The Stockton Mariners were a One-Year Wonder that played in Minor League Baseball’s Class A California League during the summer of 1978. During a postseason franchise and affiliation shuffle, the Stockton club changed hands and went back to the city’s traditional “Stockton Ports” identity prior to the 1979 California League season.
The Tigers were Tacoma, Washington’s Pacific Coast League entry for fifteen summers between 1980 and 1994. Contrary to what a modern day reader might deduce from the name, the Tacoma Tigers never served as a farm team of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers. Rather, after cycling through four different identity changes during the 1970’s the team’s local owners decided in 1980 to turn back the clock and honor the Tacoma minor league clubs that traditionally played under the Tigers name in various leagues between 1901 and 1951.
The Anderson Giants were a South Carolina-based minor league baseball team that played one season in the Class A Western Carolinas League during the summer of 1972. Despite the club’s chosen name, the Anderson Giants were not a farm team of the San Francisco Giants, but rather a so-called “co-op” team made up of low-level prospects loaned out by various Major League organizations. Co-op teams were typically weak performers and the Anderson Giants were no exception, finishing their only season in last place.
The Richmond Wildcats played just 38 games in the faltering Southern Hockey League during the winter of 1976-77. Richmond’s crippling financial problems forced its players to play nearly half the 1976-77 season without salaries or insurance and contributed to the eventual collapse of the SHL midway through its fourth season.
The Buffalo Storm were a professional soccer club that played in the United Soccer League during the summer of 1984. The team was composed largely of offseason players from the far more popular Buffalo Stallions indoor soccer team. The Storm were hampered by numerous problems including the lack of lights for night time play at All-High Stadium and folded after only one season of play.
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