127 . Alvan Adams: Rookie of the Year & NBA Finals Star

127 . Alvan Adams: Rookie of the Year & NBA Finals Star

Alvan Adams was the Phoenix Suns' rookie center during the memorable 1976 NBA Finals run, and he was nothing short of sensational in his debut season. A 6'9" center out of the University of Oklahoma, Adams won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award in 1975–76 after averaging around 19 points and 9 rebounds per game, bringing a unique blend of size, skill, and passing ability that was ahead of its time for a big man. He was a key reason the Suns — a team few expected to contend — made it all the way to the Finals, and his performance throughout the playoffs announced him as one of the league's brightest young talents. The 1976 NBA Finals featured the Boston Celtics defeating the Phoenix Suns in six games, widely remembered as one of the greatest series in basketball history. Game 5 in particular is considered a classic — a triple-overtime thriller at Boston Garden that saw the Celtics ultimately prevail 128–126 in what many still call the greatest game ever played. The series was a showcase for Boston's John Havlicek in what turned out to be his final playoff run, along with Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, and Paul Silas, while the Suns' Garfield Heard hit a buzzer-beater to force the third overtime before Boston closed it out in Game 6 to claim their 13th NBA championship. Adams would go on to spend his entire 13-year career with Phoenix, becoming the franchise's all-time leading scorer and rebounder at the time of his retirement, and remains one of the most beloved figures in Suns history. The number on his back was a tribute to a player he idolized growing up and battled many times ima his NBA career, and he has openly acknowledged that a legendary player's decision to jump to the ABA helped him win that Rookie of the Year Award 50 years ago — an iconic rookie season that landed him on the June 7, 1976 cover of Sports Illustrated in a battle against Hall of Famer Dave Cowens — an image that perfectly summed up the undersized rookie who refused to back down from anyone. Now Alvan Adams is coming to Past Our Prime to relive it all. He'll talk about that stunning rookie season, the gut-wrenching triple-overtime Game 5 loss that still haunts and thrills Suns fans to this day, the story behind his number, the coach he has to thank for his path to Phoenix, and the teammate he considers the best he ever shared a court with during his Suns career. It's a conversation decades in the making, and Past Our Prime is the place where it finally happens. Download and subscribe and leave a review if you could. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

126. Psycho, Fisk, Sweet Lou and the brawl that defined an era.

On the latest episode of Past Our Prime, we dive into one of the most memorable moments in baseball history — the May 31, 1976 cover of Sports Illustrated that captured a dramatic home plate confrontation between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The cover photograph, shot by Neil Leifer, showed Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk (#27) making a tag out on Yankees outfielder Lou Piniella (#14), with home plate umpire Terry Cooney visible in the frame. Piniella was ruled out at home, but the collision sparked a bench-clearing brawl, and the cover's headline captured the rivalry perfectly: "Head-On Collision in the East — Speeding Yanks Run Into the Sputtering Red Sox." The brawl turned ugly when Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles and Boston pitcher Bill Lee fought so fiercely that Lee suffered a separation of his left shoulder, significantly affecting the rest of his pitching career. It remains one of the most iconic covers in the magazine's history, perfectly encapsulating the fierce and often physical rivalry between the two American League East rivals. Steve "Psycho" Lyons carved out a nine-year MLB career with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox — where he was a teammate of Carlton Fisk — the Atlanta Braves, and Montreal Expos. He earned his nickname through antics like playing tic-tac-toe in the infield dirt and famously pulling his pants down after sliding into first base — a blooper reel staple for years. After retiring, Lyons became a three-time Emmy Award-winning broadcaster for Fox Sports, where he worked alongside Lou Piniella, before later joining NESN as a Red Sox studio analyst — proving, as he once said, that he talked about the game better than he played it. Lyons gives us incredible insight into Fisk, the Hall of Fame catcher, and reveals that for some reason, the serious Fisk would let the younger Lyons give him the business. He recounts how Fisk told Deion Sanders to run out a popup — leading to yet another bench-clearing incident — and how Fisk, as captain of the White Sox, was the hardest worker in the clubhouse. Lyons also takes us inside that iconic cover shot of Fisk and Piniella colliding at the plate and the brawl that followed, and reflects on how the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry back then was a whole different animal compared to today. And he tells us how he wishes he'd had the opportunity to play for Piniella, who brought that same fire to the game that Lyons himself always did — and yes, he sets the record straight on how he really got the nickname "Psycho," and no, it had nothing to do with dropping his pants in the middle of a game. If you enjoyed this episode, please download, review, and subscribe to Past Our Prime — and help spread the word to every baseball fan who loves the game the way it used to be played. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

125. Larry Robinson Dominated, Nick Nickson Called It, Hockey Won

Larry Robinson was the cornerstone of the Montreal Canadiens' blue line during one of the greatest dynasties in NHL history, and the 1975–76 season was where he truly announced himself to the hockey world. He had already been part of the 1973 Cup-winning team, but it was the 1976 Stanley Cup Final against the Philadelphia Flyers where Robinson really made his mark. The Flyers were the feared Broad Street Bullies — a team that had built its identity around intimidation and physical play — and Robinson essentially said, not today. He scored a key goal early in the series and was so punishing with his body checking that, as Ken Dryden remembered it, "they had to bring hammers and crowbars to fix the dent in the boards." Scotty Bowman's Canadiens swept Philadelphia in four games, and Robinson's performance was so dominant that he ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated on May 24, 1976, photographed delivering a check on Flyers forward Mel Bridgman. And that was really just the start of it. Robinson went on to lead Montreal to four Stanley Cups between 1976 and 1979, cementing the Canadiens as the defining team of that era. The season after the Flyers sweep, he put up 19 goals and 66 assists and walked away with the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenseman. He could skate, he could shoot, and he could absolutely flatten you if you got near his crease. For a stretch in the late '70s, there wasn't a more complete defenseman in hockey — and most opponents knew better than to test that. After 17 dominant seasons in Montreal, Robinson finished his playing career with the LA Kings before later returning to the organization as head coach, making him one of the more quietly significant figures in Kings history on both sides of the bench. Nick Nickson spent 44 years as the voice of the LA Kings, becoming as much a part of the franchise as any player who ever laced up at the Forum or Crypto.com Arena. Over that remarkable run he called more than 4,300 professional games and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015, receiving the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for excellence in broadcasting — putting him in the same company as his longtime Kings broadcast partner Bob Miller. For a generation of Kings fans, Nickson's voice is inseparable from the franchise's biggest moments, including the call of their first-ever Stanley Cup in 2012, when he memorably declared, "The long wait is over! After 45 years, the Kings can wear their crown!" He retired after the 2024–25 season, closing the book on one of the great broadcasting careers in LA sports history — and his appearance on Past Our Prime was a reminder of just how many chapters of hockey history this man lived through firsthand. Nickson comes on POP to talk with Scott, Bill, and Marc to discuss Robinson, the Montreal dynasty, the arrival of Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles, and what that era meant for hockey on the West Coast as well as the two Cups won by the NHL’s only monarchy— the Kings. Nickson had a front row seat for all of it and now he shares those insights with us as we take our weekly look back at the world of sports through the May 24, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated. 50 years later, Robinson’s dominance is still front and center and with the help of Nickson, we relive it all on Past Our Prime…  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

124. Michael MacCambridge and the History of SI

The May 17, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated is the perfect time capsule for Past Our Prime, capturing the sports world exactly 50 years ago through unforgettable stories and personalities. Headlined by Julius Erving on the cover, the issue showcased “Dr. J” at the peak of his ABA brilliance with the New York Nets as the league headed towards extinction and its historic merger with the NBA. But the magazine also stretched far beyond basketball, with features on the Flyers Reggie Leach’s playoff explosion, Björn Borg’s rivalry with Guillermo Vilas, baseball quirks, golf drama, and even Japanese baseball culture. It’s exactly the kind of rich, entertaining snapshot of sports history that we love revisiting each week. On this week’s episode of Past Our Prime, we jumped into that May 17, 1976 issue with author Michael MacCambridge who joined us to discuss his acclaimed book The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine. He took us behind the scenes of how SI rose from near failure in the 1950s to become the gold standard of sports journalism, blending deep reporting, cultural insight, and unforgettable storytelling. MacCambridge explored the magazine’s internal battles, larger-than-life personalities, and its profound influence on how America viewed sports for decades. His book is both a love letter and a clear-eyed history of one of the most important publications of the 20th century. MacCambridge tells us how as a child in 1976, his favorite player was Dr. J. Despite the fact he had never seen him play. Not in person. Not on TV. Only through the beautiful shots and words of SI. MacCambridge recalls how SI was one of the first magazines to implement color phots and how Henry Luce and Andre Andre Laguerre took an idea and turned it into a cultural phenomenon. He tells us how Sports Illustrated lost money its first 10 years in business before they started to turn the corner.  He compares being on the cover of SI to a musician being on the cover of Rolling Stone and he tells us how “a case can be made Julius Erving was the last truly mythic figure in American sports” MacCambridsge is a history professor and his subject is Sports Illustrated and he’s teaching a class this week on Past Our Prime. Get full credit by downloading and listening and reviewing wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

123. 3-time Kentucky Derby Winner Angel Cordero, Jr.

This week on Past Our Prime, the guys crack open the May 10, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated and bounce all over the sports world of the mid-’70s. We talk about Muhammad Ali looking very un-Ali-like in his sluggish fight with Jimmy Young and how many thought Ali lost this one. We break down the end of Arnold Palmer’s days o the PGA tour when he began to realize his glory days were starting to fade, and we discuss rising stars like ABA star David Thompson and Olympic swimmer John Naber who both were taking over the spotlight. Along the way, there’s plenty of classic POP randomness too — Little League snack shack junk food, terrible 1970s baseball TV coverage led by Warner Wolf, old-school hockey stories and all the weird little moments that made sports back then so much fun. But the biggest story was on the smallest guy… Hall of Fame jockey Angel Cordero Jr. stood just 5’3 and weighed a buck 13… but that didn’t stop him from being one of the giants of the horse racing world. The star jockey is still very active today but we slowed him down long enough to have him tell us about his unforgettable ride in the 1976 Kentucky Derby aboard Bold Forbes. Cordero talks about stealing the race right from the start, holding off heavy favorite Honest Pleasure and pulling off one of the biggest Derby upsets of the decade. The guys also look back at Cordero’s incredible career, which included more than 7,000 wins and three Kentucky Derby victories, including wins with Cannonade and Spend a Buck. And from there, the conversation turns into something even bigger than horse racing. Cordero talks about what it meant to become the first Puerto Rican jockey to win the Kentucky Derby when he got into the winners circle with Colonnade and how that helped open doors for so many riders who came after him. He also shares some great stories about his friendships with baseball legends Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda, especially Cepeda, whom he considered like family. It’s one of those conversations that perfectly fits what Past Our Prime is all about — great sports stories, bigger personalities and a chance to revisit an era that still feels larger than life 50 years later. Join us for another great Past Our Prime show as we cash in a winning ticket once again this week with Hall of Fame jockey, Angel Cordero Jr. Listen, download, review, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Giddyup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]