NSLM a must-visit in Birmingham

Editor’s note: This column was written two years ago while I was living in Greenville, South Carolina. Now I’m once again a resident of Birmingham and am re-posting as part of Black History Month.

Before last Friday, I didn’t realize that back in 1897 my hometown had a baseball team called the Birmingham Unions.

I knew the great Satchel Paige’s stint with the Birmingham Black Barons lasted from 1927-1930, but was unaware of many of the details.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

And I had no idea that more Negro League players got their start in the Birmingham Industrial League than any other semi-pro or textile league circuit in the United States.

Then again, I moved away 14 years ago and before last Friday hadn’t visited the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham. Now that I have, my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

I’ve long been fascinated by the history of African-American baseball. As a kid growing up in the Magic City my father told me stories of Paige, saying he was “probably the greatest pitcher who ever lived.” That led me to spend plenty of time at the library chasing facts about the Mobile native, who was a five-time Negro League All-Star before becoming the oldest Major League Baseball rookie when he signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1948 at age 42.

My deepest dive, though, came thanks to my friendship with the late Clarence Marble.

A member of the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame due to his success as a prep basketball coach, he was also a skilled athlete who played with the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League in the 1950s.

I covered his basketball teams during my newspaper sports writing days but enjoyed bending his ear about baseball more – conversations that would sometimes last for hours.

Born of segregation and the Jim Crow era, the Negro leagues were case studies in triumph rising from racism.

To that end the NSLM is part classroom, part exhibit – and I could’ve spent all day there.

It has an on-site research center, so any questions you have about the history of virtually everything related to the various leagues is readily available. For me, though, there’s nothing like “seeing” the past, and the memorabilia at the museum turns a stroll down its halls into a trip through a time tunnel.

I’ve spent many summer nights at Rickwood Field, but never saw teams like the Atlanta Black Crackers, New Orleans Crescent Stars or Nashville Elite Giants.

The Black Barons exhibits provide a glimpse of what it was like during the era of greats such as Paige, Willie Mays, Bill Foster and Mule Suttles. These members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, began perfecting their craft in Birmingham, Alabama.

And while it’s cool to see how baseball equipment and uniforms have evolved over the years, studying the actual game-used uniforms worn by legends was a thrill for me.

Paige’s wool uni and cleats as well as a hologram of him pitching? Yeah, that pic will forever remain on my camera roll.

So will the giant photo of Paige featuring actual baseballs he used to throw self-named pitches such as the “Bat Dodger,” “Midnight Rider,” “Wobbly Ball,” and “Trouble Ball.”

There is a display commemorating Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier; a literal wall of 1,500 baseballs; a Cuban Stars baseball contract from 1907 (the oldest known Negro league contract in existence); the McCallister Trophy, the oldest known Negro league trophy … the NSLM has too many treasures to name.

It’s like a part of Cooperstown is located in my hometown, and I look forward to experiencing it again.

For more information on the Negro Southern League Museum, go to birminghamnslm.org.

USFL starts from scratch

Skip Holtz will guide the Birmingham Stallions in 2022. (Scott Adamson photo)

As the new United States Football League’s inaugural season draws closer, we’ll soon see predictions of how the 2022 campaign will play out. At the moment we’re safe from such punditry since the eight teams have head coaches but no assistants and no players, but once the draft is held and picks have been divvied up, many observers will take wild guesses at which team will reign supreme.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

Not me. As tempting as it might be to find the nearest crystal ball and take a peek at its murky contents, this is a brand new league that will go from first practice to first game in just over three weeks. Not only that, it’ll feature teams comprised of players working together for the first time.

It’s impossible to predict which club will stockpile the most talent, although Birmingham Stallions coach Skip Holtz thinks there will be more than enough to give each team quality, 38-man rosters.

“The number of players who are coming out this year is different than it’s ever been in the history of college football,” Holtz said. “We’re all dealing with the Covid year so really two classes are coming out right now. I think there’s a really large talent pool out there and it’ll be a really solid product.”

Without any players signed and assigned to teams, all the teams start even.

Well, mostly even.

The 2022 USFL hub is in Birmingham, and since the Stallions will play all of their games at either Protective Stadium or Legion Field, they’ll have home field(s) and home fans advantage every week.

As for which coach can get the most out of his group, we won’t get a real idea about that until spring starts transitioning into summer.

The eight men in charge – Holtz; Kevin Sumlin, Houston Gamblers; Jeff Fisher, Michigan Panthers; Mike Riley, New Jersey Generals; Larry Fedora, New Orleans Breakers; Bart Andrus, Philadelphia Stars; Kirby Wilson, Pittsburgh Maulers; and Todd Haley, Tampa Bay Bandits – bring a combined 1,440 games of head coaching experience to the league. Only Wilson, who has been an assistant with eight different NFL teams and a defensive coordinator in the college ranks, has never been a head coach.

“I’m excited to have this opportunity to be a head coach for the first time,” Wilson said. “I didn’t believe it at first, but now that that moment is inching closer and closer, I’m super excited about being a head coach in the USFL. I can’t wait to get out on the field, in the grass with my players and the coaches, and start building a championship football team.”

If you’re looking for the guy with the most games as top dog, Riley gets the honor with 359. He sports a 182-177 overall record and led the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Jets to a pair of Grey Cup titles.

And if you insist on alternative football league bona fides, he was a skipper in the World League of American Football as well as the Alliance of American Football.

“I’m excited personally to coach people at this level because I find them to be very hungry,” Riley said. “Almost all of them had really successful high school careers and college careers, and they get into a league like this because they love to play, and they want to get better. That combination right there is one idea in general that just makes it really fun to coach.”

Speaking of alt-football experience, Andrus has a bunch. He won a championship with the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe (formerly the WLAF), coached the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League and the CFL Toronto Argonauts, and spent three years in The Spring League, a pay-to-play circuit founded by current USFL president of football operations, Brian Woods.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back on the sidelines and coaching a team that I have a hand at creating from scratch,” Andrus said. “There are terrific people who I have a lot of respect for working to develop the USFL, and I expect the quality of football we present to be first-rate. I can’t wait to get started.”

The remaining five coaches will be using the USFL as something of a career reboot after being fired from their last head coaching jobs. Holtz (Louisiana Tech in 2021); Sumlin (Arizona in 2020); Fedora (North Carolina in 2018); Fisher (Los Angeles Rams, 2016); and Haley (Kansas City Chiefs, 2011) will start anew in an upstart league.

“A new league like the USFL provides opportunities for coaches as well as players, and I’m very excited to have this opportunity to be a head coach at the professional level,” Sumlin said. “I love coaching football players. It’s in my blood, and there are many, many athletes who are hungry to play high-quality football. I can’t wait to build my team and work with them this spring.”

After spending the last couple of seasons as an offensive coordinator at the high school level, Haley is getting a head coaching job for the first time in 11 years.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for me to get back into coaching at the professional level,” Haley said. “It’s been a while since I led a team on-field, and I’ve missed it. It’s also rare that a head coach, as it was once put, gets to pick all the groceries and fix the meal. This is going to be a lot of fun, and I expect the fans to enjoy the competition.”

Fedora was an analyst for Texas in 2019 and offensive coordinator/quarterback coach at Baylor in 2020, and makes his professional coaching debut with the Breakers.

“I’m very passionate about the game of football,” Fedora said. “I love everything about it, and there’s nothing better than when your team goes out and executes the game plan you put together. So, getting involved on the ground floor of the USFL is a tremendous opportunity, and I hope that fans jump in, too, because it’s going to be exciting and a lot of fun.”

The flashiest hire by the league is Fisher, who brings the most NFL coaching experience to a venture that will be filled with players hoping to reach that level. Yes, he’s tied with the late Dan Reeves for most NFL regular season losses at 165, but he also has 178 victories along with an AFC title on his resume.

“I’ve been out of coaching for a few years now, but I’ve watched it at every level, and I’ve come to realize that I miss it,” Fisher said. “During my time away, I was blessed to do a lot of cool things, and I’ve caught plenty of fish, but there’s a void there. So, I’m excited about the opportunity to fill that void by coaching in the USFL and getting back to the sideline.”

The USFL Draft is scheduled for February 22-23 and training camps will open on March 21. Those who graduated high school in 2020 or earlier are eligible to sign with the league. The Stallions and Generals will lift the lid on the season April 16 at 6:30 p.m. at Protective Stadium.

“You look at the draft and then when training camp starts and you wake up thinking, ‘I’ve got to do that and I’ve got to do that and I’ve got to do that,’” Holtz said. “But that’s all part of the excitement and the energy and the fun of what we’re building. It’s here. It’s gonna be exciting to put it together from scratch.”

Before MLS there was MSL

Those of us who have a proclivity for alternative sports felt a great disturbance in the Force in 1992, losing both the Major Soccer League (which changed its name from the Major Indoor Soccer League on July 24, 1990) and seeing the World League of American Football suspend operations.

But I’ve already written thousands of words – both in short form and book form – about the WLAF. What I haven’t explored is how the MSL reluctantly positioned itself to spearhead the creation of an outdoor league to fulfill a FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) mandate.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

When the United States was awarded the 1994 World Cup in 1988, soccer’s international governing body insisted that the country have a First Division men’s outdoor league by 1992 as part of the deal.

The North American Soccer League had folded in 1985, but the MISL was still in business and – by soccer standards – doing relatively well at the box office. Founded in 1978, it quickly established itself as more than a just a six-a-side indoor gimmick and in 1984 had a league-high 14 teams and saw its championship series televised by CBS.

So in 1990 the circuit decided to rebrand as the Major Soccer League and bill itself as the primary association football circuit in the United States. It even tweaked its rules, widening the goal by two feet and raising the height by a foot and requiring a distance of 15 feet rather than 10 between the ball and defenders on all free kicks.

“We’re like America before World War II,” MSL commissioner Earl Foreman told the Baltimore Sun in the summer of 1990. “We can no longer be an isolationist league. We’ve been told our players are needed for the U.S. National outdoor teams and we’re needed for the election of U.S. Soccer Federation officials. The MISL no longer represents what we are exclusively.

“Our thrust is still on indoor soccer, but our horizons are widening. Hopefully we’ll be playing some outdoor games by next summer.”

The American Professional Soccer League was also formed in 1990 thanks to a merger of the Western Soccer League and third iteration of the American Soccer League. The APSL was outdoor only and promised to upgrade salaries, but was designated as a regional pro league by the USSF.

“We’ve been told by the U.S. Soccer Federation that we have a responsibility to soccer,” Foreman said. “The federation is very interested in us. We find ourselves in a strange situation. We just want to go and play indoor soccer, but we’ve had the responsibility laid on us that we’re the only major professional soccer league in the country.”

When the newly-named MSL began its 1990 season, it had already played 12 indoor seasons and averaged nearly 8,000-fans per game. If it could somehow transfer that enthusiasm outdoors, it had a chance to be what the USSF was looking for and meet FIFA’s requirements.

“We all know our main product is indoor soccer,” St. Louis owner Milan Mandaric told the Evening Sun of Baltimore. “But, at the same time, soccer is being played outdoors and we cannot ignore that. We want to participate in a professional and economic way.”

Ultimately, Foreman was selected to chair the governing body’s exploratory committee for a first-division outdoor league.

The hope was to combine the MSL, APSL and National Professional Soccer League (also an indoor circuit) into one league that would play 36 indoor games and 20 outdoor games. The indoor season would take place from November to the end of April each year and the outdoor season would start in June and finish by the end of September.

However, American soccer is nothing if not dysfunctional, and MSL never made the transition from arenas to stadiums and the hybrid league was never realized.

Financial woes became evident toward the end of the 1990-91 Major Soccer League season, and after St. Louis and Tacoma left the league with only five franchises, MLS folded on July 10, 1992, and the United States was without a major national professional league.

“We’ve been fighting this and working together for months now,” Foreman told the Associated Press. “St. Louis was shaky and we just couldn’t bolster it up. At this time, we probably have the strongest group of owners we’ve ever had, we just don’t have enough of them.”

When the end came, MISL/MSL had featured 32 different teams and drawn more than 27 million fans to its games.

“If there is a legacy, the legacy is the sport,” Foreman said. “I have faith in the game. We were probably a year away from having a truly international league of U.S., Canada and Mexico.”

Although the United States failed to meet FIFA’s requirement, the plug wasn’t pulled on the World Cup because FIFA always finds a way to bend rules to suit itself.

Major League Soccer was officially founded on December 17, 1993, and although it wouldn’t begin play until 1996, the lords of football were satisfied and the first World Cup ever staged on United States soil began on June 17, 1994.