Hall of Shame Podcast discusses dark episodes in American sports history ★★★☆☆

Well, who remembers how tennis star Monica Seles won the US Open, or how basketball player Dennis Rodman became a five-time NBA champion? Maybe die-hard sports fans.

Perhaps the biggest group is the group that doesn't care much about the sport, but they can tell you how Seles was stabbed in the early 1990s by a deranged fan of her arch-rival Steffi Graf. Or how the eccentric Rodman built a much-discussed friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

In the podcast series Hall of shame It's exactly these kinds of stories that are central: the scandals, controversies, and human drama that happen off the track or field, that capture the imagination even among sports haters.

Each week, screenwriter Rachna Frushburn and Fox Sports host Rachel Boneta update the listener on a dark or great episode in American sports history. Prior knowledge is not a requirement, as Fruchborn and Bonnetta alternate between the roles of expert and layman. One reads and tells, the other listens and marvels at the salient details:impossible!'

There are quite a few stories that could be told at the highest level What is this bullshit?-degree. About groom Tommy Burns, for example, who since the mid-1970s has killed dozens of show and sport horses on their owners' orders so they can collect insurance money. Or about mother Wanda, a cheerleader from Texas, determined to achieve eternal glory through her teenage daughter. When she and her arch-rival Amber are not selected for the team, Wanda hires a hitman to get rid of Mother Verna and thus break Amber's will.

They're the kind of stories that require deeper examination, for example about the role that fame, status, and greed play in American society. But that's what the listener is there for Hall of shame To the wrong address. The podcast does not provide new insights or information, but is limited to entertaining retellings of already well-known sports episodes.

Fruchborn and Bonnetta have proven to be skilled and accomplished storytellers. There's quips and sarcasm, especially at the villains: “What the heck.” douchebag!' Anyone who finds it difficult to tolerate North America's talent for overstatement and superlatives has been warned. Conversations are interspersed with exclamations such as “Oh,” “Oh my God,” and “Exactly!” But to be fair, the stories that go by exactly justify this reaction.