HAVE FRANCHISE, WILL TRAVEL

The Sacramento Kings’ potential move is deeply-rooted in sports history

With a heavy, metallic clamor like that of a locking prison door, the gate of the moving truck slams shut.

The smell of diesel fumes licks the air as the U-Haul fires up its engine and rattles down the road. Before long it disappears onto one of America’s many clogged arterial highways.

The future is looking bleak for Kings fans in Sacramento in the face of a potential move to Seattle. It’d be the sixth time in franchise history the Kings pack up their belongings and bolt town. Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

And you’re left standing alone grasping your “we’re No. 1” foam finger, and feeling like No. 2. If only you could change the digit on the novelty hand to better represent your mood.

Your team is gone. They left you behind in their quest to see if the AstroTurf really is greener on the other side.

There are plenty of ugly words in the world of sports, but none that solicit vitriol quite like the term “relocation.”

This is how fans must be feeling these days in Sacramento, where the only word worse than “relocation” is “Maloof” — the surname of the owners who are flirting with plans to sell the “Big Tomato’s” only professional sports franchise to Seattle- or Anaheim-based investors.

Of course, relocation isn’t always a curse word to everyone. For Seattle, landing the NBA’s Kings means redemption for the pain caused by the Sonics, who packed their bags for Oklahoma City after the 2007-08 season.

When it comes to relocation, the Kings are no more regal than they are nomadic and have left a path of empty hearts and arenas in their wake since their birth in 1945 in Rochester, N.Y.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the Kings are one of the heartbreak’s biggest customers. But they’re certainly not the only offenders:

A brief (and a bit tedious) history of franchise relocation among Big Four sports (MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL) franchises:

There are 122 teams in 51 cities in the United States and Canada.

Eleven* cities have Big Four teams: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Washington D.C.

*12 if you count the San Jose Sharks as being San Francisco’s hockey team, despite playing 50 miles away

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Try as they might to hold on, fans in New Jersey were unable to keep their Nets from leaving for Brooklyn. Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

Kansas City has lost more franchises than any other city, having seen the Athletics; Kings (Sacramento); Scouts (New Jersey Devils); and Blues (Minnesota Twins) walk away from the Paris of the Plains.

Baltimore, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul and St. Louis have all lost three teams.

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Three Big Four cities have never had a team split town: Detroit, Miami and Phoenix.

Other cities with multiple teams that have never lost a franchise include: Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Toronto.

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There have been 30 cities that have lost a team to relocation. That number rises to 32 if you include the San Francisco’s Warriors’ jump across the Bay to Oakland and the Nets move across the Hudson River from New Jersey to Brooklyn.

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Of the 122 Big Four teams, 79 (or roughly 65 percent) of them are still playing in their original city.

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Contrary to the first four letters in its name, ‘freedom’ oftentimes comes at a costly price.

Many will go to great lengths to ensure those freedoms, even at the expense of their dreams.

For Mohamed Tangara, the spoils of professional basketball — and the lure of personal redemption — led him back to his homeland of Africa, a continent where the dichotomy between freedom and oppression balances on a wobbly, if not fickle, line.

If there’s anything the former University of Arizona power forward knew from growing up in Western Africa, it was that, when the hired mercenaries started flowing across the border from Chad, Niger and Sudan, it’s time to flee.

It’s time to run as fast as your feet, taxi or corrupt government will allow.

As pro- and anti-Muammar Gaddafi factions uprooted Libya into the throes of civil war last week, Tangara took to the Internet via Twitter, before he took to the road out of town.

Thing (sic) are getting crazy in Libya I got to get out here!

-       Feb. 21, 3:21 p.m. (Libya time)

Mohamed Tangara, right, wrestles a loose ball away from Arizona teammate Nic Wise during a Wildcat team scrimmage. Photo Tucson Citizen archives.

Tangara arrived in Libya in January, after brief playing stints during the 2010-11 with Spain’s CD Estela Santander of the Liga Española de Baloncesto Amateur and Fath US de Rabat, a Moroccan Division One team.

Life was good in Zuwarah, a port city on Libya’s Mediterranean coast. Its streets were calm, if not downright pleasant.

Tangara’s cranky back was finally allowing him to thrive on the court.

And his new squad, AL JAZEERA of Libya’s Division One basketball league, doled out a robust paycheck — enough money to keep his family in Arizona and his Mali homeland living comfortably.

But that was before the winds of revolution wafted down the coast of Northern Africa.

Sheer terror soon gripped the city as anti-Gaddafi protestors seized the Zuwarah’s town square.

In our city there is no polices down streets civilian are putting order ther neightborhood!

-       Feb. 21, 3:42 p.m. 

With businesses boarded and an absence of law enforcement, Tangara had seen enough.

It was time to flee the country.

“Last week everything changed,” said Tangara via telephone from his Phoenix home.

“I had to take a risk and fight for my life. I had to get out as soon as possible.”

Leaving wasn’t as simple as packing a suit case and grabbing his passport.

The government had locked down all of its airports and taxi cabs became a rare commodity on the streets.

Save for one driver who offered to take Tangara, his American teammate Jimmy Williams of Chicago and two soccer players from Zuwarah’s AL JAZEERA club team on the two-hour trek to the Tunisian border.

Man thing are getting scary here! I am planing to flee by tunisia border but its even scary to travel!

-       Feb. 22, 3:18 p.m. 

The road to Tunisia was riddled with government checkpoints and a two-hour ride nearly doubled in time.

At each stop, the muzzles of 20 to 40 machine guns were thrust in their direction.

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