Category: History and More

I became a fan of the New York Yankees because my dad grew up following them and they were once the parent club of my hometown team, the Birmingham Barons.

I started cheering for the Chicago Cubs because I loved their logo and thought Ernie Banks hung the moon.

And today, I’m all in with a Korea Baseball Organization team based in Seoul because, well, now is the time for heroes.

Specifically, now is the time for the Kiwoom Heroes.

Fans starved for live action sports finally got a taste early Tuesday morning when ESPN began broadcasting KBO League baseball. The network recently struck a deal to televise six live games per week.

With other sports still sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, KBO is back in action with safety precautions that include no fans in the stands, umpires wearing masks, and as much social distancing as possible among the players.

“During this unprecedented and difficult time, I hope the KBO League can bring consolation to the communities and provide guidelines to the world of sports,” Un-Chan Chung, Commissioner of the Korea Baseball Organization, said in a statement. “I am pleased that the KBO League can be introduced globally and hope this can be an opportunity for the development of our league and the sport.”

The circuit – founded in 1982 – features 10 clubs. Aside from the Heroes, there are the Doosan Bears, Hanwha Eagles, KIA Tigers, KT Wiz, LG Twins, Lotte Giants, NC Dinos, Samsung Lions and SK Wyverns.

Truthfully, I never gave the KBO a passing thought until I learned that – for the foreseeable future – it would be the only game in town. Apart from Major League Baseball and minor leagues across the country, the lone international league I paid any attention to was Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan.

And really, baseball had started to slip down my personal sports hierarchy the last couple of years anyway; I mostly ignored big league games last year and college ball has never particularly interested me.

But around January that ol’ tingle returned. I decided I was going to fall back in love with the game, and couldn’t wait for opening day.

Turns out I had to wait – and still am when it comes to the big leagues.

But the KBO is filling the void, while also introducing me to an alternative league. It’s pro baseball, and a different kind than I’m used to.

When it came down to choosing my side I picked the Heroes over the Wyverns and Dinos. Dragons and dinosaurs are two of my favorite things, but the world can always use a few Heroes and I figure it can use at least one more Heroes fan.

It’ll take a while to familiarize myself with the players, but first baseman and DH Byung-ho Park (who played 62 games with the Minnesota Twins back in 2016) got my attention with a three-hit, 2 RBI performance in an 11-2, season-opening victory over KIA. He also blasted a home run in the rout.

Six pitchers combined for the win, which is a stat a little too much like midweek college baseball for my taste but something I can learn to live with.

This morning former Cubs pitcher Eric Jokisch went five innings for the Heroes in a 3-2 win over the Tigers.

And what have I learned about the league?

The most interesting thing is that unlike American baseball, games can end in ties.

If, for example, the Heroes and Bears are deadlocked at 6-6 after 12 innings, that’s the final score. (In the postseason, games last no longer than 15 innings).

Also, the designated hitter rule is always in play, so you’ll never get to see a pitcher take three awkward cuts before sitting down.

Of course if Major League Baseball gets up and running and salvages at least some of the 2020 season, many of the KBO’s new American fans will quickly forget about their summer romance. It would be silly to think otherwise.

But for someone like me who didn’t know how much he’d miss baseball until it was gone, the KBO – and Kiwoom Heroes – will always hold a special place in my heart.

And I want to publicly thank them for stepping up to the plate.

With no live sports taking place due to the pandemic, all we can do is eye a future when they return and relive great moments from their past.

ESPN has reminded us how cathartic looking back can be thanks to its “The Last Dance” mini-series documentary. And aside from that, I haven’t been shy about jumping on YouTube and finding old clashes from the North American Soccer League and United States Football League.

Sometimes when you watch these events, you realize just how many details you’ve forgotten over time.

Anyway, all this has prompted me to do a lot of thinking (and a little research) and recall the first times I saw sporting events live. Turns out it was a fun mental exercise, and I highly recommend it.

Obviously there are some that I can’t pinpoint; the first times I saw college baseball and college soccer were when I was a student at UAB, but I don’t remember specific dates. However, there are other firsts that really stand out.

So even though I don’t expect you to care about my fan milestones, maybe this will at least inspire you to take a stroll down your own lane of memories.

Here are mine – presented in chronological order:

College Football

Virginia Tech vs. Alabama (September 19, 1970, at Legion Field).

When I woke up that morning I thought my dad was taking me to see Jacksonville State vs. Samford at Seibert Stadium, which was very exciting for me since I’d never been to a college football game. In fact, the only live football games I’d seen were the ones I played in as a member of the L.M. Smith elementary school YMCA league team.

You can imagine my disappointment when he came to my room about an hour before we were supposed to leave and told me we weren’t going.

Ah, but it was a trick play.

Before I could reach the eye watering, lip trembling stage, he produced tickets to the Alabama-Virginia Tech game, set for that night at Legion Field.

Alabama won, 51-18, but I don’t remember details – just feelings. And sitting in a football cathedral with my dad made me feel like I was the luckiest kid who ever lived.

Pro football

Southern California Sun at Birmingham Americans (July 10, 1974, at Legion Field).

I was a big pro football fan and the New York Jets were my favorite team. That all changed on a hot night in Birmingham when the World Football League debuted.

Sitting between my dad and brother, I watched the Americans take an 11-7 victory over the visitors and could finally brag that I had seen a professional football game live and in person.

It also led to an obsession with the WFL that remains today.

Pro Baseball

Oakland A’s at Birmingham A’s (March 15, 1975, at Rickwood Field).

OK, I’m cheating a bit here. The American League team and defending World champions were slated to play their Southern League farm club on this night, which was to be the first time I had ever watched a live game involving a major or minor league team. But lightning knocked out a bank of lights at the stadium, and inclement weather prevented the game from being played.

But, I got second baseman Phil Garner’s autograph, watched Reggie Jackson and Billy Williams take BP, and saw Vida Blue throw some pitches, so I’m counting it.

*Technically the first pro baseball game I saw was on April 14, 1981, when the Birmingham Barons defeated the Jacksonville Suns, 6-5, at Rickwood Field.

Pro Hockey

Atlanta Flames at Birmingham Bulls (September 21, 1976, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

Once I found out the World Hockey Association’s Toronto franchise was relocating to Birmingham, I read anything and everything I could about ice hockey. And my, oh, my, did this game get me hooked.

Taking on the National Hockey League Flames at the brand new Civic Center, the Bulls’ Mark Napier (already a star at age 19) scored a hat trick – his last goal coming with 46 seconds left in sudden death – to give Birmingham a 7-6 victory.

It was just an exhibition game but it made me realize what a glorious sport this was.

College Basketball

Western Michigan vs. Alabama (December 28, 1976, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

I first got interested in college hoops when Pete Maravich played at LSU, but my exposure to the game was confined to watching it on TV.

But my brother gave me an early birthday present and took me to see undefeated and No. 4-ranked Alabama play Western Michigan in the first basketball game ever staged at the Civic Center.

I was part of a sellout crowd that watched the Crimson Tide take an 83-74 victory.

Pro Basketball

Stroh’s Roundball Classic (July 9, 1983, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

Here’s another case where I’m blurring the lines. The Stroh’s Roundball Classic was basically just a summer tour of NBA players who played defense-free exhibition games across the country. The stop they made in Birmingham featured stars like Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and Dominique Wilkins.

The cool part for me is that I was covering the game for my college newspaper (the Kaleidoscope) and got to interview Johnson.

I can’t recall who won (not that it mattered), but the winning team scored 182 points and Wilkins had at least 20 thunderous dunks.

Pro Soccer

New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers at Birmingham Grasshoppers SC (June 6, 1993, at Birmingham-Southern College).

Birmingham fielded a team in the United States Interregional Soccer League (which evolved into what is now known as the United Soccer League) in the early 1990s, and that gave me a chance to support my hometown club.

It was composed mostly of Birmingham-Southern players and it really wasn’t professional, but since it grew into a league that is, I decided to grandfather it in and define it as “pro” soccer. In an effort to spark my nephew’s interest in the Beautiful Game, I took him to see the Gamblers and Grasshoppers mix it up on a brutally hot Sunday afternoon.

New Orleans scored a 2-1 victory.

Welp, that’s all I got. Now it’s your turn …

A case can be made that the ‘fan cave” at my house is a monument to failure, and it’s a relatively strong case.

The minute you walk into the hallway you’ll see a wall full of programs and artifacts from the original North American Soccer League, as well as the American Soccer League.

Step into the main room and there’s an entire side of it devoted to the World Football League and United States Football League, with special emphasis on the Birmingham Americans, Birmingham Vulcans and Birmingham Stallions.

Walk a little further and a World Hockey Association display is the main attraction – starring the Birmingham Bulls.

What do all these leagues and teams have in common?

Well, they’re dead.

They came, they went, and now they’re left to be judged by history.

Depressing stuff, right?

Not to me. Not at all.

In fact, my fan cave is my happy place – the room I retreat to when I want to clear my head and where I churn out many of my columns. I spent years decorating it, and now it serves as my own private sports museum and inspiration tank.

My collection of mostly Magic City sports history provides magic all its own, helping me travel back in time to some of the best times of my life.

When I look at my Americans pennant (and opening game ticket stub and homemade Ams helmet), I don’t dwell on the WFL’s financial disaster  – at the time the worst in sports history.

Instead, I think back to July 10, 1974, when a young teenager saw his very first pro football game in person, sitting at Legion Field with his dad on one side and his brother on the other as Birmingham topped Southern Cal, 11-7.

I remember a team that hung 58 points on the Memphis Southmen while one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever been a part of cheered so loudly my ears were ringing when it was all over.

And when the Ams beat the Florida Blazers in the World Bowl, I can still hear myself cheering as I watched the game through the “miracle” of cable television at my brother’s house in Center Point.

If I glance at my Vulcans car tag or Vulcans Booster Club certificate, my first thought isn’t that the league folded 12 weeks into the 1975 season.

It’s joining more than 30,000 people at the “Football Capital of the South” on a scorching July day to watch a controlled scrimmage between the Vulcans and Southmen. That was the game that featured the debut of the WFL’s most famous players – Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield.

The USFL died by its own hand when it left a spring schedule in an effort to compete with the NFL in the fall, but it lives on when I look at the Joe Cribbs’ game-used Stallions jersey I have and my three custom-made player figurines.

And that ticket stub from the 1985 Eastern Conference final against the Baltimore Stars at Legion Field might’ve been Birmingham’s last game in the USFL, but it was also a clash that helped me realize these were great teams that could’ve held their own in football’s biggest league.

I guess I should tell you that admiring my Birmingham Barracudas display – featuring a replica jersey, cap, season press pass and Legion Field parking pass – does still sting a little.

The Canadian Football League is my favorite brand of tackle football, and knowing it plays on while the Cudas played out after a one-and-done season saddens me.

But, you know the old saying: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Hey, I got to sit in the press box and watch CFL Hall of Famers Matt Dunigan and Anthony Calvillo duke it out in the first CFL game ever played in Birmingham. That’s unforgettable.

There are also physical reminders of the Birmingham Fire (World League of American Football), Birmingham Steeldogs (Arena football 2), Birmingham Thunderbolts (XFL) and Birmingham Iron (Alliance of American Football), and even a good deal of gridiron memorabilia that has nothing to do with Birmingham at all – it’s just stuff I collected and enjoy.

And of course my shrine to the Bulls isn’t merely a tribute to the WHA and stars such as Frank Mahovlich and Mark Napier, but a reminder of when hockey became my favorite sport.

Going to the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum and rooting for the Bulls – even though they usually sat near the bottom of the WHA standings – made for some of the best times I ever had.

So sure, you can visit my fan cave and think it’s a room full of bittersweet memories and broken dreams. I won’t argue with you because in a technical sense, you’re right.

For me, though, it’s far more sweet than bitter. It represents days gone by, but they’re days that – in my mind – will last as long as I live.