The Kanas City Monarchs are perhaps the best known Negro Leagues baseball team of all time. They played from the inception of the first Negro league in 1920 until finishing up as a barnstorming team in 1965.
The United States Football League arrived in Orlando, Florida in October 1984 when the league’s doormat Washington Federals franchise fled the nation’s capital for a fresh start in Florida. During the springtime football league’s first two seasons, the Federals had a league worst 7-29 record. ESPN College Gameday host Lee Corso was the Renegades Head Coach and is likely the only member of the team whose name would be familiar to contemporary football fans. The ‘Gades 5-13 mark in 1985 under Corso was actually the best record in franchise history.
The original Detroit Stars Negro League baseball team was established in 1919 as an independent barnstorming club. In 1920, they became charter members of the Negro National League (NNL). The NNL was the first organized Negro League.
The Seattle Totems were a popular minor league hockey club that drew big crowds during their heyday in the1960’s heyday. They won three Lester Patrick Cups as champions of the Western Hockey League between 1959 and 1968, including back-to-back titles in 1967 and 1968.
This long-running indy ball club lasted for ten seasons but never had a winning record. Nevertheless, the Duluth-Superior Dukes won one Northern League crown in 1997 and played for another in 2000. The Dukes were a brand revival of the original D-S Dukes, who played from 1960 to 1970. Like the original Dukes, the modern day Dukes played at historic Wade Stadium, a Depression era Works Progress Administration ballpark erected in 1940-1941.
The Fort Worth Cavalry were a failed Arena Football League franchise now residing in our One-Year Wonders file. After one star-crossed season in Fort Worth, the team crossed the border into Mexico just in time for that country’s late 1994 financial meltdown and vanished without a trace.
In the spring of 1982, the Canadian Football League’s venerable Montreal Alouettes franchise collapsed under a mountain of debt. Seeking a clean slate for new ownership, league officials folded the Alouettes on May 13, 1982 and awarded a new Montreal expansion club to Seagram’s liquor baron and Montreal Expos founder Charles Bronfman the next day. The club embarked on a star-crossed four year voyage under the new name “Concordes”, drawing inspiration from the iconic supersonic transatlantic jets of the era.
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