National Football League (1902)
American Football | |
Founded | 1902 |
---|---|
Founder | John Rogers, Ben Shibe, Dave Berry |
Ceased | 1902 |
President | Dave Berry |
No. of teams | 3 |
Country | United States |
Last champion(s) | Pittsburgh Stars |
The first National Football League (NFL) was the first attempt at forming a national professional
History
Founding
Ironically the roots of the league lay with baseball, not football. It began as a part of the baseball wars between the National League and the new American League that began in 1901. In Philadelphia the AL's Athletics lured several of the NL's Phillies from their contracts, only to lose them through court action. When Phillies owner John Rogers decided to start a football team, the Athletics followed suit. A's owner Ben Shibe fielded a team made up of several baseball players as well as some local football talent. He appointed his baseball manager Connie Mack as the team's general manager and named former University of Pennsylvania football player Charles "Blondy" Wallace as the team's coach. Each Philadelphia team was named after their respective baseball clubs and became the Athletics and Philadelphia Phillies.
However, both Rogers and Shibe knew that to lay claim (to what they hoped would be) the "World Championship"; they had to play a team from Pittsburgh, which was the focal point of football at the time. They called on pro football promoter Dave Berry, and a Pittsburgh team was soon formed around a championship team from Homestead.[2] This team was named the Stars, after the number of football players on the team who were considered football stars during the era. The team was owned and operated by Berry, the former manager of the Latrobe Athletic Association. However many historians believe that due to Berry's limited wealth and the amount of talent on team, that Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss and/or Pirates president William Chase Temple (who briefly owned other pro football teams in Pittsburgh only to see them fail in short fashion) may have secretly owned the team, a statement both vehemently denied.[3] The first league had no bylaws, no offices and no schedule-making powers. Having three of the top professional football teams in the country helped make up for those shortfalls.[4]
These three teams are all that made up the 1902 NFL. Because of the animosity that existed between Philadelphia's Shibe and Rogers, Dave Berry was picked to the league's president. Attempts were initially made to expand the league outside of Pennsylvania into other major cities like Chicago and New York City. Investors in neither city were interested in joining the league at the time.[3]
1902 season
With all the baseball involvement, training did not get underway for the football teams until September 29, 1902, with the season was scheduled to open a week later on October 4. However, most of the players were already in shape. Besides the baseball players, many of the others had jobs that kept them in good condition. For example, Pittsburgh halfback Artie Miller, came in after a summer's lumberjacking in the Wisconsin woods. To make the preseason even less stressful, the average football team in 1902 only used about a half-dozen plays and they were all standard.
The league played all of its games on Saturdays, since there were no Sunday sports events according to Pennsylvania
On Thanksgiving Day 1902, Berry billed a game between the Stars and the Athletics as being for the championship of the National Football League. The Athletics had split on the season with the Phillies, as had Pittsburgh. Although a Philadelphia victory on Thanksgiving would give the A's the championship hands down, a win by the Stars could tie the league race tighter. Mack readied his A's for the big game by playing an exhibition tour through northern Pennsylvania and southern New York. In Elmira, New York the Athletics joined in the first night game in pro football history.[1] Lights were set up along the sidelines and giant searchlights glared from behind the goal posts. The A's won the game 39–0 over the Kanaweola Athletic Club.
1902 championship first attempt
When Mack agreed to Berry's championship game, he was promised $2,000 for his team's participation. However, when he arrived in Pittsburgh, he saw that the stands were pretty much empty and since his $2,000 came from the ticket sales at the gate, it looked as if he would not be paid his $2,000 and his team would be stranded, with no money, in Pittsburgh. Therefore, seeing no reason to take the field, Mack refused to play until his team was paid their promised share of the gate, $2,000. It looked as if the game would not be played. However Mack received a check for $2,000 from William Corey, the head of
1902 championship
Another championship game was soon planned between Berry and Mack. Because of a lack of funds Berry almost ended up canceling the game. However, he later promised to his players they would all share equally in Saturday's game, which was sure to be a sell-out. After some complaints were addressed, everything was set. The crowd was a little better on Saturday, but not much. About 2,000 fans showed up, and the players knew before the game began that they were going to come up short at pay time. The game looked like it might once again end in a tie. However a late touchdown by Ellis and another by Artie Miller led Pittsburgh to an 11–0 win over the Athletics.
Afterwards
Not many fans noticed the championship win. The Pittsburgh players were too busy suing Temple for their Thanksgiving Day money to do much gloating over their victory, and the story disappeared from the newspapers before the suit was settled. Most of the players tried it again with Franklin or Canton or Massillon in the next few years. The Philadelphia Athletics went home and beat the Phillies to wrap up second place. It was a nice win and gave them the city championship, but that was all that it was; the season was won by Pittsburgh the week before.[3]
Meanwhile, several members of the Athletics and the Phillies went on to play in the first
The league quietly folded, and the war between the baseball leagues was resolved the next spring. While the NFL thrived in Philadelphia, it never took hold in Pittsburgh, where professional football had already had its moment in the spotlight come and go over the previous decade. Public relations errors by Berry resulted in a lukewarm reaction to the franchise. Many Pittsburghers followed their local athletic clubs and colleges more than the Stars. In fact the Washington and Jefferson Presidents football team had a much greater following than the Stars. Professional ice hockey would become the sport of the moment in the early to mid-1900s (decade) as the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League began hiring professional players.
The league had been slightly ahead of its time; it would not be until 1920 that the idea for a true "National Football League" would come to be accepted.
Controversy
With the win, A's players decided to call the Stars game an exhibition, and declared themselves the champs. However, the team had agreed to that season-ending championship game against Pittsburgh the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and they had lost it. This was recognized by all parties at the time as the championship game. Each team carried a record of 2–2 for league play. Pittsburgh had by far the better point ratio, scoring 39 points to their opponents' 22. Both the Athletics and the Phillies gave up more points than they scored in their league games. Finally Dave Berry used his power as league president and named his Stars the 1902 champions.[5]
Final standings
Team | Games | Wins | Losses | Ties | Pts For | Pts Against | % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pittsburgh Stars | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 39 | 22 | .600 |
Philadelphia Athletics | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 34 | 44 | .600 |
Philadelphia Phillies | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 41 | 34 | .500 |
1917 restart attempt
In 1917, an unnamed representative from a professional football club in
Under the proposal, teams would then begin play immediately after baseball season concluded and continue as long "as the weather is favorable." To build name recognition, it was determined that those baseball players with sufficient football skill would be featured on league rosters with the remaining slots filled by ex-college football players. The games would be played in the baseball parks such as
The unnamed agent pitched the idea to Frank Navin, the owner of Detroit Tigers, and Charles Comiskey, the owner of the Chicago White Sox. Comiskey told reporters, "If pro football can be made to pay it will be an answer to a problem that has confronted baseball owners since the game started. For years we have been going along using our ballparks three months in a year, only to see the property lie idle the other nine months." He then stated that he would take the upcoming week to think over the proposal.
The story was only closely examined by only two national newspapers, the
However, after Bovard's article, all mention of the new league disappeared from the papers. Comiskey's decision to take part in organizing a new professional football league based on the 1902 NFL was never made public. All interest in the story died by April 1917, when the country entered into
Notes
- ^ NFL.com. Archived from the originalon 2008-01-02. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
- ^ http://www.profootballresearchers.com/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/23-02-886.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ a b c http://www.profootballresearchers.com/articles/Dave_Berry_Philadelphia.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ISBN 978-0-19-511913-8.
- ^ a b http://www.profootballresearchers.com/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/11-An-388.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ http://www.profootballresearchers.com/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/14-01-449.pdf [bare URL PDF]
References
- "Football Chronology II; The First Pros: 1884 to 1903" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 23 (2). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–3. 2001.
- Carroll, Bob (1980). "Dave Berry and the Philadelphia Story" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 2 (Annual). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–9.
- Peterson, Robert W. (1997). Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football. ISBN 0-19-511913-4.
- Riffenburgh, Beau and Bob Carroll (1989). "The Birth of Pro Football" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 11 (Annual). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–30.
- Wagner, Bill (1992). "A Missed Opportunity: The 1917 Pro Football League" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 14 (1). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–2.