They’re long gone, but hopefully not forgotten – the sports teams that have moved on, leaving only memories. What are your favorites?
Mine:
St. Louis Browns – worst long-term record in the history of baseball, with their only pennant in 1944 when the good ballplayers were off fighting a war. Extra points for Bill Veeck and Eddie Gaedel. I have a Browns T-Shirt, which confuses a lot of people.
New York Americans. The seventh team of the old NHL. First team to play its home games in Madison Square Garden. Then MSG started the Rangers – guess who got the good home dates? Nice ugly uniforms, too. Lasting contribution to hockey – the icing rule (their strategy: score a goal, ice the puck the rest of the game).
Long Island Ducks. EHL minor league hockey team of the 1960s. Big rival – the New Haven Blades. Name inspired the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim . . . well, they knew about them, at least.
Providence Steamrollers. Don’t know much about them, but great nickname.
Back when I was a baseball fan, I read Ball Four by Jim Bouton, in which he spoke of the team known as the Seattle Pilots. I have no first hand knowledge of them, since the moved to Milwaukee 6 years before I was born, but I do like the name. Better than the Mariners, anyway.
Kansas City Scouts-NHL. Became the Colorado Rockies, then the New Jersey Devils. Ugly logo. Saw the Kings whup them 7-0 a looooonnng time ago.
…and, as far as I’m concerned, the Devils still have an ugly uni.
Canton Bulldogs-NFL. Like the Steamrollers, not much info, but cool name.
Atlanta Flames-NHL. Now the Calgary Flames, whose name makes no sense.
Tom Lysiak. Eric Vail. Willie Plett. Daniel Bouchard.
Those guys rocked.
…and a great logo.
When I was a kid, the ABA was my first exposure to basketball. I loved Rick Barry & the Oakland Oaks!
The ABA was so much more fun than the NBA! I loved that red, white & blue ball, the huge Afros, the freewheeling style of play. I guess that’s the same reason I liked the old AFL so much more than the NFL (loved Daryle “the Mad Bomber” Lamonica and the old Raiders).
Of course, like most ABA teams, the Oaks were constantly going broke, folding, and moving someplace else. I think they eventuially became the Virginia Squires, the Washington Caps, and God knows what else.
The Providence Steamrollers I meant were an early NFL team. If there was an Arena Football version, they were probably referring to the name.
BTW, teams that moved away are considered defunct in my book.
Speaking of the New York Americans, there’s a great picture of their jersey here.
Astorian – Yeah, I was a fan of the ABA, especially Dr. J and the Nets. And Darryl Lamonica wasn’t “The Mad Bomber” (he was a fine quarterback). That honor goes to Mike Taliaferro, Joe Namath’s backup of that era.
The “Colt 45s” – although they could be somebody else now too, but I still like a team named after a malt liquor.
The old Federal League used to have a team in the (I think) Pacific Northwest called the “Spiders”. I always wanted to get a sports cap from that team.
Feeling a bit too lazy at the moment to do a search, but I think that the team mentioned before was actually called the Providence Steamroller (singular). The Steamrollers (plural) were an Arena League team.
Also, I believe that the Worcester Brown Stockings were the inspiration for Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.” Again, I’m too lazy to do a search, but I’m fairly sure that I have heard that mentioned somewhere.
My favorite defunct pro team would be the Holyoke Millers of the Eastern League (AA baseball).
Stockton’s minor league baseball team, the Ports, changed its name to the Mudville Nine, so I guess they’re claiming to be the inspiration for the poem.
For me, personally, it’s gotta be the Fort Worth Texans, a Central Hockey League franchise from 1974-82. Affiliated with the NY Rangers for most of that time, and then mysteriously allying with the Colorado Rockies (defunct, or moved?) for the last couple of years of their existence.
When I was but a young lad, Texan games were one of our family’s major entertainment outlets. We’d head over to the somewhat run-down Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum to watch our minor-league heroes do battle with the likes of the Dallas Black Hawks, the Tulsa Oilers, and the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles.
I was there the night that they won the '78 Adams Cup - their only league championship. Once, feeling daring, my family went over to Dallas and watched our Texans play the Black Hawks at the Fair Park Coliseum. They looked so unfamiliar in their road blue uniforms…
Minor league hockey in DFW just hasn’t been the same. The Fort Worth Fire and Dallas Freeze have both come and gone, and there’s currently an outfit playing in the Fort Worth/Tarrant County Convention Center called the Fort Worth Brahmas. I went to one of their games when I was there this past Christmas, and the atmosphere lacked sizzle. (It also lacked what I consider adequate lighting, but that’s another rant.) I’ll stick with my current team of choice, the WCHL’s Long Beach Ice Dogs.
Ah, well. To wax nostalgic from time to time is good for the spirit. ::sniff::
I believe they were named after the gun (as in the weapon of the Texas Rangers), not the malt liquor. Not that it matters.
What I really wanted to say was that they were renamed the Astros when they moved to the Astrodome, which in turn was named for both its space-age construction (1st domed stadium), and for its relative proximity to the Houston space flight center.
Quebec Nordiques and Winnepeg Jets RIP.
We need more Canadian hockey teams, small markets or no.
The Minnesota North Stars were a damn good franchise in a hockey-crazy area, too, but at least they’ve been replaced by the Wild. Poor Quebec: if they’d held on for one more season, they would’ve had a Cup (they became the Avalanche and IIRC won their first year) and maybe a new lease on life.
Ahem, the Johnstown Jets of the Eastern Hockey League, immortalized as the “Charlestown Chiefs” in the movie Slapshot. The “Hanson Brothers” in the movie were played by actual members of the team, although only two of the three were brothers, and not the one named Hanson, geddit?
The NHL’s Minnesota North Stars had a cool logo, and Gump Worsley, the last goalie to play without a mask. They were cool. Technically they’re not defunct either, as the franchise moved to Dallas to become the Stars.
The Cleveland Barons of the AHL, not the NHL. The Barons were an AHL powerhouse who played in downtown Cleveland and had beautiful blue and white uniforms, similar to the Maple Leafs. The NHL incarnation of the Barons (1976-78) charged way too much for tickets and stunk up the joint. I also miss the Cleveland Crusaders of the old WHA.
Here’s some other old time teams that haven’t been mentioned yet:
Kentucky Colonels (ABA) - they had Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel, won the ABA championship in 1975 and probably could’ve beaten that year’s NBA champ Golden State.
Duluth Eskimos (NFL) - I could be mistaken, but I think they were notable for having Hall of Famer Ernie Nevers play for them and for never actually playing a home game in Duluth.
I have a Browns T-Shirt, which confuses a lot of people.