December 2021 - Adamsonmedia.com

New leagues, new hopes

Fox’s version of the United States Football League kicks off in April, 2022, and in 2023 the third iteration of the XFL is scheduled to take the field. Invariably, those who roll their eyes at such ventures will ask, “Do we really need more football?”

Well, no, we don’t “need” football at all, just as we don’t need much of anything beyond food, water and shelter. But there are those who can and will watch it all year long, and they’re excited about this latest spring fling.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl**

And before you ask if there’s even a place for minor league football, my answer is yes. The NFL has 32 teams with 53-man rosters. That’s roughly 1,700 players who get to compete at the highest level of the sport. I’m convinced there are many more who can play a quality brand of the gridiron game – and some already do that in the Canadian Football League.

So I think a lot of times we miss the point when we start talking about alternative leagues. It’s not whether there’s enough talent to stock them – dozens of 2020 XFL players went on to earn NFL and CFL roster spots – it’s whether there is enough financial backing to support them until they become sustainable. To date, that’s the riddle that has yet to be solved.

Having lived through a number of leagues that tried and failed, being cynical about upstart circuits is my default mode. What some consider being negative I call being realistic.

But a new year dawns, and being hopeful doesn’t cost a thing. So in that spirit, here are my good wishes – not predictions, just wishes – for both the United States Football League and XFL.

First, I want the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Gamblers, Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, New Orleans Breakers, Philadelphia Stars, Pittsburgh Maulers and Tampa Bay Bandits to survive the 2022 season and be able to play in their own home stadiums by 2023. To that end, I’d like to see TV ratings on both Fox and NBC be good enough so that all the stakeholders decide this is a venture worth sticking with – even if that means patiently building an audience while losing money for the first few years.

And as is the case with any new league, its competition committee would do well to come up with interesting rules. “NFL Lite” doesn’t excite me, and I believe spring football aficionados want something different from what they experience in the fall.

Most importantly, I want all the players, coaches, support personnel, front office and back office employees to get paid and get paid on time.

As for the XFL, I hope it takes what it learned from its pandemic-shortened 2020 season and applies it to the reboot. Its rules were fantastic – I liked every single one. For my money, its game play innovations were the best of any alternative league that has come along since the World Football League. (If the XFL decides to throw in a 7-point touchdown and action point conversion as a tribute to the WFL, I would not object).

Team-wise it can look at which cities best supported it three years earlier in deciding who to bring back, and that puts St. Louis at the top of the list. Enthusiastic fans set up the “Gateway to the West” as the gold standard among alt-football locales, and there were thousands and thousands of them. When the XFL was shut down, the BattleHawks averaged 28,541 fans per game and were expecting more than 50,000 for their next scheduled clash at the Dome.

The Seattle Dragons were the other XFL team that pulled in more than 25,000 per game, so it would be a smart move to reboot them.

Although they had the worst attendance in the league (13,124 per game), the Los Angeles Wildcats give the XFL a major market that the USFL isn’t currently occupying. Same is true for the Dallas Renegades and DC Defenders.

Beyond that, it depends on whether or not the XFL wants to challenge the USFL head-to-head in a turf war. Based on the 2022 USFL teams and 2020 XFL entries, there would be competition in New York (Generals and Guardians), Tampa Bay (Bandits and Vipers) and Houston (Gamblers and Roughnecks).

From a media standpoint I think it’d be worth it to keep the Guardians, even though they weren’t a great draw their first time out. Any new organization hoping to establish itself in a major way (even if it’s a minor league) needs to be in the New York market.

Plus, the Guardians were the XFL team I cheered for and I already have a T-shirt, so it’d be nice to move that article of clothing from the “dormant” to “active” side of my closet.

On the other hand, if I’m the XFL I defer to the USFL when it comes to Houston and Tampa Bay. Instead, I’d go with San Antonio and Orlando, who led 2019’s Alliance of American Football in attendance. Might want to throw San Diego in the mix, too.

So let’s say the USFL survives its first two years and the XFL makes it through its relaunch in 2023. That means I want to see a merger in 2024, right?

Nope.

I would absolutely love it if both leagues establish their own identities, challenging fans to pick a side. Do you watch the Birmingham Stallions play the Philadelphia Stars on Fox, or do you watch the St. Louis BattleHawks and Seattle Dragons on ABC?

Maybe that leads to a bidding war, and then interleague exhibitions featuring hybrid rules, and ultimately the Summer Bowl pitting the USFL and XFL champion in a game.

Am I getting ahead of myself? Well, yeah. I mean, the last spring circuit of this kind to make it through a full season was the original XFL in 2001.

But I said I was going to be hopeful, and on this New Year’s Eve, 2021, I’m sincerely hoping for the best – for the USFL, XFL and everyone who wants to see professional football blossom in the spring.

Inside baseball

Indoor football found its niche in the late 1980s thanks to the Arena Football League, and six such circuits are still in operation today.

But indoor baseball?

Well, it was first played on Christmas Day, 1888, when the Down Towns defeated the Up Towns, 6-1, at the Philadelphia State Fairgrounds. But that was just a one-off contested by pro players “wintering” in the city.

An actual indoor league wasn’t realized until more than than a half century later, opening on November 17, 1939, and closing on December 22, 1939, when the league dissolved. And it wasn’t even baseball.

The very, very brief history of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League begins when it was formed in the summer of 1939.

Major League legend Tris Speaker – who had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame two years earlier – began promoting the concept in July of 1939, suggesting it was a fall/winter indoor sport that could challenge hockey and basketball for popularity. The NPIBL hoped to begin with franchises in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Toronto. The championship series would be played in March.

Clubs were managed by famous players from baseball’s past. Lined up to lead the charge were big names that included Moose McCormick (New York); Otto Miller (Brooklyn); Harry Davis (Philadelphia); Freddy MacGuire (Boston); the only man to pull an unassisted triple play in the World Series, Bill Wambsganss (Cleveland); Brick Owens (Chicago); Bubbles Hargreaves (Cincinnati); and Gabby Street (St. Louis).

The league constitution included club territorial rights, giving them “exclusive control in each city in its circuit and of the surrounding territory to the extent of five miles in every direction from its corporate limits.”

As for player salaries, they were not to exceed $75 per man, per week.

“We’d run it just like the big leagues,” Speaker told the Cincinnati Enquirer for a September 1, 1939 story. “Two umpires, contracts, a regular schedule, a world series each March between the Eastern and Western sections, and divide up the service money as they do in the big show. We’d limit the teams to 13 players, and I believe that after those nonbelievers among the baseball fans got a load of one of those softball pitchers who strike out 20 and 25 men a game, or look at one of those .500 hitters, they’d really like the game.

“It’ll keep the game alive during the winter. If it stirs up a lot of new kids it will develop some big league stars. Tommy Henrich got his start with a softball team, and so did Ken Keltner. And I think (Joe) DiMaggio did, too.”

To accommodate the enclosed space bases were located 60 feet apart, the pitching distance was 40 feet from mound to plate, and a 12-inch “deadened” ball was used. Players – nine to a side on defense – used ribbed gloves and sneakers.

Miller told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that fans would be impressed by the underhanded pitching skills of the league’s hurlers.

“In this game, the pitcher works the inside of the plate and with good stuff he can have the boys popping up all night,” Miller said. “The topnotch indoor pitcher can put plenty of stuff on the ball and can throw the same curves that you see in the major leagues. It’s real baseball and don’t let any one kid you that it’s an old man’s game. The way these fellows play the game is just as tough as big league baseball.”

Rosters were dotted with some former Major Leaguers, but most were pulled from the amateur softball ranks. That prompted Wilbur E. Landis, president of the Amateur Softball Association, to warn softball players they’d lose their amateur status if they signed with the NPIBL.

But the idea was that indoor “baseball” could serve as a feeder league to the bigs, so many jumped at the chance to play indoors for pay.

Speaker threw out the first pitch at the November 17 opener at Philadelphia’s Convention Hall, a contest that saw Philly beat Boston, 16-3, in front of 1,000 fans. (Admission fees throughout the league were set at 25 cents, 50 cents and 75 cents).

A few days later 2,500 showed up in the Bronx to see Brooklyn split with New York, 6-5, 7-14, and Boston and Brooklyn played at the Boston Garden before 5,000 fans on November 27 with Brooklyn winning, 4-3 and 8-0.

However, the novelty quickly wore off.

Paying customers lost interest, and by early December most St. Louis players left the team to seek readmission to ASA leagues. On December 5 International News Service reported that the league was close to folding as organizers scrambled to alter the schedule to feature series instead of single games and doubleheaders.

On December 19 Boston withdrew from the NPIBL, and three days later the entire league was done.

“After several meetings to work out a revised schedule which would permit games to be played between eastern and Western teams, it became apparent that this was not practical at this time because suitable buildings were not available on dates which would not conflict,” Speaker said in a statement. “Therefore the clubs will discontinue play for the present. It is hoped that in the future a change in conditions will make it possible to resume.”

As of Christmas Day, 2021, a “change in conditions” has yet to occur, and the Professional Indoor Baseball League continues its 81-year hiatus.

3 Squadron players promoted

**Jared Harper is one of three Birmingham players called up by the NBA.**

The good news is, guard Jared Harper and forwards Zylan Cheatham and Malcolm Hill have been called up to the NBA from the Birmingham Squadron.

The bad news is, guard Jared Harper and forwards Zylan Cheatham and Malcolm Hill have been called up to the NBA from the Birmingham Squadron.

Of course, the main point of the NBA G league is to help players advance to basketball’s highest level, so to that end the team is certainly doing its job when it loses out on top talent. Harper (21.2 points, 2.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game) has signed a Two-Way Contract with the Squadron’s parent club, the New Orleans Pelicans; Cheatham (14.2 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.15 steals per game) is headed to the Miami Heat on a 10-day contract; and Malcolm Hill (16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.6 steals per game) has agreed to a 10-day contract with the Atlanta Hawks. Cheatham and Hill benefited from hardship exemption rules which have been eased due to Covid-19 health and safety protocols in the NBA.

In the case of Harper, fans who come to Legacy Arena in 2022 should still get to see the former Auburn star play. Four years ago NBA rosters expanded from 15 to 17 players with the addition of two spots for players under “Two-Way Contracts.” Those players spend most of the season in the G League and not more than 45 days with their NBA team. They’re paid a corresponding daily amount based on the number of days they play in each league, and these spots are open only for players with four or fewer years of NBA service. The Two-Way Contract is for either one or two seasons.

Thing is, not a single man on the roster wants to spend any more time in Birmingham than he has to, which is not a knock on the city at all, just the nature of developmental ball. So when players get to make the jump, they jump at the chance.

But Ryan Pannone and his staff still want to win games, and a team that has reeled off seven victories in a row on the way to a 9-5 record in the Winter Showcase now has some reshuffling ahead. First, though, they get to hit the reset button.

After the in-season tourney to start the 2021-22 campaign, the teams wipe the state clean and start at 0-0 going into a 36-game regular season. Thus, the Squadron and every other club in the circuit now get a second chance to make a good first impression.

The regular season begins in El Segundo, California, when the Squadron takes on the South Bay Lakers on December 28. Birmingham will play its first six games on the road before returning to the Magic City on Saturday, January 8, to tangle with the Iowa Wolves at 7 p.m. In six home games the Squadron has averaged 2,855 fans per night.

Among returning players who have appeared in all of Birmingham’s games, guard Joe Young is the leading scorer with 14.7 points per game.