The Packers’ Cecil Isbell was one of pro football’s best passers in the prewar years. He set several short-lived NFL records in his career (1938-42) — for passing yards in a game (333) and touchdown passes (24) and passing yards (2,021) in a season, among others — and might be in the Hall of Fame if he hadn’t retired at 27 to go into coaching.
And he did all this despite wearing a chain — secured by a harness — that ran from his waist to his upper left (non-throwing) arm, limiting the range of motion and keeping the shoulder from popping out of the socket. He’d suffered a bad separation in college and was worried it might happen again.
A cartoonist’s rendering of Isbell’s unusual piece of equipment:
Contrary to legend, Art Rooney didn’t buy the Pittsburgh franchise with some of his winnings from a huge score at the racetrack. After all, his nationally publicized run of luck with the ponies was in the summer of ’37. By then, he’d been an NFL owner for four years.
Still, it’s a classic tale that tells you much about pro football in that period, a time when gambling by sports figures didn’t cause nearly the palpitations it does now. The story of Rooney’s hot streak, just before training camp got underway, made the front page of the Pittsburgh Press — and was picked up by plenty of other papers around the country. Imagine a headline like this appearing today:
(And in ’33, remember, when the Steelers joined the league, franchises cost $2,500.)
Rooney was hardly the only owner who walked in this world, either. The Giants’ Tim Mara was a legal bookie in the days before parimutuel betting. The Cardinals’ Charley Bidwill owned a horse track and some dog tracks. The Eagles’ Bert Bell, meanwhile, routinely wagered on four-legged creatures, two-legged creatures and the occasional three-legged race (and kept it up even during his term as commissioner). It was what a “sportsman” — as so many of them were called — did in the ’30s.
The $100,000 figure — thanks to picking five winners on opening day at Saratoga — was probably just the beginning for Rooney, by the way. Most estimates put his haul at between $250,000 and $380,000. The Press story, you see, only deals with his first pass at the tracks. Being en fuego, he naturally made other visits until the streak ran its course. When he was done, the previously obscure football owner from Pittsburgh was a Known Entity (though it would be another decade before his struggling team began to emerge from the shadows).
“He likes to bet fancies, hunches, on a whim, and the man is not afraid to bet,” Frank Ortell wrote in the New York World-Telegram. “He sends it along in a fashion that recalls the days when the old plungers used to go into action.”
It took a while, but his bet on the Steelers eventually paid off as well — with four Super Bowl wins in six seasons beginning in 1974. Some guys just have the touch.
Before instant replay, a team didn’t have much recourse if it felt an official had missed a call. It might send a film clip to the commissioner, just to prove its point, but that was as far as it went. No call was ever reversed.
It was the same in 1935, when the Pittsburgh Pirates (as they were known then) lost 13-7 to the Brooklyn Dodgers on a disputed touchdown catch. The difference then was that a Pittsburgh Press photographer had gotten a good shot of the play, one that suggested — but didn’t conclusively prove — the left foot of receiver Wayland Becker was out of bounds when he secured the pass from Red Franklin.
It might have been the NFL’s first photographic controversy. (And just think how much more primitive the technology was then, how much harder it must have been to get a shot like that. Never mind the luck involved.)
Take a look at the photo and see what you think. The quality isn’t good, but the sideline is faintly visible beneath Becker’s foot. The question is: Where exactly did his heel come down? From this angle — and at this juncture — it’s pure speculation.
If indeed Becker got away with one, he didn’t escape unscathed. He missed the Dodgers’ next two games — rematches with Philadelphia and PIttsburgh — because he “sustained a broken jaw in the first game with the Pirates,” the Brooklyn Eagle reported. What a coincidence.
The close connection between fans and pro football players in the early years, especially in small towns like Portsmouth, Ohio, is hard to imagine today. After the Spartans’ 14-0 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1931 season opener, locals flocked to a dinner attended by both teams. The invitation that ran that day in the Portsmouth Times:
The Giants’ first general manager, Dr. Harry A. March, was an actual medical doctor (and formerly the medical examiner in Canton, Ohio). Naturally, he had more than a passing concern for the players’ health. He even endorsed a miracle product he claimed was “excellent for football bruises and cuts” and — as if that weren’t enough — the best remedy for athlete’s foot. The newspaper ad:
Around the time his book on Bronko Nagurski was published in 2003, Jim Dent was sent to prison for violating his probation stemming from a felony drunk-driving conviction. Had anyone at his publishing house bothered to read the manuscript closely — line by line, “fact” by “fact” — it would have been clear that Dent was in rough shape, and that maybe Monster of the Midway should have been put in a drawer for a while until Jim (hopefully) got his life sorted out.
Alas, that didn’t happen. And so we’re left with a work that, in places, might be more fiction than non-fiction. I’ll lay out the evidence. You be the judge.
Before I go any further, let me just say that when I first heard Dent, author of the bestselling Junction Boys, was coming out with a book about the Bears’ famed fullback, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Not nearly enough has been written about pro football’s early days, and Nagurski, of course, is legendary, arguably the greatest player in the single-platoon era.
But there was more to it than that. I was dying to see how Dent dealt with the obstacles I’d faced over the years — sparse newspaper coverage, precious few surviving game films and an increasing lack of eyewitnesses. The prewar period was vanishing fast. How did he manage to overcome that? Had he unearthed some sources I hadn’t?
The first time I cracked open Monster of the Midway, I found it a breezy read. Almost immediately, though, I wondered about the liberties Dent took in imagining conversations between Bronko, Bears owner-coach George Halas and others he couldn’t possibly have interviewed (unless it was via séance).
My eyebrows really went up when Dent wrote that in the first round of the 1939 draft, the Bears chose “a little-known tailback from Columbia named Sid Luckman.” Luckman was actually one of the most celebrated college players in the country. In November of his senior year, his dirt-smeared face had appeared on the cover of Life magazine, which had a huge circulation. He’d also finished third in the Heisman Trophy balloting, despite playing for a team that won just three games. Had the Bears not taken him with the second pick, his hometown Brooklyn Dodgers surely would have grabbed him at No. 5.
It wasn’t until recently, though, when I returned to the book to reread the section about the 1937 championship game, that I realized something disturbing: There are major discrepancies between Dent’s play-by-play and the one that ran the next day in The Washington Post. At some points, they seem like two different games.
Dent’s version: “Jack Manders’s opening kickoff was a line drive that slipped through the fingers of Cliff Battles and bounded between the legs of Ernie Pinckert. It was finally fielded by Max Krause at the one-yard line, where he was smothered by a pack of Bears.”
The Post’s version: “The toss was won by the Redskins and Captain Turk Edwards chose to kick off with the wind at his back. Nagurski took the ball on his own 1-yard line, slipped and fell, regained his feet and returned the kick to his 33, where Baugh bumped him out of bounds.”
But, hey, don’t take the Post‘s word for it. Check out this newsreel clip (that, in the pre-television age, was shown in movie theaters throughout the U.S.). For starters, it says, “Redskins kick off.” And yes, that’s Bronko fielding the ball, slipping on the frozen turf and returning to the 33.
According to the Post, Washington’s first possession came after “[Ray] Nolting punted outside” — that is, out of bounds — “on the Redskins’ 7-yard line.”
So there was no line-drive kickoff by Manders to start the game, no ball that glanced off Battles’ hands, bounced through Pinckert’s legs and was scooped up by Krause, who was tackled dangerously close to the goal line. That’s all . . . dramatization? Hallucination? The product of fuzzy memories? You tell me.
It matters for lots of reasons, not the least being that a famous play followed, one that saw Sammy Baugh line up in punt formation in the Washington end zone and surprise the Bears with a screen pass to Battles — at a time when screens were rare if not unheard of. The play gained 43 yards and started the Redskins on their way to a 28-21 upset victory. The play also foreshadowed what was to come in pro football: increasingly wide-open offenses that would throw the ball anytime from anywhere.
Here’s the clip of the screen. Note: The line of scrimmage is the 7, not the 1 (as Dent claims).
The ’37 title game was a watershed game for the NFL. Baugh, a rookie, racked up 335 passing yards that frigid afternoon — 29 more than the regular-season record. It would be nice, to the extent we can, to get the details right. Unfortunately, the game Dent “recreates” drifts in and out of reality.
After the Redskins took a 7-0 lead, he says, “The Bears responded in typical fashion. Nagurski carried the ball six straight times, all the way to the Washington 40-yard line. Then he tore through a large hole opened by Musso. One man stood in his path, and he was wearing No. 33. Nagurski lowered his shoulder and exploded into the rail-thin Baugh, sending him head over heels. The trainers came running out with smelling salts.”
The Post: “Edwards kicked off to Nolting, who ran the ball 20 yards to the Bears’ 28. Nolting made 2 yards at right end before Riley Smith nailed him. Justice replaced Pinckert in the Redskin backfield. Masterson passed to Manske, who made a shoestring catch in Baugh’s [safety] territory, slipped on the Redskins’ 40, regained [his footing] and ran to the Redskins’ 19 before Baugh brought him down. Nagurski swept around left end for 9 yards before Baugh bumped him down. Manders shot through a huge hole at right guard for 10 yards and a touchdown.”
Anybody notice Nagurski carrying the ball “six straight times”? Neither did I. The final statistics credit him with just eight rushing attempts total — three in the first quarter, four in the third and the last in the fourth (going by the Post‘s detailed account). Only once did he carry on back-to-back plays, never mind six in a row.
We move ahead to the third quarter:
Dent: “After the kickoff was returned to the 22-yard line, Baugh lofted a rainbow for [Wayne] Millner, who was 10 yards behind the Bears secondary and off to the races. The score was tied again [21-21].”
I ask you: Does it look in the following clip like Millner was open by 10 yards — or two?
Dent: “All eyes were on Millner as the Redskins drove deeper and deeper into Chicago territory late in the third quarter. Baugh jumped high in the air and pump-faked to Millner. With his feet back on the ground, Baugh pivoted and fired to a wide-open Ed ‘Chug’ Justice in the left corner of the end zone. The Redskins led 28-21.”
As you’ll see, Baugh didn’t jump “high in the air” when he pump faked before tossing the game-winning 35-yard TD pass to Justice. You’ll also see that, far from grabbing the ball in the “left corner of the end zone,” Justice caught it at the Chicago 18, in the general vicinity of the right hashmark, and ran it in from there.
Dent’s narrative, in other words, reads more like one of those Hollywood screenplays that’s “based on a true story.” He even dreams up this dramatic finish: “With only seconds remaining,” the Bears might have scored if receiver Les McDonald “hadn’t become tangled with back judge Ed Cochrane” on a 39-yard gain to the Washington 12. “By the time McDonald freed himself of Cochrane, Battles and Baugh were rushing up from behind. They caught McDonald just as the final gun sounded.”
This passage sets off all kinds of alarms, reeks of Too Good To Be True-ness. Not surprisingly, the Post, Chicago Tribune and New York Times — all of whom covered the game extensively — make no mention of McDonald’s run-in with the official. Seems like at least one of them would have.
Beyond that, though, this wasn’t the Bears’ last gasp. They ran four more plays in that series (two runs, a sack and an incomplete pass), lost the ball on downs, got it back again at their 42 and attempted two more passes, the second of which was intercepted. The Post’s play-by-play has the ball being snapped 16 times after the pass to McDonald — six by the Bears. (And the Bears would have had more chances, presumably, if they hadn’t fumbled a punt a short time later and enabled the Redskins to keep possession a while longer.)
It’s enough to make you question just about anything Dent says — with good reason, perhaps. Two more head-scratchers from earlier in the book:
Dent: “On October 4, Nagurski came off the wrestling circuit and arrived at [Pittsburgh’s] Forbes Field about an hour before kickoff. He had yet to practice with the Bears all season.”
Not true. According to the newspapers, he joined them a week before their Sept. 19 opener at Green Bay and played in that game and a non-league charity game two days later in Duluth, his old stomping grounds. Then he went back to wrestling for a while.
Dent: “[Nagurski] carried 15 straight times on one drive [against Pittsburgh] that led to a touchdown pass from Bernie Masterson to Stinky Hewitt.”
Lord knows where the “15 straight times” comes from. The Chicago Tribune had Bronko down for 10 carries in the entire game. Also, the TD — the only score in the 7-0 Bears victory — came not on a pass but on a 13-yard run by Nolting. But here’s the best part: Bill “Stinky” Hewitt, Masterson’s alleged target, was no longer with the Bears. Halas had traded him to the Eagles before the season.
Have I made my point? Monster of the Midway never should have seen the light of day — not then, anyway. It was too turbulent a time for Dent. (I’m going to assume — and it may be ill-advised — that he hasn’t always been so fast and loose with the facts.) As the Dallas Observer reported the year the book came out:
Instead of traveling here and there for autograph sessions and meeting with interviewers eager to help boost sales of his latest book, . . . he’s awaiting word of which Texas prison unit he’ll soon be assigned to, wondering what manner of career might be left to him.
Then again, maybe Dent couldn’t be saved at that stage — by family, friend or publisher. He told the Observer in a phone call from jail: “I wasn’t ready to listen to anyone. I was too damn stubborn. I’ve been an alcoholic for years, one of those who had to hit rock bottom to wake up.”
The Observer also quoted him saying: “It hurts to know that I’ve got what I believe to be a really good new book out there that I can’t promote. Oh, I’ve done a few radio interviews, things like that, but mostly what people want to talk about isn’t Monster of the Midway but me getting ready to go to prison.”
A really good new book. Yikes.
Of course, one of his editors, Peter Wolverton at St. Martin’s Press, sang much the same song. “What Jim has done with Junction Boys and his subsequent books,” he said in the Observer piece, “is create a new genre of sports book, taking milestone historical events and the people who participated in them to a new level of quality.”
A new level of quality. His exhumation of The Great Bronko suggests otherwise.
In his hard-partying days, Dent had an “image as the Robert Downey Jr. of Texas sportswriters,” according to The Dallas Morning News. The actor, who plunged into a similar abyss (alcohol, prison, etc.), has made quite the comeback since confronting his demons over a decade ago. Dent seems intent on doing likewise. Paroled in 2005, he has cranked out five more books — the latest of which, Johnny Manziel’s Glory Run, will be released in September.
Can’t say I’ve read any of them yet. I’m still in recovery from Monster of the Midway. But they say time heals all wounds. . . .
We all know how good the Patriots have been since Bill Belichick turned the quarterbacking over to Tom Brady in 2001: three championships, five Super Bowls, eight AFC title games. Enough for ya? And this is in an era, mind you, when such sustained excellence is supposed to be more difficult because of free-agent flight. It’s one of the best runs the NFL has seen.
But where exactly does it rank? Right near the top if you go by this chart. I looked at the best 13-year stretches in league history, based on won-loss record — figuring the championships would take care of themselves (which they mostly did). The Pats’ .752 winning percentage, playoffs included, is second only to the .772 compiled by the 1932-44 Bears, George Halas’ famed Monsters of the Midway.
Only one team on the list didn’t win multiple titles: the forever-falling-short 1967-79 Rams. Other than that, there should be few surprises.
Be advised: In some cases, a club was dominant for an even longer period and had more than one great 13-year run. The Cowboys, for example, were a machine from 1966 to ’85, with eight different 13-year stretches in which they won more than 70 percent of their games. In these overlapping instances, I took the best 13 years, reasoning that we were talking about many of the same players (and wanting to avoid duplication). Or to put it another way: only one to a customer.
Also, I’ve listed the most significant coaches and quarterbacks for each team, not every last one. (So, apologies to Tommy Prothro and Matt Cassel, among others.)
Some will say the championships are all that matter, and certainly they’re what matter most. But every week we hear a coach say “how hard it is to win a game” in the NFL. These clubs did that historically well.
Note: the ’67 Raiders and ’68 Colts won the league championship but lost the Super Bowl. Thus the “+1.”)
Now . . . if you threw in the Browns’ four seasons in the All-America Conference, before they joined the NFL, you’d have to move them up to No. 1. From 1946 to ’58 they were 137-34-5, a .793 winning percentage. But that’s a judgment call. The AAC didn’t offer them much competition, as their 52-4-3 record in the league attests.
Finally, the Vince Lombardi Packers just missed making the list, topping out at .673 for their best 13 years (1960-72). Of course, during the nine seasons Vince coached them (1959-67) they were even better, posting a 98-30-4 record and a .758 winning percentage.
Sources: pro-football-reference.com, The Official NFL Record and Fact Book
This doesn’t have anything to do with pro football, per se, but it’s kinda cool nonetheless. Here’s the headline that ran across Page 9 of the Brooklyn Eagle on Oct. 13, 1934:
Yes, that’s Marty Glickman, the future sportscaster, who helped Madison High hand mighty Erasmus Hall a 25-0 loss, its first in the regular season in four years. But that’s not why I’m posting about it. I’m posting about it because in the second quarter, Glickman intercepted a pass and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown. The passer? Sid Luckman, Erasmus’ single-wing tailback, who would go on to quarterback the Bears to four NFL titles. For more details, read the story by the Eagle’s Harold Parrott.
Glickman reminisced about the game in the autobiography he wrote with Stan Isaacs, The Fastest Kid on the Block:
Two plays stand out from that game. I was the tailback and signal caller in the single wing, and early in the game I quick-kicked on third down. I kicked it over Luckman’s head — he was the safety — and the ball rolled dead at about the 8-yard line. It must have gone about 65 yards. It completely surprised them. We held, Luckman punted out, I caught the ball at midfield and ran it back to the 35-yard line. We scored a couple of plays later. . . .
Later, Luckman threw a pass diagonally downfield that I intercepted at our 25-yard line. Both Sid and I were off to the side, and he was the only one who had a shot at me. He tried to race over and tackle me, but there was no way he could catch me. Whoosh, I went 75 yards for the touchdown, and we won the game. We later beat Roosevelt, 12-0, for the city championship.
We fought each other tooth and nail in every game we played, with the result that we became chums off the field, almost inseparable each summer, though all we had in common was a charley-horse I handed Marty on one play, and a bruised ear he gave me on a hard tackle. How did we become friends? I guess Ma Luckman was responsible for that. Ma never did like “feuds” of any sort, and especially failed to understand how the papers could dare write that Luckman and Glickman were ready to “tear into each other again next Saturday.” Her little boy, she sincerely felt, had no such malice in his heart.
So she called up Marty’s folks and invited them over for supper, figuring on patching up the “feud.” The next day Marty and I took in a pro game at the Polo Grounds and watched someone else fight it out for a change.
Actually, Glickman was more celebrated for his track exploits than his football prowess. (Note that Parrott refers to him as “the city’s 100-yard champion sprinter.”) Two years later, at Hitler’s Olympics in Berlin, he was in line to run in the 4-by-100-meter relay, but he and another Jewish member of the U.S. team, Sam Stoller, were replaced at the last minute. Guess why.
If you wanted to do an American version of Chariots of Fire, Glickman and Luckman would be the perfect athletes to build it around. Sid, of course, had his own burdens to bear. His father was convicted of murder in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in Sing Sing prison. One of these days, maybe I’ll get around to writing a screenplay.
Finally, in case you missed it: The Madison-Erasmus game was played at Ebbets Field, home of the baseball and football Dodgers, before a crowd of 20,000. That was more than the football Dodgers drew, on average, that season (less than 12,000, if Total Football‘s figures are accurate). Football in the ’30s: a different world.