- Thread starter
- #1
Iggloo
Fly, Eagles Fly
- 23,108
- 8,662
- 533
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2014
- Hoopla Cash
- $ 150.00
- Fav. Team #1
- Fav. Team #2
- Fav. Team #3
This is outrageous that this hasn't happened yet. Another reason to hate the Cardinals' Bidwill family, which illegitimately claimed the 1925 title, and has blocked efforts to give it to the actual real champs since, since they have real accomplishments to tout.
The Steelers' Rooney family and Jeff Lurie of the Eagles tried to go to bat for these people with the NFL, but lost.
Lebengood suggests that the NFL had it out for pro teams from smaller towns, wanting their franchises to spawn in larger metropolitan areas. The only way they could remove Pottsville’s trophy was if the 9-2 Cardinals had secured more victories than the 10-2 Maroons during the regular season, which they hadn’t (Pottsville had beaten them 21-7).
“Pottsville had…” Lebengood pauses, trying to remember.
“Ten wins,” his grandson reminds him quietly.
“One more… or two more than the Cardinals,” he continues. “The only way they could take the championship away - season was over, but they lined the Cardinals up to play two more games.” He laughs. “One was a high school team.”
Following the easy wins, the league tried to give the championship to the Cardinals, but sports good merchant and Cardinals owner Chris O’Brien didn’t want it, calling it a “bogus title.”
Though eventually the Cardinals’ two bonus wins at the end of the season were labeled illegitimate, the trophy still floated in championship limbo for years, until Charles “Blue Shirt Charlie” Bidwill took over the Cardinals in 1933 and the team started claiming any championship up for grabs. He gladly took on the Maroons’ trophy, and history now says that on that early December day, the Chicago Cardinals were league champs.
Pottsville Maroons memorabilia at the Schuylkill County Historical Society.
Pottsville Maroons still missing trophy
The Steelers' Rooney family and Jeff Lurie of the Eagles tried to go to bat for these people with the NFL, but lost.
Lebengood suggests that the NFL had it out for pro teams from smaller towns, wanting their franchises to spawn in larger metropolitan areas. The only way they could remove Pottsville’s trophy was if the 9-2 Cardinals had secured more victories than the 10-2 Maroons during the regular season, which they hadn’t (Pottsville had beaten them 21-7).
“Pottsville had…” Lebengood pauses, trying to remember.
“Ten wins,” his grandson reminds him quietly.
“One more… or two more than the Cardinals,” he continues. “The only way they could take the championship away - season was over, but they lined the Cardinals up to play two more games.” He laughs. “One was a high school team.”
Following the easy wins, the league tried to give the championship to the Cardinals, but sports good merchant and Cardinals owner Chris O’Brien didn’t want it, calling it a “bogus title.”
Though eventually the Cardinals’ two bonus wins at the end of the season were labeled illegitimate, the trophy still floated in championship limbo for years, until Charles “Blue Shirt Charlie” Bidwill took over the Cardinals in 1933 and the team started claiming any championship up for grabs. He gladly took on the Maroons’ trophy, and history now says that on that early December day, the Chicago Cardinals were league champs.
Pottsville Maroons memorabilia at the Schuylkill County Historical Society.
Pottsville Maroons still missing trophy
