Tag: One-Year Wonders

Detroit Motor City Mustangs Roller Hockey International

Detroit Motor City Mustangs

April 1, 2021

The Motor City Mustangs were a pro roller hockey promotion that played one season at Cobo Arena in the summer of 1995. Detroit Red Wings star Shawn Burr owned the club, possibly along with Red Wings teammate Dino Ciccarelli, who was cagey at best about his participation in the adventure. Tony Szabo, a veteran of Northern Michigan University’s 1991 NCAA ice hockey national championship team, scored 50 goals for the Mustangs and was named Roller Hockey International’s 1995 Player of the Year. But the Mustangs were a flop at the box office and went out of business after just one season.

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Lehigh Valley Steam

March 26, 2021

This doomed 2nd division men’s club was part of the disastrous Lehigh Valley Multi-Purpose Stadium project, intended to bring minor league baseball and pro soccer to the Easton/Allentown region of Pennsylvania during the late 1990’s. The Steam would be the region’s first outdoor pro soccer team since the Pennsylvania Stoners, who played out of Allentown and Bethlehem, folded in 1984. When the stadium project failed to come to fruition, the Steam embarked on a single, futile season in the USL A-League during the summer of 1999, cobbling together a schedule of “home” matches in various sites around Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Steam officially disbanded in December 1999.

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1997 Orlando Sundogs soccer pocket schedule from the A-League

Orlando Sundogs

March 26, 2021

The Orlando Sundogs were a pro soccer team that endured a single grim campaign in the USISL A-League during the summer of 1997. The A-League was the 2nd Division of men’s pro soccer in the U.S. at the time, one level below Major League Soccer. The Sundogs’ troubles were many, but a big one was their choice of stadium: the 64,000 Citrus Bowl, a former World Cup (1994) and Olympic (1996) stadium. The ‘Dogs averaged an invisible 1,278 fans per match in the gargantuan bowl.

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Lynn Tigers

March 24, 2021

The Lynn Tigers were a Massachusetts-based farm team of the Detroit Tigers in the faltering Class B New England League during the summer of 1949. The New England League began the 1949 season on April 30th with eight clubs. But the wheels soon came off. On July 19th Lynn called it quits in midseason, with the Fall River Indians and Manchester Yankees also withdrawing from the collapsing circuit on the same night.

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Vermont Mariners Eastern League Baseball

Vermont Mariners

February 24, 2021

The Vermont Mariners were a One-Year Wonder in the Class AA Eastern League, born of a shotgun marriage between Burlington’s Eastern League franchise and a rather disgruntled Major League sponsor, the Seattle Mariners. Despite lasting just one season, the Vermont Mariners can claim one certified Hall-of-Famer in outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. and a second graduate, the masterful shortstop Omar Vizquel, who many feel should be in Cooperstown as well.

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