American Soccer League (1969-1970)
Tombstone
Born: 1968 – ASL expansion franchise
Folded: Postseason 1970
First Game: May 4, 1969 (W 3-1 vs. New York Inter)
Last Game:
ASL Championships: None
Stadia
1969-1970: MacArthur Stadium
Opened: 1934
Demolished: 1997
1969: Griffin Field
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner: Syracuse Soccer Club, Incorporated (Sal DeRosa, et al.)
Our Favorite Stuff
Syracuse Scorpions
Logo T-Shirt
The star-crossed Scorpions were Syracuse’s first professional soccer team back in the summers of 1969 and 1970. The club was deeply unlucky. A wild inferno, set off by teenage hoodlums on May 14th, 1969, destroyed MacArthur Stadium, the Scorps’ home field, only 10 days after the team’s debut match.
This design is available in several colors and as a Hooded or Crewneck Sweatshirt today from Old School Shirts!
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Background
The Syracuse Scorpions were a two-year entry in the lower-division American Soccer League (1933-1983). The team originally played their games on the outfield grass of MacArthur Stadium, the city’s minor league baseball stadium. But the ballpark burned down in May 1969 after Scorpions had played just a single home match. The stadium was unusable for the rest of the summer, forcing both the Scorpions and the Syracuse Chiefs baseball team to make new arrangements. The Scorpions played at Griffin Field for the remainder of the 1969 season.
At 12-5-3, the Scorpions finished in a first place tie with the Rochester Lancers in the ASL’s Northern Division. After dispatching the Lancers in a tiebreaker playoff match, the Scorpions faced the league’s best club, the Southern Division champion Washington Darts in the two-game aggregate goals championship series in October 1969. The Darts (14-1-5) lost only once in 20 matches in 1969 and they handled the Scorpions easily, outscoring Syracuse 2-0 in both of the finals matches.
Rookie Jim Lefkos, a Cypriot out of the University of Toronto, led the ASL in scoring in 1969 with 22 goals.
Demise
In 1970, the Scorpions were able to return to a repaired MacArthur Stadium in 1970. But the eternally unstable ASL was reduced to just 5 clubs and the schedule cut in half from 20 regular season matches to 10. The ASL suspended the Scorpions franchise in late summer for failing to meet financial obligations.
Scorpions GM and Head Coach Sal DeRosa left the club in mid-season 1970 to take over the coaching reigns of the Rochester Lancers, who were now members of the 1st Division North American Soccer League. DeRosa led the Lancers to their first and only NASL crown later that summer. Several players from Syracuse’s 1969 finalist team moved to Lancers in 1970 as well, including top scorer Jim Lefkos.
The Scorpions folded after the 1970 season. A newly organized Syracuse club – the Suns – replaced the Scorpions in the ASL in 1971.
Syracuse Scorpions Shop
Our Favorite Stuff
American Soccer League
T-Shirt
For most of its existence, the American Soccer League was a collection of ethnically-based semi-pro clubs clustered in the northeast. But in the 1970’s, the ASL expanded nationwide and became American’s de facto 2nd Division, underneath the bigger-budgeted NASL. This logo was used by the league from the 1970’s until its demise in 1983.
Our favorite distressed ASL logo tee is made by American Retro Apparel and available today in sizes small through XXXL!
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2 Responses
I’m looking for a newspaper article about the Syracuse suns vs. a Maryland team played sometime in the 70s?
The team was almost certainly the Baltimore Bays and the game would have taken place in 1973, the only season that both cities were in the league. We use a paid NewspaperArchive.com account at this site for this type of research. If you purchase an account on there, there looks to be 5 articles from the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper about the Syracuse Suns in 1973 which also reference the Baltimore Bays team. Good luck!
AC