America in WWII - (Page 58) gridironWAR “I’ve been waiting two years to get back into a Giant uniform,” the New York Giants’ Chet Gladchuk told the New York Times in December 1944. “And I’ll wait a few more years but some day I’ll be back and I’m living for that day.” Others managed to keep playing. Duty with the merchant marine cost Luckman only a few games. Hank Soar of the New York Giants played each weekend—until the army transferred him to Greenland. In Chicago, the war interrupted a dynasty in the making. “Had the war not come when it did,” Bears running back George McAfee lamented years later, “there’s no telling how many championships we might have won.” McAfee joined his boss, coach George Halas, in the navy. After six years of quiet retirement, fullback Bronco Nagurski returned in 1943 to fill a hole in the Bears’ backfield. The Cleveland Rams, meanwhile, closed up shop for the season, while the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles joined forces to do battle as the Steagles. A year later, a combined Steelers and Chicago Cardinals team struggled through a season as the idiotically named Card-Pitts. Opponents walked all over the makeshift interstate squad, which earned itself a winless season and the unflattering nickname Carpets. by Eric Ethier Though filling team rosters was difficult for NFL teams, filling stadium seats was not. Helped in part by the suspension of some college programs and the convenient big-city locations of its teams, the NFL drew a record 1,115,154 fans in 1942. That number increased to 1,234,750 in 1944, including more than 56,000 diehards who watched the November 19 battle between New York’s Giants and the Green Bay Packers. Chunks of profits went to relief agencies, beginning with the NFL’s 1942 preseason college all-star game, which alone raised more than $150,000. T but it was still played with passion, ferocity, and even occasional humor. “If you were a good ballplayer—a passer or whatever—they tried to hurt you and get you out of there,” Washington Redskins quarterback Sammy Baugh testified. Slingin’ Sammy remembered with a grimace how “every now and then they’d run what they called a ‘bootsie’ play, and everybody’d hit one man and just try to tear him to pieces. If they could cripple you, fine.” Halfback Bill Dudley played his rookie year with Pittsburgh and then spent two winters in the Army Air Forces before returning to complete a HE PRO GAME WAS A BIT DILUTED, 58 AMERICA IN WWII OCTOBER 2007
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.