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This simple logo of an early major league baseball team, the 1901 Baltimore Orioles, is a very significant and important historical logo in the history of the sport. The Orioles only played 2 seasons in Baltimore before being moved to New York, where they became the Highlanders, and ultimately, the Yankees, the sport’s most successful franchise. Baltimore returned to baseball again after the 1954 season when the St. Louis Browns moved there, and the new team adopted both the Orioles name and the black and orange color scheme of their old ancestors.

The New York Islanders’ infamous “Gorton’s Fisherman” logo used by the National Hockey League team for 2 seasons, 1995 and ’96. It was introduced in ’95 as the team attempted to update its’  look, but was so unpopular with fans, who loved the team’s original logo from it’s proud championship years, that the team changed the logo back to a modified form of its’ original as soon as the league allowed it. It also didn’t help that the team was struggling on the ice at the time. Sometimes teams go through periods when the whole organization is making bad decisions.

Logo of the Philadelphia Bell football team, a member of the old World Football League in 1974 and ’75. The team drew well at their home games, but mostly because they distributed thousands of free tickets. The team was owned by a group headed by businessman John B. Kelly, Jr., brother of actress and Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly. Vince Papale, who later was a special teams ace with the Philadelphia Eagles and was the subject of the movie Invincible, played for the Bell, and for their second and final season before folding they were coached by former Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer Willie Wood.

Logo of the American Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Stars, who played in the league from 1968 through 1970. The franchise entered the ABA as the Anaheim Amigos, but they weren’t successful on the court or at the box office, and made the short move to L.A. after one season. They were coached by long-time NBA coach Bill Sharman, and their roster included ABA legends Mack Calvin and Willie Wise, along with Wayne Hightower and Billy “The Hill” McGill. The team lasted only 2 years in Los Angeles, and a year after owner Jim Kirst declared “we are in L.A. to stay!”, relocated to Utah.

Logo of major league baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates that was used from 1960 until 1967. Unlike today, the Pirates were one of the top teams in the National League in this era, and won a World Series title in dramatic fashion in the first year this logo was used, in 1960. Despite losing games to the New York Yankees in the series by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0, the Bucs managed to force the Series to a seventh game, and won 10-9 on a walk-off home run by Bill Mazeroski in the bottom of the 9th inning. The Pirates were loaded with talented players in this era, including Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, Elroy Face, Dick Groat, Willie Stargell and Bill Virdon.

Logo of a team that played one season, 1934-35,  in the National Hockey League, the St. Louis Eagles. If their logo looks somewhat familiar, it’s because the eagle was copied from a city of St. Louis icon, the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser logo. The Eagles folded after one year, but  for a pretty unusual reason. The team had great attendance in St. Louis, but had been transferred there from Ottawa and had to play in the same division as the old Senators team they were born from – the Canadian Division. The long train rides to cities like  Montreal, Toronto and Boston not only wore out the Eagle players but the travel costs drained the team’s profits. The owners petitioned the league to move back to Ottawa after the ’35 season, but were declined and the franchise was disbanded instead. The Eagles’ captain for their lone season was Hall of Famer Syd Howe, no relation to Gordie.

Logo of the United States Football League’s Los Angeles Express, who made big news in their second year in the league by signing QB Steve Young to a huge contract that included a $1 million per season annuity that he is still collecting on today. The team had made attempts to make a big splash in the L.A. market in 1983 by almost signing Eric Dickerson and Dan Marino, but both players changed their mind and opted to go with the established NFL.  The team never took hold in the Los Angeles market, since at the time there were 2 NFL teams there, the Rams and Raiders, and folded along with the rest of the league after the 1985 season. Ironically, there are currently no professional football teams playing in the L.A. market.

Logo of a charter member team of the old American Basketball Association, the Pittsburgh Pipers. The Pipers won the ABA title in the league’s first year of existence in 1967-68, behind ABA legend and future NBA star Connie Hawkins. True to the transient nature of the teams in the ABA in those early years, the Pipers, despite having decent attendance numbers and a championship team, moved to Minnesota the next year after the original Minnesota franchise, the Muskies, moved to Miami. It turned out to be a bad move, and after only one year in Minnesota the club came back to Pittsburgh, played one more season as the Pipers, then were renamed the Condors. Besides Hawkins, some notable former Piper players were John Brisker, George Thompson, Mike Lewis and James Silas.

This is the logo of one of minor league baseball’s more interestingly-named teams, the Albuquerque Isotopes of the Pacific Coast League. They are a AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The nickname is derived from an episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes on a hunger strike to try to keep the Springfield Isotopes, his local team, from moving to Albuquerque. When the team held a contest allowing fans to vote on the new team’s name, Isotopes got 67% of the votes, and won. The team is regularly one of baseball’s leaders in selling merchandise. Actually, the name has some relevance to its’ home, since New Mexico  has a number of well-known scientific and military facilities dealing with nuclear technology, such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad.

Logo of the Cincinnati Stingers hockey team, which played in the World Hockey Association from 1975 until 1979. The WHA, although most of their established teams were struggling financially, decided to expand in 1974 and the Stingers were one of the teams added. Their roster included several future NHL players, including Mark Messier, Robbie Ftorek, Mike Gartner, Paul Stewart and goaltender Mike Liut.