Category: History and More

While I’ve spent most of my life following “traditional” American sports, I’ve allowed myself to broaden my horizons over the years.

I became passionate about soccer in the early 1970s when it was still given the side-eye by many of my peers; stuck with Australian Rules Football even after ESPN expanded its programming lineup; and will always think World Team Tennis is fantastic.

Major League Rugby and the Premier Lacrosse League are now two of my favorite spring and summer pastimes, and slowly but surely I’m learning to appreciate cricket.

But few things have captured my fancy in recent months like team handball, so now I find myself swinging through the interwebs in search of every piece of information I can find. And as someone who is also (spoiler alert!) big into alternative leagues, I’m pleased to report that there was, indeed, once a pro team handball circuit in the United States.

Sort of.

In 1978 the National Teamball League debuted with six franchises – the Boston Comets, Chicago Chiefs, Detroit Hawks, New York Stags, Philadelphia Warriors and Pittsburgh Points.

“There are a lot of sports that don’t score enough,” Chicago manager Jim Teckenbrock told the Journal Herald of Dayton, Ohio, for a a December 28, 1978, story. “People want to see a lot of action, and they see it in teamball.”

Added Detroit skipper Paul Roberts, “It’s basically an American game based on team handball. We’re just starting. It’s a new baby and we have to work things out.”

Billed as a combination of hockey, lacrosse and basketball, teamball was a more frenetic version of team handball. There were five players to a side – including a goalie – with the object to throw a ball into a goal past the keeper. It also featured body checks, rough play and high-scoring matches.

Traditional handball is 7-on-7 and players can use their torsos to obstruct an opponent, but can’t use their arms or legs to do so (teamhandballnews.com is a great resource to learn more about the sport, including the official rules).

The NTL didn’t exactly capture the imagination of fans, exiting almost as quickly as it entered. But I wondered if perhaps such a league had been attempted again. I guess it depends on how you define “attempted.”

During a meeting of the Pan American Team Handball Federation in 2007, an official proposed the formation of an American pro league with franchises in Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Salt Lake City and San Juan, but nothing came of it. More recently, there was again talk of professionalizing team handball in the United States, beginning in 2023.

In January, 2020, Sports Business Journal reported that IOA Sports in Orlando was doing research and development on an American-based pro handball league. Tentative plans called for 10 franchises at the outset, possibly partnering with NBA and/or NHL teams.

I recently reached out to Paul Garofolo, who was working on the project, and asked if it was still going forward. Unfortunately, Garofolo said the move to form a domestic pro league has been abandoned “for now.”

Needless to say, getting my team handball fix is not easy. I tried to find a club or league in Birmingham and got excited when I came across both Birmingham Handball Club and Birmingham Bisons Handball Club.

But they’re in Birmingham, England, roughly 4,220-miles away.

While pro team handball might not be a thing where I live, it’s a big thing in other parts of the world. There’s Handball-Bundesliga in Germany, Spanish Liga Asobal in Spain and Ligue Nationale de Handball in France, just to name a few. And the world’s best clubs compete in the European Handball Federation Champions League.

Sadly, none of those leagues or teams are located in convenient driving distance for me.

However, the World Games are coming to the Birmingham where I live this summer, and one of the events is men’s and women’s beach handball. Once I found out I immediately started watching videos to learn more about it, and now I’m excited.

Ultimately I’d love to watch a standard indoor game, but I have little doubt the sandy, 4 on 4 version will be highly entertaining. Plus, it might be my only chance to ever see team handball live.

I’m truly glad I discovered it and think it’s one of the most entertaining sports on the planet. And I’m pretty sure my interest in it will last much longer than the National Teamball League did.

Major League Rugby debuted in 2018 and since then has become a major draw for me. The 2022 season began Saturday with four games – Rugby ATL 55, Old Glory DC 22; Austin Gligronis 43, Dallas Jackals 7; Houston SaberCats 21, LA Giltinis 11; and New England Free Jacks 24, NOLA Gold 13. Today, it’s the Utah Warriors at San Diego Legion and Toronto Arrows at Seattle Seawolves. Rugby New York has a bye week.

Until MLR, my interest in rugby had been confined to catching random international matches on TV and watching “Invictus,” but now I’m hooked on the 13-team circuit. And (fingers crossed) it appears professional rugby has finally found a home in North America, which is a spot on the globe a play-for-pay version of the sport has previously been unable to stick.

I knew about PRO Rugby, which had five franchises and lasted only one season (2016), but I was curious if there were any other earlier attempts to get a league up and running in the United States and Canada.

Turns out there was, but the North American Rugby League – which hoped to piggyback professional football – was all talk and no scrum.

In December, 1958, the Vancouver Sun reported that teams from England, Australia, New Zealand and France had committed to come to the Pacific Coast and play four games against members of a new professional rugby loop that would feature clubs representing Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. And in order to take advantage of the growing popularity of American and Canadian football, pro players who had made names for themselves on the gridiron would fill out rosters.

The San Francisco and L.A. teams would use athletes who spent their falls playing for the NFL 49ers and Rams, respectively, as well as semi-pro players from teams in Anaheim, Eagle Rock and Venice, California.

Vancouver, on the other hand, was working on a deal that would allow that team to use CFL players employed by the British Columbia Lions.

The news report stated that promoters expected to gross $100,000 the first year and TV rights had already been secured.

Officially named the North American Rugby Football League (but quickly shortened to North American Rugby League), the NARL was formally organized on January 17, 1959. Ward Nash was named commissioner; Charles Edmondson was appointed chairman of the board; and Derek Gardener was tapped as secretary and treasurer.

While Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver were the first three franchises alloted, applications had been received from parties in Bakersfield, California, Houston and Seattle. Groups in Phoenix and Portland had also shown interest in obtaining franchises.

The season would begin in February, 1960, and teams would feature 13-man rosters. The NARL would mostly use International Rugby League rules, although there would be four, 20 minute quarters instead of two, 40-minute halves; halftime would last 15 minutes instead of five; there would be a one-minute rest period between the first and second and third and fourth quarters; and instead of a “try” a major score would be called a “touchdown.”

San Francisco 49ers all-pro Gordy Soltau was one of the organizers of the Bay Area team and in April, 1959, said the league was making headway toward a 1960 launch. However, there were still some questions from investors.

“We have the financial backing,” Soltau told the Vancouver Sun. “But the people backing this want to make sure the league won’t be a flop. When they spend their money, they want the investment to last.”

Former B.C. Lions fullback Al Pollard was offered the Seattle franchise.

“The men I’ve talked to in Seattle have shown great interest in the league,” he said. “One of the problems we have to consider is getting qualified players, But I’ve been informed that this can be done and that the University of Washington has a number of players who could probably make the team.”

However, after that story appeared on April 14 the NARL went dark and – to the best of my knowledge – was never heard from again.

I found no mention of it after the last wave of publicity; it was as though it never even existed. Obviously no pro football players were needed to fill rosters because there were no rosters to fill, and rugby went back to being a strictly amateur sport in North America for the rest of the 20^th century and the first decade and a half of the 21^st.

It would’ve been interesting to see if the popularity of football would’ve rubbed off on its ancestor, helping the North American Rugby League establish itself as a popular spring pastime for fans in the Lower 48 and Canada 62 years ago.

But while that’s something we’ll never know, I do know that Major League Rugby is back in action this weekend. And that makes me happy.

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.

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.