Pottsville Is King
BY: GORDON MACKAY
Maroons went out to Chicago and took the Cardinals
just as the exalted General Grant took Richmond.
Didn't take the Maroons quite so long as it took
U.S.G., but it amounted to the same thing.
So bitterly disappointed were the Chicagoans
over the fact that they had tossed away their own
title that the manager is said to have broken down
and wept. Not figuratively speaking, but actual tears
did the noble-hearted son of the wide open space
shed. Then came this hodge podge known as the
victory over Milwaujee and now the Cardinals feel
they have a chance for the title. But we're just the
same as the Veteran Athlets. So far as we are con-
cerned we sat at the baquet board of the champion
football players in the world of the commercialed
cowskin, and that goes for us to the end of the
chapter.
Furthermore we want to say that whenever you
speak of sports in the coal countree, you speak of
SPORTS too. Pottsville handed the crown, the laurel,
the bay and the garlands to their heroes, and did
it niftily, ornately and meritoriously. But that isn't
all they handed to them. They got a brown traveling
bag that made the writers mouth water. They got
gold footballs, they got sweaters, they got jeweled
emblems, they got a lot of presents, and everyone
of those boys knew there was a Santa Claus before
Pottsville got done showering them with gifts.
MERITED HIS PRAISE
No wonder Herb Stein, the peerless center said
to this writer, astonishment in every word, surprise
in every tone.
"Did you ever see anythign like it? I wouldn't
expect anything like this from a college, but to a
professional team. By gee, it's wonderful!" Wonder-
ful was the very term.
Incidentally Pottsville is going out and do its
football on a big scale next season. It wouldn't be
a bit surprising if a stadium with a capacity of 15,000
were built, and the Maroons given a throne in keeping
with the dignity of their rulership. But stadium or no
stadium, Missus Pottsville's football family are all
Maroons, and they are the champions of the world.
Laugh off that one, Chicago-
Speaking of champions, and who can mention
the name of the Pottsville Maroons without speaking
of champions. The Chicago Cardinals are trying to
cloud the title to the kingship by framing up a pretty
putrid sort of buncombe. But the Cardinals can frame
their stuff. Joe Carr as president of the National
Pro League can rant and rave and gesticulate and
ban, the Westeners can rail and bluster, but where-
ever the football fan reads the dope, Pottsville is the
professional champion of football.
Pretty scurvy trick that worked, we'll inform
the universe. The Cardinals, in order to tie Pottsville
and thus place themselves in alignment, for a bat-
tered crown, revived the disfranchised Milwaukee
team and beat them. To form an eleven, to have a
sufficient ensemble aboard the field, four Chicago
high school boys, we are informed, were imported
for the occasion. The names of the kids escape us
for the minute, but we understand they have made
a clean breast of the whole affair.
Pottsville has been the target for a lot of official
acts since the Maroons came down here to play the
Four Horsemen. They invaded territorial rights, but
verbal permission was given to them, and it was the
official who was to blame and not Pottsville.
But the strangest part of the whole matter is
how the Chicagoans hoodwinked themselves. They
had never seen the Maroons in action, as we under-
stand, and thought Pottsville had some sort of hick
team, comprised of boys who carried straws stuck
in the corner of their mouths and who had to curry-
comb their hair every morning to get the hayseed
out.
So the Cardinals merrily challenged the Pottsville
boys to play a game in the Illinoisan metropolis. Doc
Striegal, manager of the Maroons, wored and asked
if it was for a title.
THOUGHT IT WAS EASY
Covering their face with their hands to smother
the broad smile that curved their manly lips, the
Cards wired right back and said it was for the title
surely. Certainly, certainly. Who were these hicks
from a jerkwater burg named Pottsville who thought
they could beat the great Cardinals of the greatest
city of Illinois? Faugh! Perish the thought! Well the
Philadelphia Inquirer- December 18, 1925