Pottsville Maroons
Boston Bulldogs (1929) | |
| Team colors | Maroon, gold, white |
|---|---|
| Head coaches | Dick Rauch (1925–1927, 1929) Pete Henry (1928) |
| Owner(s) | Yorkville Hose Company (1920–1922) Kingsbury, Heinz & Schoeneman (1923) John G. Streigel (1924–1928) George Kenneally (1929) |
| NFL Championship wins | None (1925 NFL title claimed by Pottsville, not recognized by NFL) |
| Other League Championship wins | 1924 Anthracite League title |
| Home field(s) | Minersville Park |
The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in the northeastern part of the state. Founded in 1920, they played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1928. In 1929 they relocated to Boston, where they played one season as the Boston Bulldogs.
The team was founded as the Pottsville Eleven, an independent team playing in the local eastern Pennsylvania circuit. Home games were played at Minersville Park, a high school stadium in nearby Minersville. They joined the local Anthracite League in 1924, the same year they adopted the "Maroons" nickname, and won the league title. The next season they joined the NFL under owner John G. Streigel. Though dominant on the field, a controversial suspension cost them the 1925 NFL Championship. They were reinstated the following year, but after two successive losing seasons in 1927 and 1928, Streigel sold the Maroons to a group in Boston, where they played one season before folding.[1]
1925 was their best season. The 1928 roster included three future
History
Origins
Like other coal towns in eastern Pennsylvania, Pottsville had been fielding football teams from at least the 1910s.[3] The team that became the Maroons was established in 1920 as the Pottsville Eleven, and had a roster mostly made up of firemen from the Yorkville Hose Company. The team was initially unaffiliated with any league, playing on the independent circuit against other teams from the coal mining towns of eastern Pennsylvania. In 1922 the team attracted the sponsorship of area businessmen Harold Kingsbury, Irvin Heinz and Frank Schoeneman, who brought in talented professional players such as Carl Beck, Benny Boynton and Stan Cofall. Still, the team maintained a strong local presence by recruiting many Pottsville natives to its roster. The result was a team with consistent winning records and strong crowds.[1]
Anthracite League
In 1924 local surgeon John G. "Doc" Striegel purchased the Pottsville Eleven for $1,500. That year teams in the local circuit decided to form a league, which became known as the Anthracite League. This was also the year the team adopted the Maroons name; according to legend, the team placed an order for new football jerseys with local sporting goods supplier Joe Zacko, telling him that the color was not important. Zacko sent them twenty-five maroon jerseys, giving birth to the name.[4]
During the 1924 Anthracite League season, the Maroons added three members of the NFL's 1923
Immediately after winning the Anthracite League title, the Maroons issued challenges to both the NFL champion Cleveland Bulldogs and the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who claimed the Eastern professional championship. When neither team accepted, Striegel scheduled a game with the NFL's Rochester Jeffersons, who had not beaten an NFL opponent since 1921. These two teams met in a season finale on the last Sunday of November. Rochester managed to defeat Pottsville 10–7, giving the Maroons their only loss of the season. However Pottsville ended its 1924 season with an overall record of 12–1–1, scoring 288 points and allowing only 17 while capturing the Anthracite League title.
NFL
The Anthracite League collapsed after the season, but Striegel and the Maroons were undeterred. They applied for, and received, a franchise in the NFL. This was somewhat unusual, as the team's
Since many Maroons players moved back to their NFL teams in 1925, the Maroons recruited several talented players to replace them. These included former
"The Pottsville Maroons were the most ferocious and most respected players I have ever faced. "You know, I always believed the Maroons won the NFL championship in 1925 ... but were robbed of the honor."
—Red Grange, Pro Football Hall of Famer with the New York Yankees (NFL) and the Chicago Bears in 1954[5]
During this time the Maroons insisted that their players live in the Pottsville area. During the 1920s most players had to travel great distances from their homes and only joined their teams on game day. By having the players live in Pottsville, coach and former
By this point in the season, Pottsville and the
1925 NFL Championship controversy
With the 1925 season near its end, the Maroons had the best record and had defeated the rival Cardinals, essentially ensuring the NFL championship. Before the season ended, however, the Maroons were suspended by NFL commissioner Joseph Carr, thus denying them the championship title. This has been the subject of controversy ever since.
Earlier in the year, the Frankford Yellow Jackets had scheduled an exhibition game between a team of former University of Notre Dame stars and the best NFL team in the east. As the NFL's dominant eastern team at the time, they believed they themselves would get to play the potentially lucrative match against the "Notre Dame All-Stars". However, when Pottsville later pulled ahead in the standings, they won the right to play the All-Stars. As Pottsville's Minersville Park was a high school stadium with a capacity of only around 6,000, team owner John Streigel booked the much larger Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the big game. Philadelphia, though, was within the Yellow Jackets' designated territory, and Frankford complained to the league. Commissioner Carr warned Streigel several times that Pottsville's franchise would be suspended if they played in Philadelphia.[4]
Not wanting to give up on a potential financial windfall for his team, Streigel went ahead with the game. He would later claim he had received verbal permission from the NFL by telephone, though he gave inconsistent responses as to which official he had spoken to. The Maroons won the game 9–7, which was considered a major win for professional football,[6] but the match only attracted about 8,000 fans, a major financial disappointment. As threatened, Carr suspended Pottsville and removed them from the NFL, preventing them from finishing their schedule.[4]
Meanwhile, Chicago Cardinals owner
Return to the NFL
The NFL reinstated the Maroons the very
However, towards the end of the season, the Maroons management struggled to meet its financial obligations, and there were published reports of a strike among the team's players.
The 1927 season saw a decline in the team's on-field performance. Pottsville lost several of its stars, and others were growing older, and finished the season with a disappointing 5–8–0 record. Doc Striegel relinquished operational control of the team for the 1928 season by "loaning" it to a group of three players: Herb Stein, Pete Henry and Duke Osborn. Henry took over the coaching reins but the downward spiral continued. The Maroons ended what turned out to be their final season in Pottsville with a dismal 2–8–0 record. At the end of the season the players were given a small football made of anthracite coal, a memento of the last season played in Pottsville.
Boston Bulldogs
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Striegel sold the club during the offseason to a New England–based partnership that included Maroons' standout, George Kenneally. The new owners relocated the franchise to Boston prior to the
Six veteran Maroons players made the move with the team. Dick Rauch also returned to the fold, resuming his position as head coach. Based at Boston's
Because the
Today
In 1963, the NFL created a special committee to investigate the 1925 controversy. The committee brought the Maroons' claim to a team owners meeting that year, where the owners voted 12–2 in favor of keeping the championship with the Cardinals. That same year, the surviving members of the Maroons carved their own championship trophy out of coal, and presented it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where it can be seen today.[10]
The 1925 Maroons have since been immortalized in Pottsville, where there are establishments bearing the team's name, including a section of U.S. Route 209 between Pottsville and Minersville named "Pottsville Maroons Highway" [11] along with an inspirational picture of the 1925 "World Champion" team is displayed in the high school football team's locker room. There was also a bar named after the team, but it was closed in 2021[12]
Today, the people of Pottsville still embrace the legacy of the Maroons. The town contains the headquarters of the Pottsville Maroons Memorial Committee, whose job it is to keep alive the spirit of Pottsville's only big-league sports franchise. In Pottsville, there was a major push led by Mayor John D.W. Reiley to restore the Maroons' 1925 title. The owner of a local embroidery shop still makes Maroons T-shirts and distributes them to residents and fans, along with the Schuylkill County Historical Society, which does the same.
In 2003, Governor of Pennsylvania
Rendell responded with an angry letter to Tagliabue, calling the NFL owners a group of "cowardly barons". Rendell berated the National Football League, and declared he would have no more communication with league officials until they granted the Pottsville Maroons the 1925 title. The governor ended the letter saying, "I am closing with the wish that every NFL franchise except for the Eagles and the Steelers lose large quantities of money".
In 2006 David Fleming authored the book Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship.
In 2008, USA Today statistician Jeff Sagarin analyzed the two teams' statistics, including considerations for strength of schedule to determine which was the better team in 1925. The results showed the Maroons as the better team to the second-place Cardinals.[16]
Pro Football Hall of Famers
| Pottsville Maroons Hall of Famers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | ||||
| No. | Name | Position | Tenure | Inducted |
| — | Wilbur Henry |
T |
1927–1928 | 1963 |
| — | Walt Kiesling | T |
1928 | 1966 |
| — | John McNally |
HB | 1928 | 1963 |
Season by season
| Year | W | L | T | Finish | Coach | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pottsville Maroons | 1925 | 10 | 2 | 0 | expelled | Dick Rauch |
| 1926 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 3rd | Dick Rauch | |
| 1927 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 8th | Dick Rauch | |
| 1928 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 8th | Pete Henry | |
| Boston Bulldogs | 1929 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 4th | Dick Rauch |
References
- Pottsville Maroons Sports Bar – Maroons history as told by the owner.
- Pottsville Maroons, Ghosts of the Gridiron
- Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)
- 1925 Pottsville Maroons, Professional Football Reference (URL last accessed September 30, 2006)
- 1925 Chicago Cardinals, Professional Football Reference (URL last accessed September 30, 2006)
- Pottsville Maroons, Professional Football Reference
- "Lost in Time" by David Fleming
Notes
- ^ a b c Purdy, Dennis (2010). Kiss 'Em Goodbye: An ESPN Treasury of Failed, Forgotten, and Departed Teams, pp. 260–263. Random House Digital. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
- ^ "Professional Football Researchers Association". Profootballresearchers.org. Archived from the original on March 9, 2011. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-511913-4. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Ohio Tiger Trap" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2009. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ a b c Fleming, David. "Lost in Time". ESPN. Archived from the original on January 30, 2009. Retrieved January 7, 2009.
- ^ a b "Historical Markers: Pottsville Maroons – Marker Details". explorePAhistory.com. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ ESPN article
- ^ a b Ralph Hickok (February 18, 2009). "History – Pottsville Maroons 1925–28; Boston Bulldogs 1929". HickokSports.com. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ The Pro Football Archives (http://www.profootballarchives.com/1929nflbos.html) Retrieved on 4 April 2011.
- ^ a b Selway, Tim. "The Pennsylvania Center for the Book – Pottsville Maroons". Pabook.libraries.psu.edu. Archived from the original on January 30, 2009. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ flickr.com/photos/john8e16/2157816159
- ^ "Former Pottsville sports bar named after city's former NFL team to be demolished". August 25, 2021.
- ^ "Pottsville Maroons: NFL owners refuse to reconsider 1925 ruling". Home.comcast.net. October 31, 2003. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
- ^ Toland, Bill (November 16, 2003). "In Pottsville, Maroons are still champs". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- ^ "Curse Of The Maroons". PhiladelphiaEagles.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. January 14, 2009. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
- ^ "BREAKING: STATISTICAL EVIDENCE BACKS UP 1925 POTTSVILLE MAROONS TITLE CLAIM – ESPN The Magazine". Sports.espn.go.com. May 9, 2008. Retrieved March 28, 2011.