Upstate New York is a storied region in North American sports.
Baseball: Although now largely discredited, the report of the 1905-1907 Mills Commission, charged with investigating the origins of baseball, named Cooperstown as the place where baseball was invented in the 1830s or 1840s by Abner Doubleday. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Basketball: The first away game in the sport of basketball was played at the Albany YMCA gymnasium in 1892, the year after the sport was invented in nearby Springfield College in Massachusetts.[1]
Upstate New York was once the home of major league sports teams such as the Troy Trojans and the Syracuse Stars of the National League, the Rochester Royals and the Syracuse Nats of the National Basketball Association, the Buffalo Buffeds/Blues of the short-lived baseball Federal League and several teams of various sports named the Buffalo Bisons. Only the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League and the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League remain.
The collegiate sports programs at Syracuse University (Syracuse Orange) and Cornell University (Cornell Big Red) attract significant regional attention, as do minor league baseball and hockey teams. Rochester is home to several Minor League sports teams, including hockey's Americans (or "Amerks" as known locally) and baseball's Red Wings.
Other Upstate New York minor league professional sports teams include the Syracuse Chiefs of the Triple-A baseball International League, the Binghamton Mets of the Double-A baseball Eastern League, the Binghamton Senators of the American Hockey League(AHL), the Elmira Jackals of the ECHL, the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League(AHL), the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association; and the Auburn Doubledays, Oneonta Tigers, the Jamestown Jammers, the Tri-City ValleyCats and the Batavia Muckdogs of the Class A baseball New York - Penn League.
The Iroquois Nationals are the national lacrosse team of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy that competes in international competition.[2] The team was admitted to the International Lacrosse Federation (ILF) in 1990 and is the only Native American/First Nations team sanctioned to compete in any sport internationally.[2]
In auto racing, Watkins Glen International Speedway is the major race track in the area and hosts annual races in the Indy Racing League and NASCAR Sprint Cup. Holland Speedway in Holland hosts races in the Whelen All-American Series. In addition, numerous smaller speedways and dirt tracks exist in Little Valley, Freedom, Humphrey, Granby (serving the city of Fulton), Oswego, Lancaster, Ransomville and numerous other cities and towns.
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