Houston’s dreams of landing a Major League Baseball team go back at least as far as the 1950s. The threat of a third major league, the proposed Continental League, yielded Houston a National League expansion franchise that was known as the Houston Colt .45s for its first three seasons.
United States Football League (1984) Born: July 7, 1983 – USFL expansion franchise Died: December 5, 1984 – Merged with Arizona Wranglers First Game: February 26, 1984 (W 7-3 vs. Pittsburgh Maulers) Last Game: June 24, 1984 (L 23-0 @ San Antonio Gunslingers) USFL Championships: None Stadium: Skelly Stadium Team Colors:
The Baltimore Elite Giants got their start in Nashville, before moving to Columbus, Ohio for one year, then to Washington, D.C. They moved down the road in Baltimore in 1938 and played there until 1950, before spending their final season back in Tennessee.
The original Winnipeg Jets were charter members of the WHA in 1972. They moved to the NHL in 1979, along with three other WHA squads. In 1995, they were sold and moved to Phoenix for the 1996-97 hockey season. The name was revived when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011 and assumed the Jets name but not their history.
The Atlantic City Surf were one of the six original franchises in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Atlantic League was (and remains) the most ambitious league to arise out of the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s. The Surf played at the Sandcastle, a 5,900-seat ballpark built on the grounds of Atlantic City’s municipal airport, Bader Field. The stadium was built with $11.5 million in Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funds and $3 million in taxpayer bonds.
The Orlando Sundogs were a pro soccer team that endured a single grim campaign in the USISL A-League during the summer of 1997. The A-League was the 2nd Division of men’s pro soccer in the U.S. at the time, one level below Major League Soccer. The Sundogs’ troubles were many, but a big one was their choice of stadium: the 64,000 Citrus Bowl, a former World Cup (1994) and Olympic (1996) stadium. The ‘Dogs averaged an invisible 1,278 fans per match in the gargantuan bowl.
The remarkable story of Kurt Warner, who rose from supermarket stock boy to Super Bowl Champion and NFL Most Valuable Player over the course of five years, is one of the great legacies of the now-defunct Arena Football League. Warner, undrafted out of college, famously signed on with the Arena League’s Iowa Barnstormers in 1995. He led the Barnstormers into back-to-back Arena Bowl title games in 1996 and 1997, before earning his shot at the NFL with the St. Louis Rams. By 1999, he was the NFL’s MVP and quarterback of a Super Bowl championship team in his first season as a starter. Warner’s fame briefly made the Iowa Barnstormers an object of cult fascination, if not quite a household brand name. So what became of the Barnstormers?
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed in 1967 as a competitor to the established National Basketball Association (NBA). It started with 11 teams, and within a few years was angling for a merger with the older league. In 1976, the NBA took in four ABA teams, while three other surviving teams disbanded.
The Birmingham Barracudas were the final American expansion team awarded during the Canadian Football League’s failed incursion into the United States during the mid-1990’s.
Fun While it Lasted presents the Jersey of the Week, brought to you by Royal Retros. Each week, we feature a historic uniform. Click to learn more about the team that wore this classic gear.
