only professional baseball lore, but also broader American culture – brash and (especially among generations of New Yorkers) unforgivable acts of betrayal committed by greedy owners Walter O'Malley and Horace Stoneham.

But, as this week's guest Lincoln Mitchell (Baseball Goes West: The Dodgers, the Giants, and the Shaping of the Major Leagues) argues, the broader chronological story of America's biggest-ever pro sports franchise relocation was, and is, not a one-way narrative.

While a traumatic blow to the societal psyche of the New York metropolitan region, the transplanting of two longtime National League rivals was not only inevitable (as the nation's economic and demographic profiles were rapidly changing), but ultimately crucial to the survival of the sport – as increasingly modern forces like air transportation, television and the automobile began to transform pre-War notions of leisure time and discretionary income.

A culturally and financially booming post-War California quickly proved to be not only fertile ground for baseball, but also a blueprint for US professional sports writ large in the decades that followed.

Thank you VisitArizona.com for sponsoring this week's episode!

Prolific rock/R&B drummer/musician Steve Ferrone (Average White Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) joins to delve into the backstory of helping write/craft the official theme song for the New York Cosmos – the latest chapter in our irregular series devoted to Tim's longstanding fascination with the North American Soccer League's most famous franchise.

Pop music aficionados know Ferrone as part of the "classic" mid-70s lineup of AWB (along with Hamish Stuart, Alan Gorrie, "Onnie" McIntyre, Roger Ball, and "Molly" Duncan); as a two-decade+ member of the Heartbreakers (1994-2017); and from a prodigious body of studio session work with a literal who's-who of pop music's biggest talent (Chaka Khan, Rick James, Eric Clapton, Stevie Nicks, and the Bee Gees, just to name a few).

But long-time Cosmos soccer fans may also remember Ferrone's semi-invisible hand in the creation and performance of the club's rhythmic anthem that blared from the Giants Stadium PA system after goals and anchored the team's WOR-TV telecasts – recorded under the AWB nom de plume of the "Cosmic Highlanders" via Warner Communications corporate sister Atlantic Records.

Besides the circumstances of the song's origins, Ferrone regales Tim with stories of: how he stepped into the Average White Band during a critical time in the group's then-young life; the musical magic of Atlantic and its founder-brothers Ahmet & Nesuhi Ertegun; how the "Cosmos Clap" came about; and the original song idea Cosmos management had in mind for the club's official theme!

Support for this week's episode comes from the VisitArizona.com and ExpressVPN.

We kick off the new year with a return to the gridiron, and a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the brash, but ultimately ill-fated United Football League of 2009-12 – with its only commissioner, Michael Huyghue (Behind the Line of Scrimmage: Inside the Front Office of the NFL).

Formed in 2007 out of big-budget dreams to establish a national top-tier, Fall-season minor league pro football circuit by high-wattage investors like San Francisco investment banker Bill Hambrecht, Google executive Tim Armstrong and Dallas Mavericks owner/firebrand Mark Cuban (who later backed out, along with initially-rumored financier T. Boone Pickens) – the UFL was also conveniently timed to capitalize on fallout from any potential labor/owner strife prior to the 2011-12 NFL season, when the league's collective bargaining agreement with its players expired. The bet backfired when a correctly-anticipated owner lockout of players quickly ended in July of 2011, ensuring no regular season disruption or drama.

Over the course of its history, five teams played in the league: the Las Vegas Locomotives, Hartford Colonials (originally the New York Sentinels), Omaha Nighthawks, Sacramento Mountain Lions (née California Redwoods), and Virginia Destroyers (successors to the Florida Tuskers). The Locomotives were historically the best of the franchises, winning two of the UFL's three championship games, and possessing an undefeated regular season record when the league suspended operations (ultimately for good) in mid-Fall 2012. Big-name NFL coaches like Jim Haslett, Jay Gruden, Dennis Green, Marty Schottenheimer, and Jim Fassel were featured attractions, as were recognizable pro talent like Simeon Rice, Josh McCown, Daunte Culpepper, and Jeff Garcia – to name just a few.

Huyghue walks host Tim Hanlon through the numerous ups, frequent downs and multiple sideways' of the UFL's brief lifespan, including: how early-career front office experiences in the NFL (Lions, Jaguars), WLAF (Birmingham Fire), and NFL Players' Association uniquely prepared him to the UFL commissioner's role; league ownership's original intention to play as a Spring league; the allure of then-untapped pro markets like Omaha, Las Vegas Sacramento; and lessons learned that could have helped last year's AAF and this year's soon-to-launch XFL.

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