These Teams Are Playing Everywhere

On the day after the Houston Astros completed the longest planned road trip in modern baseball history, the NHL published its new, improved 1993 schedule.

The Astros have no beef.

They, at least, stayed on the beaten track, criss-crossing the National League map on an eight-stop, 28-day test of per diem allowances, remaining in familiar, major league cities.

The NHL, in its tradition of blazing new trails, plans to drop teams off next winter in such hockey hotbeds as Birmingham, Ala. and Oklahoma City.

As part of the settlement of last spring’s strike, NHL teams will be playing 84 games next season, 41 at home, 41 on the road and two in other places. To spread hockey’s gospel, the league sought out new, intriguing sites for those extra couple of games.

That explains why, on Dec. 13, just about the time Billy Tubbs is getting the Oklahoma Sooners fired up for the Big Eight basketball season, the New York Islanders will be playing Edmonton in Oklahoma City.

And why, on Dec. 29, with Alabama almost certainly preparing for a bowl game, the St. Louis Blues and Hartford Whalers are scheduled to drop in on Birmingham, Ala.

Other cities on the NHL itinerary next season include Atlanta and Cleveland, both of which had hockey franchises that left town some years ago and Miami, whose World Hockey Association team, ambitiously nicknamed the Screaming Eagles, never saw the light of day two decades ago.

To its credit, the NHL tried to make the attractions logical. The Chicago Blackhawks are booked in Milwaukee and Indianapolis, both relatively close to their home base. Both of Sacramento’s games include San Jose. Boston plays in Providence.

Then there are also the illogical, like Montreal vs. Los Angeles in Phoenix on Dec. 8, the Islanders vs. St. Louis in Dallas, Dec. 15, and Philadelphia vs. Calgary in Cincinnati Feb. 16.

This business of showcasing your sport in non-league cities is not new. Basketball, baseball and football all have done it.

In its less prosperous days, the NBA routinely moved teams around. During one of Utah’s excursions to Las Vegas, April 6, 1984, the party of the second part was the Los Angeles Lakers. On that particular night, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar happened to break the all-time scoring record, giving the Thomas and Mack center a permanent place in the league’s archives.

And it was during a pitstop by the old Philadelphia Warriors at Hershey, Pa. in 1962, that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game.

Now, Washington sometimes shows up in Baltimore and Boston drops over to Hartford for home games. The league is also broadening its international scope with Utah and Phoenix opening the 1990-91 season with two games in Japan and Seattle and Houston set to do the same thing for 1992-93. All to sellout crowds, it might be added.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers -- yes, they once played in Brooklyn -- were preparing to change baseball’s geography, the team daringly scheduled eight home games in Jersey City during the 1956 season. Two years later, they scheduled all their home games in Los Angeles.

Now, baseball pretty much sticks close to home, except in the exhibition season. Last spring, four games were played at Joe Robbie Stadium, home of the expansion Florida Marlins. Baltimore and Toronto drew just over 33,000 for two games -- not terribly encouraging -- while the New York Yankees did better, bringing in nearly 60,000 for games against Atlanta and Minnesota.

Last April, Baltimore ventured into Washington’s RFK Stadium for an exhibition against Boston that drew just 20,551. A year ago in the same building the same two teams played two games and brought in over 80,000.

Last year, Los Angeles and Oakland played a two-game series in the New Orleans Superdome, drawing 29,669 for the first and 28,877 for the second.

In the NFL, the Packers annually play five games in Green Bay and three in Milwaukee. Other than that, though, the league believes in remaining in its assigned cities -- except during the exhibition season.

Miami and Washington drew 63,000 at Orlando earlier this month. And the Miami-New Orleans game scheduled for Baltimore on Thursday, was sold out inside of 72 hours.

Miami also played in the American Bowl at Berlin, one of three overseas NFL exhibitions. With just one game at home, that makes the Dolphins kings of the preseason road.

The Astros probably are not impressed.