Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is sent to cover the Pitt-Penn State “Keystone Classic” of 1924; in so doing, he discovers a throughline of the football-on-Thanksgiving tradition going back to 1621 (okay, actually, that’s going back to 1869) and reminds us that high-level football games on Thanksgiving are nearly as old as the official Thanksgiving holiday itself.  

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is an audio drama podcast from Number 80 Productions and the Sports History Network.

Thanksgiving and Football (or maybe Vice Versa) script & story by Os Davis.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer stars Doug Fye, Ilona Fye, and Eric Bodwell. Thanksgiving and Football (or maybe Vice Versa) co-stars, in order of appearance, Caedmon Holland, Forrest Hartl and Wayne Brett.

Additional direction by Eric Bodwell. Sound recording and primary editing by Don McIver.

The theme song of Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is “the Dayton Triangles Rag” and was arranged and performed by Bruce Smith. 

Other tracks in this episode include

•  “Jazz Club” by Kriss (available through fair-use agreement via FreeMusicArchive.org);

•  “Litany of the Street” by Silverman Sound Studios;

•  “Bimini Bay” (1921) by the Benson Orchestra of Chicago; and

•  “Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer (Outro)” by David Liso of Dynamo Stairs.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is produced by Os Davis and Darin Hayes. Series concept by Darrin Hayes.

Stay tuned for more episodes of Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer – coming soon!

In this teaser trailer for the fiction podcast Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer, meet Harvey and Mabel Taylor of Pittsburgh, loyal subscribers to the Pittsburgh Guardian, and at least one a big fan of a certain roving sports reporter of the 1920s...

This episode stars Richard Kress and Shari Gould. Story/script by Os Davis and Darin Hayes. Series concept by Darin Hayes. Theme song by Bruce Smith. Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is an audiodrama by Number 80 Productions and Sports History Network.

Look for full-length episodes of Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer in early 2022.

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Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer

A Different way to hear sports history.

I am Orville Mulligan and yes the career journey I took was as a Sports Writer. My story will fill the listener’s ears with my journey of perhaps the greatest time in sports history, the roaring 1920s. I was fortunate enough to rub elbows with the greatest legends of sport in the era and attend some of the most iconic events in sports history.

The tales are complete with the music, people, places and slang used at the time to place the listener into the feelings that we experienced as I started my epic career.

Join us in the adventure of a lifetime, Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer, found here on Sports History Network, on OrvilleMulligan.com or your favorite podcast provider.

Head to the ORVILLE MULLIGAN OFFICIAL WEBSITE for more information.

NETWORK SPONSOR

Row One - the vintage shop for sports history fans!

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer

A Different way to hear sports history.

I am Orville Mulligan and yes the career journey I took was as a Sports Writer. My story will fill the listener’s ears with my journey of perhaps the greatest time in sports history, the roaring 1920s. I was fortunate enough to rub elbows with the greatest legends of sport in the era and attend some of the most iconic events in sports history.

The tales are complete with the music, people, places and slang used at the time to place the listener into the feelings that we experienced as I started my epic career.

Join us in the adventure of a lifetime, Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer, found here on Sports History Network, on OrvilleMulligan.com or your favorite podcast provider.

Head to the ORVILLE MULLIGAN OFFICIAL WEBSITE for more information.

NETWORK SPONSOR

Row One - the vintage shop for sports history fans!

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer

A Different way to hear sports history.

I am Orville Mulligan and yes the career journey I took was as a Sports Writer. My story will fill the listener’s ears with my journey of perhaps the greatest time in sports history, the roaring 1920s. I was fortunate enough to rub elbows with the greatest legends of sport in the era and attend some of the most iconic events in sports history.

The tales are complete with the music, people, places and slang used at the time to place the listener into the feelings that we experienced as I started my epic career.

Join us in the adventure of a lifetime, Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer, found here on Sports History Network, on OrvilleMulligan.com or your favorite podcast provider.

Head to the ORVILLE MULLIGAN OFFICIAL WEBSITE for more information.

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Guesting on this extra edition of Truly The GOATs is now three-time(!) guest Dr. Dennis Frost. Dennis has previously joined TTG for episode #6 on sumo wrestling and episode #14 on 1920s track-and-field superstar Kinue Hitomi, but his latest book entitled More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan shows his academic specialty.

Dennis talks with host Os Davis about Paralympics history, the influence of the Games on Japanese culture, the local populace’s reaction to hosting another mega sports event after a pretty locally controversial Tokyo Olympics, a couple of notable (or notorious) Paralympians of the past, China’s recent dominance and, since this is Truly The GOATs, a handful of GOAT Paralympians.

Truly The GOATs: Down with Spirit In Motion...

Between the 1988 and ’92 Olympic Games, a massive geopolitical shift seismically altered international sport and nowhere were the changes more evident than in Olympic men’s basketball.

Most international fans inevitably associate the 1992 Games with The Dream Team, that 12-man squad assembled from the superstars of the NBA’s own golden age. But at least two other teams were loaded with the pride of their countries – and they were nearly as awesome to watch as was the GOAT Team USA.

We’re talking about Team Croatia and Team Lithuania here, two sides that didn’t exist a year before the Barcelona game and both with storied histories of players starring for other countries’ national teams.

On this episode of Truly The GOATs, we’ve got reviews of documentaries focusing on each team:

• The Dream Team (2012), NBA TV’s 20th-anniversary production slick with highlights and (some) inside dope on what Marv Albert called “the greatest team ever assembled”;

• Once Brothers (2010), an episode of ESPN’s first series of “30 for 30” documentaries on the dissolution of the nation of Yugoslavia and that of the splintering a top national team; and

• The Other Dream Team (2012), an independent film chronicling both the long history of basketball (and basketball fanaticism) in the story as well as breakthrough stars Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis joining the NBA and the long strange trip Team Lithuania had to make before even getting to Barcelona.

Truly The GOATs: Still loving the Olympic Games – is that so wrong?

Music used in this episode includes “Sport Brake” and “Dream Team” by Sergio Quadrado, used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org; Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” piano arrangement by Ferenc Liszt, in the public domain via Musopen.org; and “Dark Star Rebuild” by Kaleidoscope Jukebox, used by permission of Kaleidoscope Jukebox.

Of all the phenomena of the 20th-century history, few are as untranslatable as the Cold War mentality, a pervasive social paranoia that stunted cultures worldwide through self-imposed isolationism. One exception to the cultural blackout was sports and the metaphorical battlefields of the Olympic Games.

And all of the figures that now non-existent countries of the so-called Communist bloc such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, none was quite so impressive or attention-grabbing as the heavyweight weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev, perhaps the only true international sports celebrity the USSR ever produced.

To talk the legend of Alekseyev, as well as Cold War era sports and the future of weightlifting is the Sports History Network’s own Mark Morthier of the Yesterday’s Sports podcast. As a former competitive lfter who’s written books on weight training and 1970s America, what better guest could we get?

Truly The GOATs: Still loving the Olympic Games – is that so wrong?

Music used in this episode includes “Cold War ” by Kai Engel and “Impudence” by Vadim Lankov; both are used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

The 1920s was quite the boom period for sports in general and by the 1928 Olympic Games this general worldwide appreciation for organized sport had extended into women’s games, particularly in countries whose citizens were just beginning to come to grips with women voting.

Onto the international stage at those games, the first to allow women’s track-and-field events, came Kinue Hitomi of Japan. Hitomi was literally a one-woman team for Japan at those games and her fame snowballed in international sports media for the years to come. An early golden age of women’s athletics was blooming rapidly, and Kinue Hitomi was one of the world’s biggest stars.

Everything was set for instant history at Los Angeles Olympics until fate intervened…

Truly The GOATs: Still loving the Olympic Games – is that so wrong?

Music used in this episode includes “Cuba Moon” by Carl Fenton’s Orchestra, “Crazy Blues” by the Mamie Smith, and “Streetlife” by Lobo Loco. The first two are in the public domain, the last used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

Michael is sports editor/writer for the Sunday Times Irish edition and a member of the Gaellic Athletic Association's History & Commemorations committee, most recently acting as a driving force behind the GAA’s Bloody Sunday commemorations.

As an author, Michael has written Kings of September, winner of the 2007 Irish Sportsbook of the year prize and The Bloodied Field, based on the events of Bloody Sunday, 1920. He's also ghostwritten the autobiography of Gaellic Football manager Mickey Harte.

In short, Michael was the perfect guest to speak with Truly The GOATs about Irish sport.

Naturally, not everything in TTG's interview with Michael made it into episode 13 and so here runs the full unexpurgated conversation on Ireland's sports past, present and future.

Emmet is the author of the book I Like It Loud: A basketball tour through Europe, but he was invited on the show to talk Ireland’s national sports of hurling and Gaellic football. Emmet and Os do talk hurling and Gaellic football, certainly, and some basketball – and also American football, Canadian football, rugby, cricket, boxing…

Enjoy this ride down the stream of sports consciousness, Os’s unexpurgated interview with Emmet.

So with the ruling elite importing and pushing organized soccer, rugby, cricket and the like, what’s a repressed country seeking to foster cultural revival to do? Make their own sport, of course!

The result was Gaellic football, a unique member of the football family tree, and the creation of the “Dual Player,” a national hero who starred in Ireland’s emblematic sports of hurling and Gaellic football.

Joining Truly The GOATs to talk about some great dual players of the early-, mid- and late 20th century is Sunday Times journalist and Gaelic Athletic Association committee member Michael Foley; rejoining the show is sportswriter/journalist Emmet Ryan, who piqued Os’s interest in hurling so much as to necessitate an additional episode on the Gaellic sports.

We’ve got the stories of national heroes who just happened to be dual-sport superstars, discussion about the Gaellic equivalent of Bo Jackson and the sad reality that such GOAT-level dual athletes are likely an extinct species in the 21st century…

Truly The GOATs: Kiss me – I’m (an) Irish (sports fan)!

Music used in this episode includes “The Land of Luck” by Spectacular Sound Productions; “Gravel Walk” by the Rosen Sisters; “Roads that Burned our Boots” by Jahzzar; and “This Ain’t House” by Simon Mathewson. Used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

You’d think that earning three-American basketball team nods plus one national team championship, dominating the U.S. Olympic trials as a one-person team and winning more tournaments than any golfer except Tiger Woods would earn an American athlete a spot in the cultural consciousness forever – or at least 75 years.

On this episode of Truly the GOATs, we’ve got the story of Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, quite possibly the greatest female athlete ever. Host Os Davis is joined by W.L. Pate, president of the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum and its concomitant foundation.

Further helping compose the story are excerpts from Babe’s autobiography read by Raechel Wong and contemporaneous reportage by the likes of Grantland Rice.

Truly the GOATs: Recalling the legends, recounting the history.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s autobiography This Life I Have Led is in the public domain and may be downloaded for free at TrulyTheGOATs.com/babebio.

Among the music used in this episode are the songs “Before I Ever Loved You by Cooper-Moore” and “Good Day” by Serge Quadrado; these are used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

To mark the occasion, Truly The GOATs releases this bonus episode, a collection of excerpts from Babe’s autobiography This Life I Have Led, as read by Raechel Wong; these excerpts helped comprise episode 4 of Truly the GOATs, entitled The Other Babe.

The excerpts run chronologically from her early days in AAU basketball in the late 1920s to her domination at the 1932 Olympic trials and Los Angeles Olympics to a golf career which is certainly still among the greatest ever and features a comeback after battling cancer.

It is the story of a truly great 20^th century athlete.

Happy birthday, Babe…

In this extra edition of Truly The GOATs, we talk origins, specifically those of Canada’s national pastime: Did the Irish actually invent hockey’s evolutionary predecessor? And what does it mean if they did?

Aron Harris of the Sports History Network’s Football Odyssey podcast joins Os Davis to review the 2017 documentary Poc Na nGael (“Puck of the Irish”), a movie that explores the deep connections between hurling and hockey as well as the Irish influence on Canada’s national sport.

Truly The GOATs: The newest fan of hurling…

To stream Poc Na nGael (Puck of the Irish) online, visit the TG4 official website at tg4.ie or click here.

Music used in this episode includes “Went to Fight and a Hockey Game Broke Out” by Jared C. Balogh. Used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

Back when folks in Mesoamerica were just getting interesting ideas about putting rubber balls into vertical hoops, the Celts were already playing an intricate sport involving equipment and agreed-upon rules (albeit incredible variable rules).

Truly The GOATs’ conclusion: To recount the history of hurling is to tell the history of Ireland – and really, the most important chapters in European sports history as well. Ready for a long, strange trip in sports history? Join host Os Davis and special guest journalist/sportswriter Emmet Ryan on Truly The GOATs’ quest to find a GOAT amid three millennia plus of hurling in Ireland.

And here’s a non-spoiling spoiler: Irish sportswriting of the 18^th century is freakin' awesome.

Truly The GOATs: The newest fan of hurling…

Music used in this episode includes “Funeral Battle” and “I've Not Fear” by Damiano Baldoni; “Beyond the Warriors” by Guifrog; “Guardians”, “Streets of Sant'ivo”, and “Land of a Folk Divided” by Mid-Air Machine; and Orbiting the Hurley, a DJ Dream Joker remix of “Orbiting the Earth” by Ultracat. Used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

In this extra edition of Truly The GOATs, a mostly unexpurgated version of the TTG interview with Denis in which he discusses in-depth Johnny Bassett’s “successful failures,” his rogue leagues, his tug-of-war with one Donald J. Trump over the ultimate fate of the Untied States Football League and the legacy of a rogue franchise all-timer…

The following is my entire unexpurgated interview with Denis -- okay, not completely unexpurgated; i took out a couple of "ums" and added a couple of transitional scratches, but very close. Enjoy!

On this episode of Truly The GOATs, we discuss the P.T. Barnum of 20^th-century sports with Denis Crawford, author of the biography The Life and Teams of Johnny F. Bassett. Can someone who never played a single minute of professional sports be considered one of the most influential forces in recent sports history? Denis makes the case for a maverick who took on Canadian politicians, America’s biggest leagues and, inevitably, Donald J. Trump…

Truly The GOATs: We love a good rogue sports league…

Excerpts from The Life and Teams of Johnny F. Bassett were used by permission of McFarland Publishing

Music used in this episode includes “Rare Bird” by Tab and Anitek; “Acquisition” and “Outlandish” by Anitek; and “Spy” by Eddy. Used with Attribution Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License via FreeMusicArchive.org.

That, of course, was Muhammad Ali.

On this episode of Truly The GOATs, host Os Davis has on guests Simon Walters of the You Don’t Play Boxing podcast and Dan Neumann of our Sports History Network partner podcast Hello Old Sports to discuss Ali’s life and times, his career and legacy – and the oddity of the Super Fight, a cinematic battle of GOATs between him and undefeated former heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano.

Truly The GOATs: We talk the greatest!

The answer is obvious, yet has somehow eluded mention on nearly every “Top Baseball-themed Songs” list ever composed. As far as Truly The GOATs is concerned, the answer is an objective truth – and you may just agree.

Joining us for this episode of Truly The GOATs is George Boziwick, retired chief of the music division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. As a composer, music expert, researcher and baseball fan, George is imminently qualified to settle the dispute – and he’s got the surprising history behind one of America’s most beloved songs of any type.

Truly The GOATs: The sports history podcast with a bit of a thing for Katie Casey…

(Okay, so we didn't *have to* strictly speaking, but there was this thing with C.C. Sabathia and Bill Simmons's Ringer Network; it's explained in the episode.)

Luckily a talented old friend came to the rescue and so we present the new Truly The GOATs theme song: Fun on Street (Greatest Remixxx of All-Time) by David Liso of Dynamo Stairs -- groovy!

They're all involved in Truly The GOATs episode 8, Buck Bokai: Baseball's Last GOAT, a look at the future of international sports after a 150-year golden age of humanity's ball gamess. Are fans of certain high-level sports league watching the last generation of GOATs...?

As probably the world's leading authority on this all-time great of American baseball as well as a historian of baseball in the midwest, Peter has also written a number of articles on Donaldson and baseball.

Included in the episode devoted to the story of John Donaldson were excerpts from one such essay written by Peter . And so Truly the GOATs is proud to present here the audio version of "One Diamond at a Time," as read by Danny Solis. Enjoy!

So how come you’ve never heard of him…?

On this episode of Truly The GOATs, John Donaldson Network founder Peter Gorton tells host Os Davis of the incredible exploits of an African-American left-handed power pitcher who was a good century ahead of his time. And if you think you know baseball history, get ready to enter an entirely different universe of barnstorming teams, local rivalries and year ’round schedules that was the average American’s experience of the national pastime before World War II – and Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers…

Truly the GOATs: Reassessing sports history in the 21st century.

Additional music for this episode includes a sample of an arrangement of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Booby Howe. The song “Once Upon a Time” by Audiobinger is via FreeMusicArchive.org.

In fact, this episode is devoted to two GOATs and their ancient yet steadily evolving sport, sumo. First up is quite possibly the greatest athlete of the 18th century – a time when most “Western” sports were at least a half-century away from embryonic. His name was Raiden, and he compiled a winning percentage that may be untouchable in all of combat sports. Raiden stood as the undisputed GOAT for a good 200 years.

Until Hakuho showed up at the dawn of the 21st century. What does it take for any athlete to overcome a legend over two centuries old? As skeptical as Truly The GOATs is about crowning living athletes the GOAT, there’s a hell of a case to be made for Hakuho.

Joining this episode of Truly The GOATs are Andrew Freund, director of USA Sumo, and Dr. Dennis Frost, director of East Asian Studies at Kalamazoo College. Together with host Os Davis, the discussion runs to both legendary wrestlers, the times in which they plied their sport and the trimillenia history of sumo, one of humanity’s great sports.

Truly the GOATs: Never afraid to compare the all-time greats.

Additional music for this episode provided by Eric Taylor Music, Yakov Gorman, Audiotoolz, and Action Davis. Tracks for the latter three made possible by FreeMusicArchive.org.

With ESPN’s 10-part series The Last Dance in our collective rearview mirror, Truly The GOATs host and sometime film critic Os Davis together with his former colleague in European basketball podcasting, David Hein. Dave, a sports journalist and native of Chicago, guested on Truly the GOATs episode 5, in which we reviewed The Last Dance, inevitably dissecting the myth of MJ, those Bulls and the mighty Dream Team of 1992.

On this bonus episode of Truly The GOATs, Os digs into the personal archive to bring you this remastered review from a 2013 episode the Taking The Charge podcast, including some predictions about a film production being discussing back then called Space Jam 2. (Warning: References to Lebron’s Miami Heat and “The Harlem Shake” may induce flashbacks.)

Truly the GOATs: We got a real jam going down…

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping most major professional leagues closed – Korean Baseball Organization notwithstanding – much of sports fandom worldwide is tuning into ESPN’s documentary series The Last Dance featuring basketball GOAT Michael Jordan. And whereas Truly The GOATs is based on a wide view of sports history, COVID-19 has schedules everywhere tied in knots, and ours is no exception.

So TTG host Os Davis welcomes his former podcast co-host/-producer and Germany-based sports journalist David Hein to talk the 10-part series, those 1990s Chicago Bulls, the (literally) game-changing Dream Team and of course Michael Jordan himself. (In short, as European basketball fans, more on Toni Kukoc would be awesome, ESPN…)

Truly the GOATs: Still taking MJ over Lebron in *that* argument…

On this episode of Truly the GOATs, we’ve got the story of Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, quite probably the greatest female athlete ever and certainly the most naturally gifted. Host Os Davis is joined by W.L. Pate, president of the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum and its concomitant foundation. Further helping compose the story are excerpts from Babe’s autobiography and contemporary reportage.

Truly the GOATs: Recalling the legends, recounting the history.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s autobiography This Life I Have Led is in the public domain and may be downloaded for free at TrulyTheGOATs.com/babebio.

If we can consider professional wrestling a sport, that is.

In this episode, Truly The GOATs has the concluding second part of the story of Angelo “King Kong” Mosca from his first Grey Cup win with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats through his career in Vince McMahon’s burgeoning World Wrestling Federation that moment in 2011 which solidified his tough guy badass reputation forever.

Joining Truly The GOATs host Os Davis to talk Angelo Mosca’s careers, his legacy in both sports and just how much of the Kapp/Mosca dustup was a setup are Travis Currah, host of the 2 And Out CFL Podcast, and Josh Smith, host of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats-centered podcast Podskee Wee Wee.

Truly the GOATs: Where we believe in sportsmanship – but also in good television…

If we can consider professional wrestling a sport, that is.

In this episode, Truly The GOATs has the first part of the story of Angelo “King Kong” Mosca from his rough upbringing in Waltham, Massachusetts, through to his earliest years in Canadian football, when his Hamilton Tiger-Cats were so frequently stifled by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. And we’ve also got the story of his parallel rise in status to that of star heel in the pro wrestling ranks.

Joining Truly The GOATs host Os Davis to talk Angelo Mosca, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the city of Hamilton, the awesomeness of Canadian football and the strange attraction of professional wrestling are Travis Currah, co-host of the 2 And Out CFL Podcast, and Josh Smith, co-host of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats-centered podcast Podskee Wee Wee.

Truly the GOATs: Where Canadian football is loved like American football...

On this episode of Truly the GOATs, host Os Davis has the story of one of history’s all-time toughest, all-time baddest, all-time greatest athletes; joining us is historian Dr. Philip Matyszak, author of over 20 books on ancient civilizations and cultures. “Matty” drops the facts about the lives and lifestyles of the gladiators themselves, as well as the fans, the sponsors and that one wacky Emperor who wanted to be one…

Truly the GOATs: Where ancient sports are loved as much as today’s…

For books by Philip Matyszak including Gladiator: The Roman Fighter's (Unofficial) Manual, visit ThamesAndHudson.com. Material from Gladiator used with permission of Thames & Hudson.

On this episode of Truly the GOATs, host Os Davis tells the story of the 20th century's greatest athlete along with special guest Justin Lehhart of the Jim Thorpe Museum and Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. And if you've got only passing knowledge of the man, you're certain to be surprised.