1890s Western PA football

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AndyTurk
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1890s Western PA football

Post by AndyTurk »

While my purpose on here is inquiring about a potential GB/County Stadium chapter writer, I should check to see if anyone had interest in grainy, microfilm images of late 1890s/early 1900s Pittsburgh football games and teams, mainly the PAC or DC&AC. Most come from the Pittsburgh Bulletin. I suspect that Bob Carroll already collected the vast majority of what us locals have found independently afterward (I've been meaning to buy a copy of the group's book on that era for our library) and his were probably in better form, but if anyone is interested, feel free to contact.

Also, if any of you had put together the following Flickr page with a batch of college and pre-NFL 'NFL' images from Recreation Park, kudos. There were a couple on there I hadn't seen.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89283554@ ... 9590602979/
Andy Terrick
Andyterrick@gmail.com
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TanksAndSpartans
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Thanks Andy - those images are great. Do you have anything of the Fiscus brothers or George Proctor?
AndyTurk
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by AndyTurk »

Unfortunately, can't help you there. The closest I've seen was someone that had an image of the 1892 AAA team photo (no Pudge), but based on that season, Lawson wasn't with them. David Finoli might, he did write a book on local doings. He may have gotten help from this group for all I know.

https://www.amazon.com/Birthplace-Profe ... 073853675X

Grew up in Greensburg and spent a good deal of my formative years in and around Youngwood, never remember hearing anything about Fiscus. Guess that shouldn't be too big a shock. We knew George's mom Mrs. Blanda still lived there (Youngwood), but that was about the extent of knowledge of what was old time football to us.
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TanksAndSpartans
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Thanks Andy. I'd love to see that 1892 photo if you can dig it up. Ross Fiscus played for the A's on Thanksgiving 1892. I attached the box score. I'm working on a little 1890s project - hoping to find some photos of the relevant teams that I could include.

Thanks for the book - I will add it to my reading list as well.

I'm not from the area, but I went to Pitt - spent a lot of time in Trees hall, so always interesting to see him as a player. Do you know anything about Neal? It was mentioned that he was a black player for WUP recruited to play for the ACs. I don't recall seeing much about him in the early football histories, but I just may not be remembering.
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AndyTurk
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by AndyTurk »

I never paid much attention, what with Pudge's cartoon, but there's a Proctor sketch in that Dispatch article.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-2/

Will see what I can do. Never heard of Neal...for WUP, I only know of the gentleman on that 1899 image, but from what I've read, he was the trainer. Not sure what the story is with the DC&AC image, whether that is a player or not.
lastcat3
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by lastcat3 »

Would any teams that eventually found their way into the NFL been around in some form during the 1890's? How early was the genesis of the Bears and Cardinals?
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TanksAndSpartans
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Thanks Andy! I like those sketches! I've been impressed with The Dispatch's football coverage. Also, thanks for the free newspaper resource - for years I used a lot of free resources - I finally gave in and subscribed to newspapers.com.

I've gone through 1890 and 1891, just getting into 1892 - I'll post if I see more about Neal.

@lastcat3, I don't think any of the Pittsburgh area teams can be tied to the NFL and most of early pro football research has focussed around them and the later migration into Ohio.

Joe Ziemba traces the origins of the Cardinals back pretty far: https://www.amazon.com/When-Football-Wa ... 1572433175. I read the book, but it was a while ago - the "look inside" feature shows 1899.

There was a recent CC article on the 1919 Staleys - I think that's about as far back as the Bears can be traced, someone please jump in if I'm wrong.
Terry Baldshaw
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by Terry Baldshaw »

Andy Turk, are you familiar with the National Football League of 1902? The Pittsburgh team won the championship in the league's only season.
lastcat3
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by lastcat3 »

Huh, first I have ever heard of this league. Looks like there were only three teams in it and it looks like it was run by MLB owners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... gue_(1902)
AndyTurk
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Re: 1890s Western PA football

Post by AndyTurk »

Terry Baldshaw wrote:Andy Turk, are you familiar with the National Football League of 1902? The Pittsburgh team won the championship in the league's only season.
Yes. Actually, a few of the images in the link I attached in the original post show some NFL scenes. The Pittsburgh papers referred to the local team as the Greensburg club in a derogatory manner, because that's where they practiced. Apparently people were taking umbrage at that. I'm pretty certain I'm remembering that info from a Bob Carroll article I read a long time ago. I think former Bucknell star and future NY baseball Giants star Christy Mathewson might be a player in one of the images.

Some of us Pittsburgh locals and enthusiasts have been trying to dig up info and images on the field where those images are from, which was the same location as where Pudge played in 1892, and where the baseball pre Pirates played before that.
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