Saturday, June 16, 2007

1960 Boston Patriots


In 1960, the inaugural season for both the Boston Patriots and the AFL, the team played in several important "firsts". The first ever AFL exhibition pre-season game was played between the Patriots and the Bills, which the Patriots won. The Patriots also played in the inaugural regular season game, a loss to the Broncos on September 9, 1960. The Patriots started the year going 2-2, before running into a three game losing streak. The played a five game home stand, winning three of them to return their record to 5-5, before ending the season on a four game slide. They finished the year with a 5-9 record, worst in the AFL's Eastern Division.
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Brooklyn Brown Dodgers


In October 1942, in the midst of a deteriorating relationship with Breadon, Rickey resigned from the Cardinals and shortly thereafter was named general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The stands at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, where the Cardinals played, were segregated, but in New York City, the chances for successfully integrating a major league team seemed much better. In 1943, while reporting to the Dodgers board of directors on his plan to set up a mass scouting system, Rickey mentioned that he "might include a Negro player or two"; the idea met with tacit approval. Rickey then engaged his scouts in a mission to find the "right man" to break baseball's color line. Rickey announced publicly in 1945 that he intended to establish a new Negro league called the United States League, which would include a Brooklyn franchise called the Brown Dodgers. Rickey then had Dodger scouts intensively scout players in the existing Negro Leagues, including Robinson, who were presumably being scouted to play for the Brown Dodgers. The new Negro league team was actually a smokescreen, Rickey later conceded, invented as a ruse to mask his real intentions.

Vancouver Mounties


The Vancouver Mounties were a high-level minor league baseball club based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Mounties played in the Pacific Coast League from 1956 through 1962 as the relocated Oakland Oaks franchise, and from 1965 through 1969 when the Dallas Rangers moved back to Canada.
The Mounties were affiliated with a number of Major League Baseball parent clubs: the Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Braves, Minnesota Twins, the Athletics of both Kansas City and Oakland, and as a co-op club working with the Seattle Pilots and Montreal Expos in 1969. The following season, the club moved to Salt Lake City.