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RetroSeasons

RetroSeasons recaps past sports seasons through stories, photos, videos, and stats from every team, league, and stadium in history. Coverage includes the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL, as well as vintage media from defunct teams and leagues.

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Cleveland Pipers
Seasons 1962-1962 (1 season)

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Teams Cleveland Pipers History Seasons

Recap

The team was first owned and run Ed Sweeny, a shareholder in a company which handled plumbing, heating and air conditioning services for a number of companies and buildings in the city of Cleveland. Sweeny handled sponsorship for a number of Cleveland recreational sports teams and leagues, including his basketball entry which later became the Cleveland Pipers. Sweeny's winning industrial team was later purchased by the ambitious young George Steinbrenner, then a 30 year-old son of a Cleveland trading company owner. General Manager Mike Cleary later hired John McLendon, the first African American head coach in professional basketball, to lead the squad. Playing under coach John McLendon, and later coach Bill Sharman, the team won the league's 1961-62 championship, the only full-season title in the league's short history.

Steinbrenner got his start in professional sports ownership with the Pipers, which he entered into the new ABL. The team's precarious financial situation was such that its home games took place in eight different arenas and gyms. These ranged from the team's primary home at either Cleveland Public Hall or the Cleveland Arena to local colleges such as Baldwin-Wallace College, to high school facilities in Ashtabula, Lorain and Sandusky, and as far south as Columbus.

Upon his hiring, McClendon was able to convince a former college player he had coached, Dick Barnett, to jump from the NBA's Syracuse Nationals to the Pipers. Then, after the team's first season, Steinbrenner signed Ohio State University All-American Jerry Lucas. In the latter case, the signing enraged the rival National Basketball Association (NBA), which attempted to lure Steinbrenner and the Pipers into jumping leagues. The mounting debts and costs of that move proved too much for the then-young Steinbrenner, who folded the team just months later.

Even early on, Steinbrenner was meddlesome and irrepressible. Basketball lore indicates that at halftime of the November 22, 1961 game against the Hawaii Chiefs, he sold player Grady McCollum to the Chiefs at halftime.

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Year	Season	League	Team	W	L	Pct	GB	Standings	Playoffs	Coach	Attendance	Stadium	Berth	Champ
1962	1961-62	ABL3	Cleveland Pipers	24	18	.571		1st	Won Championship	John McLendon		Cleveland Arena	-3	1
1962	1961-62	ABL3	Cleveland Pipers	21	18	.538		2nd	Won Championship	John McLendon		Cleveland Arena

League Record Season's Leader

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Pipers History

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Team Stats
Franchise Leaders
Season Records
Head Coaches
General Managers
Owners
Arena History
Logo History
Audio & Video Clips
Articles & Photos
Collectibles on eBay
Links Wikipedia

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