Seattle's first major league team?

With the widely rumored return of the Seattle Sonics, the Emerald City would surely be considered a `major league' city in the sports world.

Of course, that wasn't always the case. The ill-fated Seattle Pilots came and went in 1969, but if you were a local sports fan your appetite was wetted by University of Washington football (Seattle's primary sports team for many years) and minor league baseball and hockey.

But not many people know that a major league team - a world champion no less- moved to the Pacific Northwest in the winter of 1959-1960. The Chicago Westerners, the 1959 world champions in the wild-and-wacky pseudo sport of the Roller Derby appeared at the venue that was known as various times as the Seattle Civic Arena, Seattle Ice Arena and Mercer Arena.

While the Ravens also skated games in Spokane and Portland, four games that were televised from the Civic Arena can be found on YouTube - two games apiece against the New York Chiefs and the Los Angeles Braves. 

It was around this time that Jerry Seltzer had taken over the Derby from his father Leo Seltzer, who invented Roller Derby in Chicago in 1935. Derby popularity had peaked in New York city during the late `40's and early `50's, coinciding with the advent of television. But the Derby was on its last legs when the younger Seltzer was given the reigns.

Young Jerry established the San Francisco Bay Area as the league's home base, eventually phasing out games in New York and Los Angeles. But with Pacific Northwest stations showing the Derby, games were scheduled in the area.

The home team, called the Northwest Ravens were comprised of many of the skaters who had just won the league championship as the Chicago Westerners against the San Francisco Bay Area Bombers at the Cow Palace in the fall of `59. The Ravens wore the same uniforms as the Westerners, had the same coach, Hal Janowitz, and featured the Westerners top female stars - Loretta `Little Iodine' Behrens and Dolores Doss.

Unlike the Roller Derby of today as skated by the Rat City Rollergirls and other local groups, traditional Derby of the `50's featured men and women, each skating four periods of an eight-period contest. And games were played on a high banked track that the male skaters would set up themselves. Points were scored when scorers (jammers) would pass blockers for points.

Handling play-by-play on Raven TV games was veteran Pacific Northwest sportscaster Bob Robertson, best known as the longtime voice of Washington State Cougar football and basketball (he also announced the minor league baseball Seattle Rainers and Seattle Totems' minor-league hockey during his broadcast tenure.)

A man named Zollie Volchok was involved in promoting the Ravens. Volchok was a booker for theatrical shows and concerts and helped bring the likes of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to the area, previously ignored by most of the US. Volchok, a decade later would be named the Seattle Super Sonics general manager although he was involved in marketing in promotion rather than player movement. Legend has it that Volchok was somewhat taken aback when he discovered some of the fighting was contrived.

Ironically, this was also a time when the Seltzers, Leo particularly, wanted to make the game a more 'legitimate' sport. The only real fight on the Raven YouTube games was a scuffle between Little Iodine and the Braves' captain with the politically incorrect nickname of Mary `Pocohontas' Youpelle.

The championship game between the Bombers and Westerners - which can also be viewed on YouTube - featured no fighting or histrionics. The hometown Bay Bombers didn't even win on the last play (jam) of the game - a familiar scenario in Derby. The Westerners led much of the contest and held on for the victory. The star of the game was 19-year-old jammer Frank Macedo, who would become a high scorer for the Ravens.

While the Northwest Ravens didn't last beyond that one season there was a team called the Hollywood Ravens that would face the Bombers in the Bay Area the following season. The Chicago Westerners were still around as well.

As the game moved into the 1960's, Jerry Seltzer made the Bombers `America's team' with games taped - usually at the Kezar Pavillion in San Francisco - and syndicated on TV stations around the country. The Bombers would play in the Bay Area in the summer and then barnstorm the country in the winter, usually playing an All-Star team in cities that showed the games.

However, the Pacific Northwest would still get some games. The Northwest Cardinals, coached by Hall-of-Famers Ken Monte and Annis `Big Red' Jensen at one point, would host International Roller Derby League rivals such as the Midwest Pioneers or the Northeast Braves. The league never had more than four to six teams at any given time. Mike Gammon, billed as `the fastest man on skates' and the game's best pure skater, also appeared with the Cardinals in the late `60's.

The IRDL folded in 1973 during a nationwide gas shortage. The league attempted to expand to other areas and then lost many top skaters (quit and fired?) after an abortive player strike. The book Ad-Lib To The Blow Off  (pictured below) written by former skater Jim Fitzpatrick, provides a solid history of the Derby. 

Anyone interested in old-time Roller Derby should also read Five Strides On The Banked Track by  famed Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford, who traveled around the country with the Bombers and an All-Star team in early 1968.