Episode Seventy-Seven - Blue Moon Odom

Thanks for the Memories. Ichiro retires.

To help us kick off the baseball season and the closing stages of the European futbol season, we’re happy to welcome back Awful Announcing Managing Editor Joe Lucia (@joe_TOC). We talk about the first week of the baseball season, the surprises both good and bad. What’s going right for Seattle, the Mets and Milwaukee and wrong for the Yankees, Boston, the Angels and Joe’s Braves. Just how early is too early to panic if you are one of the struggling teams? Who is the biggest heel in baseball? Is it Bryce Harper? Or someone else? And just how well will a heel Bryce fit it in Philadelphia?

We also talk about just what is going on in the Premier League and the Champions League, as their seasons wind down. Just how confident is Joe that his Manchester City can win the quadruple? Where are they most likely to slip up? If they don’t win the Champions League, who will? Messi? Ronaldo? Pogba?

There’s some fun random stuff thrown in, like doing a fantasy league for pro wrestling in the mid 1980s, price-for-rental videotapes and hand-typing in statistics from USA Today in the early years of rotisserie baseball.

As we teased last episode, we will be doing a convention soon. We will be appearing at TMPT 3 in Richmond, VA on May 18th. Scheduled to be at the show are Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express (including Dennis Condrey), The Rock and Rock Express, JJ Dillon and more folks. If you come to the show, please stop by and say hello. We hope to have a wrestling themed issue of the magazine debuting at the show. You can get your tickets here.

Episode Sixty-Seven - Campeones, Campeones

Hot balls. The UEFA Champions League draw happened this week in Monaco.

With all sorts of news going on in the futbol word, we welcome ESPNFC journalist Gabriele Marcotti (@marcotti) to the show. We start with an analysis of the draws for the Champions League and Europa League, held this week in Monaco.  Which groups look the toughest and what are the prospects for the Premier League teams.  Then, we discuss the flurry of transfer activity this summer, including news just today that Ousmane Dembele is headed to Barcelona and Kylian Mbappe could be on the verge of joining Neymar at Paris St-Germain. That leads to a talk about PSG and Financial Fair Play, something Gab has written about over the last couple weeks.  We end the futbol talk with a look at Week Three in the Premier League, including the match at Stanford Bridge between Chelsea and Everton.

The rest of the show, we talk about how Gab became an ECW hardcore regular in the mid to late 1990s while a student at Penn.  What was his first trip to ECW Arena like? What angles does he remember seeing at the shows? Does he still keep up with the business in 2017?

We really want to thank Gab for his time, as the pod was recorded after he flew back this afternoon to London from Monaco. You can read Gab's work at ESPNFC.com, The Times (of London) [paywall] and you can hear him as the host of The Game podcast every Monday during the futbol season, on Soundcloud, iTunes, or most listening platforms.

Episode Thirty-Two - Fantastic Foxes

That's not Old Hickory. From the Lazarus Source book. (C) 2016 Greg Rucks & Michael Lark.

1:19 - the return of Greg Rucka (@ruckawriter). First up, comics chat, including the new Gotham Central omnibus (co-written with Ed Brubaker) (@brubaker), the Lazarus HC (co-created by Michael Lark (@michaellark66) and Lazarus source book, the Black Magick TPB (co-created by Nicola Scott (@nicolascottart), returning to Wonder Woman with Scott and Liam Sharp (@liamrsharp) and doing Star Wars books and comics. (20:36) Then futbol talk recorded during the Bayern Munich vs Atletico Madrid Champions League semi-final. We talk Leicester City winning the Premier League, improper winners, Champions and Europa League predictions, the Portland Timbers and other MLS news and more.