Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 494

 

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles—'The Steagles'—Saved Pro Football During World War II," by Matthew Algeo.

The Steagles were the only pro sports team to require its players to take war jobs. On the whole, the players did not object to the extra work. Most of them needed the money anyway. In the NFL, a salary of $200 a game was typical. At the Budd factory in North Philadelphia, experienced workers were commanding as much as $73 a week. Annualized, the factory job was more lucrative.

One of the most unusual bond drives took place at the Polo Grounds in New York on June 26, 1944, when the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants played a three-way baseball game. The Dodgers and Yankees played the first, fourth, and seventh innings, the Dodgers and Giants played the second, fifth, and eighth, and the Yankees and Giants played the third, sixth, and ninth. The price of admission was a war bond. The exhibition raised more than $56 million. The final score was Dodgers 5, Yankees 1, Giants 0.

The weather was perfect, but on the night of Saturday, October 2, barely 11,000 fans came to Shibe Park in Philadelphia to watch the Steagles take flight for the first time in a regular season contest. The game had not been as heavily promoted as the Inquirer-sponsored exhibition game against the Bears, but the main reason for the low turnout was competition. Earlier that afternoon, 30,000 fans had packed Franklin Field to watch Penn rout Yale, 41-7. (Penn led the nation in college football attendance in 1943.) Then there were the baseball A’s, who had played a doubleheader against the Indians earlier in the day at Shibe Park, losing their 103rd and 104th games of the season. With all that going on, it’s not surprising that so few Philadelphians were willing to shell out $3.50 for a reserved seat to watch a team that was only half theirs. The Steagles’ opponent was a factor, too: The Dodgers, who had been shut out by Detroit 27-0 a week earlier, were not exactly a big draw.