Professional Sports In The Western United States
Professional sports have existed in the United States since the late 19th century. The NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL have millions of fans across the nation and are an important part of American culture. Professional sports did not enter into the American West until the mid-twentieth century. However, the expansion of professional sports into the West has helped to increase the popularity of each of the professional leagues and has changed the landscape of professional sports in America. History Prior to World War II, top-level professional sports in the United States did not exist in the American West. Most teams were located in the Northeast and Midwest, and no top-level professional teams existed west of Kansas City.Abbot, Carl, and Nicolaides, Becky M. "Professional Sports and Sunbelt Cities". ''OAH Magazine of History''. October 2003, pages 27-28 The Pacific Coast League, a baseball league founded in 1903, was never recognized as a true major league, but its quality of play was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Professional Sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make sport their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports.Andy Miah Sport & the Extreme Spectacle: Technological Dependence and Human Limits' (PDF) Unpublished manuscript, 1998 In most sports played professionally there are many more amateur than professional players, though amateurs and professionals do not usually compete. History Baseball Baseball originated before the American Civil War (1861–1865). First played on sandlots in particular, scoring ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barnstorm (sports)
In athletics terminology, barnstorming refers to sports teams or individual athletes that travel to various locations, usually small towns, to stage exhibition matches. Barnstorming teams differ from traveling teams in that they operate outside the framework of an established athletic league, while traveling teams are designated by a league, formally or informally, to be a designated visiting team. Barnstorming allowed athletes to compete in two sports; for example, Goose Reece Tatum played basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters and baseball for a Negro leagues barnstorming team. Some barnstorming teams lack home arenas, while others go on "barnstorming tours" in the off-season. History Teams in baseball's Negro leagues often barnstormed before, during, and after their league's regular season. Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Satchel Paige barnstorm toured with Dempsey Hovland's Caribbean Kings. Hovland founded (and owned) several barnstorming teams, including the Texas Cowgir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kenny Washington (American Football)
Kenneth Stanley Washington (August 31, 1918 – June 24, 1971) was an American professional American football, football player who was the first African-American to sign a contract with a National Football League (NFL) team in the modern (post-World War II) era. He played college football for the UCLA Bruins football, UCLA Bruins. Early life Kenneth Stanley Washington was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the city's Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights neighborhood. His parents, Marian Lenàn and Negro league baseball player Blue Washington, Edgar "Blue" Washington, separated when he was two years old. Kenny Washington was raised by his grandmother Susie Washington, his uncle Rocky, the first black uniformed lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and his aunt-in-law Hazel. Washington was a star in both baseball and football at Abraham Lincoln High School (Los Angeles, California), Abraham Lincoln High School, where he was nicknamed "Kingfish" after a ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a memorial to Los Angeles veterans of World War I. Completed in 1923, it will become the first stadium to have hosted the Summer Olympics three times when it hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics; the stadium previously hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on July 27, 1984, a day before the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics. The stadium serves as the home of the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans football team of the Pac-12 Conference. The Coliseum is jointly owned by the State of California's Sixth District Agricultural Association, Los Angeles County, and the city of Los Angeles. It is managed and operated by the Auxiliary Services Department of the University of Sou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1945 NFL Championship Game
The 1945 NFL Championship Game was the 13th National Football League (NFL) championship game. Held on December 16, the Cleveland Rams defeated the Washington Redskins 15–14 at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. This was the last game before the Rams moved west to Los Angeles, California. One play which provided the Rams' margin of victory led to a significant rule change in professional football. If the title game had ended in a tie, the teams would have shared the championship. It was the coldest NFL championship game up to that time, with a temperature of , which significantly curtailed the expected attendance and revenue. The game In the first quarter, the Redskins had the ball at their own 5-yard line. Dropping back into the end zone, quarterback Sammy Baugh threw the ball, but it hit the goal post (which were on the goal line from through ) and bounced back to the ground in the end zone. Under the rules at the time, this was a safety, which gave the Rams a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dan Reeves
Daniel Edward Reeves (January 19, 1944 – January 1, 2022) was an American football running back and coach in the National Football League (NFL). During his 38 years in the NFL, Reeves participated in nine Super Bowls, the third most for an individual. He was a head coach for 23 seasons, a position he held with the Denver Broncos from 1981 to 1992, the New York Giants from 1993 to 1996, and the Atlanta Falcons from 1997 to 2003. As a player, he spent his eight-season career with the Dallas Cowboys, who signed him as an undrafted free agent in 1965. Reeves made his first two Super Bowl appearances during his playing career, winning one in Super Bowl VI. He began his coaching career in 1972 as an assistant for Cowboys, where he made three championship appearances and was part of the staff that won Super Bowl XII. As the head coach of the Broncos for twelve seasons, Reeves led the team to three championship appearances in Super Bowl XXI, Super Bowl XXII, and Super Bowl XX ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play their home games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which they share with the Los Angeles Chargers. The franchise was founded in 1936 as the Cleveland Rams in Cleveland, Ohio. The franchise won the 1945 NFL Championship Game, then moved to Los Angeles in 1946, making way for Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference and becoming the only NFL championship team to play the following season in another city. The club played its home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum until 1980, when it moved into a reconstructed Anaheim Stadium in Orange County, California. The Rams made their first Super Bowl appearance at the end of the 1979 NFL season, losing Super Bowl XIV to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31–19. After t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Air Travel
Air travel is a form of travel in vehicles such as airplanes, jet aircraft, helicopters, hot air balloons, blimps, gliders, hang gliders, parachutes, or anything else that can sustain flight."Aviation."Encyclopædia Britannica Accessed June 2011. Use of air travel has greatly increased in recent decades – worldwide it doubled between the mid-1980s and the year 2000. Modern air travel is much safer than road travel. Domestic and international flights Air travel are separated into two general classifications: national/domestic and[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations to the game. However, the AAFC was ultimately unable to sustain itself in competition with the NFL. After it folded, three of its teams were admitted to the NFL: the San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns and the original Baltimore Colts (not to be confused with the later Baltimore Colts team, now the Indianapolis Colts). The AAFC was the second American professional football league (the first being the third American Football League of 1940–1941) to have its teams play in a double round robin format in the regular season: each team had a home game and an away game with each of the other AAFC teams. The Cleveland Browns were the AAFC's most successful club, winning ever ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pacific Coast Professional Football League
The Pacific Coast Professional Football League (PCPFL), also known as the Pacific Coast Football League (PCFL) and Pacific Coast League (PCL) was a professional American football Minor league football (gridiron), minor league based in California. It operated from 1940 through 1948.PCPFL: 1940-45 – Bob Gill, ''The Coffin Corner'', Pro Football Researchers Association (1982) One of the few minor American professional sports leagues that competed in the years of World War II, the PCPFL was regarded as a minor league of the highest level, particularly from 1940 to 1945, at a time in which the Major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada, major National Football League did not extend further west than Chicago and Green Bay, Wisconsin, Green Bay. It was also the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles Bulldogs
The Los Angeles Bulldogs were a professional American football team that competed from 1936 to 1948 (the last year as the Long Beach Bulldogs). Formed with the intention of joining the National Football League in 1937 (and turned down in favor of the Cleveland Rams), the Bulldogs were the first team on the major league level to play its home games on the American West Coast (the NFL's Los Angeles Buccaneers and the first AFL's Wildcats of 1926 were actually traveling teams based in Chicago). They were considered "the best football team in existence outside the NFL". The 1937 Bulldogs are one of three pro football teams that have gone undefeated and untied during a season, joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins season, 1972 Miami Dolphins (17–0–0, NFL), and the 1948 Cleveland Browns season, 1948 Cleveland Browns (15–0–0, AAFC). The Bulldogs hold the distinction of being the first. The Bulldogs joined the American Football League (1936), second American Football League, in 193 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Color Barrier
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a (nat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |