1921 Championship Controversy??

[TanksAndSpartans]

Regarding the two game series between the Chicago Staleys and Buffalo All-Americans that resulted in the Staleys being awarded the 1921 APFA title, someone on another board today mentioned that Halas had proposed the second game as an "exhibition" (Buffalo won the first game on Thanksgiving 7-6 while the second game took place on 12-04). Then presumably at the league's annual meeting when they voted for a champion, Halas argued that the game should count in the standings since there was no official end to the season.

I don't recall reading about this controversy. I checked David Neft's encyclopedia and he didn't mention it. Wikipedia, my least favorite source, does mention a "Staley Swindle". I did a newspaper search of the Monday after the second game however and every article I found either headlined or at least mentioned Chicago winning the pro grid title and made no mention of the game being an exhibition.

Is this something Buffalo supporters brought up as sour grapes or is there truth to it? Thanks!

[JeffreyMiller]

Here is the headline from a Buffalo paper declaring (prematurely) the All Americans champions of the APFA in 1921. It will take some digging, but I have an article in which the Chicago game is referred to as an exhibition.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Thanks Jeff. PFR shows 2 games after this Dayton game including the second Chicago game.

What's your instinct here? Did Buffalo get ripped off? If so, certainly it isn't as thoroughly discussed as Pottsville in '25.

The one thing I did observe was lots of stars in the lineup - certainly they weren't short handed for the second game. Nash, Voss, Youngstrom, Urban, Hughitt, and Oliphant all show up in the boxscore.

21-Box.png (105.39 KiB) Viewed 15499 times

[JeffreyMiller]

Did they get ripped off? Kinda sorta ... It's really hard to say. After all, were both McNeil and Halas in agreement that the final game was just as exhibition? Did Halas dupe McNeil? I don't really know. It's my belief that McNeil truly believed those last games were exhibitions, otherwise they wouldn't have been reported as such in the paper. The Staleys had several advantages in that final game: Firstly, home field advantage; second, the AAs had to travel overnight by Pullman after playing Akron in Buffalo the day before, so were dog tired; and third, several of the players who had helped make the AAs so dominant earlier in the season (Lu Little, Lud Wray, Heinie Miller, etc) had left the team in a dispute over payment for games played. So the AAs were a weaker team for the second Staleys game than they were for the first.

If McNeil had not agreed to play games after the Dayton victory, then the AAs were probably Buffalo's first (and only) NFL (or APFA) champions ...

[TanksAndSpartans]

Thanks Jeff. Interesting story for sure. One thing I disagree with you on is the newspapers - newspapers especially hometown varieties reported all kinds of stuff in this era, so that isn't a smoking gun for me. I can counter it because I looked at a lot of the 12-05 headlines and whether is was Wisconsin or Iowa, it was reported Chicago had won the championship. I did find something on them losing players last night and I read it was because they had some players, the names you mention look familiar, playing for two teams and Carr cracked down. Seems to me they still had their main stars though like I mentioned. I know some folks have been insensitive to Pottsville over the years, so I don't want to do the same to Buffalo, I'd just like to see some evidence that Halas duped them because without that it leaves open the possibility of sour grapes. The championship was awarded by vote the year before, so if Buffalo really didn't want to put it on the line, its pretty risky to play again before the vote. Also, makes Halas look pretty bad if he told them it was an exhibition just to get them on the field and then went back and argued something else at the league meeting.

Regardless, thanks for jumping in - I know there isn't a ton of interest in this era, so I appreciate it.

[JeffreyMiller]

Agreed for the most part. Who's to say whether Halas intentionally duped McNeil. Only they knew for sure. Either way, Halas wasn't going to concede one of his league championships. If he had done something underhanded, he wouldn't have gone on record as saying so. The Staleys won that second game fair and square, and if the league powers felt they were the superior team, then that's that.

[Bob Gill]

I did find something on them losing players last night and I read it was because they had some players, the names you mention look familiar, playing for two teams and Carr cracked down.

I think that other team was called something like the Union A.A. of Phoenixville, based in Philadelphia or a suburb of Philly. That team was not in the NFL, and it played its games on Saturdays because of the Pennsylvania laws against Sunday football. Quite a few Buffalo players had been traveling to Pennsylvania each Saturday to play for the Union A.A., then taking a train back to Buffalo (or wherever the All-Americans were playing) for a Sunday game. For some reason -- I forget why, but it may be that another NFL team complained about the practice -- Joe Carr decreed right near the end of the season that the players in question couldn't go on splitting their allegiance that way. Most of the players involved opted to stick with Buffalo, but a few chose the Union A.A. and were no longer eligible to play in league games.

By the way, this does indicate that Buffalo wasn't being suicidal in scheduling the final game with the Staleys just one day after they'd playing Akron, since many of the players had been playing back-to-back games all season. It seems obvious that they would've been at a disadvantage playing a better-rested Chicago team, but at least they were used to it.

[JeffreyMiller]

I did find something on them losing players last night and I read it was because they had some players, the names you mention look familiar, playing for two teams and Carr cracked down.

I think that other team was called something like the Union A.A. of Phoenixville, based in Philadelphia or a suburb of Philly. That team was not in the NFL, and it played its games on Saturdays because of the Pennsylvania laws against Sunday football. Quite a few Buffalo players had been traveling to Pennsylvania each Saturday to play for the Union A.A., then taking a train back to Buffalo (or wherever the All-Americans were playing) for a Sunday game. For some reason -- I forget why, but it may be that another NFL team complained about the practice -- Joe Carr decreed right near the end of the season that the players in question couldn't go on splitting their allegiance that way. Most of the players involved opted to stick with Buffalo, but a few chose the Union A.A. and were no longer eligible to play in league games.

By the way, this does indicate that Buffalo wasn't being suicidal in scheduling the final game with the Staleys just one day after they'd playing Akron, since many of the players had been playing back-to-back games all season. It seems obvious that they would've been at a disadvantage playing a better-rested Chicago team, but at least they were used to it.

This was the first instance of the AAs playing back-to-back games that season. That, along with the overnight ride to Chicago, absolutely put them at a physical disadvantage. Also, the local papers ran interviews with both Heinie Miller and Frank McNeil in which each blamed the other for the circumstances that brought the whole Quakers/All-Americans to the unfortunate boiling point. Miller said they were not paid for some games that they had been played. McNeil said they were told not to play in Philly on Saturdays, but did so anyway.

[TanksAndSpartans]

This was the first instance of the AAs playing back-to-back games that season.

Right, but they couldn't have because they would have been short the players committed to playing elsewhere. Really gives one a new respect for teams like Pottsville and Frankford who did that kind of thing all the time. Jeff, you had also mentioned about home field advantage and it got me to thinking that the Bears had a nice card to play - "let's play in Chicago so we get a big gate". Did the same thing to the Spartans in '32.

I finally pulled the trigger on a newspapers.com subscription, and tried to use it to see if I could find anything supporting Buffalo. I focused on searching the week before and after the game and didn't find much. Of course I may have missed something. Here's what I did find:

Buffalo Evening News ("shaky claim"):

buf-evening-news.png (108.25 KiB) Viewed 15442 times

The Buffalo Commercial ("unwarranted claim"):

buf-com1.png (31 KiB) Viewed 15442 times

buf-comm2.png (43.83 KiB) Viewed 15442 times

[JeffreyMiller]

This was the first instance of the AAs playing back-to-back games that season.

Right, but they couldn't have because they would have been short the players committed to playing elsewhere. Really gives one a new respect for teams like Pottsville and Frankford who did that kind of thing all the time. Jeff, you had also mentioned about home field advantage and it got me to thinking that the Bears had a nice card to play - "let's play in Chicago so we get a big gate". Did the same thing to the Spartans in '32.

I finally pulled the trigger on a newspapers.com subscription, and tried to use it to see if I could find anything supporting Buffalo. I focused on searching the week before and after the game and didn't find much. Of course I may have missed something. Here's what I did find:

Buffalo Evening News ("shaky claim"):

buf-evening-news.png

The Buffalo Commercial ("unwarranted claim"):

buf-com1.png

buf-comm2.png

Good stuff, T&S … Really makes one wonder if Halas was under the same understanding as McNeil, that the second game (according to McNeil) was an exhibition.