rayonsports.com

Logo of an old minor league hockey team, the Springfield Indians. Based in Springfield, Massachussets, the Indians were founding members of the American Hockey League and existed in the league for 60 years, from 1924 until 1994, with some brief interruptions over the years. This logo was used from 1936 until 1967, when they became affiliated with the expansion Los Angeles Kings NHL franchise and became the Springfield Kings. The franchise won 7 Calder Cup championships, and 12 former members of the team are in the Hockey Hall of Fame, including Punch Imlach, Eddie Shore, Gump Worsley, Billy Smith and Brian Kilrea.

This is an “alternate” logo of the National Football League’s St. Louis Cardinals, incorporating the city’s Gateway Arch, used starting in 1966 when the Arch first opened. The Cardinals moved from Chicago to St.Louis after the 1960 season, and played there until 1987 when owner Bill Bidwell moved them to Arizona. They had exciting teams during their stay in St. Louis but never won any championships. Coach Don Coryell, known for his “Air Coryell” offense in later years in San Diego, coached the Cardinals in St. Louis. Some notable players from the St. Louis years are Jim Hart, Dan Dierdorf, Sonny Randle, Bobby Joe Conrad, Jackie Smith, Larry Wilson, Roger Wehrli, Ernie MacMillan, John David Crow, Roy Green, Terry Metcalf and Conrad Dobler.

Logo of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns, used from the team’s first season in 1968 until 1992. The Suns have been a pretty successful franchise, owning the fourth best winning percentage of all time, but in their four decades of existence have never won an NBA title. When the Suns entered the league in ’68 along with Milwaukee as an expansion team, then NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy was against the move, calling Phoenix “too hot, too small and too far away” to be a successful market. Some of the Suns’ star players from their early years include the Van Arsdale brothers, Tom and Dick, Alvan Adams, Ricky Sobers, Paul Westphal and Garfield Heard.

Here is another logo of  Triple A minor league baseball team, the Portland Beavers. the Beavers were a charter member of the Pacific Coast League in 1903. The Beavers’ franchise has faded from existence and been brought back to life several times over the years, most recently in 2000 when this logo was put into use. The Albuquerque Dukes were sold and moved to Portland that year and renamed the Beavers, and were affiliated with the San Diego Padres. The Beavers were the minor league affiliate of the Cleveland Indians for most of the 1960s, and some of their alumni from that era are Luis Tiant, “Sudden Sam” McDowell and Lou Piniella.

Logo of the Niagara Falls Flyers, a “Tier 1”  junior “A” Ontario Hockey League team that played from 1976 until 1982. The club was moved to Niagara Falls  from St. Catharines, Ontario in ’76, and it was the second incarnation of the team, under the same owner as its’ predecessor, which played from 1960 until 1972. Two future Hall of Famers played in the Falls, Bernie Parent with the initial Flyer team, from 1963 to 1965, and Mike Gartner from 1976 until 1979. The Flyers were sold and moved to North Bay, Ontario after the ’82 season.

This is a logo honoring the Detroit Lions’ traditional National Football League game played annually in the city on Thanksgiving Day. The Lions have hosted the annual game since 1934. The game was originally set up as a marketing ploy to drum up attendance when the Lions first moved to Detroit from Portsmouth, Ohio, but was so popular that it continues as an annual tradition today. The Lions played the first 5 games in the series against the Chicago Bears, and from 1951 until 1963 the opponent was always the Green Bay Packers. The city has also hosted an annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, since 1920 when Gimbel’s began the tradition, although it has been overshadowed nationally by the Macy’s Parade in New York City.

Logo of the National Basketball Association’s old Vancouver Grizzlies, who entered the league as an expansion team in 1995. The Grizzlies joined the league along with another Canadian city, Toronto, that year, and played in Vancouver until 2001. They were a losing operation in their entire tenure there, and in 1999, the team’s top draft pick, Steve Francis, refused to play there and forced a trade to Houston. Francis’ move, along with the lockout by NBA owners, were turning points for the franchise in Vancouver, as fan interest waned. After threatening to move the club to St. Louis, the team eventually was sold and moved to Memphis, its’ current location.

Logo of major league baseball’s San Diego Padres, used from 1969, their first year of existence as a National League expansion team, until 1984. The “Padres” team name was a tribute to the minor league team in that city that had existed since 1937. The team didn’t do much winning when this logo was in existence, but did have 2 big power hitters in their early years – Nate Colbert, who once hit 5 home runs in a doubleheader, and Dave Winfield, who was the face of the franchise in the 1970s. The Padres were owned in the ’70s by McDonald’s restaurant founder Ray Kroc, and dipped into the free agent market to sign players like Gaylord Perry, Gene Tenace, Willie McCovey and Rollie Fingers, but it didn’t help them win. The club finally won a pennant in 1984, the year Kroc died.

This is the old “Pepsi bottlecap” logo of the American Hockey League franchise, the Buffalo Bisons, used from 1940 until the franchise disbanded in 1970, giving way to the city’s NHL franchise, the Sabres. The logo design resulted from the team being purchased by a local Pepsi Cola franchise in 1956. The club was a solid AHL franchise for its’ entire existence, winning the Calder Cup championship 5 times, including their final year in 1970. Fred Shero, who would go on to be a successful coach at the NHL level with the Philadelphia Flyers, coached the Bisons in that final season.

Logo of the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers, used from their first season of existence, in the old All America Football Conference in 1946, until 1967.  The team name was derived from the name given to the prospectors of the great Gold Rush of 1849. The franchise has won 5 Super Bowls, but didn’t win any titles during the years this logo was used. When they joined the AAFC in ’46, they became the first professional sports franchise based in San Francisco, and joined the NFL when the leagues merged in 1950. The Niners of the 1950s were an exciting offensive unit, and they fielded what became known as the “Million Dollar Backfield” with 4 Hall of Famers – QB Y.A. Tittle and running backs John Henry Johnson, Joe Perry and Hugh McElhenny. Later, they boasted the “All Alphabet” backfield, with “Y.A.” still at QB, and J.D. Smith, C.R. Roberts and R.C. Owens joining him as backfield mates. Tittle and Owens made NFL history by hooking up on the “Alley Oop” pass many times, a play that’s pretty much an ancestor of today’s end zone “fade” pattern where the quarterback throws up a high pass hoping his receiver outjumps the defender and catches it.