The Sacramento Spirits were a pro soccer club formed in 1976 as part of a westward expansion of the 2nd Division American Soccer League (ASL). The Spirits played in the 1977 ASL championship game, losing to the New Jersey Americans. In 1978, the Spirits folded in midseason and were immediately replaced by a new ASL franchise, the Sacramento Gold, that finished out the 1978 schedule.
The Delaware Wings were a lower-division pro soccer outfit that played seasons in the obscure American Soccer League from 1972 to 1974. During the Wings’ debut season in 1972, the club shuttled between several high school fields in Wilmington and Milford, Delaware. In 1973, the team moved into city-owned Baynard Stadium in Wilmington and made that their home base for the remainder of their existence.
The Indiana Tigers were an obscure 2nd division pro soccer club that played two seasons at Lew Wallace Stadium, a high school football venue, on the south side of Gary, Indiana during the early 1970’s. The Tigers posted a losing record in both campaigns before folding after the 1974 season.
The Baltimore Bays of 1972-73 were an attempted revival of the Charm City’s North American Soccer League soccer club of the late 1960’s. The “new” Bays were the brainchild of broadcaster Jim Karvellas. Karvellas was the play-by-play man of the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Karvellas’ Bays club was best known for playing a series of exhibition matches at Memorial Stadium against touring clubs from Europe and South America in both 1972 and 1973. In 1973 the Bays also entered the 2nd division American Soccer League, playing their lower-profile league matches at Catonsville Community College. The team disbanded in late 1973.
The Detroit Mustangs were a lower-division pro soccer club that toiled in obscurity for two summers in the early 1970’s. The team made its home a Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck, a Works Progress Administration building opened in 1936. The Mustangs played in the American Soccer League, a bare bones collective that fielded fourteen clubs in 1972. The Mustangs exclusively played against the other five expansion teams in the ASL’s newly formed Midwestern Conference
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