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After extraordinary listener response to our Episode #118 with David Levine a few months back, we bounce-pass our way back to the endlessly intriguing Continental Basketball Association for this week's conversation – this time with a focus on the league's travails during the 1990s, courtesy of the Fort Wayne (IN) Fury and its former radio voice/media relations director Rob Brown.

More than forty years since the relocation of the NBA's seminal Pistons from the Summit City to Detroit (and a decade before the arrival of the current-day G-League Mad Ants), the Fury held court at the city's Allen County War Memorial Coliseum from 1991 until the league's first demise in 2001 – winning the CBA's regular season title in 1998, after narrowly losing the league championship finals two seasons earlier.

Brown recounts some of his standout memories from his time with the Fury, including:

• Playing second fiddle to the Komets, Fort Wayne's minor league hockey juggernaut;
• The harrowing 50-foot fall of team mascot "Sabre" from the Coliseum's ceiling during a 1996 playoff game;
• Indiana Hoosier legend Keith Smart's final year of playing and first year of pro coaching – both with the Fury;
• The short-lived playing career of Percy Miller – better known as rap superstar Master P; AND
• Why today's Fort Wayne Mad Ants owe a debt of gratitude to both the Fury and the CBA.

PLUS: The real origin of New York Knicks/ESPN broadcaster Mike Breen's signature three-point call!

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Before embarking on his incredible 29-year (and counting) run as play-by-play lead for NHL hockey's San Jose Sharks, NBC Sports California sportscaster Randy Hahn was first known to 1980s pro soccer audiences as the versatile radio and TV voice behind the short-lived Edmonton Drillers of the North American Soccer League as well as the dynastic San Diego Sockers of both the NASL and the Major Indoor Soccer League.

We descend deep into the Good Seats audio archives to revisit some of the more memorable (and sometimes downright forgettable) moments from Hahn's North American indoor and outdoor soccer broadcasting exploits, including:

• Covering the original NASL Vancouver Whitecaps at a commercial station while still a college student at the University of British Columbia;
• Answering the call for a last-minute/first-ever radio play-by-play assignment for a Drillers "outdoor" game in Houston;
• Learning the differences between calling slower-building outdoor matches vs. the faster-moving indoor game;
• Winning "One for the Thumb" – and then some - with the indoor Sockers;
• The coaching genius and indelible legacy of Sockers head coach Ron Newman; AND
• How Hahn found his "way to San Jose" with the return of pro hockey to the Bay Area.

PLUS: We dig up the long-forgotten San Diego Sockers official theme song!

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the new series "Fundamentals of Photography" – created in conjunction with National Geographic!

Sportswriter Ron Synder (The Baltimore Stallions: The Brief, Brilliant History of the CFL Champion Franchise) joins to delve into the story of the mostly-forgotten team that revitalized Baltimore's pro football history and viability.

When the National Football League's Baltimore Colts secretively absconded to Indianapolis in the wee hours of March 29, 1984, three decades of pro football history left with them. Subsequent dalliances with the USFL's nominally "Baltimore" Stars in 1985, and ill-fated attempts to rejoin the NFL (1987's wooing of the St. Louis Cardinals & 1993's proposed expansion "Bombers") only deepened local pigskin fans' despair.

In the wake of the expansion disappointment, entrepreneur and ex-Washington Redskins assistant Jim Speros saw an opportunity to bring the newly expanding Canadian Football League to Charm City as a viable replacement in 1994. Capitalizing on the city's love for its cherished NFL franchise, Speros tapped directly into Colts nostalgia by adopting the original team's colors, marching band, cheerleaders, fan clubs, and even Memorial Stadium – christening the new club the "Baltimore CFL Colts."

None too pleased, the NFL obtained a legal injunction against the use of "Colts," literally hours before the team was to play its first game. Speros had to scrap tons of merchandise and a sizable advertising campaign – while hastily converting the franchise's official name to the "Baltimore Football Club" (dubbed the "Baltimore CFL's" by many in the media). Enthusiastic locals referred to the team as the "Colts" anyway – which team officials tacitly (and happily) encouraged.

Unfazed, the team (later renamed "Stallions" for 1995) quickly became the toast of the town, establishing itself as the most successful American team in the CFL's otherwise ill-fated southern expansion effort – reaching the league championship Grey Cup final in 1994, and winning it the following season.

Just days after claiming the CFL title, however, the city and the Maryland Stadium Authority announced an agreement with NFL owner Art Modell to move his Cleveland Browns to Baltimore for the 1996 season. Virtually overnight, the Stallions were forgotten, as fans and the media immediately obsessed on the market's imminent return to football's biggest stage.

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We amp up the intellectual quotient this week with Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger (Ballpark: Baseball in the American City), as we delve into the inextricably historical bond between the rise of America's favorite pastime and the evolution of the American city.

From the first "saloons in the open air" of the late-1800s, such as Brooklyn, NY's Union Grounds; to the ornate turn-of-the century wooden structures of Chicago's Lakefront Park, Boston's South End Grounds, and St. Louis' Sportsman Park; to the early-1900s' steel-and-stone "Golden Era" ballparks headlined by Philadelphia's Shibe Park, Cincinnati's Crossley Field, Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Boston's Fenway Park, Chicago's Wrigley Field, and Brooklyn's Ebbets Field; to the suburban, multi-purpose (and exceedingly TV-friendly) "concrete donuts" of the 1960s; to the retro "urban renaissance" ushered in by Baltimore's Camden Yards in 1992 – Goldberger discusses how baseball's architectural maturation is undeniably concurrent with and reflective of America's cultural, geographic and economic history.

PLUS: The future of baseball's ballparks, as well as how other sports' arenas and stadiums are likely to evolve in similar and dissimilar ways.

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the just-released 24-chapter lecture series "Play Ball! The Rise of Baseball as America's Pastime" – created in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum!

Brooklyn College women's soccer head coach and former NASL (Memphis Rogues, New England Tea Men) and ASL (New Jersey Americans) pro player Patrick Horne (Black Pioneers of the North American Soccer League) joins the podcast to help shine a light on the largely unrecognized contributions of black players to both the success of North America's first major foray into pro soccer, and the growth of the sport's popularity in the US and Canada in the decades since.

While no one disputes the significance of the June 1975 signing of Brazilian superstar Pelé to the league's flagship New York Cosmos as the watershed that legitimized soccer's viability as a professional sport in North America (major world-class talent like Portuguese legend Eusebio and Brazilian star defender Carlos Alberto quickly followed), black players from various corners of the globe had already been plying their trade in the fledgling NASL years before – some as early as the competing 1967 leagues (NPSL and USA) that preceded it.

And many of them were unqualified standouts, despite the league's early struggles.

Exceptional black talent from places like: Bermuda (1972 MVP Randy Horton; Clyde Best); Trinidad & Tobago (MVPs Warren Archibald [1973] & Steve David [1975]); South Africa (1968 Rookie of the Year Kaizer Motaung; "Ace" Ntsoelengoe); Nigeria (Ade Coker); England (Mark Lindsay; and scores of others (including a number of notables from the US collegiate ranks) all helped to stabilize and strengthen the pro game during the 1970s and early 1980s until the NASL's unceremonious collapse in 1984.

Even then, many stayed in their adopted homelands to eventually become coaches and administrators, helping to keep the spirit of the game alive while the US and Canada began its long rebuilding process to get back to top-tier pro soccer.

PLUS: The "Black Pearl" sings!

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the just-released 24-chapter lecture series "Play Ball! The Rise of Baseball as America's Pastime" – created in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum!

It's been nearly two years since our first look at baseball's still-revered Milwaukee Braves, and this week – courtesy of author/historian Patrick Steele (Home of the Braves: The Battle for Baseball in Milwaukee) – we finally get the chance to go deeper into the team that, in its brief 13-season run: never posted a losing season, won two National League pennants, and, in 1957, brought "Cream City" its first and only World Series championship.

Featuring a stellar lineup of mostly Braves farm club-developed players (including eventual Hall of Famers Henry [Hank] Aaron, Warren Spahn, Eddie Matthews, Red Schoendienst, and Phil Niekro) the team immediately won the hearts of Wisconsin sports fans upon its hasty arrival from Boston in the midst of the 1953 pre-season – shattering then-modern-day attendance records, and ushering the city of Milwaukee into the world of America's proverbial "big leagues."

The Braves' surprising success in Milwaukee during the mid-1950's prompted Major League Baseball to redefine itself as a big business, clearing the path for: franchises to relocate beyond the sport's Northeast and Midwest strongholds; its two leagues to expand; and teams to leverage cities in high-stakes battles for local government-subsidized facilities.

All of which, ironically, helped sowed the seeds for the club's eventual relocation to Atlanta in 1966 – an acrimonious departure that generations of Milwaukee baseball fans still haven't forgotten.

PLUS: "There's No Joy Left" – polka music king Frankie Yankovic's song of "good riddance"!

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the just-released 24-chapter lecture series "Play Ball! The Rise of Baseball as America's Pastime" – created in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum!

As the 2019 version of the Portland Timbers celebrates its 10th season in Major League Soccer, we spin the WABAC Machine dial back 44 years earlier to 1975 – when the club's original namesake became an overnight sensation (figuratively and literally) in the then-20-team North American Soccer League.

The last of the NASL's five newly announced sides for that season (along with Chicago, San Antonio, Tampa Bay, and Hartford), the "Timbers" weren't even named (via an open "name the team" contest) until March of 1975 – just two months after having been awarded the franchise, and barely a month before its first scheduled pre-season match.

Despite the haste, the Timbers immediately became the toast of both the Rose City and the league during the summer of 1975, as the club compiled the NASL's best regular season record, earned a trip to the league championship "Soccer Bowl" (losing to the Rowdies 2-0), and regularly drawing 20,000+ crowds to Portland's venerable Civic Stadium – earning the self-appointed moniker "Soccer City, USA" in the process.

Current MLS Timbers fan and de facto club historian Michael Orr (The 1975 Portland Timbers: The Birth of Soccer City) joins host Tim Hanlon this week to delve deep into the magical first year of Portland's top-tier pro soccer franchise – including the personalities that made it work, the fans that made it special, and the traditions that still continue today in the team's since-named (and newly renovated) Providence Park.

PLUS: "Green is the Color" – the long-lost Peter Yeates/Eric Beck/Ron Brady-penned 1975 Timbers theme song!

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the just-released 24-chapter lecture series "Play Ball! The Rise of Baseball as America's Pastime" – created in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum!

We veer back this week into the still-unfolding mess that is (or was) the Alliance of American Football with ESPN.com "NFL Nation" reporter Michael Rothstein – who, along with ESPN Senior Writer Seth Wickersham – has been chronicling the demise of the once-promising league (Inside the Short, Unhappy Life of the Alliance of American Football), dating back to its curious pre-season earlier this winter.

With Carolina Hurricanes owner and last-minute financial savior Tom Dundon recently suing the now-bankrupt league for the return of his complete $70 million investment, the story of the Alliance is getting uglier by the week – with little end to the drama in sight.

Despite helping nearly 60 of its players (and counting) sign NFL contracts, the AAF is increasingly likely to be remembered for its shaky finances and off-field managerial intrigue than for its surprisingly high quality of on-field play.

Rothstein recounts some of the more interesting stories and tidbits gleaned from his months of covering the formative weeks, initial games and now, chaotic dissolution, of a league that seemingly had everything going for it – until it suddenly (and with hindsight) didn't – including:

• Covering the AAF pre-season – despite being denied access to actual practices;

• The mysterious coaching "debut" of Michael Vick;

• The deceptive triumph of the Orlando Apollos' home (and league co-) opener – replete with pre-game tailgating;

• Initial suspicions the league wasn't off to as solid a start as early appearances suggested; AND

• An initial assessment of the villains and victims of the Alliance's ongoing quietus.

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the just-released 24-chapter lecture series "Play Ball! The Rise of Baseball as America's Pastime" – created in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum!

Author and former SPORT magazine writer David Levine (Life on the Rim: A Year in the Continental Basketball Association) joins the 'cast to give us our first taste of the quirky minor league basketball circuit that began as a Pennsylvania-based regional outfit in 1946 (predating the NBA's formation by two months), and meandered through a myriad of death-defying iterations until whimpering into oblivion in 2009.

Often billed throughout its curious history as the "World's Oldest Professional Basketball League," the colorful Continental Basketball Association rocketed into the national sports consciousness during the 1980s – when expansion into non-traditional locales (e.g., Anchorage, AK; Casper, WY; Great Falls, MT; Atlantic City, NJ); innovative rule changes (e.g., sudden-death overtime, no foul-outs, a seven-point game scoring system); and headline-grabbing fan promotions (e.g., "1 Million Dollar Supershot," "Ton-of-Money Free Throw," "CBA Sportscaster Contest") – garnered its first national TV coverage, and even grudging respect from the staid, top-tier NBA.

Levine recounts his time chronicling the 1988-89 season of the CBA's Albany (NY) Patroons, and the real-world stories of the realities of playing, coaching (including a young and hungry George Karl), traveling, and endlessly hoping in a league that sometimes rewarded its members with opportunities at the next level of pro basketball – but more often, did not.

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University of Mary Washington research librarian and baseball historian Jack Bales (Before They Were the Cubs: The Early Years of Chicago's First Professional Baseball Team) joins the podcast to help us dig into the surprisingly rich history of Major League Baseball's long-time North Side Chicago franchise well prior to 1903, when they formally adopted their now-signature nickname.

While even some of the most ardent of Chicago Cubs fans unwittingly believe that year to be the team's first season (it was actually their 28th in the National League, as well as 34th as a professional baseball club); and the "friendly confines" of Wrigley Field to be their original and only home (in fact, not until 1916 when they adopted the former Federal League Chicago Whales' Weeghman Park, their sixth place of residence dating back to 1870) – the history of the "Cubs" long predates their apocryphal launch.

Bales touches on some of the cornerstones of primordial Cubs history including:

• Their actual start in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings – one of the nation's first professional baseball clubs – playing in the largely amateur National Association of Base Ball Players (and winning the championship);
• Segueing into a new, first-ever all-pro National Association (of Professional Base Ball Players) as a charter member the following year;
• Launching as a charter member of the 1876 National League – winning its first title behind ace pitcher (and future sporting goods baron) Albert Spalding, and capturing six of the league's first ten pennants behind baseball's first superstar Adrian "Cap" Anson;
• Becoming colloquially known as "Anson's Colts" – until fully adopting the new nickname circa 1890;
• Anson's abrupt firing in 1897, leaving sportswriters to rebrand the suddenly star-less Colts as the "Orphans"; AND
• The informal early 1900s origins of the now-iconic "Cubs" moniker, and how it officially stuck by the 1903 season.

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