Before the big game of the modern era.. before half time shows.. before the ‘commercials’ that promise ‘water cooler talk’ on Monday morning (is that virtual now?), there was a different era of football.
Blast to the past, to 1925..
THE 1925 MAROONS
The 1925 Pottsville Maroons went 14-2 including a 9-7 win over the Notre Dame All-Stars. You have to consider where exactly football was at that time.
At that point in American football history, college teams were superior to professional football teams and no professional team had ever won this exhibition game.
The Maroons’ win over Notre Dame players put the NFL on the map and legitimized professional football.
History has now documented, the Maroons were the rightful title earners as the team of the year in ’25! They won.. they beat the odds, and they were the rightful champions…
THE INJUSTICE OF 1925!
Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship by David Fleming details what happened at the end of the season..
At that time in professional football they had “territories” where no other professional team could play an exhibition game in another teams “territory.” Being cash strapped and wanting to prove to the world how great they were, the Pottsville Maroons played the exhibition game against the Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia, the territory of the Frankford Yellow Jackets (a suburb of Philadelphia).
Frankford’s general manager, Shep Royle, protested and in a convoluted turn of events the Pottsville Maroons had their title striped from them by then-NFL commissioner Joseph Carr.
The championship was given to the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) who are officially listed at the NFL Champion of 1925, despite that the Pottsville Maroons beat them convincingly 21-7 in the lat game of their season.
Gordan Mackay wrote in a December 18 1925 edition of the Philadelphia INQUIRER that there was a “pretty scurvy trick that worked” to anoint the Cardinals as the champions over the Maroons..
A territorial violation! A stripping the Maroons of the title..
WNEP reported in 2009..
This video from almost two decades ago now (Boy YouTube is old) showcases the attempt to get the 1925 championship back to Pottsville..
Basically, Carr suspended and removed the team from the NFL after they played an unauthorized exhibition game in Philadelphia, on the grounds that they had violated the territorial rights of the Frankford Yellow Jackets.
Chicago played and won two more games against weak NFL opponents, but were sanctioned because Cardinals player Art Folz hired four Chicago high school football players to play for the Milwaukee Badgers under assumed names to ensure a Cardinals victory.
In 1963, the NFL investigated and rejected Pottsville’s case, refusing to reopen the case in 2003. Both the NFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame continue to list the Cardinals as the 1925 NFL champions.
Never forget, the Maroons were one of the dominant teams of the 1925 season, and after defeating the Chicago Cardinals 21–7 on December 6, they came away with the best record in the league…
NO MATTER WHAT territorial violation was claimed…
REQUIEM FOR A SEASON
Nick Barbetta made it a life mission to try getting the Maroons’ title back to Pottsville–to make just the injustice!
He wrote this December 6 1995 letter to the editor of the REPUBLICAN HERALD:
In 2003, the new Pottsville Maroons bar and grill was celebrated on the front page of the city fishwrapper..
It was the lasting vestige of the legacy! The celebration of the team that SHOULD have been champions despite the NFL decisions..
It was knocked down in October 2021..
Forgotten with it will be a whole lotta’ history..
Nick Barbetta, the champion of the Maroons, died December 2013 at the age of 98, at the York Terrace Nursing Home.
Who now will fight for the Pottsville Maroons.. Who will keep their cheated championship alive.. by 2025, will we forget the 1925 season?
History is cruel at times. And with each passing day, we further forget the 1925 season..
