The Cleveland Buckeyes started as the Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes in 1942, before settling permanently in Northern Ohio in 1943. The club won two league titles as well as a Negro World Series championship.
The Seattle Rangers were a three-year entry in the Continental Football League (1965-1969), a sprawling late ’60’s attempt at creating a “triple-A” level of professional football, a cut below the NFL and the AFL. The Rangers were the highest level of pro football played in the state of Washington until the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks arrived in 1977.
The Seattle Steelheads were members of the West Coast Negro Baseball Association (WCNBA) in that circuit’s only season, 1946. The team was actually the Harlem Globetrotters baseball club and returned to barnstorming when the WCNBA ceased operations.
The Philadelphia Blazers were charter members of the World Hockey Association (WHA). However, after one season in the City of Brotherly Love, they moved to Vancouver.
The second incarnation of the Seattle Rainiers played in the Northwest League from 1972 through 1976. They were displaced when MLB’s Seattle Mainers arrived in 1977.
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.
Arena Football League (1991-2016) Born: February 7, 1991 – Arena Football League expansion franchise Folded: October 12, 2016 First Game: June 1, 1991 (W 51-38 vs. Tampa Bay Storm) Last Game: August 6, 2016 (L 69-68 vs. Jacksonville Sharks) Arena Bowl Champions: 1998 & 2000 1991-2010: Orlando Arena (16,613) 2011-2013: Amway Center 2014:
The Los Angeles Stars basketball team was a short-lived effort by the American Basketball Association to plant its flag in L.A. during the early years of its rivalry with the National Basketball Association. The Stars labored in the shadows of the NBA’s Lakers and never established a substantial following. Coached by Hall-of-Famer (and future Lakers coach) Bill Sharman, the Stars did enjoy a thrilling Cinderella playoff run at the end of their second and final season in L.A.
Yes, strange as it sounds, but the small, poverty-stricken city of Shreveport, Louisiana once had its very own Canadian Football League franchise: the Shreveport Pirates. The Pirates’ shambolic leadership made a series of head-scratching personnel moves, including the signings of troubled over-the-hill NFL stars Dexter Manley and Mark Duper, and fired the team’s first head coach before taking a regular season snap. Meanwhile the team staggered to a two-year record of 8-28 in the CFL before going out of business at the end of the 1995 season.
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