Sporting Rhody

A new minor league sports team based in Rhode Island promoted its inaugural season under at tent yesterday at The Mews “Beer N Geer 5K” race in Wakefield. The Rhode Island Kingfish will be competing in the North American Lacrosse League this season. Box lacrosse – like indoor soccer and arena football – is an indoor version of a game traditionally played outdoors. It uses fewer players, features more scoring and relies heavily on mascots and promotions to draw fans. Good luck to them, but you wonder why they chose the moniker “kingfish?” That’s hardly a species that one commonly associates with Rhode Island.

Why not select one of the two top sport fish in the Ocean State – striped bass or bluefish? The Rhody Stripers or the Rhody Blues? In the latter case, the team could tie in the state’s predominant symbolic color along with its illustrious blues music history. Or go with the many sharks that patrol the local waters: The Rhode Island Hammerheads has a nice box lacrosse ring to it.

Back in the days when Providence was a major league city, Rhode Island rubbed shoulders with Boston and New York in the sportingverse. It had franchises in the National League of Major League Baseball, National Football League and National Basketball Association. (Our capital city never cracked the National Hockey League, but the Providence Reds were a flagship minor league franchise from 1926 to 1977, drawing well for many years despite being affiliated with the New York Rangers and not the Boston Bruins. The team also won four Calder Cups.) Even Newport held its own, with golf and tennis championships that inaugurated the U.S. Open in both sports, although these days the golf event is nomadic and the tennis tourney was hijacked to Long Island.

The Providence Grays played from 1878 to 1885 and won the National League championship twice (1879, 1884). The club played its home games at the Messer Street Grounds in the Olyneville neighborhood. The 1884 champs accepted a challenge from the New York Metropolitans of the rival American Association. Providence traveled to the Polo Grounds and swept the Metropolitans on their home ground, playing by AA league roles, forbidding overhand pitching. “Old Hoss” Radbourne pitched all three games for the Grays. By virtue of that victory, many baseball historians consider Providence to be the first official World Series champion.

Another short-lived but reasonably successful professional team was the Providence Steam Roller, a member of the NFL from 1925 to 1931. The Steam Roller, whose team colors were black, orange and white, played most of their home games in a stadium built for bicycle races called the Cycledrome. The team was invited to join the league after a decade of domination as the best independent team in the country. They were the first New England team to win an NFL championship (1928), a feat that didn’t get duplicated until the New England Patriots won its first Super Bowl in 2002. The Steam Roller nickname lives on in a bold blend of coffee produced by a Pawtucket coffee roaster called New Harvest.

The last of the pro sports franchises from one of the Big Four (baseball, football, hockey and basketball) to be based in Rhode Island, the Providence Steamrollers were one of the original NBA teams, but their three seasons produced mostly lowlights. They still hold the record for fewest wins in a season (6) and their all-time record of 46-122 left them with a lifetime .274 winning percentage. Their team colors were red, white and black and they played to sparse crowds at the old “Aud,” the Rhode Island Auditorium, which was packed for games played by their winter brethren, the minor league Reds.

One notch above the Reds, the most successful Rhody sports franchise remains the Pawtucket Red Sox, whose home games at McCoy Stadium are a quintessential part of a Rhode Island summer. (This year’s PawSox team even won its third International League championship.) The Providence Bruins have one Calder Cup and a steady fan base since becoming the minor league affiliate for the Boston Bruins in 1992. But without the Boston connection, Rhody pro sports teams don’t last long. The Rhode Island Oceaneers, an American Soccer League club, won the league championship in its charter season of 1974 but had disbanded by 1978. The team may be gone, but its nickname lives on as the best ever to come out of Rhode Island.

What would be a good name for the next sports team to play in Rhode Island?