Continental Basketball Association (1994-1995)
Tombstone
Born: May 24, 1994 – The Rochester Renegades relocate to Harrisburg, PA
Folded: February 2, 19951Cooper, Craig. “CBA lays hammer down”. The Quad-City Times (Davenport, IA). February 3, 1995
First Game: November 18, 1994 (W 110-108 @ Tri-City Chinook)
Last Game: February 1, 1995 (L 115-93 @ Pittsburgh Piranhas)
CBA Championships: None
Arena
Farm Show Arena (8,799)21994-95 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Opened: 1931
Marketing
Team Colors: Teal, Black, Silver & White31994-95 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Ownership
Owners: Van Farber & Andrew Dauro
OUR FAVORITE STUFF
Continental Basketball Association
Logo T-Shirt
This Old School Shirts release is strictly for the hardcore hoop heads.
Before the NBA had the G-League, it had the CBA with teams stretched from Puerto Rico to Honolulu. During the CBA’s 1980’s and 90’s heyday, the league provided a launching pad for future NBA All-Stars such as John Starks and Michael Adams as well as coaching legends Phil Jackson and George Karl.
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Background
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was the final resting place for this weather-beaten Continental Basketball Association outfit. The franchise wandered from Bangor, ME to Worcester, MA to Pensacola, FL to Birmingham, AL to Rochester, MN during a 17-year minor league odyssey that began with the formation of the Maine Lumberjacks in 1978.
By the mid-1990’s the club was in Rochester, Minnesota and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Harrisburg businessman Van Farber bought the club in May 1994 for a price reported to be between $300,000 and $400,000. The CBA franchise was a second choice for Farber after he tried and failed to purchase Harrisburg’s existing double-A baseball team, the Harrisburg Senators, one month earlier.
Farber held a name the team contest. The winning entry of Harrisburg Hammerheads was based on the local urban legend of sharks occasionally traveling the waterways of the local Susquehanna River. The Hammerheads played at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, which was also home to the Harrisburg Heat of the National Professional Soccer League that winter. The building was not well suited to basketball. The Hammerheads’ wooden basketball floor laid directly over the dirt floor of the livestock arena.
Midseason Meltdown
The team drew poorly, drawing an announced 1,052 fans per game for 18 home dates. Farber quickly ran afoul of CBA officials. Just three months into the Hammerheads’ first season, the league expelled Farber’s franchise in mid-season on February 2, 1995 for failing to meet various financial obligations. Farber and the CBA ended up in litigation over the failed franchise that dragged out for another few years, far longer than the Hammerheads themselves existed.
The Hammerheads played only 33 games of the planned 56-game CBA regular season in 1994-95. They had a 15-18 record at the time the club shut down.
Downloads
12-18-1994 Hammerheads vs. Oklahoma City Cavalry Game Notes
12-18-1994 Harrisburg Hammerheads Roster Insert
Links
Continental Basketball Association Media Guides
Continental Basketball Association Programs
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2 Responses
I remember this team (and the Harrisburg Heat) when I had just finished high school in the Harrisburg metro area in the mid-90s. I went to a few ballgames with my father at the Farm Show Arena.
A clever guy wrote into the Harrisburg Patriot-News that the Hammerheads should have been named the “Humidity” instead. He said that the “Heat is bad, but the Humidity is worse!”
I never attended a game, but my husband thought I would love the Hammerhead sweatshirt so I received it for Mothers Day, probably 1995. I wear it occasionally for the stares I get from passerby’s (ha) but now I want to sell it as I’m moving, and the stares in the Pittsburgh area will be too intense.