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Logo of the United States Football League’s New Jersey Generals, who were easily the most hyped team in that league during their 3 years of existence between 1983 and 1985. The Generals were owned by Donald Trump, who brought in high profile players like Brian Sipe, Herschel Walker and eventually Doug Flutie over the years. The USFL had success playing spring football and not competing head-to-head with the NFL, and Trump’s insistence that the league move to the fall and compete with the established league pretty much was its’ downfall. The USFL folded prior to the 1986 season.

You have to love sports franchises that are stable and consistent over the years, and the NBA’s Indiana Pacers are one of those teams. The Pacers were a charter member of the old American Basketball Association and the logo on the left is their original from 1967. On the right is the team’s current logo. Taking advantage of the popularity of basketball in the state of Indiana, the Pacers were one of the ABA’s most successful teams on the court and at the turnstiles, and were solvent enough to be included as one of the teams absorbed into the NBA when the leagues merged. Led by coach Bob Leonard and players like Roger Brown, George McGinnis, Mel Daniels and Rick Mount, the Pacers were a dominant force in their ABA years, winning 3 titles and advancing to the Finals 5 times in the league’s 9 years of existence.

In 1958 the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and in 1961 the American League decided to put another team in the City of Angels, and the Los Angeles Angels were born. On the left is their original logo from the ’61 season, on the right is the stadium logo from that same season. The team played in a minor league stadium known as “Wrigley Field”  in their inaugural season, then were tenants of the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium starting in 1962, with the stadium being called “Chavez Ravine” for Angels’ games. The club was founded by the old cowboy entertainer, Gene Autry, and he owned them until 1996. The team’s original baseball caps were unique in that they had halos on the top of the cap. One player from the original 1961 squad, shortstop Jim Fregosi, had his number retired by the franchise.

Logo of the current Stanley Cup champions of the National Hockey League, the Chicago Black Hawks. This logo was in use from 1937 until 1955. The Hawks joined the NHL in 1926 as part of the league’s original expansion into the United States, and are considered one of the “original six” teams. The “Black Hawk” name is in honor of the military division that their original owner, Frederic McLaughlin, commanded during World War I. That “Black Hawk” division got its’ nickname from Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk Nation, a prominent Native American figure in Illinois history. The 1938 BlackHawks won the Stanley Cup, but hold the distinction of being the team having the poorest regular season record to win the Cup – they won 14 games and lost 25 that season.

Original logo of the New York Jets of the American Football League from 1963, when Sonny Werblin purchased the franchise and changed the name from the original “Titans”. Their inaugural season as the Jets was also their first under coach Weeb Ewbank, who had great success in Baltimore in the NFL but was fired and replaced by Don Shula. The team drafted and signed, with much ballyhoo, Joe Namath in 1965 and eventually shocked the world by defeating Shula’s Colts in Super Bowl III – the ultimate revenge for Ewbank. With Monday Night Football beginning it’s 2010 campaign tonight, it’s also noteworthy that the Jets played in the first MNF game ever, in 1970.

Logo of the National Basketball Association’s Providence Steamrollers, who played in the league from 1946 until 1949. They were a charter member of the league when it still went by the name Basketball Association of America, but were a losing team and folded after the ’49 season. The club set a league record for least victories in a season – 6 –  that still stands today. The Steamrollers, in their inaugural season, had the league’s tallest player, George Nostrand, and the oldest player in NBA history, 46 year old Nat Hickey, played for them in the 1947-48 season.

Logo of one of major league baseball’s most storied franchises, the St. Louis Cardinals. This particular logo was used between 1956 and 1966. St. Louis has had a baseball team since the Brown Stockings played in 1882, and the Cardinals’ franchise has been in the National League since 1900. During the era when this logo was used, the Cards won a World Series, in 1964, and boasted many of the game’s all-time players, including Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Tim McCarver, Julian Javier, Ken Boyer and Bill White, who would later become a broadcaster and briefly serve as president of the National League.

The original team logo of the National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings, who entered the league in 1967 in the first round of expansion in which 6 new teams were added to the “original six”. The club was owned by Jack Kent Cooke,  and their purple and gold color scheme matched that of the NBA Lakers, who were also owned by Cooke at that time. The Kings haven’t won much over the years, but their roster has included some of the all-time greats of the game, including Eddie Shack, Marcel Dionne, Rogatien Vachon, Bob Pulford, Luc Robitaille, Dave Taylor and even Wayne Gretzky.

Logo of the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers, used briefly in the early 1960s. Unlike today, when the Steelers are a model NFL franchise, having won six Super Bowls, the Steelers of the 1960s were usually a sad-sack losing team that wound up at or near the bottom of the Eastern Division standings. Their roster was loaded with players at the end of their careers, like Bobby Layne, Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, John Henry Johnson and Tom Tracy. Although they normally wound up with losing records, the Steelers had a reputation for playing tough defense and even being a borderline dirty team. They also hold the distinction of having released 2 future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, John Unitas and Len Dawson.

Logo of the Houston Mavericks of the American Basketball Association, a charter member of the league who played in the ABA’s first 3 seasons, from 1967 until 1969. Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams was one of the Mavericks’ owners, and the team was competitive, led by Art Becker, Willie Somerset and DeWitt Menyard, but never drew well at the gate. They were moved to Carolina after the ’69 season and reborn as the Carolina Cougars. Their last home game in Houston was a victory over the New York Nets, before an announced crowd of 89 people. Ouch.