Spotlight

Bill Walton on the cover of the 1979-80 San Diego Clippers Media Guide from the National Basketball Association

San Diego Clippers (1978-1984)

The San Diego Clippers were born when the Buffalo Braves headed west in the summer of 1978. Almost as soon as they got there, the team was angling to move up the 5 to L.A., which they ultimately did in 1984.

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Boston Sweepers Atlantic Coast Football League

Boston Sweepers

The Boston Sweepers were a semi-pro football outfit that drew crowds of a few thousand per game on the northern outskirts of Boston during the early 1960’s. The team formed in 1962 as a new entry in the New England Football League. Press accounts alternately referred to the team as the Boston Sweepers, Chelsea-Everett Sweepers and Nu-Way Sweepers that fall. The Sweepers won the championship of the Atlantic Coast Football League in 1964 and then moved away to New Bedford, Massachusetts the following season.

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Honoring the Negro Leagues

Cleveland Buckeyes

Baltimore Elite Giants (1938-1951)

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.

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Retro Hockey

Derek Sanderson Philadelphia Blazers

Philadelphia Blazers

The Philadelphia Blazers were charter members of the World Hockey Association (WHA). However, after one season in the City of Brotherly Love, they moved to Vancouver.

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baseball History

Seattle Rainiers Northwest League Baseball

Seattle Rainiers

The second incarnation of the Seattle Rainiers played in the Northwest League from 1972 through 1976. They were displaced when MLB’s Seattle Mainers arrived in 1977.

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Soccer Indoor and outdoor

Marinette Pichon on the cover of a 2004 New Jersey Wildcats program from the USL W-League

New Jersey Wildcats

For a remarkable three-year period between 2004 and 2006 this amateur women’s soccer club that played in a 1,500-seat community college field in the Trenton suburbs managed to sign up a jaw-dropping roster of top players from all over the world. The Wildcats ran roughshod over the USL’s W-League during these years with only one North American women’s club – the Vancouver Whitecaps – able to stay on the field with them.

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Arena Football

Kenny McEntrye on the cover of the 2005 Orlando Predators Media Guide from the Arena Football League

Orlando Predators (1991-2016)

Arena Football League (1991-2016) Born: February 7, 1991 – Arena Football League expansion franchise Folded: October 12, 2016 First Game: June 1, 1991 (W 51-38 vs. Tampa Bay Storm) Last Game: August 6, 2016 (L 69-68 vs. Jacksonville Sharks) Arena Bowl Champions: 1998 & 2000 1991-2010: Orlando Arena (16,613) 2011-2013: Amway Center 2014:

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Pittsburgh Pipers basketball program

Pittsburgh Pipers

The Pittsburgh Pipers were charter members of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967 and won the league’s first championship. Then promptly moved to Minnesota, only to move back to Pittsburgh after one season. When that didn’t improve their situation, the team changed its name to the Pittsburgh Condors.

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Shreveport Pirates Canadian Football League

Shreveport Pirates

Yes, strange as it sounds, but the small, poverty-stricken city of Shreveport, Louisiana once had its very own Canadian Football League franchise: the Shreveport Pirates. The Pirates’ shambolic leadership made a series of head-scratching personnel moves, including the signings of troubled over-the-hill NFL stars Dexter Manley and Mark Duper, and fired the team’s first head coach before taking a regular season snap. Meanwhile the team staggered to a two-year record of 8-28 in the CFL before going out of business at the end of the 1995 season.

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