The Pacific Coast League (PCL) was established in December 1902 as an outlaw baseball league, at least that’s what it was labeled by the Northwest League at the time. Both survived, of course, with the PCL becoming one of the continent’s top minor leagues.
The Shreveport Steamer brought pro football to the unlikely confines of Western Louisiana when the World Football League’s Houston Texans moved halfway through the 1974 season. They stayed on until halfway through the 1975, whereupon they went out of business with the rest of the league.
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 San Jose Grizzlies were a short-lived indoor soccer entry that competed in the summer-season Continental Indoor Soccer League in 1994 and 1995.
Two decades earlier, Grizzlies owner Milan Mandaric founded the Bay Area’s popular San Jose Earthquakes soccer team in the North American Soccer League. Serbian-American indoor star Preki arrived for the Grizzlies’ second and final season and won the CISL’s MVP award in 1995. It was the future Soccer Hall of Famer’s final season of indoor soccer before embarking on his equally legendary outdoor career with the U.S. Men’s National Team and in Major League Soccer in 1996.
The Chicago Bruisers were one of four founding teams during the debut season of the Arena Football League in 1987. The Bruisers debuted at the Rosemont Horizon on June 20th, 1987 against the Denver Dynamite with a national cable TV audience on ESPN. The teams treated the announced crowd of 10,103 to the exactly type of hyperactive end-to-end scoring that the new sport envisioned. The Bruisers blew an eight point lead and missed a game winning field goal attempt – all in the final 43 seconds of regulation – before falling 52-44 in overtime.
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.
