Episodios

  • 73. Marty Liquori and the Dream Mile

    73. Marty Liquori and the Dream Mile
    May 26 2025
    In 1975, track and field was a major sport in the U.S.A. and across the globe and there was no bigger race than the mile. So in Kingston, Jamaica, they had the best milers in the world gather for the latest Dream Mile, and for Filbert Bayi of Tanzania, that’s just what it was… a dream mile. He hit the tape with a time of 3 minutes and 51 seconds, setting a world record by a tenth of a second and landing him on the cover of the May 26th, 1975 issue of Sports Illustrated. Two other runners were on the cover with Bayi… trying to chase him down and run to glory. Marty Liquori was one of them and while he would finish 2nd in the race, he ran the best time of his life at 3:52.2. Running sub 4-minute miles was nothing new to Marty. He first did in 1967 when he became the 3rd American high schooler to do so while attending Essex Catholic High School in Newark, NJ. From there he went to Villanova and made the 1968 US Olympic team as a 19-year old freshman but suffered a stress fracture in the finals of the 1,500 meter run. Being on the cover of SI was nothing new to Liquori. Four years earlier he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in May of 1971 when he beat another legendary runner, Jim Ryun in the original Dream Mile race. Despite the big win for Liquori, he told us on the Past Our Prime podcast that the week leading up to the race was a miserable experience and that he could never get used to what the Jordan’s and LeBron’s of today have to go through on a daily basis. He tells us that his rivalry with Jim Ryun was strictly on the track and that they didn’t get to know each other very well until almost 40 years after their famous race. He says that even though he ran his best in the Bayi race he could have done even better if not for a mistake on the final lap and that the strategy used by Bayi was the difference in the race. And he tells us that he still plays softball, rides a bike, paddles around in a kayak and plays guitar in a band… The man does a little bit of everything and he does it all rather well. While at the height of his career he founded the Athletics Attic footwear chain…at the age of 23! He continued racing competitively until 1980 while also starting a broadcasting career for ABC sports that saw him cover numerous Olympics and major races for over 30 years. He ran into the record books and into at least 16 different Hall of Fames including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Collegiate Athlete Hall of Fame. In the 70’s, track and field was bigger than the NBA and and Marty was in the center of it all. He stops long enough to tell us all about it on the Past Our Prime podcast. Give us a review and a download if you would and share it with your friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 29 m
  • 72. Mr. Indy 500: Scott Gauger

    72. Mr. Indy 500: Scott Gauger
    May 19 2025
    His name is synonymous with sports in the 70’s. You didn’t have to follow racing to know who AJ Foyt was. He’s a part of Americana and in 1975 he was looking to win his 4th Indy 500. A week earlier, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated after winning the pole position in true Foyt fashion. His first lap in qualifying was a blistering 195.313 mph and his 4-lap average of 193.975 secured the pole position in Indianapolis. But rain and Bobby Unser had other plans… a downpour ended the race after just 174 of the 200 laps, and Unser was awarded the victory with 1974 champion Johnny Rutherford finishing 2nd and AJ a disappointing 3rd… taking it all in was a kid who grew up just north of the famous racetrack and attended his first race at the age of 6 in 1966… Scott Gauger hasn’t missed an Indy 500 since, including the ’75 race that saw Mother Nature end the race before it could properly come to it’s scheduled conclusion. Gauger grew up around racing and started working at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he was just 13. 5 years later in 1978, he took his first official position with an IndyCar team, and almost 50 years later, he’s still a part of the Old Brickyard, working on two winning Indy 500 teams… In 2016 he worked for the Andretti-Herta Autosport team that won the checkered flag for the 100th running of the Indy 500 with Alexander Rossi behind the wheel… and a year later, he was with Andretti Autosport when Takuma Sato was the first to cross the finish line. And while Gauger works officially for separate IndyCar teams, his unofficial position is Ambassador of the Indy 500. He gives tours, gets tickets for kids, and promotes the race 24/7, 365 days a year. On the Past Our Prime podcast, Gauger tells us about how he grew up near 3-time Indy 500 winner Louis Meyer, who is widely known for starting the annual tradition of drinking mile after winning at Indy… Gauger talks about the greats and says AJ Foyt is the best racer of all-time, and the first person he ever saw have a personalized license plate… He tells us about drinking the milk after winning in ’16 and again in ’17 and he tells us which famous actor was the best racer of the bunch… if you know racing, it won’t be a surprise. And Gauger tells us why the racers of today aren’t as well-known as the ones we grew up watching 50 years ago. The Indy 500. It’s as American as it gets… and so is Scott Gauger, Mr. Indy 500 on the Past Our Prime podcast. Give us a review and a download if you would and share it with your friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 33 m
  • 71. Foolish Pleasure & Jacinto Vasquez win the Derby

    71. Foolish Pleasure & Jacinto Vasquez win the Derby
    May 12 2025
    In the middle of the 70’s horse racing was huge, and in the middle of it all in 1975 was Hall of Fame jockey Jacinto Vasquez who had the pleasure of riding some of the greatest horses of that era. And on May 12, 1975, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated as he helped guide Foolish Pleasure to victory in the Kentucky Derby. The great horse had lost but once entering the race at Churchill Downs, yet some didn’t think he could handle the distance. They were wrong. Vasquez knew he had the right horse at the right time to win his first Derby. The same held true 5 years later, when aboard Genuine Risk, he won it again. Only one of three fillies to win the Derby ever and the first since Regret in 1915! Despite being on the Kentucky Derby winner, Vasquez would get off of Foolish Pleasure to mount another great horse and another filly later that summer of ’75 when he rode Ruffian in a match race against Pleasure. One of the greatest horses ever, Ruffian had been in 10 races since May of 1974… and won all of them… in fact, in all 10 races, she won wire-to-wire. That’s right, she never trailed in a race. And in the 8 stakes races she entered, she set new stakes records in all 8 of them. But on that summer day at Belmont Park against Foolish Pleasure, Ruffian broke down, breaking two bones in her right foreleg. After surgery, the great thoroughbred came out of anesthesia and reacted poorly. She had to be put down. Vasquez and the racing world mourned the loss of one of the top 100 American horses of the 20th century. With over 5,200 wins, and a member of the United States Racing Hall of Fame since 1998, Vasquez is one of the all-time greats, but he tells us on the Past Our Prime podcast, that great horses make great jockeys and he would know. He also recounts the three times he beat Secretariat… the only jockey to ever beat the iconic horse three times. And he tells us why he was suspended from racing for a year and how to this day he vehemently denies the charges that were brought up against him. Vasquez is one of the all-time greats and at 81 years old, you can hear the competitive fire still burn inside of him when he recounts his rides on Pleasure, Ruffian and Forego or his battles with other great jockey’s of his time such as Angel Cordero and Willie Shoemaker. It was a great time for fans of horse racing and Vasquez was one of the greats. Listen and subscribe to the Past Our Prime podcast for weekly shows that look back at sports icons like Jacinto Vasquez wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 11 m
  • 70. Dan Shaughnessy on Fred Lynn and the '75 Sox

    70. Dan Shaughnessy on Fred Lynn and the '75 Sox
    May 5 2025
    In the spring of 1975, the Red Sox came racing out of the gate led by a trio of outfielders who were making a mark in the American League… Dwight Evans first came on the scene in 1972 and was now the everyday right fielder. Joining him in ’75 in left was future Hall of Famer Jim Rice who would have a spectacular rookie season finishing 3rd in the league in the MVP race and 2nd in Rookie of the Year. That’s because the guy manning center in Fenway had an even better first season in the bigs. Fred Lynn would go on to become the first player ever to win MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season, a feat only matched one other time when Ichiro Suzuki did it in 2001. And for Lynn and the Sox fans, it was love at first sight. The 23-year old kid won the CF job out of Spring Training and never looked back… He would finish the season with a .331 average, 21 home runs and 105 RBI’s while also winning a Gold Glove for his defensive prowess in centerfield. It was a season for the ages for Lynn and the Sox that culminated in one of the All-time classic World Series matchups between the Sox and the Big Red Machine that went 7 games after one of the most famous October HR’s ever... a shot by Carlton Fisk that won arguably the greatest World Series game ever played… That Game 6 contest was a moment in sports where the people of Boston for years would ask… ‘Where were you for Game 6?” The answer for a young Dan Shaughnessy was… Fenway Park… Years before the Hall of Fame writer was hired by the Boston Globe to cover the team he grew up loving, Dan was there with his sister taking in one of the greatest games he ever witnessed… and he’s seen a lot… from that Game 6, to Bucky Dent’s blast in ’78, to the euphoria of Dave Henderson’s HR that helped propel the ’86 Sox back to the World Series to the Buckner play that same October that kept the curse alive to Boone’s HR in ’03 and the comeback that ended 86 years of futility in 2004… Shaughnessy has literally covered it all. The author of a dozen books including One Strike Away, The Curse of the Bambino, and Reversing the Curse: Inside the 2004 Boston Red Sox, nobody knows the Sox of the last 50 years better than this kid from Groton, MA who’s had a birds eye view of it all and access to the players and team like no other. Shaughnessy tells us on the Past Our Prime podcast how his friend and mentor Peter Gammons told them all to watch out for this kid from USC who was going to be the next big thing in Boston and how Freddie Lynn started hot, and never stopped in that magical Rookie season of ’75. It would be almost 30 more years before the Red Sox broke the curse and Shaughnessy relives the highs, the lows, the ups and the downs of that Sox ride beginning 50 years ago, when a young phenom from L.A. took New England by storm and had a season we're still talking about on the Past Our Prime podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 21 m
  • 69. Gar Heard and the Buffalo Braves

    69. Gar Heard and the Buffalo Braves
    Apr 28 2025
    It’s April 28th, 1975 and the best basketball player in the NBA plays in Buffalo. Bob McAdoo wins the MVP for the Buffalo Braves who are in the playoffs and taking on Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes and the Washington Bullets in a fierce series that would eventually go 7 games. One of the unsung heroes for the Braves is on the cover of Sports Illustrated from 50 years ago as he soars to the basket during game four of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The 6’6 forward had a standout college career for the Oklahoma Sooners where he was the schools 2nd all-time leading scorer and all-time leading rebounder at the time of his graduation. Playing for John McLeod at Oklahoma, Heard averaged 21.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per game in his senior year. Taken by the Supersonics in the 3rd round, Heard didn’t do much in his first two years in Seattle before being traded to Chicago and then in 1973 to Buffalo… and it was there where his NBA career took off. Playing alongside McAdoo and Randy Smith, Heard did the hard work averaging a double-double in his two years and helping take the team to their first two playoff appearances… But after a successful 1974-75 season, Heard was shocked when he was dealt yet again… this time to Phoenix where he once again would play for head coach, John McLeod. The Suns were languishing in the West before Heard’s arrival, but soon they took off… Playing in a league high 86 games, Heard once again averaged a double-double as the Suns made the playoffs and beat Seattle in 6 games and the defending champion Warriors in 7 with Heard once again averaging 14 points and 11 rebounds to advance to the ’76 NBA Finals. Awaiting the Suns were the Celtics and with the series knotted at two games each, game 5 was played on the parquet floor in Boston… and what a game five it was. Some call it the greatest NBA playoff game ever played. In one of the craziest finishes of all-time, the Celtics took a 2-point lead with 1 second left to play in the 2nd overtime. That’s when Gar Heard made the basketball version of The Shot Heard Round the World. A 20-footer over the outstretched hands of Don Nelson that hit nothing but the bottom of the net. On to the 3rd overtime it went where the luck of the Celtics Green finally prevailed and won the series in 6 games. But for one moment… one second to be more precise… Gar Heard made a shot of a lifetime. On the Past Our Prime podcast, Heard tells us all about the shot, and the technical foul Paul Westphal and the Suns took on purpose to help give them a shot… a shot Heard says was meant for him to take! Heard tells us how shocked he was to be dealt from cold and snowy Buffalo to the desert in Arizona in the middle of the 75-76 season and how Coach McLeod mentored him both in college and the pro’s. Heard’s career was more than just one miraculous shot and he tells us about the block he had on a young Keith Wilkes baseline jumper that helped knock off the Warriors and send the Suns to the Finals. A week after the Giants Bobby Thompson hit the Shot Heard Round the World in New York it’s Gar Heard’s turn to do it… this time in Boston. Just a few miles away from where the original Shot Heard Round the World took place two hundred years earlier in April of 1775. One of the greatest shots in NBA history and Heard tells us all about it on the Past Our Prime podcast. Listen and subscribe to the show for your weekly dose of sports history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 11 m
  • 68. Joshua Prager and those cheating '51 Giants

    68. Joshua Prager and those cheating '51 Giants
    Apr 21 2025
    The week of April 21, 1975 saw Jack Nicklaus on the cover of Sports Illustrated after he had won his 5th Masters in a classic tournament by one stroke over Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller. It was the Golden Bear’s 13th major championship and came one year after he had already been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Inside that issue was another excerpt from the book Nice Guys Finish Last by another Hall of Famer… Leo Durocher was put into Cooperstown after amassing the 5th most wins as a manager when he retired after the 1973 season with the Houston Astros with a total of 2,008 victories which now ranks him 12th all-time. In his 23 years as a skipper, Leo the Lip won one World Series which came in 1954 and went to another in '51 when his Giants overcame the Dodgers 13.5 game lead and won the pennant on the Shot Heard Round the World before beating the Yankees in 6 games. It was one of the greatest comebacks in sports history and Bobby Thomson became a legend for his 3-run pennant winning HR off Ralph Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers to complete the Giants ascent to the Fall Classic. A moment that will forever live in baseball lore that now 74 years later lives in controversy. That’s because of a telescope, a buzzer and a scheme the Giants implemented that helped them figure out what pitches were coming and catapulted New York to finish the season winning 37 of their final 44 games and overtake the Dodgers on the final pitch of the final inning of the final game of their season prior to the World Series. A fastball that Thomson knew was coming. Author and journalist Joshua Prager heard about this story and started to investigate it, and soon he had enough to write a front-page story for the Wall Street Journal and in 2006, a book called The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World. He goes into great detail of how the Giants took their 3rd base coach, Herman Franks, and put him in the clubhouse in centerfield armed with a telescope and a buzzer to alter the course of baseball history. Prager joins us on Past Our Prime and tells us how Thomson and Branca’s lives were both forever altered by that one pitch and how years later they were able to get past it and move on. He tells us how Franks confessed to him what took place right before he died, over 50 years after it all took place. And he tells us how a young 20-year old kid by the name of Willie Mays wanted to know what pitches were coming but didn’t want to come to bat in that bottom of the 9th inning and watched from the on-deck circle as Thompson connected for the famous/infamous 3-run blast. Before the Astros banged their way to a World Series title in 2018 it was the Giants and Leo Durocher who were doing whatever it took to get an advantage back in 1951. Nice guys finish last but what about cheaters? In this case, they became world champs and we tell you how it all went down with Joshua Prager on this weeks Past Our Prime podcast. Listen and subscribe wherever you listen and subscribe to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 41 m
  • 67. Jerry Reuss and his year playing for Leo Durocher

    67. Jerry Reuss and his year playing for Leo Durocher
    Apr 14 2025
    The strongest man in the world 50 years ago was Vasily Alekseyev of the Soviet Union and there he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated on April 14th, 1975. The question is… was he a nice guy? Apparently the answer was no. Because also in that issue was the 2nd part of a 4 part series from the book, “Nice Guys Finish Last,” from former player and Hall of Fame manager, Leo Durocher. The “Lip” was a heckuva ballplayer, spanning 20 years with the Yankees, Reds, Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers from 1925-1945. A 3-time All-Star, and 4-time World Series champion, Durocher ended his playing days as a player/manager in Brooklyn and would go on to retire as the 5th winningest skipper in MLB history. Starting in 1939 with the Dodgers and then spending 8 more years with the Nw York Giants from 1948-1955, Durocher won his only World Series as a manager when Willie Mays and the Giants swept the Cleveland Indians in 1954. The next year was his last in New York and he wouldn’t manage again until the Cubs hired him in 1966. Chicago was 59-103 in his first season guiding the team but didn’t have a losing season in the remainder of his 5+ seasons at the helm. He would finish his Hall of Fame managerial career in Houston with another winning season in 1973. On that ’73 teams was a young lefty who started 40 games for the Astros, completing 12 of them and amassing 279 innings pitched. Jerry Reuss was just 23 years old when he played for Durocher and the two had an adventurous time together with Durocher riding his young stud as often as he could, and Reuss often questioning the tactics of the veteran manager. It was a memorable season in Houston for the southpaw who would go on to win 220 games in his 22 years in the bigs. Reuss tells us how he pranked Dave Parker when he and The Cobra met up with Muhammad Ali in an elevator while playing for the Pirates. He takes us to Candlestick Park on a warm June night in 1980 when he no-hit the Giants, and he recounts the time Ron Cey was beaned in the head by a Goose Gossage fastball in the ’81 world Series. But more than anything we talk to Reuss about what was it like for a kid born in 1950 to play for a manager who had been managing in the majors for 23 years by the time their paths crossed in the Lone Star state. It was a bumpy ride to say the least. Reuss tells us that much of it was his fault and that he and Durocher didn’t see eye-to-eye most of the time. He goes on to tell us that years later they met up in the office of another Dodgers manager, Tommy Lasorda, and both admitted they could have handled things differently. Reuss and The Lip patched things up and shortly thereafter, Durocher passed away. One of the greatest managers in baseball history was a mercurial and difficult man who never finished last in his 24 years as a manager. Was it because he was a Hall of Fame manager or because only Nice Guys Finish Last? In Durocher’s case… probably a little of both. Listen, download, subscribe and review the Past Our Prime podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 21 m
  • 66. Wednesdays with Wooden author Dr, Michael Levi

    66. Wednesdays with Wooden author Dr, Michael Levi
    Apr 7 2025
    On March 31, 1975, the UCLA Bruins beat the Kentucky Wildcats 92-85 for the 10th and final championship under the legendary Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden. The greatest collegiate coach in U.S. history retired after his team’s 7-point win at the Sports Arena in San Diego. UCLA was the best in college basketball in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 & 1975. An astonishing 10 titles in 12 years! Nothing in major collegiate sports compares to the dominance of what Wooden accomplished in his final dozen years in Westwood. A week later, Steve Garvey was on the April 7, 1975 issue of SI, but the story that captivated the sports world was the final game of Wooden’s time at UCLA. The end of an era that will never be replicated… and he went out a champion. Now in retirement at the age of 64, Wooden retreated to his home and continued to be a mentor to the many players who played for him at UCLA, notably, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Lucius Allen, Larry Farmer and countless others. His beloved wife Nell passed in 1985 and Coach fell into a deep funk. His children were deeply worried about the mental anguish the widowed Wooden was enduring with the passing of his wife after 53 years of marriage. Gradually he came out of it with the help of his family, friends, and players who visited with him regularly. One of those who saw Coach Wooden on a regular basis for home visits was his podiatrist, Dr. Michael Levi. Michael would come often to check on the now 80+ year old Coach Wooden and the two soon became more than just a doctor-patient relationship. They would often have breakfast together and talk about family, life, baseball, God, books and any other topic that Wooden found interesting… which was everything. Michael would return home and write down everything that had taken place upon his visit with Coach… and in 2016, 6 years after Coach Wooden was laid to rest at the age of 99, Levi published a book with the help of former L.A. times writer Larry Stewart called, “Wednesdays with Wooden.” Levi talks about how he went to a camp as a 6-year old and saw Wooden for the first time and how is father idolized the legendary Bruins coach. He tells us on the Past Our Prime podcast how he and Wooden became friends over their time together and how he was able to give his father the best birthday gift ever… lunch with Coach Wooden. Levi tells us about the depression that felled the Coach after the death of Nell and what brought him out of it and how the phone never stopped ringing at Coach Wooden’s house with players calling to check up on him constantly throughout the day…. Every day… It’s an intimate and personal look at the most successful college coach in NCAA history from a man who checked on Wooden’s feet, and ended up getting a piece of his heart. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and hit that subscribe button while you’re at it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 24 m
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