Tag: Midseason Meltdowns

Texas Rowels Major League Rodeo

Texas Rowels

October 13, 2019

The Texas Rowels were a co-ed professional team rodeo outfit that played in various cities around Texas in 1978 and 1979. The Rowels were one of six franchises in Major League Rodeo. They competed against rival teams from Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Tulsa. Major League Rodeo contests consisted of seven skills: bareback bronc riding, barrel racing, team roping, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, steer wrestling and bull riding. Each team sported a roster of 12 cowboys & 3 cowgirls. Three team members competed in each of the seven events, which were contested twice separated by a 20-minute halftime.

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1992 Winnipeg Thunder Media Guide from the World Basketball League

Winnipeg Thunder

September 14, 2019

The Winnipeg Thunder were a minor league basketball team that played fitfully for parts of three summers at Winnipeg Arena in the early 1990’s. The team had the misfortune to play in not one but two ramshackle leagues that went out of business in the middle of season. As a result, the Thunder managed to complete just one of the three seasons they embarked upon.

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Pittsburgh Rens American Basketball League

Pittsburgh Rens

August 17, 2019

The Pittsburgh Rens – short for Renaissance – were one of eight franchises in Abe Saperstein’s American Basketball League that debuted in the autumn of 1961. The team was notable for signing teenage center Connie Hawkins to his first pro contract after the future Hall of Famer was expelled from college and blackballed by the NBA over dubious insinuations of point-shaving. Hawkins dominated the ABL and won the league’s MVP award as a rookie in 1962. The Rens and the rest of the ABL folded midway through the league’s second season in January 1962.

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1979 Panama Banqueros Inter-American League

Panama Banqueros

June 18, 2019

The Panama Banqueros were one of six ball clubs in the doomed Inter-American League experiment of 1979. The league included the Miami Amigos plus five Caribbean teams in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Remarkably, the unproven Inter-American League received a Class AAA designation (one step below Major League Baseball) from the governing body of the minor leagues, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. This despite the fact that none of the teams had an affiliation with a Major League parent club.

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Orlando Apollos Alliance of American Football

Orlando Apollos

June 1, 2019

The Orlando Apollos were first and only champions – more or less – of the Alliance of American Football (AAF). The Steve Spurrier-coached club had the league’s best record (7-1) when the league collapsed in bankruptcy and recrimination with two weeks remaining in its inaugural season. With the playoffs cancelled as well, bookmaker FanDuel declared the Apollos champions of the AAF for the purposes of resolving futures bets placed by their customers. Read more…

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