New Britain Red Sox
Eastern League (1983-1994) Born: October 1982 – The Bristol Red Sox relocate to New Britain, CT Re-Branded: November 15, 1994 (Hardware City Rock Cats) First
Eastern League (1983-1994) Born: October 1982 – The Bristol Red Sox relocate to New Britain, CT Re-Branded: November 15, 1994 (Hardware City Rock Cats) First
As New York had its baseball and football Giants and Brooklyn had its multi-sport Dodgers, so the citizens of Providence, Rhode Island cheered on their Steam Rollers in various incarnations forย the better part ofย a century. In their heyday, the Steam Roller played in the National Football League from 1925 to 1931, winning the NFL championship in 1928.ย The name was resuscitated for various minor league and semi-pro football clubs from the 1940’s to the 1980’s.ย In addition, Providence’s early entry in the National Basketball Association adopted the Steamrollers nickname during its three-year run from 1946 to 1949. The last (or perhaps most recent) team to take up the Steamrollers identity was the New England Steamrollers of the Arena Football League.
The New York Stars of 1974 were one of biggest misfires of the ill-fated World Football League. The WFL launched that summer with ambitions of taking on the NFL head-to-head, much as the AFL had done a decade earlier. But the league was plagued by numerous problems from the outset, with the Stars and their wretched dump of a home field, Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island, high up on the list. The team lasted a little over two months in the Big Apple before owner Robert Schmerz threw in the towel. The team was shifted to North Carolina under new ownership in the middle of the 1974 season and re-named the Charlotte Hornets.
New York Apollo were a 2nd Division pro soccer club in the American Soccer League that languished in the shadow of the far more popular New York Cosmos of the NASL during the mid-to-late 1970’s.
The New England Blizzard were a popular women’s basketball entry in the short-lived American Basketball League, an early rival to the WNBA.ย Despite finishing in last place in two of their three seasons, New England led the ABL in attendance every year, while splitting home games between Hartford and Springfield.
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