The Battle of Pottsville (Cont'd)
Today's rules would penalize them right out of the ball park.
"I used to give it a half-fake and barely move off the line of scrimmage. I had the whole team
downfield to block. Today they would be classified as ineligible receivers. But then, we had a
picnic. We worked it 17 straight times in a game with Providence." The Providence defense must
have been a classic study in all-league inertia.
But the talks drifted back to the NFL meetings and whether Pottsville would finally be able to re-
claim the title it says is rightfully the Maroons'.
"It should be simple. All it would take would be for a guy like George Halas of the Bears, who
was around then, to set everybody straight." There is logic behind Berry's selection.
In 1926 Pottsville and the Chicago Bears were tied 7-7 in the second half of a league game.
"In these days," Berry recalled, "nobody huddles. You called signals and then you put the ball in
play."
But this time the Bears took advantage of a time out to do just that. They huddled. And when
Bill Conn, the referee, blew his whistlem the Bears raced to the line of scrimmage, gave the ball to
Paddy Driscoll who proceeded to run a thousand and one yards for the winning touchdown.
Pottsville laughed and laughed until Conn signaled the play was legal.
"You're crazy," Berry, the captain, challenged. "It's illegal."
"Why?" the official retorted.
"Nobody's ever done it that way."
"That," the referee nodded, "is what I thought you'd say. The touchdown stands."
Berry figures Halas owes him something for that.
These are grim times in Pottsville, Pa. For 38 years, the Men of Pottsville have been laying
seige to the National Football League. Today, they discover that their guns are pointed in the
wrong direction.
The enemy is encamped in St. Louis, Mo.
The league record book shows that the then Chicago Cardinals were awarded the 1925
championship, but every man, woman and child in the Gateway to the Anthracite Region knows
that the Maroons dispatched Chicago faster than you can say John L. Lewis.
On Friday, Pete Rozelle, the NFL commissioner agreed to present Pottsville's case at the
league meetings next week in Miami. Joe Zacko, who commands the Pottsville expeditionnary
force, was still holding Charlie Berry's old shoe. The shoe, which Berry used to kick the winning
field goal against the Notre Dame All-Stars in 1925, is being sought by the Hall of Fame and Zacko
says "no title, no deal."
The Cardinals now have new owners and a new city. They are based in St. Louis but yesterday,
St. Louis (Pop.: 750,000) told Pottsville (Pop.: 23,000) what it can do with its old shoe. Back in the
coal region they are used to people who scoff at their title claim- but people malign Charlie Berry's
old size nine are something else.
"Ask them," a Cardinal official said, "of the shoe smells after 38 years. The Cardinals," he continued,
haven't won that many championships and can't afford to simply give them away. We will wait and see
what develops in Miami. It depends on their case. We may answer them and then again we may not."
It would be well to note here that the Men of Pottsville usually manage to get things done. When
the Union Army lay seige to Petersburg, Va., it was a group of Pottsville miners who tunneled under
the city with the famous Petersburg Mine.
Consequently, if the Cardinals' brass is disturbed this week by the whirr of pneumatic drills and the
heavy stam of sledge hammers it would be well advised not to shrug "damn, urban renewal project"
and go back to its work.
Now that the enemy is finally out in the open, Pottsville is calling up the ready reserves. From Joe
Zacko's Sporting Goods Shop, the local G.H.Q., word comes that Gov. William Scranton has dispatched
a message to Rozelle, throwing the entire weight of The Commonwealth into the fight.
Meanwhile, out in Canton, Ohio, the Hall of Fame, which doesn't care who is the 1925 champion but
would like very much to own Charlie Berry's shoe- with or without the aroma- dug up a 1926 Brooklyn
program. The booklet announces an impending clash with Pottsville, which it bills as "the world
champions."
"Of course you have to understand our position," says Dick McCann of the Hall of Fame. "We just
(want) the thing settled. We're not taking sides. We don't even have the right to take sides."
True enough but when the Cardinals played a Hall of Fame exibition game in Canton before last
season, Joe Pollock, the Cards' publicist, left a record book with McCann. He called the other day
to say he wants it back.
"I told him," McCann cracked, "that he can't have it unless Pottsville gets the title."
Before the NFL acts hastily it is worth repeating a story they tell in the coal region about a game
Red Grange is alleged to have played against the Pottsville Maroons.
"We gave Grange a bonus to play the whole game," one of Pottsville's spear carriers asserts, "and he
quits at halftime because he'd never seen anyone hit as hard as our Pottsville team."
Consequently they have no compunctions over going to war with St. Louis. It would be well for the
pickets to watch the turbulent waters of the Mississippi tonight. The Men of Pottsville are not easily
discouraged.
Sunday Newark Ledger, N.J.- January 27, 1963