Combing through the bowels of Youtube, Wikipedia and other Internet crevasses led me to a list of all of the Cleveland professional sports teams in recorded history. Here are some of the more amusing, for your reading pleasure:
8. Cleveland Stepien’s Competitors
Yes, that’s the name of a sports team in Cleveland and yes, they played softball in the extinct United Professional Softball League. Hearken back to 1980, when more than high-school lesbians and your crappy office league played the manly game of softball. Any proper Cleveland Cavaliers’ fan should start twitching and foaming at the mouth at the mention of Ted Stepien, owner of the Cavs from 1980 to 1983, routinely regarded as one of the worst owners of any professional sports franchise EVER. Any time there’s an NBA rule created with your name attached to prevent you from inflicting any more damage to the team than you’ve already done, you’re doing something really wrong. Before Ted’s foray into basketball, he tooled around with some semi-pro softball leagues in Cleveland with the Competitors being one of them. Nice to see his stupidity wasn’t limited to just the NBA.
7. Cleveland Stokers
I added the Stokers just for the level of bad-assery their name implies. And no, I’m not talking about vampires. The definition of a stoker is someone employed to tend a furnace and keep it supplied with fuel OR a machine for feeding a fire. Now, if that’s not a kick-ass name for an indoor soccer team in the late 1960′s, than I don’t know what is. AND they used to have a guy on their team with the nickname “The Hatchet.” AND for one year, the English soccer team Stoke City was the entire roster for the Stokers. I assume that’s where they got the name “Stokers” from, but I’m going to keep dreaming that their team was a bunch of fire-wielding Vikings.
6.Ohio Chiropody
Chiropod sounds dinosaur-related–I was sorely disappointed. I have no idea what “Ohio Chiropody” is, but they were around from 1929 to 1941 and I’m guessing were somehow attached to college basketball. A quick Google search of “chiropody” shows results related to podiatry and foot-related illnesses. Yummy.
5. Cleveland Rosenblums
4. Cleveland Chase Brassmen
3. Cleveland Allmen Transfers
I’m lumping these three basketball teams together because they existed at around the same time (late 1920s through the mid-1940s), a time when apparently you just named your sports teams after the owner’s last name and his business of choice. The Rosenblums played in the short-lived American Basketball League, while the Brassmen and the Transfers played in the National Basketball League. FUN FACT: The Rosenblums won a total of three championships in the ABL between 1925 and 1930, being referred to by sports writers as “the champions of Ohio.” TAKE THAT LEBRON. If a name like the Allmen Transfers doesn’t stir that Cleveland pride deep within your loins, then $&*% you.
2. Cleveland Tate Stars
This was a Negro National-league team in Cleveland for just one year in 1922. I liked their name. That’s all.
1. Cleveland Infants
The Cleveland Infants played one year of professional baseball in 1890 in the awesomely-named Player’s League. They went 55-75 before the league folded, finishing in seventh out of eight places. I can’t find any reasons to why they are named after babies, aside from the alternative definition of an infant–like someone that’s inexperienced or new at something. Either way, it doesn’t seem like it would inspire much fear in the opponent’s hearts. I guess we can cross this one off the list of possible names to call the Indians when the din over the racial insensitivity of their name becomes too loud.
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