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Submit Review"The 1990 Chicago White Sox were not a championship team - they didn't even make the playoffs. But the 1990 season was one of the most notable and dramatic in White Sox history. It was the last season the team would play in venerable Comiskey Park, and it was a season that saw the Sox go beyond low expectations and challenge the defending champion Oakland Athletics for supremacy in the Western Division of the American League."The scrappy Sox of 1990 didn't have overwhelming stats, or a roster filled with All-Stars--their most famous player was 42 year old veteran catcher Carlton Fisk. The team only hit a total of 106 home runs (their leading power hitter was Fisk, with only 18). But they played a brand of baseball that focused on "Doin' the Little Things" (the team's slogan for that year). The team also had budding young stars Robin Ventura, Jack McDowell, Ozzie Guillen, Sammy Sosa, and Frank Thomas, who made his Major League debut that season.
"The exciting division chase between the White Sox and the Athletics coincided with the season-long celebration of the original Comiskey Park, a legendary ball yard that sadly didn't get its proper respect until it was getting ready to be torn down.
"'Last Comiskey' covers all of this in spectacular and entertaining fashion, by featuring talks with Sox players, team & stadium employees, fans, and local journalists who covered what went on in the 1990 season. The series gives a 'regular guy' view of what happened with the White Sox in 1990, along with recreating the sights, sounds, and ambiance of Old Comiskey Park."
"Short, stout, and jowly, Charlie Stoneham embodied a Jazz Age stereotype—a business and sporting man by day, he led another life by night. He threw lavish parties, lived extravagantly, and was often chronicled in the city tabloids."Little is known about how he came to be one of the most successful investment brokers in what were known as 'bucket shops,' a highly speculative and controversial branch of Wall Street. One thing about Stoneham is clear, however: at the close of World War I he was a wealthy man, with a net worth of more than $10 million."This wealth made it possible for him to purchase majority control of the Giants, one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. Stoneham, an owner of racehorses, a friend to local politicians and Tammany Hall, a socialite and a man well-placed in New York business and political circles, was also implicated in a number of business scandals and criminal activities."The Giants’ principal owner had to contend with federal indictments, civil lawsuits, hostile fellow magnates, and troubles with booze, gambling, and women. But during his sixteen-year tenure as club president, the Giants achieved more success than the club had seen under any prior regime."
It's an early Spring Break hiatus for us this week - but not before sitting down for a very fun interview with CFL America blog/podcast publisher and friend-of-the-show Greg James - as a guest on his popular Sports History Network podcast "From the 55 Yard Line."
Tim and Greg go deep into the origin story of Good Seats Still Available, as well as a veritable audio potpourri of hot takes on what we've learned from doing the show over the course of nearly 300 episodes - and where we think pro football (and sports generally) might be headed in the years ahead.
Please enjoy this conversation we recorded a few weeks back - and be sure to check out all the other great podcasts across the Sports History Network!
RUN (DON'T WALK) TO GET Steve's book (co-authored with Brian Codagnone) "Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later" from ECW Press NOW!
[After an entertaining "inaugural" weekend of the XFL's third incarnation, we dig into the archives for this 2019 conversation with author Brett Forrest - and a rewind to the league's original season back in 2001!]
As another NFL season closes, we shift gears toward the forthcoming Alliance of American Football – the first of two new leagues attempting to again extend the pro game into viable Spring season play – where the USFL, World League of American Football and NFL Europe have famously tried before.
The other – both in 2001 and in a reincarnated form coming next year – was and is the XFL, which we finally sink our teeth into for the first time this week with Wall Street Journal national security reporter Brett Forrest (Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco).
We drop this episode on the 18th anniversary of when the audacious joint venture between the Vince McMahon-helmed World Wresting Federation (now WWE) and the Dick Ebersol-captained NBC Sports opened play at a raucous football-reference.com/players/B/BoydSa20.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-">Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas to see the hometown Outlaws battle the already-villainous New York/New Jersey Hitmen in front of a national primetime television audience.
Nearly two decades later, most who witnessed it (not to mention the tumultuous season that followed) still don’t know what to make of it.
Forrest digs into: the process of tackling his then-first-ever book assignment with Long Bomb (including the pre-season magazine article from which it came); some of the curious characters (the seemingly-legitimizing presence of football-reference.com/players/B/ButkDi00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-">Dick Butkus, the unwitting marketing genius of football-reference.com/players/S/SmarRo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-">Rod football-reference.com/players/S/SmarRo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_medium=linker-&utm_source=direct"> “He Hate Me” football-reference.com/players/S/SmarRo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-">Smart, the hungry group of eager players simply wanting one last shot at playing pro football) he encountered along the way; and the less-than-enthusiastic response of McMahon to the idea of a book about the league in the first place.
Be sure to check out the great XFL shirts and replica jerseys from our friends at sports.com/?aff=2">503 Sports!
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