MLS Year 1 Oral History: The outtakes

Not every great detail made it into our MLS Year 1 Oral History. Fortunately, Brian Straus has cobbled more together for a fantastic collection of outtakes.

Major League Soccer's 20th season is rolling along, with Wednesday's All-Star Game against Tottenham set to be followed by the arrivals of Didier Drogba, Giovani Dos Santos and long-awaited debut of Frank Lampard.

But before the league we watch today was a league just trying to carve a niche for itself in the American sports landscape and survive. MLS's inaugural 1996 season and the steps needed to be taken just to get there are full of hilarious, almost unbelievable stories. 

SI's Grant Wahl, Brian Straus and Alexander Abnos chronicled an immense amount of them while documenting the league's inaugural year in a lengthy oral history. Over course in the process of cobbling this story together, though, not every great detail made it in. There were difficult cuts along the way.

• STRAUS: Twizzle? Cyber-mutants? Hello, original MLS branding

Thankfully, Straus has compiled a bunch of them, allowing us to share MLS Year 1 Oral History: The Outtakes.

PODCAST: Straus, Wahl share favorite parts of MLS Year 1 oral history