The Moonlight Graham Show

Sometimes, a Moonlighter finds a role and sometimes a Moonlighter needs to make a role. While the average Joe can't even come close, a 5'9 righty who throws around 90 is a dime-a-dozen in professional baseball. This week's Moonlighter created a role for himself in that got him into a major league bullpen. Just like his knuckleball, Jannis's career took a less than traditional path to his MLB debut.

This week's Moonlighter takes looking like a pro to a whole new level. If you google Gar Ryness, the internet refers to him as "an American sports entertainer". And while you may not know that name, or what an American sports entertainer is, you have probably seen an online video of Ryness doing his impressions of batting stances and what can only be described as baseball comedy sketches.

As the Des Moines area gears up to host the production of the new Field of Dreams show, Tim and Neil discuss the next era of the film's saga.

Part of being a role player is doing the things just off of center stage. Facilitating, supporting, and generally making sure the show goes on without a hitch. Sometimes you don't even know a good role player's name but you can't miss their impact. This week's guest is an official who was on the court with some of the biggest names in basketball history but most people don't know his name; just the way a good referee likes it. Steve Javie joins the podcast to talk about a having the best seat in the arena for about 1,800 NBA games

On this week's Moonlight Baseball Hour Tim and Neil celebrate Anthony Rendon's left-handed home run off Brett Phillips, which could be the highlight of the year thus far. They also dive into the dead ball conspiracy theory and lay out all of the reasons Iowa should continue to play baseball in the summer.

The Moonlight Graham Show is nothing if not loyal. And what sports relationship better represents that loyalty, through thick and thin, than a golfer and his caddy? Tim returns to the links with our favorite golfer Sam Meuret to take another swing at qualifying for the US Open.

The Moonlight Gambler, alias: Tom Hagan, returns to the podcast a year after his uncanny prediction of last year's scandal at the Kentucky Derby. With one of the most exciting events in sports just around the corner, we wanted to get Tom Hagan back on the pod to talk all things horse racing and give the Moonlight listeners the inside track as they head to the bookies to place their bets.

Anna DiTommaso, from Baseball Bucket List, joins the Moonlight Baseball Hour to discuss the best and worst of the City Connect Uniforms, Miguel Cabrera joining the 3,000 hit club, the best cities for MLB expansion, and our thoughts on new technology in the game.

This week Moonlight Graham brings you an underdog NFL draft scout of our very own. Nick Clark loves college and NFL football. More than just watching games, he loves breaking down the players and looking at what NFL teams need. What started as a hobby in high school has turned into a full-blown passion project for Nick Clark. NCtheScout joins the pod this week to get us ready for the 2022 NFL Draft.

In this week's Moonlight Baseball Hour Tim and Neil discuss Clayton Kershaw's 7-Inning Perfect Game, Seiya Suzuki's introduction to Chicago, and Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s 3 home run game in Yankee Stadium.

As a midwest sports podcast with a diehard baseball fan as its host, of course, the Twins have come up on this podcast more than a few times. Tim and the brothers Flattery have loved the Twins for their whole lives. Not only that, but their dad, Moonlighter Dave Flattery is a twin. We've even had some twin brothers on the pod over the years. But this week puts a whole new spin on the twin connection in this podcast. Tim and Mrs. Moonlight herself, Tori Flattery, are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their twins.

They say good things come in small packages and this week's guest puts his own spin on that. Spencer Brown was a giant coming out of 8-man football and tiny Lenox, Iowa. Now, Spencer Brown is an absolute force on the field playing right tackle for the Buffalo Bills. How does a guy come from small-town ball and lightly recruited to starting 10 games for one of the best teams in professional football? It's a tale that Moonlight Graham has told before, a lot of hard work and getting an opportunity.

Neil and Tim are bursting with anticipation. Between Opening Day and Neil's baby on the way, there is a lot to be excited about in the Moonlight Graham world. It hardly seems possible that the opening day of the 2022 baseball season is here with all of the time the sports world spent talking about the lockout. Between the social media hot takes and the threats of a reduced season, it almost felt like this day would never come.

Ben Ahlers is a blast from the past! Not only is he a repeat Moonlighter but he is a featured character in the new HBO show The Gilded Age. From the same team that created this hit series Downton Abbey, comes a historical fiction series about New York City just before the turn of the 20th Century. Ahlers recently took some of his time away from filming to return to the Moonlight Graham Show to talk about everything from accents on HBO to college sports.When Ben and Tim get together, all bets are off. The last time Ben was last on the podcast, he shared the behind the scenes look at his Quibi show When the Streetlights Go On. For round two he returns as a Brooklyn footman and coaches Tim up on how to develop an accent. They spend the last too many minutes in an accent off - so you might want to make sure you have your earbuds in. This interview has a little bit of everything. Ben's career is still on the rise and his IMDB page is getting longer. Tim and Ben talk about everything from life on set, preparing for the role, and, of course, nudity. But at his core, Ben is still a sports fan at heart. He grew up a Cyclone and went to Michigan so he has had a heckuva stretch of college sports recently. Tim and Ben pitch ideas of how to incorporate late 1800s sports in the show. Hopefully, Ben can work some of Tim's ideas for a dockside boxing match or New York Highlanders game into a script and maybe see if Tim ends up with a creative credit on an HBO show on his resume.

We love repeat-Moonlighters and this week we bring back an all time great. Pat Hoberg isn't just a top tier Moonlighter though, he is also the number one umpire in Major League Baseball. The Urbandale native was the star of episode 103 when he was an up and comer in the Majors. He returns to the pod as arguably the best umpire in the world!

Now that the players and the league have settled the lockout we are ready for baseball after a (make it) rain delay. This week we have a guy whose career was put on a delay of it's own, Carter Baumler.

This week's Moonlighter made a career out of knowing how to play his role. On the court, he was a deadeye sharpshooter and gritty defender for Fred Hoiberg and the Cyclones. And while Scott Christopherson isn't technically an Iowan, he certainly became a favorite adopted son. Tim and Scott sit down this week to talk about all things-Cyclone basketball ahead of this weekend's Big 12 Men's Basketball Tourney.

The Moonlight Graham Show is back with a new season, which is more than we can say for Major League Baseball. Emery Songer joins the pod this week to talk about the season that coulda/woulda/shoulda been. These amateurs have done some research and tried to get a better everyman's level of understanding about why we aren't getting excited for opening day right now.

Tim and Tom have the hottest takes on 2021 in the season finale of the Moonlight Graham Show.

This week's Moonlighter suited up for over 1,600 points and 3 NCAA tournaments between 1993 and 1999. Jess Settles was a big part of a lot of our childhoods because of just how long he spent on the roster for Tom Davis and that long stretch of winning Iowa basketball.

The American curling crew, with Shuster as their leader, got off to a slow start in South Korea. The 2018 gold was the result of getting hot at the right time. Shuster returns to the pod as he prepares to lead USA Curling into the upcoming Olympics in China. In this interview, Tim and John reflect on life since the 2018 games and preparing for his trip to China.

This week the Moonlight Graham Show puts our own spin on the GOAT conversation. Tim welcomes Moonlighters Jack Brownlee and Sean O'Hare to the studio to combine their wealth of Iowa boys' high school knowledge to create an 8 team bracket of the greatest teams from all classes and across time periods.

With the modern game so focused on scoring, a pass-first point guard almost seems like a relic. This week Tim sits down with one of the all-time great point guards in Iowa State history who just happens to be one of Tim's childhood heroes. Jacy Holloway was a Kansas boy who was recruited to Iowa State right at the time of the transition from Johnny Orr to Tim Floyd. Jacy's game was to protect the ball and facilitate the offense but this episode also talks about facilitating the change to a new coach.

It seems like every four years our eyes turn to the Olympics and America falls in love with a new gymnastics icon. Iowa has been fortunate to have close ties to names like Liang Chow, Gabby Douglas, and Shawn Johnson. The leaps, flips, and twists are like a non-stop highlight reel. Gymnastics takes center stage at the Olympics each cycle and then sort of slides into the background. This week, we get an inside look from former junior Olympian and Big 12 gymnast Brooklyn (Doggette) McMurray.

This week the Moonlight Graham Show goes all the way from A to Z. Matt Adams and Andrew Zellmer that is. These former athletes and sports fans sit down with Tim on a Friday afternoon to talk a little about sports and a lot about Iowa. Matt and Andrew are two of the top dogs for Peoples Company out of Clive. This podcast is an opportunity for buddies to catch up and drain the batteries on the microphones.

This week's Moonlighter is one of the best ballplayers to come out of Iowa. Larry Biittner had a heck of a career and spent quite a bit of time in a true Moonlighter role; pinch hitter. Though he is an all-timer as a pinch hitter, Bittner is the first to say that he didn't like doing it, but it was what the team needed. Tim sits down with Larry to talk about a career spent in the big leagues with names like Nolan Ryan and Ted Williams.

As the baseball postseason heats up, so does the Moonlight Graham Studio. This week Tim sits down with a trio of Dowling Maroon baseball's recent legends. These guys are ready to talk about all things baseball, from the new announcements about Minor League Baseball to the current postseason. Jason McMurray, Spencer Navin, and Zach Coppola had successful careers in the CIML before heading off to Division I programs, summer leagues, and pursuing professional careers.

This week's guest might be one of the easiest voices to identify that has ever come across the Moonlight airwaves. Gary Rima joins Tim to talk about a career spent in sports as he prepares for his final ride as the voice of UNI basketball. Rima has deep roots in Iowa sports that reach nearly every corner of the state and beyond. In almost 30 years on the microphone and many adventures in Iowa sports, Rima has a story about everything and a connection to just about everyone.

This week's guest on the podcast has had a pretty incredible journey in sports. Conrad Ray went from dreaming of playing football to making a career out of college golf. After pursuing his goal of playing center or nose tackle at Notre Dame, Ray found out that his success as a high school football player in Minnesota just wasn't quite good enough to play in front of Touchdown Jesus. Plan B turned out to be joining one of the greatest teams in the history of college golf.

Most Moonlighters are proud to look back on their career as reaching their alma mater's hall of fame as a sign of some of their top achievements. This week though, our guest was really just getting started at the age of 36. Klaye Rowe, and his teammates on 3Ball Omaha, took home the top prize in the country earlier this year when they won the 3x3 National Championship at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

How many episodes does it take to land (arguably) the most talented Flattery brother on the podcast? 221 was the magic number to bring in the big lefty, Joe Flattery. Brother Joe stands out from his brothers for a few reasons. He is the tallest, calmest, quietest, and the only lefty of the group. This week, all of the Flattery boys sit down in the family home to share stories about Joe and his career in sports.

This week, Moonlight Graham's favorite NFL quarterback returns to the podcast to share stories about his year as a pro. Reid Sinnett joined us fresh off of his preseason week 3 breakout performance that took the NFL and social media by storm. He brought us up to speed on life as a Miami Dolphin and his foray into the world of movie reviewing. CLAIM=27d64b9ffe6521fe07b76e325f5544a633229578=CLAIM

This week's Moonlighter is a Cyclone legend. Larry Corrigan did just about everything for the Cyclones. His career in Cardinal and Gold spanned the early 1970s as a player and then as a coach in the 1980s. Corrigan was an All-American pitcher and catcher, set the Cyclone record for batting average, and then set the record for wins in a season as a coach. Now the Cyclone Hall of Famer sits down to talk about a life in baseball and seeing the game from just about every angle.

As Iowa prepares for America to turn her eyes back to the heartland on Saturday morning, we welcome in two of the greatest athletes to ever come out of the Livermore-Twin River Valley-Bode portion of Humboldt county. Greg Lempke and Dallas Clark have been connected almost as long as Dallas has been alive, but the Cyclone and Hawkeye farm-boys-at-heart share many Moonlight characteristics as well.

This week's Moonlighter continued his basketball career in one of the most underdog roles any athlete could possibly play in - as a member of the Washington Generals. Father Mark McGreary finished up his college playing days and was given the opportunity to fill a spot in the lineup for the losing-est basketball team in history. Father McGeary played for the Generals in the late 1980s and was able to travel around the world and lose to the Globetrotters before finishing his professional career in Europe.

In his 60+ years as a high school football coach, Dick Tighe has seen just about everything. And he remembers just about all of it. This week Tim and Tom get to sit down with their former coach to hear about one of the winningest high school football coaching careers in history.

We are still riding high from the Field of Dreams game. This week, Tim sits down with NBC Chicago's Alyssa Bergamini who covers the Chicago White Sox to get an insider's look at how the players felt about the field, Iowa, and the amazing finish to the game itself. Also in this episode is an update on the Quest for Costner and the upcoming Field of Dreams streaming TV series.

This week the dream comes true. As the White Sox and Yankees pack up and head for home, Tim and Neil get to reflect on one of the most amazing sporting events to ever take place in Iowa. The Field of Dreams movie site went through a roughly 2-year transformation to become the home of a major league-caliber baseball field. Tim and Neil spent the day with 8,000 of their new best friends taking in the sights, sounds, and tastes of something Ray Kinsella could've only dreamed of.

It is Field of Dreams week here in Iowa. Major League Baseball is following in the footsteps of the ghost players and will be walking out onto a diamond carved out of a cornfield in eastern Iowa. Before the Yankees and White Sox take the field, the Moonlight Graham Show sits down with Moonlighter Tommy Birch and talks about the long road to bring the big league to Dyersville and the Barstool Barn Burner game. This is a huge week in baseball as all eyes turn to Iowa and 30 years after the movie came out, we are ready.

Our Moonlighter this week went from a small town to the Big Sky. Randy Rahe is a four-time Big Sky Conference coach of the year at Weber State University. He has 5 conference titles and has won 63% of his games. While he is one of the top mid-major coaches in the country right now, he graduated from tiny, and now closed, Bancroft St. John's.

This week Tim sits down with a modern Hawkeye legend; Ricky Stanzi. Though he didn't grow up in Iowa, he certainly became a favorite son in his time in black and gold. Stanzi led the Hawkeyes to 3 bowl wins and a 3-0 record against the Cyclones in his 3 seasons as a starter. Tim also gets the chance to ask Stanzi about his career off of the football field which is a direct result of his not professional career not going as expected.

Season 11 might just be the best season of the Moonlight Graham Show yet. It starts out with an absolute splash of a guest in JJ Redick. The 15 year NBA vet has made a career as a sharpshooting role player on playoff-caliber teams. In addition to being one of the best shooters in NBA history, Redick has built a brand in the podcast world. What better way to kick off Season 11 than with the best of both the sports and podcasting worlds?

For the most part, golf is an individual sport. However, when it comes to something like the US Open qualifier, the caddy is like the role player of the sport. For the most part, you don't know their names and their contributions don't really stand out on a scorecard but if a caddy can do the little things right, it might give the player an edge here or there. In this case, our favorite golfer Sam Meuret took along an underdog caddy to Columbus, Ohio for the Open qualifier. In this episode, Tim and Sam recount the longest day in golf.

They say good things come in small packages. Well, this week's Moonlighter is a case of good things coming out of a small package. A product of a tiny private school in Storm Lake, IA, Ben McCollum has made a living out of finding success at small schools. This week Tim sits down with one of the absolute best college basketball coaches in basketball in the country

The movie Tin Cup is a near-perfect Moonlight story. Even non-golfers can relate to the washed-up underdog going for it one more time. Heck, we've all played a round of golf that left us wondering how much money we lost in balls alone until we hit that one shot that makes us think maybe we do have 'it' after all. This week's Moonlighter is far from washed up, but just like Tin Cup he is chasing a dream of playing the U.S. Open. With Tim Flattery alongside as his Cheech Marin, Sam Meuret returns to the Moonlight Graham Show on his path to the final qualifier for the U.S. Open.

This week's Moonlighter is the voice of the Iowa Hawkeyes, Gary Dolphin. Dolph is an Iowa sports guy to the core. Baseball is just part of the way he was raised growing up in eastern Iowa. And like most of us when Field of Dreams came out, a game of catch and has just a little bit more of a special meaning. Dolph sat down with Tim to talk about a little bit of everything in the world of Iowa sports history as well as his upcoming keynote speech at the Iowa Catholic Men's Conference.

Here at the Moonlight Graham Show, we have a pretty good track record of knowing when to hold 'em, when to fold' em, and when to walk away. In fact, part of being an Underdog is knowing your limitations but being willing to go for broke sometimes. This week we welcome a pro gambler named, well, let's just call him Tom Hagen.

From Little League to the bigs, baseball is in full swing. And few guys can swing it like our Moonlighters this week. Winterset's James Peterson and Marshalltown's Jeff Clement were national newsmakers in the summer of 2002 as they chased the national high school home run record. Peterson and Clement could absolutely rake in high school. Neither ever hit lower than about .450 and they were hitting double-digit home runs. The Peterson and Clement race of 2002 was just on the heels of the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire MLB home run race of the 1998 season. The national media followed their story through the summer 2002 season and all eyes were on Iowa's summer high school baseball season. These two Iowa baseball legends share stories about their playing days and their more recent roles as baseball dads.