Long Beach sports: Gone, but not forgotten

With the Long Beach Coast set to play ball beginning this May, and the 2028 Summer Olympics readying on the horizon, the Signal Tribune decided to revisit the pro sports teams of the city’s past. 

Rich sporting traditions, including the vroom of the annual IndyCar Grand Prix, sailing competitions, the Long Beach Marathon and several college and high school sporting powerhouses have become staples of Long Beach’s sports culture over the years. But many teams were not so lucky. 

Here you’ll find tales of ghosts, underdogs, and a 42-year-old Dennis Rodman causing havoc on the hardwood. Now, let’s toast to the teams who came and went. 

Hockey

For the first stop on our trip down memory lane, we’re hitting the ice. 

The Long Beach Ice Dogs were without a doubt the most popular and memorable team to call the LBC home. Established as the San Diego Gulls in 1990, then rebranded as the Los Angeles Ice Dogs, the team played from 1995 to 2007 and hosted their home games at the Long Beach Sports Arena. Seating 13,500, the Ice Dogs would have an average attendance of 4,000 throughout the ‘90s and 2000s. 

The Ice Dogs played in multiple leagues such as the International Hockey League (IHL) in their inaugural season, West Coast Hockey League (WCHL) and the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL). In the 1997-1998 season, the Ice Dogs made it to the Turner Cup Finals in the IHL, but fell to the Detroit Vipers in a 4-2 series in Michigan.

Former Ice Dogs player Daniel Kim immigrated from Seoul, South Korea to Koreatown, Los Angeles when he was 3 years old. Kim played as a forward with the Ice Dogs during the 2002-2003 season when they were in the WCHL until being waived from the team in December of that same season.

The Ice Dogs used to hold open tryouts every season, where Kim attended every one of them. “I was a local kid so I basically tried out every year,” Kim told the Signal Tribune on March 13.

On the sunny Friday afternoon, Kim was wearing his LMU shirt and getting ready to suit up for the daily stick time at Skating Edge Ice Arena in Harbor City. While he suited up, he reminisced on his time with the Ice Dogs.

Kim’s favorite memory while playing in Long Beach was opening night at the Long Beach Arena on Oct. 12, 2002 against the San Diego Gulls in a 6-0 loss. He proved to himself that he truly belonged in the league. 

“That pretty much solidified all the hard work I put into it and being at home in front of my friends and parents who were very supportive of me, that was probably the best moment for me,” Kim said.

During Kim’s time with the Ice Dogs, they had 22 wins and 46 losses leading to missing the playoffs. 

In the National Hockey League (NHL), the Los Angeles Kings called the Long Beach Sports Arena their temporary home for six games in their inaugural season on Oct.14, 1967. In the Kings’ first game, they defeated their expansion cousins, the Philadelphia Flyers 4-2 until moving to the Forum in Inglewood later on that season.

Going back even further, the California Hockey League (CalHL) operated from 1954 to 1963 as a semi-professional league. This league contained four teams from Long Beach along with three other California teams throughout the years that were constantly rebranding, folding or establishing.

The first-ever hockey team to take the ice in the LBC were the Long Beach Hornets in 1959. The Hornets lasted one season after having a record of nine wins, five losses and one tie as well as losing in the finals to the Los Angeles Canadiens. The Hornets rebranded to the Long Beach Paramounts in 1960. The Paramounts had a record of 15 wins, two losses and two ties eventually losing in the finals again to the LA Canadiens. 

The Paramounts once again rebranded to the Long Beach Buccaneers in 1961 with a record of nine wins, six losses and one tie as well as losing in the finals to the Canadiens. The Buccaneers rebranded one last time to the Long Beach Gulls in 1962 in which they lost in the semifinals and folded soon after in 1963. All of these teams called the Long Beach Polarink their home.

Another hockey team that briefly existed in Long Beach was the Los Angeles Sharks. The LA Sharks were members of the NHL’s rival competitor, the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1974. The Sharks began at the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena until moving to the Long Beach Sports Arena. They folded after the 1974 season after having poor attendance due to the Los Angeles Kings qualifying for the playoffs and attracting more fans. 

Baseball and Softball

While the city has deep roots in hockey, baseball is the pioneer sport for Long Beach. 

Dating back to 1910, the Long Beach Clothiers were the first recorded professional team in the LBC. They played in the Southern California Trolley League Class D at the Belmont Park Grounds. After just a few seasons, the Clothiers rebranded to the Long Beach Beachcombers of the Southern California League and moved to Connor Park then folded  in 1913 with no trace left behind.

The Long Beach Nitehawks were a professional men’s fastpitch softball team established around 1946 in the International Softball Congress (ISC). The Nitehawks played their home games at Joe Rodgers Field at Recreation Park, across the street from where Blair Field stands today. 

The Nitehawks were a fastpitch powerhouse as they dominated their league, winning ten ISC World championships from 1953 to 1975. 

The Nitehawks also had a bitter rivalry with the neighboring Lakewood Jets, known as the greatest rivalry in men’s fastpitch softball history. This rivalry went on from the 1970s to the 1980s. Both teams went hand in hand as the Nitehawks won championships in 1971 and 1975 while the Jets won theirs in 1973. 

In 1988, the Nitehawks folded due to a massive decline in attendance in the 1980s as well as financial issues.

Former Nitehawks player Jerry Flory was named the most valuable player of the team’s 1975 title-winning effort. His series-winning double against the Sun City Raiders stands out as a career highlight in a league that teemed with athletic talent.   

“I played with some of the best ballplayers that never made it to the majors… [the Nitehawks] were by far the best softball team in the world,” Flory told the Signal Tribune.  

Flory fondly remembers playing with legends of the league like pitchers Bob Todd and Don Sarno, as well as shortstop Nick Hopkins. Plus, no Nitehawks history is complete without beloved player and manager Red Meairs, a Long Beach native and alumni of both Wilson High School and Long Beach City College. Meairs was “a character,” as Flory puts it, known as much for his chewing tobacco habit as his undying love for the Hawks. 

“One thing I’ll always remember is how he chewed tobacco and if you hit a homerun or a base hit to win the game, he’d be standing there and half the time he’d spit tobacco on you,” Flory chuckled. 

Though he also spent time with the Jets and the nearby Hawthorne Hustlers, all in all racking up two championships and five All-American honors, there was nothing like his time with the Hawks. 

“The Hawks, they were the team I loved. It was a great team,” he said.

The Long Beach Barracudas were part of the Western Baseball League established in 1995, winning the league title in their first season. In 1996, the Barracudas rebranded to the Long Beach Riptide as they also won their league title and called Blair Field home. After just two seasons, the Riptide folded due to severe financial mismanagement, poor relations with the city and low attendance. 

In the Ladies Professional Baseball League, the Long Beach Aces were one of the original teams of the league in 1997 to take the field. In 1998, the league faced a decline in attendance as well as a decline in revenue, forcing the league to cease operation. 

The Long Beach Breakers operated from 2001 to 2002 – playing their home games at Blair Field. The Breakers were a part of the Western Baseball League and won the league championship in their inaugural season. Due to the league being completely independent, the Breakers ran into financial instability and were forced to fold after two seasons.

The Long Beach Armada began play in 2005 and were part of several baseball leagues such as the Golden Baseball League (GBL), Arizona Summer League and Arizona Winter League. In 2007, the Armada famously changed their name to the “Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America Including Barrow, Alaska.” This was to humorously mock the name confusion of the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” 

The Armada played their home games at Blair Field and folded in 2012 due to many reasons such as a permit dispute with the City of Long Beach, a stadium dispute with the university and financial pressure. 

Basketball

The history of pro hoops in Long Beach dates back six decades, yet there are few teams, and seasons, to show for it. 

After one season in Honolulu, Hawaii, the Long Beach Chiefs made their home in the Long Beach Arena for the 1962-63 edition of the American Basketball League (ABL). Coached by Wilson High School alum Al Brightman and featuring Long Beach Poly standout Jim Hanna, the team started their season 10-0 before the ABL announced it was folding on the eve of 1963.

Though Brightman is nowadays regarded as more of a ‘what if?’ type of coaching talent due to his combustible personality and alleged alcoholism, the Chiefs’ abrupt ending merits questioning what could have been. 

After bouncing around a handful of regional locations from 1969 to 1994, the Southern California Summer Pro League began playing at Walter Pyramid in 1995. A prelude to the annual NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, this tournament showcased NBA teams for newly signed and drafted players.

Before it shut down for good following its 2007 edition — which solely featured amateur rosters — future legends like Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady kicked off their pro careers in the Pyramid and hall of famers such as Isiah Thomas, Moses Malone and Magic Johnson teamed up for special exhibitions. 

The city’s only pro women’s basketball team, the Long Beach Stingrays of the derivatively named American Basketball League (ABL),played just one season at Walter Pyramid in 1997-98 and nearly won the league’s championship in their sole campaign.

With future WNBA MVP Yolanda Griffith as the team’s center (and centerpiece), the Stingrays won the first two games of the best-of-five series against Columbus Quest, but dropped the final three matchups on the road to finish runners-up. The Stingrays folded in August 1998 and four months later, so did the ABL. 

Led by a pre-NBA Matt Barnes and a past-his-prime, but still effective, Dennis Rodman, the Long Beach Jam began their brief tenure at Walter Pyramid in 2003 as part of the American Basketball Association (ABA). In the team’s inaugural season, they won the league title, defeating the Kansas City Knights 126-123.

The Jam only played two seasons in Long Beach before being shipped to Bakersfield (2006-16), Arizona (2016-21) and Michigan (since 2021), where they’re now known as the Motor City Cruise of the G-League.

After three up-and-down seasons in The Basketball League, the Long Beach Blue Waves have joined the revived United States Basketball League as the revamped Los Angeles Blue Waves for the 2026 season. The Blue Waves previously played at Garden Grove’s Santiago High School; their new home is Washington High School, located in the Westmont neighborhood of Los Angeles. 

Football

Despite Long Beach being the breeding ground for future NFL stars Willie McGinest, DeSean Jackson and Marcedes Lewis, all Long Beach Polytechnic alumni, the city’s biggest university hasn’t had a football team since 1991. 

Many local residents may not remember—or weren’t alive for—the Long Beach State 49ers football team (1955-1991). Across their 37 seasons, the 49ers won three conference championships, and their only postseason bowl berth came in 1970 against the Louisville Cardinals in the Pasadena Bowl, a game which ended in a 24-24 tie. 

In the program’s twilight years, Pro Football Hall of Famers George Allen and Willie Brown coached the team and the 49ers’ final season featured running back Terrell Davis, who went on to eventual enshrinement in Canton. The program eventually folded, and despite regular calls from community members and students to bring back football, CSULB has marched on without a team on the gridiron. One thing that is for certain is Davis looks back very fondly on his time as a 49er.

“We always ask the question, ‘If you could go back to any year, what year would it be?’ For me it’s always 1990, my freshman year at Long Beach State,” Davis told CSULB’s Beach Magazine in 2018. “That was the best time of my life.”

For those who missed out on Long Beach State’s football era, nearly three dozen of the team’s games have been preserved on DVD and are available for purchase.   

As opposed to the 49ers, the Long Beach Admirals disappeared without much of a trace. Even worse, they never won a game. The Admirals’ first and only regular season matchup in the similarly ill-fated Continental Football League (1965-1969), a 37-13 defeat, occurred on Aug. 26, 1967 at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Citing a lack of attendance, the team’s general manager Bob Spitler tried to force a move to Portland, which the league quickly nipped in the bud. Spitler then tried to take the Admirals fully independent, failing once again in the process.  By Aug. 30, 1967, the Admirals were dead in the water.  

Motorsports, Martial Arts, Bull Riders and More 

Back in 1938, when the Pike was still an amusement park and the long-lost Rainbow Pier circled the coastline, Long Beach hosted the National Surfing and Paddleboard Championships. This standalone tournament is seen as one of the region’s first-ever showcases for aquatic sports, as well as a rare gem in the city’s surfing history prior to the Long Beach breakwater being built in the 1940s.

Beginning in 1946, the Long Beach Sprint Nationals brought annual power boat races to Marine Stadium courtesy of the Southern California Speedboat Club. However, following the deaths of Gregory Paul Duff in 2018 and John “Jay” Hart in 2021, the permit for the 2022 event was denied, with a subsequent City of Long Beach investigation deeming the event “unsafe” and “a danger to both racing participants and spectators in its current configuration and specified safety requirements.” An appeal and a community petition were organized in an attempt to save the races, but the Long Beach Sprint Nationals have remained off the schedule ever since. 

Before he became an on-screen legend and the world’s most famous martial artist, Bruce Lee introduced himself to American audiences with one-inch punches and two-finger push-up demonstrations during the first-ever International Karate Championships (1964-1999). This tournament, founded by American Kenpo pioneer Ed Parker, was originally held at the now-demolished Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. 

The California Surf (1978-1981) of the North American Soccer League (NASL) played one indoor season at Long Beach Arena in 1980-81, finishing with a 10-8 record and crashing out of the playoffs in the first round. The Surf are most known as a footnote in the career of legendary Brazilian defender Carlos Alberto Torres, who played 19 games for the club during its final outdoor season in 1981. 

The Long Beach Arena twice hosted the world championship rounds for Bull Riders Only (1991 and 1993), a nationwide bull riding league. The 1993 finals were the setting for what is considered to be one of the most celebrated bull rides in history between Tuff Hedeman and Bodacious, available to see through vintage YouTube footage. 

Before MLB’s All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game became a tradition, stars of sports and Hollywood duked it out on the diamond for charity during MTV’s annual Rock N’ Jock Softball Challenge. The game brought together the likes of Salt-N-Pepa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jon Bon Jovi in a celebration of softball and celebrity. Though the game came to pass around the same time MTV headed toward irrelevancy, Blair Field hosted six Rock N’Jock games throughout the 1990s. 

The world’s best men’s cyclists rode through Long Beach on two occasions during the Tour of California, an annual event on the UCI World Tour calendar from 2006-2019. Long Beach hosted the final stage of the race in 2007 as well as the first stage of the 2018 iteration. Once an important precursor to the Tour de France, the race has been placed on a seemingly permanent hiatus.

For the first two seasons of the Formula E championship, all-electric cars hummed through downtown during the Long Beach ePrix (2015 and 2016), following a similar layout to the annual Long Beach Grand Prix race in the IndyCar Series. 

Did we miss your favorite defunct local team? Let us know at newspaper@signaltribune.com.