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174: Steagles - NFL · Sports History Network

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This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.
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You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com the NFL was struggling.
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Some might say it was struggling to survive.
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The world was at war, and teams were having trouble keeping their rosters filled.
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In fact, the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers were unable to field complete teams.
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And the Cleveland Rams, well, they had to shut down operations for one season.
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What was the NFL to do?
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How about a merger?
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Next on Sports Forgotten Heroes, we're going to talk about just that.
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The merger of the Steelers and the Eagles, the Steagalls, a team that nearly shocked the football world.
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This is Sports Forgotten Heroes, a tribute to the stars who shaped the games we love to watch and the games we love to play.
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Stars who provided us with many thrills, but when their time was up, they faded away.
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We'll take a look back at their spectacular careers, their moments of fame, even if it was just for one season or just one game.
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And now, here's your host, Warren Rogan.
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Hello, and welcome to Sports forgotten heroes, episode 174 the Steagalls.
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In 1943, the NFL was facing a ton of turbulence.
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The world was at war.
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World War II was at its height.
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Major League Baseball asked the president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, if it should pause.
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NFL rosters had serious holes in them.
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The Eagles reportedly only had 16 players on their roster.
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The Steelers had six.
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The two owners of the Cleveland Rams went off to battle and asked the NFL to shut the team down for one season.
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There was a whole lot of doubt as to whether or not the NFL could weather the storm.
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But one thing was for sure.
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If the NFL was to continue and play in 1943, they did not want to go forward with nine teams.
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And with the Rams sitting out a season, that's exactly what they had.
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An odd number of teams does not make for a workable schedule.
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So what to do?
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Bert Bell and Art Rooney, the owners of the Steelers, were asked to work with Lex Thompson, the owner of the Eagles, and merge their teams for the 1943 season for the good of the league, for the survival of
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the NFL.
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They worked out the details, and what was left was a team called Phil Pitt.
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However, they were nicknamed the Steagalls, and that's the name that has stuck on this episode of Sports Forgotten Heroes.
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I welcome Matthew Algio, an expert of sorts when it comes to the Steagalls.
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Algio penned the book Last Team Standing, which explores this fascinating amalgamation of a team that nearly shocked the football world.
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The Eagles had never finished a season with a record of.500 or better.
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The Steelers had only done so once.
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Combined, though, in 1943, the Steagalls finished one game off the pace from a trip to the playoffs.
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We'll talk about that and a lot more on today's show.
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Before we get there, though.
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A few reminders.
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Please follow Sports Forgotten Heroes on X@SportsFheroes.
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Look for the Sports Forgotten Heroes page on Facebook.
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And for shorts, check out Sports Forgotten Heroes on Instagram.
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And if you want to reach out to me, send an email to sportsfh.infomail.com that's sportsfh.infomail dot com and as always, I thank you for your support.
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Okay, let's get into today's show with my guest, Matthew Algy.
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Matthew, welcome to Sports Forgotten Heroes.
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I am thrilled you're able to jump aboard.
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This is a show that I've wanted to do for quite some time.
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Real quick story.
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Years ago, working with a buddy, we discovered the Steagalls and we had the biggest laugh over it.
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And you know, here we go.
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We're actually talking about the Steagalls.
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Matthew, this is awesome.
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Again, thanks for jumping on.
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Oh, Warren, thank you for inviting me.
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Always happy to give the Steagalls some love.
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Well, it's certainly a really interesting topic, so we'll start it off with probably the most natural question you can ask when talking about the Steagalls.
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For listeners who've never heard of the Steagalls, who were they and why were they created?
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The Steagalls were an amalgamation of two NFL teams in 1943.
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You could probably guess it was the Steelers and the Eagles.
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They were originally, or actually they were officially known as the Phil Pitt Combine, which doesn't quite have the same ring as Steagalls.
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Almost as soon as the NFL announced the merger in the summer of 43, the newspapers began calling them the Steagalls.
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And that's the name that stuck.
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The reason they had to combine two teams in 1943 is because of course, it was the middle of World War II and the NFL had lost so many players to the armed forces to fight overseas and stationed at
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home that they simply didn't have enough players to go around to fill the the 10 teams at the time.
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And in fact the Cleveland Rams, who were a team at the time.
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The Rams were in Cleveland at the time.
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Their owner had been drafted, so they suspended operations for 1943.
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That left the league with nine teams, which was a little unwieldy for scheduling purposes and also again, because of the manpower shortage.
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The owners in the summer of 43 had a meeting in Chicago and they had to decide what to do.
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There was some talk about suspending the NFL for the duration of the war.
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But you know, I'm sure that President Roosevelt had sent a famous letter to Major League Baseball saying it was important for baseball to continue during the war.
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And the owners kind of took that as a signal to them, although football was not nearly as important as baseball in 1943, especially pro football, but they took it as a signal that pro football should continue.
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And so the owners decided for the manpower shortage and because of the odd number of teams, that they would merge two teams for the 1943 season.
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Originally it had been proposed and would really made the most sense to merge the two Chicago teams.
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There were two teams in Chicago at that time, the Bears, of course, and the Cardinals.
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Bears played on the north side, Cardinals played on the south side.
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But the Bears were so good, everybody, all the other owners opposed that because all what, all that would happen would be the Bears would get the three or four good players from the Cardinals and become an even bigger
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powerhouse.
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Now, the Steelers and the Eagles were never very good.
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In fact, IN42 was the first year the Steagalls had ever had a winning season and the Eagles had never had a winning season.
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And so 42 was the first year the Steelers had a winning season.
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Oh, I'm sorry.
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Yes, the Steelers had a, had a winning season in, in 42 and the Eagles had never had a winning season.
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And so it was decided to combine the Steelers and the Eagles.
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The owners also had a good relationship at the time.
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The Rooneys, of course, owned the Steelers.
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And Burt Bell was also a partner in the Steelers and he was from Philadelphia and he knew Lex Thompson who was the owner of the Eagles.
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And, and so logistically it kind of made the most sense.
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Although of course Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are not that close to each other.
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They're, they're a good, good six hour train ride apart.
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It was decided they would go ahead and merge the Steelers and the Eagles.
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And that's how they played in the 1943 season.
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It was the combined Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles Football Club.
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You know, today people think of the NFL as this behemoth, this machine that is untouchable.
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But back then that wasn't the case.
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How Fragile was the NFL during World War II?
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It was very fragile.
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And I mentioned there had been talk about suspending operations and the subtitle of my book about it, the book is called Last Team Standing.
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How the Steelers and the Eagles Saved Pro Football during World War II.
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Thank you.
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Right here was a, it's really a terrific book.
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I, I really enjoyed it.
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I, I, I'm being a little hyperbolic by saying they saved pro football during World War II, but I think they did to this extent.
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The NFL, if it had suspended operations for say 43 and 44 when they came back in 45, you probably know there was another pro football league that started in 46.
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Correct me here.
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Football conference.
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Yeah, the AAFC, the All America Football Conference.
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And they had some good teams, man.
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They had the Browns, Colts, I think 49ers were in that conference, that league as well.
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And so yes, the other, the New York Football Yankees, very good football team.
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They, they had a lot of talent in that league and they had good, good teams.
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And so if the NFL had suspended operations for the war, boy, it would have been a lot harder for them to go toe to toe with the aafc.
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I think a lot of people would have forgotten about the National Football League after missing those two seasons.
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So really, by combining the Steelers and the Eagles, they kind of saved the 43 season and that helped them survive the war, basically.
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So they were in okay shape when they came out the other end.
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But to your question, the NFL wouldn't even, I don't know, what would it be on the list of popular Sports in the 1940s, of course, baseball's at the top.
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College football's, boxing, probably horse racing.
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I mean there were a lot of sports more popular than professional football.
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And at the time, some of these guys are just making a couple hundred bucks a game.
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And in my book, I talk about the players on the Steagalls.
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They all had seat, they all had jobs during the season.
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Everybody had jobs in the off season, of course, Course.
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But the Steagalls actually worked in factories during the week and they would practice at night.
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So the NFL was a, you know, a little baby infant version of what the NFL.
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If you had told those guys in 1943 that this is, you know, in another 40 or 50 or 60 years, this is going to be a multi billion dollar, practically a global industry.
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They would have laughed you right out of Shib park or Forbes Field or whatever other baseball stadium they were borrowing to play their games in.
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I mean, they named the teams after the baseball teams.
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Right.
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They just call them the Giants.
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They're the Giants.
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The Cardinals will come.
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So it really was nothing at all.
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And that was part of the fun about researching it.
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I was lucky the book.
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Book's about 20 years old now, but at the time I was able to talk to, I think all the surviving Steagalls at that time.
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They're all gone now, but there were nine or ten still alive back then.
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Just to hear them talk about what the game was like in the 40s was just a fascinating experience.
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I spoke with Upton Bell.
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Yeah.
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And he's a terrific guy.
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And he said this had to happen.
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It was a matter of the league surviving.
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And he said his father, Bert, was worried that if the league did shut down because of similar to what you were talking about, the aafc, that this league might never have come back.
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Did you hear anything like that?
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Actually, I haven't.
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I'm Facebook friends with Upton and we've emailed back and forth and I wish I had known him when I was writing the book, but.
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And he would know, I mean, talk about, from the horse's mouth, that I know Bert Bell had a.
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And of course, he went on to play a fantastic role in the development of the National Football League.
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I mean, can't be overstated.
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What a role Bert Bell played.
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So he knew what he was talking about.
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Yeah.
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Let's talk about Burt Bell.
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Tell us, who was Burt Bell and why is he so important to this story?
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Burt Bell was a Philadelphia blue blood, actually.
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His family came from some money and they were long established in Philadelphia.
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It was kind of, you know, I don't think his family really supported or endorsed his participation in this sport.
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Bert had played football at Penn.
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He was.
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I think he played in the Rose bowl in something like 1917.
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And then he went off to World War II, World War I.
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Sorry.
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Came back and got involved in professional football in the, in the 30s, 20s and 30s.
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Played for barnstorming teams and then moved into coaching.
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He was founder of the Eagles, but through a complicated process, ended up becoming half owner of the Steelers.
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I go in into it in the book.
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I mean, this was a kind of time in the NFL when owners would trade franchises.
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Right.
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I want to drive to Philadelphia every weekend.
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Give me a franchise.
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Okay, I'll give you a franchise.
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So it was one of those things.
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But Bert, I love Bert because he coached the Steelers for many years and they had some very, very bad teams.
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And Rooney was the co owner and Bell was a co owner and the head coach.
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And they had a meeting one day and Bert Bell said to Art Rooney, I don't know what to do.
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I've tried everything I can to get this team to win.
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And Art Rooney said, bert, do you Ever think about firing the coach?
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So Bert Bell took that as a signal, but maybe he should not be involved on the sidelines anymore.
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So he moved up and really put his energy into running the Steelers.
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And after that he became the commissioner in probably what, late 40s, early 50s I think.
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Elmer Layden was the commissioner during the war and then Burt Bell became the commissioner.
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And Burt Bell, he was kind of a genius because he came up with the mantra that on any given Sunday any team should be able to beat any team.
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And so these ideas of sharing the profits from television, these ideas of having a draft where the worst team drafts first, these ideas of scheduling, having a balanced schedule, overtime and rule changes, I mean he was really a
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visionary and I'm glad he, I think he gets a lot of credit.
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But he really took the league from not so much to right on the cusp of what it became under Pete Roselle, you know, in the late 60s and the super bowl and everything like that.
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I mean, and Burt Bell understood and maybe because he came from money, but he understood the power of money, the power of television, power broadcasting, power promotion, motion, you know, the aesthetics of it, the way the fields looked,
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got to get out of these baseball parks.
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And so he really was a visionary that, that carried the NFL into the modern age.
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But in 43 he was just a co owner of the, of the Steelers and he was part of the Steagalls outfit that was just, basically just trying to survive the war.
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How about Lex Thompson?
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Who was Lex?
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What role did he play in making this happen?
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And by the way, how come he doesn't receive nearly as much attention today as.
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Yeah, I, I, I, Yeah.
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I wonder if you did a poll of Eagles fans today, how many would even recognize the name Lex Thompson?
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But he was the guy, he was another rich guy, came from a rich family.
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I forget what they did.
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I think they did eye drops or something, made a fortune in Visine or something.
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And Lex was what they would call a playboy back then, kind of a sportsman, bon vivant.
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And he wanted to get into pro sports and he was involved in that transaction.
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I believe Lex originally bought the Steelers, but it was too far from New York where he lived.
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And so he convinced Rooney to, to trade franchises with him.
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And so they moved all the players from one team to the other team.
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And the long and the short of it is that Lex Thompson became the owner of the Eagles.
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41, I think it was early 40s and he, it's funny, he wasn't, I don't think he was like a Hands on owner.
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But he knew how to hire good people.
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And for instance, he hired Greasy Neil to be the Eagles head coach.
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And it was under Lex Thompson and Greasy Neil then that the, The Eagles would win the championship in.
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Was it 47 and 48.
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They won the championship, I believe.
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And so he was the owner for those, those first championships.
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And he, he also was very astute, like Bell when it came to things like merchandising and promotion and.
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And in fact, when the Steelers and the Eagles merged, one of the, One of the things that Lex Thompson demanded, and since the Eagles had many more players than the Steagalls, Thompson had a lot of power in the
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relationship.
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It was not an equal relationship.
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Most of the games were in Philadelphia.
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Most of the players were the Eagles, and Thompson insisted they wear Eagles uniforms.
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They had to wear green and white.
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He would not let them wear any other colors, no matter what the team was called.
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And so that gives you some indication of how he was kind of.
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He was a shrewd businessman.
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He.
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He knew his stuff.
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He ended up going overseas during the war as well.
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So he was.
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He was an absentee owner in Philadelphia, but he was a.
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Yeah, he was a smart guy.
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I think he was a good owner.
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Had a falling out with Greasy Neil, which is unfortunate.
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Ended up selling the team, I think, right around in the early 50s.
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And.
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But he really, I mean, before Lex Thompson, the Eagles were bad.
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I mean, bad.
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They had some pitiful seasons.
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They were moving from stadium to stadium.
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He really took them up a level and again, was part of that generation, that cohort that kind of took the NFL up another step.
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Matthew, I've maintained that Elmer Layden, his tenure as commissioner, the guy gets a bum rap.
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I mean, he was the Commissioner of the NFL during a very rocky period, World War II.
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Where does he fit into this picture as NFL commissioner?
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And why do you think his tenure is looked upon as.
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It's not so great.
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Omar Layden had the very difficult assignment of working with some very, very big personalities, some strong personalities.
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You're talking about George Hallis in the Redskins, owner George.
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Was it George Preston Marshall.
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George Press and Marshall, yeah.
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Not to mention Lex Thompson and Bert Bell and Rooney.
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As weak as the NFL was at that time, as a.
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As a business, I would say the owners were some pretty strong person.
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They were some big personalities.
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The Maras were in New York already.
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And so I think Elmer gets a bad rep because he was overshadowed.
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Right.
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And his job, in a way, was managing these big personalities.
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And in that regard, I think he did a Fantastic job.
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I mean, it's interesting.
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I went to Canton and was able to go through the minutes of this.
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Of the NFL owners meetings in 43 and 44, and they could be pretty contentious.
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I mean, this whole.
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How could you imagine?
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And of course, it's on a different scale, but Roger Goodell convincing two of the owners to merge their teams for a year, you know, other.
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Utterly inconceivable.
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And so the fact that he was able to keep the league alive and put it in a position to really prosper, I think he does get a bit of a bum rap.
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I think you're right.
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I think he just gets overshadowed.
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These guys were just amazing characters, right?
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And they were in the papers all the time.
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And I think Elmer really just saw his job as kind of, you know, shepherding these guys in the direction he wanted them to go.
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And sometimes they would, you know, run away, and he'd have to go bring them back into the fold.
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And I think he did a good job of that.
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Combining two teams is not an easy task.
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Talk about the difficulties these teams face when it came to combining the rosters.
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You had two rival franchises, right?
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You had different coaches, different systems, different personalities and.
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And personalities.
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I mean, you've already addressed Lex Thompson saying, if we're doing this, we are wearing Eagles, you know, green and white, not that shirt that you have on that says Steagalls on it, right?
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They didn't have a special uniform for these teams.
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For this team, it was Eagles, green and white.
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Talk about.
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As I mentioned, of course, the Eagles had more players on their roster.
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Oh, the Steelers, at some point, I think they were down to, like, 10 people who were under contract and available for the coming season.
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I mean, they were desperate.
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They were going to have to merge with somebody.
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But there was also a little understanding, I think, between the two franchises that some of the Steelers would have to play.
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You couldn't just shut them out of the lineup completely.
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One of the.
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One of the players I spoke with, Ray Graves, he was a center for the Eagles.
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He'd won the starting position in 42.
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He went on to coach at, I think, University of Florida, had a long career in the SEC, but he had won the starting center position in 42, and he showed up for camp in the summer of 43.
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And there was a guy from Pittsburgh named Al Watkus.
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What is it?
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Al Wackitz Wukitz, who was the center for the Steelers.
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And the coaches had agreed that Wukus would get the starting position, that he would be the starting center.
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And so this really upset Ray Graves because he felt it was unfair.
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And in a way, it was.
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I mean, this wasn't strictly based on talent, these decisions for personnel.
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Some of it was to mollify the fans in Pittsburgh who felt like they were kind of losing their team.
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And so they kind of wanted to throw them a bone.
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And so it was very contentious at the beginning.
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The coaches were Greasy Neil and Walt Keesling.
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Greasy Neil was the Eagles coach and innovator.
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He was like George Hallis, a proponent of the T formation, the forward pass.
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Keisling was old school.
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Three yards in a cloud of dust.
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He didn't really believe in passing.
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He thought defense was the way you want football games.
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Nothing made him happier than a nothing nothing or a three nothing game.
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And so these guys were very different personalities as well.
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They were named co head coaches, but I don't think there was anybody going to tell Greasy Neil he was a co head anything.
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And it kind of devolved that.
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Keisling took over coaching on defense and Greasy Neil, which.
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Which was his proclivity, and Greasy Neil took control of the offense, which he preferred.
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He was an offensive strategist.
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And so inadvertently, in a way, they invented the coordinator system.
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Basically, they went with Greasy Neal's the offensive coordinator and Walt Keesling's the defensive coordinator.
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But they did not get along.
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And the players talked about that a lot, that they would be throwing clipboards and having screaming matches.
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But one of the smart things that Greasy Neil did is he insisted that everybody live in the Hotel Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
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And he managed to create a really kind of family atmosphere there.
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A lot of the players lived with their wives.
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If they had kids, they were there.
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And so the players from Pittsburgh would live there.
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Some of the players from Pittsburgh actually had jobs back in Pittsburgh, so they would just commute to the games.
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Ted Doyle did that.
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But most of the players lived in the hotel in Philadelphia.
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And I think that helped to alleviate some of the tension that existed between the two factions on the team.
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And then, of course, there were the logistical concerns.
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I mean, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, like I said, it's not like they're next door to each other.
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And so players from Pittsburgh would have to travel to Philadelphia.
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As I mentioned, a couple of players worked, and so they would just take the train.
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They played roughly, I think, four of the games in Philadelphia.
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I think they played two regular, one preseason game in Pittsburgh.
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So it was a challenge from figuring out what the starting lineup was going to be to figuring out what the.
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What the offensive and defensive strategies would be.
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It was it was a challenge.
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It wasn't easy.
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You talk about Ray Graves.
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Did the players embrace this merger?
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Did they understand what was going on, or was there more resentment, at least in the beginning?
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There was resentment in the beginning, but I also think they realized that they were doing what had to be done.
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Again, they had to keep the.
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Keep the thing going.
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I think they were just happy to be playing professional football in 1943.
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We haven't even gotten into the fact that most of These guys were 4F.
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They couldn't serve in the armed forces.
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So many of the players had some kind of defect.
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And some of the players probably would not have been playing in the National Football League if not for the fact that so many of the healthier players had.
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Had been drafted into the military.
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And so a lot of the guys on.
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On the team had.
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They were bad eyesight, bad knees, hearing, perforated eardrums, ulcers, head injuries, osteomyelitis.
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They all had these defects that disqualified them for military service but didn't disqualify them from playing professional football.
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So I.
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I think they understood.
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I mean, there was inevitable animosity, especially at the beginning.
29:11
Yeah, you describe that very well in your book about how they were 4F from the army, but yet they were able to go out and play this brutal, physical game is sort of a little.
29:25
A little.
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A little weird there.
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I asked.
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I asked them about that.
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Vic Sears, who I interviewed, he lived not far from my hometown.
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He lived in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
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And Vic, I asked him, you know, what did.
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Did people give you a hard time about it?
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You know, what is this big husky guy doing playing football instead of being in the military?
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And he said, actually, not very much.
29:49
He said people understood if there was a reason that you weren't in the military, if you weren't in the military, there was a good reason for that.
29:57
Right?
29:57
And some of these maladies, like a perforated eardrum, which probably is not a very big problem for an NFL player.
30:04
Player.
30:04
But of course, in a battlefield, if.
30:07
If there is a gas attack, something like that, it could be.
30:11
It could be debilitating.
30:12
And so they were disqualified.
30:14
Ulcers the same way, bleeding ulcers.
30:16
You don't want somebody bleeding while they're in the army.
30:19
And so a lot of these, you know, maladies were not visible to people, but people knew.
30:27
Vic told me he was in a.
30:29
He was in a bar one time and talking to a guy and, you know, told him he played.
30:34
Played in professional football.
30:37
And Vic said to the guy, you ever wonder why a guy like me isn't.
30:41
Isn't in the army and is playing professional football?
30:43
And the guy just said, I know there must be a good reason.
30:46
You know, people.
30:47
People understood and accepted, like, if you weren't in the army, you know, there was probably a good reason for that.
30:54
So a lot of people really were grateful for the opportunity to do this, and I think a lot of them saw it as, you know, bringing some entertainment to the home front.
31:03
I mean, one of the reasons that football survived and in a way, even thrived by the end of the war is that the games were played on Sunday.
31:11
That was most people's only day off at the time.
31:14
So.
31:15
So fans were able to go.
31:17
I mean, baseball games were still played in the daytime and everybody was working in factories so fans could go.
31:22
The games were usually played at stadiums that were well connected to trolley lines or public transportation.
31:28
And so you didn't have to spend any ration gas rations or tire rations to get to the game.
31:35
So it really, the war kind of presented, in a way, an opportunity for the NFL to market itself to people that it hadn't had before the war.
31:45
And so I think the guys who played, they understood that they were doing something, a little something for morale on the home front.
31:54
It was interesting to read about the fact that players did have daytime jobs.
32:00
Look, in all sports back then in the 30s, not until recent times have players been able to, you know, in all leagues, just concentrate on their sport.
32:12
They used to all have to have, or for the most part have off season jobs.
32:17
But during the season, these guys, as required by the government, had to work.
32:23
Many of them worked all day in factories, shipyards, or other wartime industries before going to practice at night.
32:34
Just how exhausting was this schedule?
32:38
It was exhausting.
32:40
I think there was some allowance made.
32:42
The practices, I think, were probably much less intense than they would have been at other times, you know, before the war.
32:51
And it's interesting too, the jobs they had, some of them were really important jobs.
32:55
I know Ted Doyle worked in Pittsburgh.
32:57
I think it was at the Westinghouse factory.
32:59
And he was putting components together for something.
33:01
He didn't realize until years later that he was actually working on components for the first atomic bombs.
33:07
A lot of the guys in Philadelphia were working in industries.
33:11
Philadelphia was a huge center of shipbuilding at the time.
33:13
And a lot of them worked at the Navy Yard.
33:16
And so it was exhausting.
33:18
They practiced in.
33:19
There was actually a Negro league stadium in Fairmont park that had lights that they would practice under.
33:27
But the conditions were really pretty meager compared to what they are today.
33:32
In fact, I talked to Al Worstert, who was one of the great Eagle linemen tackles, and 43 was his rookie year and he came from Michigan.
33:43
And so when he went to training camp, it was at St.
33:47
Joseph's College in Philadelphia.
33:49
It was just basically just a big rocky field with like bits of broken glass in it and stuff.
33:54
And there was one shower for the whole team in, in the locker room.
33:58
And he said it was a, you know, it was a step down for Michigan.
34:02
I mean, Michigan, they have the manicured at a hundred thousand seat stadiums.
34:06
They only use six days a week.
34:07
And so it was really, it was really a change.
34:11
But I think a lot of the players, you know, you talk about the salaries.
34:15
I have to admit, I always have to tell this story.
34:17
When I was a kid in 1976 and Mark Fidrich was having that, that incredible year he had for the, for the bird for the Tigers, and my dad was a union plumber in Philadelphia, construction worker.
34:34
I realized Mark, Mark Fidrich in 76 made the major league minimum.
34:39
$16,000.
34:41
My dad made more.
34:43
What's that?
34:45
Yes, 1,6000.
34:48
$16,000 was the major league minimum in 76.
34:52
My dad made more working on the construction site in Philadelphia.
34:56
So even, even when I can say we were kids, you know, you would have guys.
35:01
I remember Richie Hepner was a first baseman for the Phillies.
35:05
He was the grave digger because he worked.
35:06
His dad was the cemetery attendant at some cemetery up in New England.
35:11
And all these football players all of course had off season jobs.
35:15
But yeah, during the war they had in season jobs as well.
35:18
It was a demanding schedule.
35:21
How did the war time?
35:23
You, you sort of, you, you, you, you sort of talked about this.
35:27
You hit on this.
35:28
How did wartime travel restrictions complicate life for this team?
35:37
It was difficult to get permission to travel.
35:41
It was considered travel had to be essential.
35:45
Most of the travel, of course, was by train.
35:48
One of the things they did is they, they limited long trips and they would try to do trips so they would be as short as possible, preferably take the train up, play the game and then take the train
35:59
back.
36:00
And of course, the Eagles were lucky because they could go to Washington, they could go to New York.
36:06
They didn't have long road trips really.
36:10
But yeah, there were so many restrictions on travel.
36:15
Again, it's the kind of thing we just can't fathom today.
36:18
Gasoline was very difficult to get.
36:20
You had to have ration coupons.
36:22
Tires were very difficult to Get.
36:25
And so this was something that they had to take into account, that there was a.
36:29
I think there was a rule that the government imposed on how many.
36:33
How many miles they could travel by train for the season.
36:38
So they were given some leeway, but they had to manage the schedule in a way that they would minimize the amount of miles they traveled by train.
36:47
Again, just the logistics of it were very difficult.
36:51
And there were some players, I think, who never practiced with the team.
36:54
They just showed up to the game.
36:56
Yeah.
36:57
Well, one of my favorite stories is it was Bucko Kilroy, who is one of the great characters of professional football in the 40s and 50s, but he was in the Merchant Marine, which was dangerous work, you know, basically
37:16
escorting merchant ships across the Atlantic.
37:20
But he somehow managed to get posted to New York for September to November and would just come down and play in the games on the weekend and go out to Pittsburgh on the weekend, sleep on the train, go
37:37
out there, play, go back to New York to where he was, where he was based in New York with the Merchant Marines.
37:44
So he didn't go out on ships.
37:46
There was also a guy who was in the Army.
37:48
I think a lot of them, you know, if.
37:53
If the.
37:54
If their commanders, their commanding officers, or their bosses were a little more.
38:00
I don't know, less strict, I guess they were willing to kind of look the other way.
38:05
I think there was a lot of that as well.
38:08
I mean, there were a lot of rules about life on the home front during the war, and there were also a lot of ways to get around those rules.
38:19
I talked to Ted Doyle, what a.
38:22
What a great character he was.
38:23
But he and his wife had.
38:25
He'd been a veteran.
38:26
I think he'd played like five or six seasons in the.
38:29
In the league for the Steelers, and I think he and his wife had a couple kids at the time, and they were living in Pittsburgh.
38:36
And you had to have ration coupons to buy shoes.
38:39
And so you would just go to the neighbors, and if the neighbors didn't have any kids, they would give you their ration coupons, which was technically illegal, but of course, nobody would say anything about it.
38:51
So you learn to work within and on the edges of the rules.
38:55
And I think for a couple of the players on the Steagalls, they were able to.
38:59
Able to do that.
39:03
Well, you know, I always say when I do these shows, we can't dive into everything in the book, because if we do, then there's no reason for somebody who's interested to go out.
39:14
And by the Book, and I certainly hope people do that.
39:18
But let's talk a little bit about the product on the field because they were actually a good football team.
39:27
In addition to some of the players you just mentioned, you had Ali Sherman and Roy Zimmerman, Ben Kish, Johnny Butler, Jack Hinkle.
39:36
How competitive was this team?
39:39
It was the first winning season in Philadelphia Eagles franchise history and just the second in Steelers history.
39:47
5, 4 and 1.
39:49
They finished a game behind.
39:52
Who, who did they finish behind?
39:54
Washington in the, in the Eastern Conference.
39:58
If they'd beaten Green Bay in the last game of the season, they would have had a playoff.
40:03
It was amazing how well they performed and really all credit to greasy Neil and to Walt Keisling that they managed to pull this group of people who at the beginning were not enthusiastic about the project and really got
40:21
them all pointed in the same direction.
40:22
I mean, they beat the Redskins.
40:24
That was amazing for a Philadelphia team or a Pittsburgh team to, to beat the Redskins.
40:31
They were, as you mentioned, some of the guys.
40:34
Jack Hinkle.
40:36
It's a long story, but Jack Hinkle should have led the league in rushing that year.
40:40
There was a statistical mistake.
40:42
One of the.
40:42
One of the scorekeepers put down the wrong number for one of his long runs and he ended up losing the.
40:47
Losing the rushing title by a couple of yards.
40:51
But a great back, running back, Zimmerman, he had been quarterback sort of second fiddle down in Washington to Sammy Ball.
41:03
So he finally got a chance to, to show what he had and made the most of it.
41:08
Zimmerman, by the way.
41:09
I think it was Zimmerman.
41:11
He was a farmer.
41:12
He had a farm out in California and farmers were exempt from the draft and so he was able to play throughout the war.
41:21
He was also a father and in 43, fathers were generally exempt.
41:24
They got rid of that in 44.
41:26
It was funny looking at the history of the draft, you know, and at the beginning it was, you know, only the healthiest guys were going to be drafted, right?
41:35
And then when you get to the end, it's like you only got two teeth.
41:38
That's okay.
41:40
We could, we could find something to feed you.
41:43
So it really, it did it.
41:44
And that hurt, that hurt the leagues, to the Major League baseball in the NFL because in 44 it was even a bigger manpower problem.
41:53
But the, but The Steagalls in 43, first winning season in Philadelphia professional football history.
41:58
I'm not counting the Frankfurt Yellow Jackets and only the second in Pittsburgh.
42:03
Great offense.
42:04
They had a really good offense and a pretty good defense, too.
42:08
One thing I don't know, it just came to mind.
42:10
I was talking to might have been Vic Sears.
42:15
No, Ernie Steele.
42:16
Ernie Steele, who was in Seattle, actually had a tavern there for years.
42:20
I lived in Seattle in the early 90s, and people used to go to Ernie Steele's.
42:25
But he told an interesting story about how the players adjusted to the.
42:28
To the war in a way to keep from hurting people.
42:33
And that was if.
42:34
If.
42:35
If a guy would.
42:35
If a guy was running out of bounds and he was on the visiting team and the guy from the home team came and just creamed him and knocked him on his butt out of bounds and the fans went
42:46
wild, that was perfectly acceptable.
42:49
But if a guy from the home team was running and the guy from the visiting team had a chance to knock him out, they just pushed him out of bounds because what's the point?
43:00
The home crowd's not going to get worked up over the visiting team crushing a guy.
43:04
So let's not hurt ourselves out of here.
43:06
So if it entertains the fans, it's okay to hit a guy, but if the fans don't care, don't hit the guy.
43:12
And so you had all these kinds of little, you know, idiosyncrasies, I guess, during the.
43:17
During those days.
43:18
And of course, 43 was the first year that helmets were mandatory.
43:24
Now, almost.
43:25
Almost everybody was wearing them, but the Eagles did have a guy named Bill Hewitt, who had been a monster for the bears in the 30s, and he came out of retirement to play for the Steagalls, and he hated
43:35
wearing a helmet.
43:36
And so it was really a different era.
43:39
Also, 43 was the year of unlimited substitution.
43:44
You could.
43:46
But it's interesting, the coaches didn't quite get that.
43:49
You could have a whole different offensive and defensive team.
43:53
Right?
43:53
They didn't quite get that.
43:55
And so players would come in and out, but for the most part, the same 11 guys would.
44:00
Would take breaks and substitutes, but they would play the whole game anyway.
44:05
And so it really was a few years before they figured, oh, we can just have 11 guys on offense and 11 guys on defense and switch.
44:12
Switch them out whenever we want.
44:14
And, you know, Al Worstard ended up playing two ways, like until the mid-50s, right?
44:19
He was playing offensive and defensive tackle.
44:22
And so it was really an interesting time, you know, for the.
44:25
For the rules that were.
44:26
That were changing as well.
44:29
At what point during the season did people realize this is not just some novelty, this team is pretty good, they might do some damage?
44:43
There were a couple games that really stick out to me.
44:45
One was, I'm trying to find here, boy, they really cream the Brooklyn Dodgers.
44:51
And, and, yeah, and.
44:57
And it surprised people.
44:58
But beating the Redskins, I think they tied and beat the Redskins in 43, if I'm remembering correctly.
45:05
And really, by the second or third game, it's interesting.
45:11
You can see the coverage in the newspapers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh increase.
45:18
They move up to page one on the sports section.
45:22
You know, the NFL was so, you know, meager at the time that a lot of the coverage was buried in the sports section.
45:31
Like we talked about boxing and, and college football and baseball.
45:35
And so you see by the second or third game of the season that people realize that the team.
45:42
The team has talent and they're going to be entertaining.
45:45
I think that was the most important thing.
45:47
Even when they lost in 43, the games were close.
45:52
Right.
45:53
I don't think they got blown out.
45:54
And here we go.
45:56
So.
45:56
So in 43, they open up by beating the Dodgers.
46:00
The Brooklyn Dodgers.
46:01
Yeah, they beat them 17 to nothing.
46:04
Then they beat the giants.
46:06
Yes, 14.
46:08
So they got.
46:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they started two zero.
46:12
That.
46:12
That was the thing.
46:13
Yep.
46:14
They got smushed by the Bears 48, 21.
46:17
Yeah.
46:18
Then they got beat by the Giants 42, 14.
46:22
Then they whipped it up on the Cardinals.
46:24
The Chicago Cardinals, 34 to 13.
46:28
Tied the Redskins, as you said, 14 to 14.
46:32
They lost to the Dodgers in Brooklyn, 13 to 7.
46:35
Oh, that was a tough one.
46:37
Yeah, yeah.
46:39
Squeaked one out against Detroit, 35, 34.
46:43
Beat Washington in Washington, 27 to 14.
46:48
They are 5, 3, 1 going home to play Green Bay.
46:54
If they beat Green Bay, this amalgamation of a team is going to win the east and play.
47:04
Make it to the playoffs.
47:06
And they lost.
47:07
They didn't get killed.
47:08
They lost 38 to 28.
47:10
Yeah, yeah, that.
47:12
It's that Dodgers, that second Dodgers loss that killed them.
47:16
Right.
47:17
Should not have lost to the Dodgers.
47:19
And yeah, I forgot, the Bears did beat them pretty convincingly.
47:24
Bears.
47:25
You know what, the Bears, though, You know, they were so good because they were a veteran team and all the guys were fathers, so none of them got drafted.
47:33
That team pretty much escaped unscathed through the war.
47:37
And so they were very, very difficult to beat.
47:40
But yeah, they won their first two games.
47:44
And if they had won that last game, but again, if they.
47:49
If they'd won any of those other games, they would have been 6, 3 and 1.
47:54
So they were 5, 4 and 1.
47:56
And of course back then you still had had ties.
47:59
There was no.
48:00
I think 43 was the last year to have a 00 tie.
48:04
Yeah.
48:05
And the Bears wound Up winning the championship.
48:07
Yes.
48:08
41 to 21.
48:10
Yeah.
48:11
So I don't.
48:12
I don't think the Steagalls could have beaten the Bears in the championship game, but I don't know if the universe is infinite.
48:19
Somewhere out there, they might have.
48:21
Yeah.
48:22
The Bears were 81 and 1 that year, so I would say that.
48:26
So one of the games that truly defined their season would have been the loss to the Dodgers, 13 to 7.
48:35
What.
48:35
Is there another game that you might say was.
48:39
Was a good barometer of what this team was?
48:43
Well, I think the tie against the Redskins, which.
48:47
And then came, of course, before the victory.
48:51
But if they've been able to win that game, too, now you're.
48:54
What, you're, I guess, 6 and 4.
48:59
It's weird.
49:00
At the NFL at that time, didn't count if you lost a game.
49:06
They just didn't count it.
49:07
Now it's like half a win, right?
49:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
49:10
But back then, they just didn't count it.
49:12
So you would get these weird things where.
49:14
Yeah.
49:16
So 6, 4 and 1 would be a.600 winning percentage.
49:23
Right.
49:23
They wouldn't count that.
49:24
You wouldn't get that credit for that half win, which I think was really unfair.
49:28
But yeah, they.
49:29
They.
49:30
Considering the obstacles that they had to overcome.
49:32
I mean, just the logistic and personal and everything, it was just a remarkable.
49:39
Was really a remarkable season.
49:41
And, And I think anybody who goes.
49:43
I hope people get the book and enjoy the book, but it's, It's.
49:46
It's.
49:47
It's really cool to kind of go through the season week by week and see how things develop.
49:52
It's, It's.
49:53
It's.
49:53
It's a cool ride.
49:55
Do you think they overachieved?
49:57
Oh, yeah.
49:58
Yeah.
49:59
And really you begin to see the.
50:02
The beginnings of.
50:05
Of who was it came in.
50:08
Steve Van Buren came in in 44, the year after this.
50:12
And then they started taking it up a notch.
50:15
And by the end of the decade, they had won.
50:17
I think they went to three championship games, won two championships.
50:21
And so you're definitely seeing them on beginning the ascent to becoming really one of the great teams in the, in the NFL.
50:32
And also you can.
50:33
You can see by the results.
50:36
In 1944, they merged the Steelers that Lex Thompson did not want to merge again in 44.
50:43
Yeah, I want to talk to you about that in a moment.
50:46
What happened next?
50:47
Yeah, yeah, he didn't want to merge.
50:50
So I'll just say if you look at how the.
50:52
The combined team in 1944 did versus 1943, you will the 43 team overachieved?
51:01
Well, before we get to 1944, because I do want to talk about that briefly, at least.
51:12
When you first started your research on the Steagalls, was there anything in particular that you were looking for?
51:23
Anything that you had heard that maybe your research disproved or something that really surprised you?
51:31
Well, the book began.
51:32
I actually did a story for NPR in 2003 when they had the 60th anniversary, a reunion during a preseason game in Pittsburgh between the Eagles and the Steelers.
51:48
And so I was able to talk to a few of the guys there.
51:52
And then that sent me down the road of writing the book.
51:56
I learned, I guess.
51:59
I guess I just.
52:00
I.
52:01
I now appreciate how different it was, how different the game was.
52:07
And I think pro football historians kind of get short shrift a little bit in the.
52:14
In the.
52:14
In the pantheon.
52:15
But, you know, everybody's about baseball and the saber and, you know, everybody.
52:21
But in a way, football is way more interesting to study because of how much the game changed.
52:25
I mean, everybody talks about baseball, you know, and how the basic rules haven't changed and yada, yada, yada.
52:32
But it really surprised me how different the game was.
52:35
I just wasn't expecting that.
52:37
And I knew kind of in the background, and I think a lot of Eagles fans, and I'm sure a lot of Steelers fans know the trivia question in 1943, three, they became the Steagalls because they were so short
52:49
of players.
52:50
But getting into the details about life on the home front, what these guys had to go through, I didn't know they had to work jobs during the season.
52:58
Had no idea.
53:00
Had no idea of how they managed.
53:03
To.
53:06
All live in the same place and how greasy Neil managed to foster this sense of camaraderie that ended up helping them to become a successful team.
53:16
I mean, to me, it was a very abstract trivia question when I went into it and just getting into the nuts and bolts of it.
53:22
And again, I was very fortunate that some of these guys were still around, and I was able to talk to them and get, you know, firsthand information.
53:33
Ali Sherman was an interesting guy.
53:35
You know, he.
53:35
Well, you know, he coached the Giants, all those teams that lost to Vince Lombardi every year.
53:39
I mean, he was really one of the great coaches in the NFL.
53:42
Just couldn't.
53:42
Couldn't beat Lombardi.
53:44
And he was a.
53:45
I.
53:45
I got to look it up.
53:46
He was a tiny guy out of Brooklyn College.
53:52
Ali Sherman, yeah.
53:55
5, 10, 160, and he was 20 years old.
53:58
I mean, that's how desperate they were for players.
54:00
He.
54:00
He graduated early from Brooklyn college, and at 20 years old, you know, 5, 10, 160, is playing quarterback in the NFL.
54:09
He was Zimmerman's.
54:10
Zimmerman's backup.
54:11
But he learned a lot from greasy Neil, I think, and that.
54:16
That helped him become a.
54:17
Become a great coach.
54:18
But just the individual stories of these people, too, you know, and where they grew up and how they grew up.
54:24
And of course, these are all guys born, most of them born, you know, in the 20s, growing up in the Depression, living really hard lives.
54:33
These are not, you know, pampered people at all.
54:37
And so it was a real reality check for what life was like back then.
54:42
I was speaking with Terry Hanratty, the old quarterback from Notre Dame, and, you know, was a Steeler and Tampa Bay Buccaneer.
54:55
And I was telling him, I'm about to do some work on the Steagalls and the other team, the 1944 team, corner card Pit.
55:04
And.
55:05
But first I said, yeah, Card Pit.
55:07
He says, no, no, no, no, no, no.
55:08
You mean the Steagalls.
55:09
When Pittsburgh and Philadelphia combined for one year, I said, yeah.
55:14
And then Pittsburgh combined for a year with Chicago, he's like, I didn't know that.
55:21
So.
55:22
So why do you think more than.
55:27
What is it?
55:27
It's over 80 years at this point.
55:29
Why do you think that this story about Pittsburgh and Philadelphia has endured the Steagalls, as opposed to a team that was ultimately called the Car Pits, you.
55:44
Know, because everybody walked all over them.
55:47
What was it?
55:47
Oh, and.
55:48
Oh, and 10.
55:49
I maintain that that might be the worst team in the history of professional football when you look at all the numbers.
55:57
But why do you think the Steagalls have endured?
56:01
I think, first of all, I think the name is cool.
56:04
I think it's just something that as soon as you say it to someone, it's a unique name.
56:08
And they're like the Steagalls and also with two really important franchises, and they're both in Pennsylvania.
56:18
They both have rabid fan bases, both know the history, right?
56:23
Nothing against the Cardinals, but it's just not the same when you bring the Cardinals into the equation.
56:31
And I think it.
56:31
It's also because the team was pretty good, right?
56:35
You're going to remember a team that's good before you remember a team that's bad.
56:39
I don't know if it would make a book, but I'd read it.
56:42
I'd love to read a book about the Card Pits.
56:44
I think that must have been a really.
56:45
I'm writing it Right now I'm actually writing it.
56:47
Right.
56:48
Are you?
56:49
Yes, I am.
56:49
Are you really?
56:51
Oh, that's awesome.
56:52
Oh, that's awesome.
56:54
Well, I can't wait to read.
56:55
Was it that.
56:55
Was that the coach who would go, like, to the track every day?
56:58
I mean, it was insane.
56:59
Well, Keisling did, too.
57:01
Yeah.
57:02
Oh, that was the problem because Keesling.
57:04
Phil Handler.
57:05
Phil Handler and Walt Keesling, that was the one thing they got along on.
57:11
That was the.
57:11
Yeah, because the problem with Keesling and.
57:14
And Neil was that they didn't get along.
57:16
And then the problem with Keisling and Handler is they did get along.
57:19
Get along when they went to the track.
57:21
Anyway.
57:21
Oh.
57:22
Some of the stories about the players and coming and going and.
57:25
Yeah, just really, really fascinating.
57:29
And again, I guess you can say they did their part to keep the.
57:33
Keep the league alive, but it was all about survival.
57:37
Yeah.
57:38
Yeah.
57:38
And it was just making it to the end of the year.
57:42
Yeah.
57:43
And then, of course, in.
57:44
You know, the NFL gets a lot lucky.
57:47
We're all lucky that the war ended, but the war ends in, like, August of 45.
57:51
And so they're actually not playing during wartime for the 45 season, which, of course, baseball played most of its season, at least half of its season while the war was still going on.
58:06
Yeah.
58:06
Well, I.
58:07
That's.
58:07
That's very cool.
58:08
I.
58:09
I'm.
58:09
I'm.
58:10
I wish you the best, and I can't wait to wait to read that.
58:14
It's a really interesting topic, but as you know.
58:19
And there's just, you know, not.
58:21
There's just not a lot around as far as people to speak to.
58:27
So I have spoken to a.
58:28
Upton being one of them.
58:30
Yeah.
58:31
But, you know, getting back to our topic here, the real interesting thing, I think, about the Eagles, the Steelers, and the following season, the Cardinals is.
58:42
And you sort of hit on this.
58:44
Right.
58:44
It wasn't too much.
58:46
Well, first of all.
58:47
And the Rams.
58:49
Right.
58:49
The Cleveland Rams didn't even play in 1943.
58:54
And in 1945, they win the NFL championship.
58:59
Yeah.
59:00
Right.
59:01
19.
59:02
1947, this awful team.
59:05
The Cardinals win the NFL championship.
59:09
1948, the Eagles go on to win.
59:13
1949, the Eagles go on to win.
59:17
I mean, it's just this crazy thing.
59:20
The Steelers don't win until the Steel curtain of the 1970s.
59:25
It's just amazing how those teams develop.
59:30
And I.
59:30
Go ahead.
59:31
No, I was just gonna say, you know, the Steagalls are remembered fondly.
59:38
Right.
59:38
While Card Pit has largely become remembered.
59:44
They're a punchline yeah.
59:47
Yeah.
59:48
But you're right, it's amazing at 47, they, I think they beat the Eagles in 47, right.
59:53
Yeah.
59:53
And the Eagles wanted 48 and 49.
59:56
And it's remarkable how at that time, and I guess you can do it today, but boy, it seemed like you could turn a franchise around in a couple of years back then.
1:00:04
I think it's much harder to do today.
1:00:06
I mean, there are franchises now, of course, that have been bad forever, but it is noteworthy and I don't know why.
1:00:14
I mean, they already had the draft back then.
1:00:17
Maybe there were better free agents also.
1:00:19
A lot of guys were coming back from the war and so you could get a, get a little, you know, pick of the litter from, from them coming back.
1:00:28
But.
1:00:28
Yeah, that, that's an interesting.
1:00:30
Yeah.
1:00:31
When you're going to have to end the book with a little epilogue about.
1:00:34
Yeah.
1:00:34
And just three years later, they were the best team in the league.
1:00:38
Yeah.
1:00:38
Yeah.
1:00:39
Let me ask you this for my research on that.
1:00:41
I don't know if you know, if you know this.
1:00:46
I, you know, again, I talk to Optim, but I like to hear what other people have.
1:00:49
Have to say as well.
1:00:50
And I talked to a guy by the name of Abby Mendelson.
1:00:52
I talked to a, a World War II expert on this.
1:00:56
Do you know why it was necessary for the Steelers and Cardinals to merge for the 1944 season?
1:01:02
Was it still that Steelers just didn't have many players under contract, but the.
1:01:08
They were just awful.
1:01:09
They were an awful, awful.
1:01:11
Yeah, and I think, Yeah, I, I think you're right.
1:01:16
As I remember, the Steelers still were.
1:01:18
Just did not have the manpower.
1:01:21
I think also Lex Thompson, as I mentioned, didn't want to do it again.
1:01:26
And I think the other owners, and I haven't really, I don't think I really went through the meetings in 44, but my, my gut tells me the other owners weren't so happy that this combined team that they had
1:01:37
put together ended up going five, four and one and five of them lost.
1:01:40
I mean, you know, and so they were going to do it again.
1:01:44
If they had to do it again, they were going to do it again.
1:01:46
I don't think Rooney and Bell had any, any choice but to merge with somebody.
1:01:51
And I figured they said, well, let's merge them with a really bad team and they got the result I guess they wanted.
1:02:00
In a way it would have been.
1:02:02
And maybe this is a, you'll have to go into what Elmer Layton did in all this, but this might have been a good Good, Good spot for Elmer to come and say, maybe we should.
1:02:13
Let's try to make a better team than that.
1:02:15
But you're right that the Cardinals were so bad, I guess, no matter who you merged.
1:02:20
I mean.
1:02:21
Yeah.
1:02:21
If most of the players were Cardinals, I.
1:02:24
Who, who was the owner of the Cardinals?
1:02:28
Oh, that's right.
1:02:29
They own them.
1:02:30
That's right.
1:02:32
That's right.
1:02:33
Do they, does that family still own them?
1:02:35
The Bidwells still own the Cardinal.
1:02:37
Oh, my God.
1:02:38
Yeah.
1:02:39
I wonder what, what, what did he pay for that?
1:02:41
They pay a $500 for that franchise.
1:02:44
Yeah.
1:02:44
You know, it is.
1:02:45
You know, the amazing thing about the Cardinals, they are actually the oldest team in the NFL.
1:02:52
Everybody says the Bears and, and, and, and, and the Packers.
1:02:56
The Cardinals are actually there one year earlier.
1:02:58
Earlier.
1:02:58
Yeah.
1:02:59
They, they predate.
1:03:00
Yeah.
1:03:01
In their long history, they have won one championship.
1:03:05
Let me wrap up our show here with one last question for you, Matthew.
1:03:12
What story surprised you most while researching for this book?
1:03:23
Well, it was the beginning of the platoon era.
1:03:27
We mentioned you could have unlimited substitution.
1:03:31
And not really something that surprised me, but something that kind of made me smile was at the time, in 43, even though you could have unlimited substitution, as I mentioned, most teams still played most of the same players
1:03:46
on offense and defense.
1:03:47
And I talked to Al Worister.
1:03:49
He was a great guy.
1:03:50
I think he must have been close to 90 at the time.
1:03:52
And he played for years for Philadelphia and he played offense and defense.
1:03:57
He played 60 minutes.
1:03:59
And I asked him, like, what would, what would happen if a team from the 40s played a team from today?
1:04:09
And he said, well, if we played them, if we played them by the today's rules, how we play, we'd lose like 100 to nothing.
1:04:21
But if we played them by our rules the way we played in the 40s, they'd all be dead by halftime because they were running punts.
1:04:30
They were, he was, he was playing offense and defense.
1:04:32
He was doing kick coverage, punt coverage.
1:04:35
He was on the kicking team.
1:04:36
Who was out there for field.
1:04:37
He was like these guys, 300 pounds.
1:04:39
They would be dead.
1:04:40
They couldn't.
1:04:41
And a big, a big.
1:04:43
Now I got to look it up.
1:04:43
What was a big lineman at the time?
1:04:46
Like, al worstert was 6, 2, 2, 10.
1:04:50
And that was big 210, you know, I mean, it was just such a different game.
1:04:57
And so I guess again that, that, that, that was the surprise to me is how, how different the game.
1:05:03
I felt a little bit like, boy, if, if, if it had been the 40s when I was in high school, I might have been able to play football, right?
1:05:12
Like a 6 foot one 60, you know, Ali Sherman size guy could, could, could play in the NFL back then and it's just not going to happen now.
1:05:21
Well, Matthew, I want to thank you so much for taking some time.
1:05:24
Oh, you're, you're welcome.
1:05:26
Talk about the Steagalls.
1:05:28
It's certainly a fascinating topic.
1:05:30
Again, I encourage anybody out there find this book Last Team Standing how the Steelers and the Eagles.
1:05:38
The Steagalls Saved Pro football during World War II.
1:05:44
Matthew, terrific work.
1:05:46
Thank you again for joining me on Sports Reacting Heroes.
1:05:49
You are very welcome.
1:05:50
Thank you.
1:05:51
In 1943, the Eagles and Steelers nearly made the playoffs.
1:05:56
The combination of the two teams, the Steagalls proved to be a success.
1:06:01
The Eagles were able to field a team the following season, 1944, and finished it with their best record to date, seven wins, one loss and two ties.
1:06:12
However, they didn't make it to the postseason until 1947 when they lost in the NFL championship game to the Chicago Cardinals.
1:06:21
2821.
1:06:23
Three years earlier, 1944, the year after the Steagalls, the Cardinals and Steelers had to merge for a year as the NFL was still struggling to survive.
1:06:36
This team was awful.
1:06:37
Going 0 10, possibly the worst team in NFL history.
1:06:42
Three years later, 1947, the Steelers and Eagles tied atop the East Division and had to face each other in a one game playoff to face the Cardinals.
1:06:54
In that NFL championship game, the Eagles beat the Steelers 21 to nothing.
1:07:00
Think about it.
1:07:01
All three teams just a few years earlier struggled to field complete rosters.
1:07:07
And here we are three short years later and they were the best teams in the NFL.
1:07:13
Thanks again to my guest today, Matthew Algio, and thanks to all of you for tuning in.
1:07:18
And I'll see you next time on Sports Forgotten Heroes.