Why would the Chicago White Sox organization make the exact wrong hire at the exact wrong time? The Old Boys Club, of course. What’s that, you ask? Take a listen and learn about all the benefits this club bestows on its members. And remember, you’ll never get to be a part of it, and neither will I.

Want to contact the show? Email me at [email protected]

MUSIC CREDITS:

"Fearless First" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"Division" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"Unity" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"I Can Feel it Coming" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"The Complex" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott showed true leadership when he admitted to having suffered from depression and sought treatment. His story and those like his are a meaningful strike against what’s called “toxic masculinity,” the outdated notion that men should hide or otherwise cover up their vulnerabilities.

A brief warning to listeners: This episode contains discussion of depression and suicide.

MUSIC CREDITS:

Memory Lane by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4036-memory-lane

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Bittersweet by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3440-bittersweet

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It's time to stop pretending that the "student" in the NCAA's student-athlete model is anywhere near as important as the 'athlete" part to those in charge. This structural imbalance in college sports has been exposed and magnified by the desire of those in charge to do everything they can to play a full college football season in the midst of a pandemic, regardless of what it might do to their players' health. This is how the system was designed to work, to take advantage of the players, most of whom are minorities, and their free labor. It shouldn't be that way.

Thank you to Miriam Williams for her outstanding voice over work.

MUSIC CREDITS:

Kevin MacLeod – Welcome to the Show

Welcome to the Show by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4614-welcome-to-the-show

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Kevin MacLeod – Sax, Rock and Roll

Sax, Rock, and Roll by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4324-sax-rock-and-roll

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Chipper by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3502-chipper

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Go Football Team! Yes, that's the new name of the Washington Football Team, formerly the 'Skins. On this episode, we take a look back at the team's last two decades under owner Daniel Snyder, and why the Washington football organization during that time can best be referred to as A Capital Disgrace.

Content warning: there are curse words used as well as descriptions of sexual harassment in the workplace.

It's on! Major League Baseball is back, but is bringing sports back in the midst of a global pandemic a good idea?

Are we ready? Is professional sports ready? Or could it be that sports are the Covid cure we've been searching for all this time?

Content Warning: There is a graphic interview in which someone details his own personal battle dealing with Covid-19.

Professional team sports are coming back in bubbles, to be played in completely empty arenas and stadiums. Until the coronavirus pandemic ends, it's probably we won't get any further than partial crowds in the stands.

But there is a second, and larger cloud casting a pall over these fan-less sporting events... To understand the full symbolism of an empty stadium, we went back five years, to the April 29, 2015 game between the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles played at a locked down Camden Yards. Outside the stadium, Baltimore was teeming with demonstrators protesting the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who'd recently died in a hospital a week after sustaining what would turn out to be a fatal injury while in police custody.

CONTENT WARNING: This podcast contains graphic audio clips and descriptions of people being killed by police.

In the season following the Boston Red Sox breaking "The Curse," there was bound to be a shadow hanging over the 2005 World Series champions. 

But what if I told you the 2005 White Sox, broke an 88-year championship drought, two years longer than the Red Sox, but that their achievement has been largely lost to history in the past 15 years? So let's take a look back at why the 2005 White Sox deserve far more credit and attention than they've received.

Music credits:

Soularflair - Cue 1a, Dark Building Tension; Understated Focus, Let's Do This

Scott Holmes - Storybook

Lobo Loco - Shadow Man

SIP - Chicago Dream Center

We re-live the best season in Illinois basketball program history - how the Illini and coach Bruce Weber were ahead of their time, and we discuss the greatest moments of the season - a demolition of Chris Paul and then-#1 Wake Forest, the greatest comeback in NCAA Tournament history and the first and only time Illinois reached the national championship game. 

For five months, the Illini couldn't lose, and they made everything cool - even the fluorescent orange usually reserved for traffic cones and hunting vests.

Music credits:

Jessie Spillane - Super Bubbly

Jim Keller - Crush on You

Dee Yan-Key - A mother's mourning

Soularflair - Montage, Understated Focus, Let's Do This

We miss sports. A LOT. But why? Why does it feel, during this time, that there is such a void in our life?

This season is an exploration of the sports touchstones of my life, why sports became so meaningful to me that I made a career of working in sports journalism.

This episode is the start of that story, which begins with my memories of the very first sporting event I remember watching start to end - the Chicago White Sox beating the California Angels 11-0 on Sept. 9, 1983. Why does that game stick in my memory, and what did I learn going back in my memory of what made baseball so exciting to me as a 7-year-old then? 

What's the secret to Patrick Mahomes' incredible popularity? Why does he seem to have become a national spokesman for so many companies so quickly? Hint: It's not just his on-field play; it's what he does off the field that's made him, at just 24 years old, a transcendent star.

Music Credits:

Deep Space Destructors - Return to the Black Star; Scott Holmes - Drift