Baltimore and Oakland Play for League’s Last Spring Title

The United States Football League, switching to the fall next year, goes out of the spring football business tonight when the Baltimore Stars and Oakland Invaders play for the championship (Channel 7, 5 p.m. PDT).

The defending champion Stars (12-7-1) are playing their third straight title game. They have the league’s stingiest defense. Oakland (13-4-1) has the league’s most explosive offense.

The 1985 championship matches, in part, the teams that met in the first title game, in 1983.

The Stars have 27 players who played in that 24-22 loss to the Michigan Panthers. The Panthers merged with the Invaders after last season, providing Oakland with nine players who will start today, including quarterback Bobby Hebert and wide receiver Anthony Carter.

It also matches two teams from cities abandoned by NFL clubs. One reason the Stars left Philadelphia last season, after the USFL voted to play in the fall, was to be in the Baltimore market in case of a merger.