The Giants, New York and the Pro Football War of 1926

(with contributions from Alan March and Mike Moran)

The New York Football Giants enter their one-hundredth season of competition as one of the most recognizable franchises in the National Football League. It was the vision of Joe Carr, commissioner of the struggling National Football League in 1925, to establish a strong hold in the country’s largest and most visible city, to promote professional football, to foster financial stability, and to increase the public’s perception of the pro game.

Despite being one of the most fabled teams in professional sports, much of their early history has been forgotten. This is the retelling of how they nearly lost everything in their second year of existence to the most famous player of his era who was once their savior.

It was the Roaring 20’s, the country was in the midst of a decade of prosperity and decadence. Jazz clubs were swinging, the growing popularity of cinema dazzled new audiences, vaudeville and cabaret stages played before full houses nightly, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong performed at Harlem’s Cotton Club, which infused an environment that saw the city forever coined as “The Big Apple.” (and New York was given the moniker “The Big Apple.”)

There was no better location to plant the seed of professional football.

The Polo Grounds was a marquee facility with the type of panache the era demanded. The home field of Fordham College and occasionally Columbia University, the stadium was also used as a home-away-from-home by Army’s West Point football team for its biggest games against Navy and Notre Dame. A heavyweight title match in boxing between Jack Dempsy and Luis Angle Firpo drew 88,000 spectators.

However, pro football failed to attract an audience in this dazzling scene. A pro game in 1920 between the Canton Bulldogs and the Buffalo All-Americans, and another in 1921 between the New York Brickley Giants and Cleveland Indians, failed to whet New York’s appetite for pro football sufficiently, despite the legendary footballer Jim Thorpe being the featured attraction at both dates.

Not dissuaded by recent history, Carr gave pro football another opportunity in New York during the summer of 1925 with a new charter, signed by the syndicate of Canton, Ohio native and pro football pioneer Dr. Harry A. March, boxing promoter Billy Gibson, and bookmaker Tim Mara. March’s official title was Secretary, but he was essentially the General Manager who hired the coaches and signed the players. He also served as the team trainer and physician. Gibson was the President and essentially a silent investor, and Mara was the Treasurer and actively involved with all matters that involved the Giants and the National League.

“There are thousands of grid fans here in Manhattan and Brooklyn who aren’t affiliated with any college,” said Gibson. “If we can make the Giants their team they will come out and root for us. They are hungry for football.”

Dr. March added, “We mean to give New York a good, clean, hard game of football of the highest type…and we are confident that after this season football will be a permanent institution in this city.”

Mara was famously quoted as saying, “An empty store with tables and chairs is worth more than $500 in New York.”

With March’s deep football knowledge, the Giants fielded a successful team that went 8-4. Despite the winning record, New York was slow to catch on to Sunday football. The home crowds were small and the Giants were losing money in their inaugural season. However, the season was saved on December 6th when a standing-room-only throng of over 70,000 people crammed into the Polo Grounds. Prior to that, 55,000 was considered a good turnout for popular football games such as the Army-Navy game or Notre Dame-Army. Those 70,000 people turned out just to catch a glimpse of sensational Harold “Red” Grange, who had recently made the controversial move to leave college and go pro. The robust ticket sales ensured 1925 would be a profitable season for the Giants and allow them to pursue more success.

That was until the calendar flipped to 1926 and Grange and his manager C.C. Pyle demanded entry into the league with their own team in Yankee Stadium, directly across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds.

The man who saved the Giants in 1925 nearly finished them in 1926.

The Business of Sports

Sporting culture emerged in the United States during the mid-1880s. Boxing matches, major league baseball, and college football games became true spectator events, drawing impressive crowds by the turn of the century. Blockbuster events were still a way off as the only means of promotion then was print media. Events remained largely local as the only method of long-distance travel was by rail.

The first step toward large scale events was the concrete and steel stadium. Prior to Philadelphia’s Shibe Park opening in 1909, sporting events were staged inside wooden edifices. Aside from being smaller than their antecedents, they were hazardous, prone to collapse under the weight of large moving crowds, and vulnerable to fire. New York’s Polo Grounds, initially a wooden structure, was condemned following a massive fire in 1911. It was replaced by the city’s first concrete and steel stadium that retained its name. After the completion of an upper deck in 1923, this edition of the Polo Grounds ascended in stature and attracted massive crowds for a variety of events.

Baseball owners capitalized swiftly, erecting modern facilities to house their teams. Not only were they increased in capacity to accommodate more spectators, but they also charged more money for admission. Previously, a ticket for a baseball game would be under seventy-five cents. Now it was common to charge a dollar, or more in some cases. Prize fights had the audacity to demand $5.00 from their customers. It did not matter, the fans flocked in droves.

The 1920s was dubbed “America’s Golden Era of Sports” for good reason. The boom was seen in all arenas, the public’s appetite for in-person sporting events was insatiable. Big events were broadcast over radio, increasing exposure and allowing fans to vicariously engage in the live excitement. Travel by automobile made it possible for fans with the means to travel greater distances to an event of interest. College football games were regularly played in front of sellout crowds approaching 100,000.

Joe Carr understood this trend when he assumed the presidency of the fledgling American Professional Football Association in 1921, which was created to succeed the informal “Ohio League,” a loose aggregation of football squads from towns and small cities around the Ohio Valley that usually operated on shoestring budgets. Carr looked to the massively popular Major League Baseball structure as the model for pro football to achieve success. The low-hanging fruit for him was standardizing player contracts to prevent players from hopping from team-to-team (or maybe say “team hopping”) during the season, prohibiting the signing of college players before their class graduated, and striking games against non-league teams from the official schedule (though mid-season exhibitions remained commonplace as they were a good source of revenue to cover the expenses of long train travel).

Part of his longer-term vision to elevate the public’s perception of post-graduate football was to move the league into big-city, concrete-and-steel baseball stadiums. The days of the gridiron framed by wooden bleachers and parked cars would have to come to an end for the sport to achieve any level of prosperity.

An unexpected boon of these new stadiums was the fans willingness to pay more to see an event in a modern, state-of-the-art facility than in an older, antiquated one. This provided significant advantages to teams staged in large cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Not only was there a larger fan base to buy tickets, but also the teams that came from smaller towns in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana were willing to travel to these away games since the visitor’s gate was more lucrative than a sold out game on their own home field. Simply put, a small crowd of 10,000 at the Polo Grounds for a game against the Giants put more money in the pockets of the Canton Bulldogs than a standing-room-only crowd at home where they did not have to pay for travel.

This created a unique, albeit short-lived phenomenon, known as the traveling team. The concept was having a marquee player, usually with an adequate team, travel the circuit hoping the name player would draw large crowds. The Duluth Eskimos with Ernie Nevers, the Oorang Indians with Jim Thorpe, and the Los Angeles Wildcats with George Wilson all tried but failed to garner enough support to stay afloat over the long term.

Star Power

The biggest name of them all in 1925 was Harold “Red” Grange of the University of Illinois. He loomed larger than Jim Thorpe and was at least on par with Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and Bobby Jones in public notoriety. Theater goers were captivated by newsreel footage of Grange’s dazzling runs through helpless college gridiron defenders. He dominated print media, not only in the sports sections but also the society sections, where he was often granted front page status. Rumors of him heading to Hollywood after college were commonplace, but nothing stirred more controversy than the rampant speculation in November 1925 that Grange would be willing to tarnish his good name by leaving college to engage in the unseemly activity of being paid to play professional football.

Grange even took the audacious step of signing on with promoter C.C. Pyle to ensure maximum compensation for his name, likeness, and seemingly limitless talents. Never before had an athlete from any sport done so. The enterprise Pyle and Grange formed was unfathomable for the time, an exclusive rights contract, which included anything Grange engaged in publicly, not just on the football field. Grange’s previously unimpeachable character suddenly was dragged through the gutter in editorials and cartoons.

Grange’s public face, at least, seemed unfazed, as he continued to be seen being led through masses of adoring fans and camera-wielding press while wearing a garish fur coat, the ultimate status symbol of the wealthy.

The 1925 Giants were successful on the field, but financially they suffered. Despite fielding a talented team of former college All-Americans and a winning record, the Giants struggled to draw more than a smattering of fans to the Polo Grounds. Thorpe, aged and well past his prime, had been thought to possess enough name recognition to entice New Yorkers to witness Sunday football. Unfortunately, ineffective play and a reputation for late-night carousing (the rumor mill alleged he was involved in a drunken melee in a Manhattan watering hole the night before the Giants second home game) led to his release after only three games.

March and Mara recognized the need for a recognizable name to suit Gotham’s large and diverse market and they set their sights on Grange. An initial report of March offering Grange $40,000 in mid-November to play out the remainder of the Giants schedule (three games) was denied by both sides. March said, “You can make it as strong as you like that we have not been in communication with Grange and that we will not have any with him until his college course is completed.” March, however, did concede that the Giants were interested in extending Grange “a most flattering offer” once he graduated from Illinois in 1926. “We want Grange in New York but not until he is ready to come to us.”

The rumors persisted. Less than a week later, March resorted to citing league rules to quell the suspicion, “Some man in Chicago telephoned me the other day that he had an option on Grange’s contract for the rest of the year. I wasn’t interested though, for several reasons. The first one is that we wouldn’t be allowed to hire him, under league rules, because he hasn’t finished his course at school. Furthermore, we can’t use toe dancers, and by that I mean fancy runners. Professional football is a tough game and these famous soubrettes seldom get started. Even if we could have Red Grange under our rules, we wouldn’t want to invest a lot of money in him because he might be a bust.”

All speculation ceased on November 20th when headlines blared across the country that Grange signed a lucrative deal with the Chicago Bears that included a $20,000 signing bonus ($355,000 in 2024), 10 percent of all the Bears gate receipts plus a flat guarantee for each game he participated in.

Mara had been in Chicago himself, trying to lure Grange east. Although he was unsuccessful, the consolation prize was knowing Grange would make a visit with the Bears to New York and play the Giants at the Polo Grounds on December 6th (Grange would be in New York to play the Giants at the Polo Grounds on December 6th). “I am glad Grange has elected to play in our league and, in the circumstances, prefer that he should play against the Giants rather than with them,” said March, “He should have a tremendous drawing card throughout our circuit.”

Grange responded to the public criticism regarding leaving college to turn pro. “I have received many alluring offers to enter fields of enterprise in which I have no training or experience,” he said. “I believe the public will be better satisfied with my honesty and good motives if I turn my efforts to that field in which I have been most useful in order to reap a reward which will keep the home fires burning.”

Despite countless (and often hypocritical) pundits condemning Grange for his decision to enter the NFL, public interest increased, and they backed it up with their wallets. His first appearance with the Bears, in which the star merely sat on the bench in street clothes, sold out – the first full house for a George Halas team ever in Chicago. Grange first stepped onto the field in uniform for the Bears four days later on Thanksgiving Day, November 22. Apparently pushed by Pyle’s greed, the Bears haphazardly scheduled as many games as they could to capitalize on the fervor surrounding Grange. Between then and the season finale against the Giants on December 13, Chicago competed in an astonishing seven games in 17 days. That total only included the official league games that counted in the standings. While traveling the country, Halas had his exhausted squad compete in exhibitions against independent teams. Often these games were played on consecutive days where his battered team had no opportunity to recover.

Chicago played the Yellow Jackets in Frankford, a Philadelphia suburb, on Saturday December 5, the day before Grange saved the Giants.

A Star On Broadway

Anticipation was at a fever pitch in New York on the eve of the game. Every newspaper in the metropolitan area ran features anticipating Grange’s arrival. The Brooklyn Standard Union printed a sidebar of notables who had purchased box seats in advance, and the New York Daily News included a notice that the Polo Grounds box office would be open the entire day to accommodate the strong demand. The Polo Grounds normal capacity was 55,000, but predictions of a crowd approaching 70,000 abounded as standing-room-only tickets were made available. The Yonkers Herald proclaimed, “The assemblage, which will include many of the social elite, football lovers in general, and thousands all hopped up with the idea of getting a look at Grange, should be in for an interesting afternoon.” The New York Times estimated Grange’s takeaway for the game would be approximately $25,000.

Giants coach Bob Folwell’s prediction that his team would beat the Bears “by two touchdowns” fell far short as New York lost 19-7. However, this proved irrelevant, along with everything else that took place on the field that day.

All parties involved – the Giants, Bears, Grange, and Pyle – made out handsomely. The New York Times said Grange earned $30,000 for himself alone (which equates to nearly $540,000 in 2024). The mass of people in attendance was impossible to accurately quantify. Photos show patrons shoulder-to-shoulder in all areas of the building: lower deck, upper deck, bleachers, and auxiliary seating along the sidelines. Reports stated fans with ladders climbed the roof-covered portions of the upper deck to view the game. The approximated crowd of 73,000 spectators would be the largest to witness a professional football game for almost 30 years, until almost 78,000 Californians filled the Los Angeles Coliseum to watch the Rams play the 49ers in 1952.

Summaries of the game describe a physical bout between the teams on a muddy, half-frozen field. Despite Grange having sat out the third quarter, the crowd got their money’s worth in the final period when Grange intercepted a Jack McBride pass and returned it for a touchdown to roaring applause. Clearly the vast majority of those in attendance were there to see Grange and Grange only, as an allegiance to New York’s home team had yet to be forged. The New York Times noted the impressive aggregation of over 100 newspapermen who traveled from places far and wide such as St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo to cover Grange’s New York debut.

Still, not all were impressed. Alongside the game accounts were grandstanding editorials calling out Grange’s character for leaving college and turning pro. The New York Herald-Tribune opined: “There is much deploring concerning Red’s going into business and passing up the sheepskin. The notion is firmly established that, while it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s alma matter, it is outrageous for one to be willing to die less strenuously for a cut in the gate receipts.”

Sour grapes aside, March and Mara were ecstatic. Their tenuous venture into professional football, for a day at least, was a success. The bounty collected that day gave them a profit for the season and guaranteed a return engagement for 1926. The glee felt that day would be short lived, however. Less than two months after this seminal event, their savior re-emerged as a villain and pushed their franchise to the brink of oblivion.

The Football War To End All Football Wars

After the season ended, the Bears and Grange went on a barnstorming tour of the south and west. Hot off the conclusion of the successful run, Pyle and Grange made the bold move of leasing Yankee Stadium the first week of February 1926, even though they were without a team and had no league to play in. Days later, Pyle and Grange arrived at the National League meetings uninvited, and the proceedings reportedly took an uproarious turn when they petitioned Carr for admittance.

Publicly, Gibson and March kept their cool and said the right things about not opposing a second team in New York. Privately, however, they seethed. Mara especially took a personal disliking to the arrogant Pyle. The New York Herald-Tribune reported Mara’s opposition “to any invasion of his area” and that the owner was prepared to fight.

The following day, after an eleventh-hour meeting, in which Mara and Pyle reportedly nearly came to blows, all outlets reported the denial of a franchise charter to the Pyle and Grange partnership. Most shocking, 19 of the 20 franchise owners favored admittance, the only dissenting vote had been cast by Mara. The other owners saw their coffers overflowing by having Grange visit their sold-out stadiums. That Carr sided with the lone dissenter was surprising, though his principle was sound. The precedent had been set the prior year in the dispute between Pottsville and Frankford over the staging of the exhibition game with the Notre Dame All-Stars. It was established that consent of an existing team was required before the inclusion of a new franchise in their immediate vicinity. Mara rightfully concluded that having Grange as an attraction in New York would be detrimental to the Giants.

An irate Pyle vented to the press, “It’s all Mara’s fault. Every other owner would have voted me in but Mara had the last word.”

Four other cities – Newark, Boston, St. Louis, and Hartford – had also sought admission to the league, and were denied. In response to the influx of requests, the owners ratified a motion to increase the application fee to the league from $500 (approximately $8,800 in 2024 value) to $2,500 ($444,000 in 2024).

Undaunted, Pyle immediately declared they would organize a league of their own just hours later. He possessed one of the most recognizable names to the public and a lease for the premiere stadium in the country, centered in the cultural hot spot that was also the world’s media capital. On the surface, everything seemed to be in his favor.

A rational argument was presented in the Brooklyn Daily Times, which flatly stated New York was not capable of supporting two professional franchises as the game was still growing and this level of advancement was a case of too-much, too-soon. The Giants, it was reasoned, had been in dire financial straits late in the year the previous season until Grange bailed them out. The column also admonished Pyle specifically, accusing him of excessive greed and exploiting Grange during the post-season barnstorming tour where their traveling team was run ragged by playing a staggering eight games over 11 days.

Mara insisted he and his partners were up to the challenge and would weather any storm. In an extensive interview with the New York Herald-Tribune, Mara was quoted: “I’m in professional football stronger now than I was before. I haven’t a thing in the world against Grange. He is a great football player and a fine fellow personally, and I’d like to have him on the Giants team; but if he plays any pro football in Yankee Stadium it will be in an outlaw league.” Prophetically, Mara added, “…if he played Sundays at Yankee Stadium while we were playing at the Polo Grounds neither one of us would make a nickel.” Mara also backed up his moxie with a challenge, “I’ll be willing to play my team against his the final day of the season and give every cent to charity.”

The New York Herald-Tribune agreed with the gloomy forecast put forth by Mara: “Judging from the aggregate gate receipts of the last professional football season, it does not look as though New York could support two professional football games every Sunday. In fact, returns received by Mr. Mara and Mr. Gibson were not over-encouraging last year. With conflicting games on the Polo Grounds campus under Coogan’s Bluff and at Prexy Jacob Ruppert’s campus in The Bronx, it looks very much as though next winter’s professional season in this vicinity would settle down into a freezeout…Without wishing to appear at all pessimistic I am forced to come to the conclusion that one of these professional football games will be held practically in private.”

Paying no attention to the forebodings, Pyle formally announced his new venture, the American League, less than 10 days after his initial threat. The league would feature nine teams, including three who had been barred from entering the National League at the owner’s meetings. New York was not the only battleground city. Direct competition seemed to be a part of Pyle’s strategy, as there would be two teams in Philadelphia (including the suburb of Frankford) and three in Chicago. But none came close to the madness about to be unleashed in the New York metro area. The Giants and Yankees were going to be far from alone the upcoming fall.

Perhaps though, the first signal of the tenuous state of the startup circuit was the entrance fee, which Pyle (who fully financed three franchises and a part of a fourth) set at $3,000. This was significantly more than the cost of putting a team into the National League.

The defiant Pyle said, “I am now ready to put the National League and Mr. Mara out of business.”

March’s response was carefully worded, as to avoid sullying the ever-popular Grange. Instead, he directed his derision to Pyle, “The officials of the Football Giants believe Grange is poorly advised and feel sorry for him if he is to be the angel for the new league.”

The situation in the New York metro area rapidly reached maximum density. Pyle’s new league established another franchise in Brooklyn with games to be staged at Ebbets Field, and also a team just across the Hudson River in Newark. Many had asked if there was enough interest to support two teams in the area. Now there were four (five when the independent Staten Island Stapletons are considered). The New York Daily News posited: “Tim Mara was set against Grange competition here. Now it will probably be a war to the finish, with very likely, both the Nationals and the Americans here having a tough road to hoe.”

Dr. March pled the case of the National League and Giants to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and also slighted his antagonist Pyle: “We spent money liberally to give the citizens of New York entertaining football last fall, but we would have been in the hole financially if it had not been for the Grange game. Realizing that the average man in the street is ‘frozen out’ of the big college games because of the restriction on tickets, we decided to give him a chance to see topnotch football played by college graduates. We are prepared to lose money until the ‘pro’ game is established on a sound basis.

“Last year we made good progress. The coming season promised sport of even a higher grade until Charley Pyle conceived the idea of invading our legitimate territory with an ‘outlaw’ club. Under our league franchise the Giants control the Metropolitan District…This theatrical producer, who knows nothing about football, intends to play Sunday games in opposition to the Giants. Anybody conversant with the local situation will appreciate that New York cannot support two professional football teams playing a conflicting schedule. As a matter of fact, there is barely enough business here to support one team.

“If Pyle persists in this ill-advised move it will mean a mighty lean season for all concerned. He will lose a barrel of Grange’s money trying to run an opposition team. We will also suffer but we have the financial resources to fight the thing through to the finish. We have the backing of the National Football League with its highly organized teams. We can stick to a showdown…Any way you look at it, Pyle’s invasion of our territory is poor policy. The logical move would be for Grange to secure the Brooklyn franchise. Playing at Ebbets Field, ‘Red’s’ eleven would furnish a rollicking interborough rivalry, calculated to boost gate receipts for his club and ours.”

Indeed, March’s proposition had merit. Brooklyn was New York’s largest borough, with a greater population than the entire city of Chicago. The baseball Giants and Dodgers rivalry had been established as a hot ticket since the 1800’s. The concept of something similar to boost interest in professional football was a solid idea that, to the eventual dismay of all, went unheeded.

The day following March’s dissertation, the American League announced the installation of its commissioner, Princeton graduate William “Big Bill” Edwards, who brought a good reputation with him as a foremost figure of college football. Edwards immediately countered the negative narrative surrounding Pyle, “I want to help preserve football as high in class as football is played in colleges. The tradition of our game is that it is a clean, red-blooded sport – a great character builder – and that it must retain these splendid qualities when played professionally.”

The first coup in the pro football war was made by the National League, as it successfully coerced the new Cincinnati franchise to change its affiliation. March disparaged the American League in the New York Daily News, “we seriously doubt the new organization will be able to complete its first season’s schedule.” That bleak fate seemed more true than ever several days later when the Milwaukee franchise followed suit and withdrew from the American League and joined the National League.

The Elmira Star-Ledger took a long-range, optimistic view of the tumultuous conflict: “The competition between the rival organizations in the end will prove beneficial to the development of the professional gridiron game and that after the preliminary skirmishing for position has ended, they will join hands as the baseball leagues have done.”

Not everyone agreed, however, as pro football in general still had obstacles to overcome. A haughty editorial in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle condemned the sport’s origins and denounced any merit in metropolitan areas: “ Big cities are too sophisticated to get ‘het up’ over pro football. Metropolitan denizens refuse to take it seriously. They’ll attend a hippodrome once – just to see a national celebrity stage a species of vaudeville act, but they won’t patronize the game regularly as they do baseball. When Yale plays Harvard, when Columbia plays Cornell, when Army plays Navy – that means something. When New York plays Chicago – that means nothing. It will take a bigger man than Big Bill Edwards to make ‘pro’ football mean anything. Football is not football when it is played for cash.”

There may have been some truth to that sentiment, as all remained quiet on the pro grid war front through the early summer months. The sports pages were predictably dominated by baseball. The silence was broken in a big way the third week of July when Edwards made a detailed presentation of the American League’s nine clubs and organization.

Most significantly, the Brooklyn franchise took the name Horsemen, alluding to the famed quartet of Notre Dame gridiron lore, after signing two of the biggest names in college football, Elmer Layden and Harry Stuhldreher. Another notable signing was George “Wildcat” Wilson of the University of Washington fame. He was almost as recognizable as Grange on the West Coast. Wilson was the headline attraction of a traveling team billed as hailing from Los Angeles. Joey Sternaman, of the Chicago Bears, did the unthinkable when he abandoned the Bears, co-owned by his brother Dutch Sternaman, for the in-town rival Chicago Bulls. In addition, the American League poached the Rock Island Independents, a charter member of the National League in 1920, to switch its affiliation.

Edwards boasted: “Our slogan is ‘Football for all, and all for football.’ Let the public in on this greatest of all red-blooded American sports! The foundation of our league will enable hundreds of thousands to sit in and watch the heroes of college and school days play the greatest games of which they are capable.”

The Giants incurred direct losses to the upstarts. Coach Bob Folwell left New York to be the head coach of the Philadelphia Quakers, who in turn brought line stalwart Century Milstead in tow. Forced to take steps to retain talent, Mara and March increased player salaries $50 per game on average and issued more full-season contracts than they had the year before.

One significant gain for the Giants came when they won a competition with the American League’s Cleveland Panthers for the services of burly tackle Steve Owen. That initiated a 27-year relationship with the soon-to-be All Pro player and Hall of Fame head coach.

Further retaliation from the National League came in a double-blast. With help from Mara and his connections, Carr installed a franchise in Brooklyn to directly compete with the Horsemen, and in the process extracted the Horsemen from Ebbets Field in favor of their new team, the Lions. Condemned to the smaller and uncovered Commercial Field, the Horsemen faced a more difficult path to success. Infusing some credibility into the new team, Matt Brennan and Paul Jappe, members of the 1925 Giants, signed with the Lions. Jappe served as team captain.

The Battle For New York

During the Giants season opening road trip, center Dr. Joe Alexander had a poignant conversation with Mara on a train ride to Chicago: “(Mara) was feeling low and he was unhappy and maybe he even was a little bit scared of Pyle. He told me he was sorry now he’d ever gotten involved with the war with Pyle and he realized he’d lost a small fortune fighting the new league without knowing if he’d ever win.”

By the time they returned to New York with a 2-2 record on October 17th, five games had been played in Brooklyn (scheduling was not uniform), by both teams, to tepid results from paying customers.

The Horsemen got a jump on everybody the first Sunday of October and christened the season hosting the Chicago Bulls before a respectable crowd that ranged between 6,000-10,000 paying customers. Precise turnstile counts were not available during this era and reporters made their own estimates. More than likely the 10,000 figure was an exaggeration, and the actual count was probably closer to the lower end of the range. Regardless, considering a new team in an upstart league playing in a secondary location, the result was satisfactory.

The following week, to the contrary, was a massive disappointment for both Brooklyn teams who went head-to-head with competing home dates. The weather was miserable, cold and rainy, which proved to be a persistent trend throughout the season to the dismay of all. The Horsemen drew between 4,000-5,000 for their contest against Wilson’s Wildcats and the Lions played in front of a meager 500-3,000 onlookers at Ebbets Field against the Hartford Blues. While attendance figures for college football games were largely unaffected by inclement weather, the pros suffered at the gate as fans lacked the devotion necessary to withstand the elements for teams they had yet developed attachments to.

March said: “There is one tangible menace to the pro game and that is weather. In common with any other outdoor sport. If weather is clear, business is good; if cloudy, it is hurt; if raining, get out your checkbook and pay the red figures.”

The Giants and Yankees fared considerably better than their local counterparts as they were playing on the road. The Giants first three away games averaged a solid 7,500 spectators and the Yankees boasted a robust 13,000. That number was spiked by an impressive turnout of 22,000 for a game against the Cleveland Panthers at the Luna Bowl, no doubt as there was great anticipation to witness Grange’s first appearance with his new team and league.

The Lions and Horsemen hit the road and the Giants had the greater New York area solely to themselves when they hosted the powerful Frankford Yellow Jackets. Both teams hopped the train to Manhattan following the Yellow Jacket’s Saturday 6-0 victory at Frankford Stadium. The attendance for the rematch at the Polo Grounds of 15,000 was more than double the 7,000 at Frankford Stadium (which was sold out). Many of those in who watched the game were Frankford supporters who traveled with their team.

The Brooklyn teams remained on the road the following week while the Giants and Yankees tested New Yorker’s loyalties with their opposing home games on October 24. The weather once again failed to cooperate as it was another rainy Sunday across the Northeast. The Yankees, with the dual draw of Red Grange and George Wilson, significantly outdrew the Giants and Kansas City Cowboys contest 18,000 to 10,000. Whether it had been a pleasant, sunny afternoon or not, there is no doubt the disparity at the turnstile would have remained consistent.

 

Fortunes proved even worse for the Horsemen, whose Saturday game in Philadelphia against the Quakers was postponed by the heavy rain. The miserable weather wreaked further havoc on the Horsemen on Halloween when their home game against Rock Island was also cancelled. Being bereft of gate receipts on consecutive weekends put them in a financial bind that proved impossible to recover from.

The Giants and Yankees also had financially important home contests wiped off the schedule. The Yankees game was to be against the financially struggling Newark Bears, who desperately needed their share of the visiting gate to remain solvent, and the Giants were to host the Lions in a heavily-billed, interborough clash that was predicted to have New York Gov. Al Smith and 25,000 in the Polo Grounds.

Pyle had prophetically stated on the eve of the games, “I sincerely hope it doesn’t rain.”

Fortunately for the Giants and Yankees, they had games booked for Election Day, Tuesday, November 2nd. Both played before robust crowds: the Yankees had close to 30,000 for well-rested Rock Island (who remained in-town on their road trip) and the Giants enjoyed a season-high 40,000 at the Polo Grounds. However, that total was greatly influenced by a pair of high school football games preceding theirs as the Giants closed out the triple-header against Canton. Former Giant Jim Thorpe watched the game from the sidelines as he had suffered a broken rib in the Bulldog’s prior game in Detroit. It is not known how many fans remained for the Giants-Canton closer, as the DeWitt-Clinton rivalry game was actually billed as the “feature attraction” in some of the local newspapers. The Yankees also featured a high school game as their lead-in.

The Lions played an exhibition game against the independent Staten Island Stapletons at Thompson Field, which was a small wooden structure resembling those of the midwestern teams. Thompson Field typically accommodated around 5,000 spectators with many of those standing along the sidelines.

The Foundation Crumbles

Rumors of American League clubs being in financial straits first surfaced early the next week. Some included allusions to the two pro circuits merging. Bill Edwards traveled to Cleveland to seek new backing for the franchise while the Newark players grieved; they had were owed back pay. Pyle publicly denied reports alluding to the demise of the American League to the Associated Press: “The league is intrinsically strong. We have had bad luck with the weather, but that kind of thing can’t go on forever.”

Contrary to Pyle’s statement, the American League was dealt a series of significant blows.

First, the Cleveland and Newark teams folded.

Then, worse for Pyle, the Brooklyn teams announced a merger agreement that would have the combined team compete in the National League. This was a major victory for Mara and Carr and a public humiliation for Pyle to have one of his high-profile franchises defect to the rival league.

Horsemen’s owner Humbert Fugazy explained, “After studying the professional football situation during the current season, particularly as regards to Brooklyn and New York, I have come to the conclusion that neither borough can properly support more than one team.

“My decision to effect the amalgamation was in large part due to the long friendship between myself and Tim Mara, owner of the New York Football Giants, of the National League. Mara was one of the first to introduce professional football into New York and has given largely of his time and funds to advance the game…My faith in the future of professional football is unshaken. The professional game is still in its infancy. It must suffer some growing pains. That has been true in the history of other leading professional sports. Professional football is going to come into its own in a short time.”

Amidst the run of negative news, a slew of “I told you so” themed editorials frequented the papers – of cancelled games, folded franchises, and players grievances.

A United Press correspondent said in a nationally-syndicated column, “The fault – or the ultimate collapse if it comes to that – will not be that of the game but the errors made by the promoters…There are too many colleges playing in the east and pro football has flourished principally in sections where good college games couldn’t be seen, where baseball was out of season and where there were no movies or other forms of entertainment to occupy Sunday afternoon…There is no question that an effort will have to be made to get the rival promotors together this winter if the game is to last.”

Some opinions were less pragmatic, as one writer from the Paterson Morning Call said after noting how many pro games had been cancelled by the inordinate amount of bad weather, “The college football game always seems to pack ‘em at all games. They play football for honor while ‘pros’ play for the money that is in it.”

To the contrary, the Brooklyn Daily Times sports editor optimistically lauded the idea of the Lions-Horsemen merger and pro football’s prospects: “We like the idea. It’s a smart move, and one that will do professional football much good. And it has been made by men who are trying to make pro football pay, and at the same time build up a game that still has a good chance to become popular. Mara was willing to lose money on his first season. In fact, he didn’t expect to make any, and said so. He was trying to build. Pyle’s ideas were far different. He wanted to win by war. And we all know what war means.”

Following the week of tumult, the games continued. The three remaining New York teams played home dates.

The newly-christened Brooklion Horsemen received a boost in attendance and hosted the Los Angeles Buccaneers before 10,000 spectators at Ebbets Field, which tied their high for paying customers. The Giants matched that total at the Polo Grounds for their game against Providence but the Yankees outdid them all, and drew almost 19,000 to Yankee Stadium against Wilson’s Wildcats. Again, while it didn’t rain, the elements played a part as it was believed bitter cold weather kept potential customers home.

A writer from the New York World who attended the Giants and Yankees games offered his thoughts on the experience: “Wishing to judge for myself the relative drawing power of the football Giants and football Yankees, I indulged in a novelty last Sunday and saw the first half at the Polo Grounds and the second half of the battle at Yankee Stadium. The crowd at the latter was a bit bigger but no more enthusiastic and, after all, the experiment did not count for how much ‘paper’ had been distributed at each park. One fact, however, was brought out: Pro football has enough followers in this city to support one team but not two, in view of the conflicts necessary on account of the few Sundays in the all-too-short season. If those two crowds had been combined at one game profits could have been counted and not losses.

“Whether or not the battle for patronage will be continued another season is an open question. (“Big” Bill) Edwards says the American League, which has been disintegrating, will be rebuilt, and the Yankees will be back. It is possible, however, that C.C. Pyle may grow weary of footing the bills. Tim Mara tells me he has no thought of quitting with the Giants – losses or no losses. It is hoped, for the sake of the game, that the field will be less congested next year.”

Leading up to the first game of the consolidated Brooklion Horsemen, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle intimated that the American League “was shaky” per an-off-the-record conversation with Fugazy, and that Pyle, owner of two teams still active in the circuit, was actively seeking financial support. The unstable financial state of the American League became more apparent than ever the next Monday when Boston and Rock Island withdrew. In the span of one week, the AFL lost five teams, more half of what it opened the season with.

The Giants closed November with a Thanksgiving Day and Sunday sweep of the Brooklion Horsemen by an aggregate score of 44-0.

The Chaotic Conclusion

Pyle’s public face remained a confident one. As his league of four feverishly rearranged their schedules, he stated: “Our first desire is to close the season successfully. Next year we will reorganize the league to comprise six or maybe eight teams. Then we will go ahead and there will be a team playing at Yankee Stadium.”

Yankee Stadium, however, was one of only two active sights staging American League football the week leading up to Thanksgiving, the other being Philadelphia as the Quakers boasted robust attendance at the immense Sesquicentennial Stadium (three of their home games exceeded 30,000 spectators). In fact, the greater Philadelphia area was a hotbed for professional football during the fall of 1926. The Quakers and Yellow Jackets both led their leagues and there was much public discussion about hosting a “World’s Championship” between the assumed American and National League champions in December.

The Philadelphia Inquirer proposed a city championship game at Shibe Park, “Perhaps never in the football history of this city has a family quarrel loomed so prominently.”

Quaker coach Folwell publicly challenged the Yellow Jackets at the conclusion of a back-to-back sweep of the favored Yankees to climb atop the American League standings: “We stand ready to play the Jackets anytime or anywhere they wish.” The Quakers clinched the American League title after defeating the Bulls in Chicago the following week.

After much public discourse, Carr forbade any National League team to engage in exhibitions with the rival league. The assumed risk, as was conjectured by scribes of the time, was too great. A Yellow Jacket loss could legitimize Pyle’s league to the public and give them an advantage in the next season.

During the season Mara issued a similar provocation to Pyle, which heated up during the Quakers-Yellow Jackets tumult. The Yankees had been atop the American League standings, and many assumed they would fulfill their preseason promise of reigning as champions.

The eve of Thanksgiving Mara told the media: “We have an open date December 12th and are willing to play the Yankees on a winner-take-all basis or any percentage arrangement satisfactory to the Grangers. The game can be played for the benefit of the players or charity as far as I’m concerned, but I am confident that my team will defeat any eleven in the country, and I hope that the game will be arranged.”

The Quakers sweep of the Yankees over the holiday weekend was catastrophic to Pyle’s team. Not only did Philadelphia clinch the American League title, Grange was injured during the Thanksgiving Day game at Yankee Stadium and did not play in the Saturday follow-up in Philadelphia (nor the Sunday game back in New York against the Chicago Bulls, completing three games in four days).

Pyle bowed out of the bragging right’s challenge for New York in a lengthy open letter to Mara that appeared in the New York papers after the loss at Philadelphia: “Answering your letter of even date, which is in the form of a challenge from your New York Giants to play a game of football against ‘Red’ Grange’s Yankees on Sunday, December 12. I wish to assure you that this challenge has been seriously considered in the spirit in which it is sent, but I find it will be impossible for ‘Red’s’ team to play yours this season due to the fact that our Sundays are filled and on the date you name we play the Chicago Bulls in Chicago and immediately thereafter start our Southern and Western tours.

“Your charitable attitude is to be highly commended, and I am only sorry we cannot assist you in your plan…I certainly agree with you that this game would be a most spectacular and expertly played one, but take issue with you that there is any personal feeling in this matter on the part of myself, and I assure you, even if there were, I would not let it stand in the way. It certainly would have been a pleasure to have given the New York public a real opportunity to compare the two football teams.”

Pyle optimistically closed by saying he would like for the two teams to engage in a home-and-home series in 1927.

Folwell jumped at the opportunity to fill the void left by Pyle and openly challenged the Giants to a game with his championship team. Mara quickly accepted, despite the ruling by Carr prohibited inter-league exhibitions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported: “Tim Mara, owner of the Giants, is said to have defied the new edict issued by Joe Carr, president of the National Professional Football League, which forbade any of the members of his circuit to engage in gridiron warfare with the Quakers, and scheduled this attraction for the followers of the pro game in Gotham.”

Clearly feeling his oats, Folwell issued another challenge to the Yellow Jackets for December 18. Frankford declined, as they looked to secure the National League title and scheduled a game with Pottsville for that date.

The weekend leading up to the braggadocios challenges between leagues was a massive letdown for all as a blizzard buried the Northeast. The Giants not only lost out on the opportunity for a large crowd at the Polo Grounds as there was much anticipation for the Bears return to New York, but they were obliged to pay Chicago the $2,000 guarantee. The Horsemen lost their home date against Duluth, and the Quakers had exhibition with the Stapletons at Staten Island was also wiped from the schedule.

During the lull, sports pages around the country reported financial figures on the losses teams from both leagues had suffered to-date.

• The Giants topped the list of individual teams with an estimated debt of $55,000 (approximately $976,000 in 2024).
• The Horsemen were close behind at $45,000.
• The Frankford Yellow Jackets, despite leading the National League in attendance, came in the red at $17,000.
• The only profitable teams from the American League were the Yankees (who were a strong draw on the road) and Quakers (who played in a large stadium). However, despite having his flagship team showing a small profit, Pyle lost an extraordinary $150,000 personally, as he was the full owner of three teams, owned a share of the Bulls, and spread money around to other franchises in hopes of keeping them afloat.
• Bill Edwards, despite signing a contract for $100,000, never received a cent from Pyle for his full season as commissioner of the American League

Overall, professional football was believed to have been in arrears to the tune of $500,000.

Almost as bad as the financial reports was the weather forecast. The miserable run of weather continued through the week as the Giants hired snowplows to clean off the Polo Grounds field to permit practices. Absent an efficient disposal system, the frozen precipitation was heaped up in huge piles along the sidelines, which proved to be a challenge during the game on Sunday.

Snow continued to fall Saturday night and on Sunday during the game. Between 4,000-5,000 onlookers braved the elements and endured miserable conditions to witness the first ever inter-league grid battle between the National League Giants and American League champion Quakers.

The game was a one-sided affair. But contrary to expectations driven by records and standings (the Giants finished 8-4-1 tied for sixth place; Quakers 8-2 first place), it was the underdog who thoroughly dominated on the frozen, muddy field.

The New York Daily News summary said, “The inter-city battle was fought on a gridiron that was mostly a great cake of ice. High heaps of snow were banked all around the sides of the field, but the unfavorable conditions seemed not to affect the Giants, who pushed the American League champions all over the field.”

The New York Herald-Tribune account described a colorful scene: “The game was played on a field of slush and mud with the removed snow piled up along the side lines. There were about 5,000 persons in the stands who had to laugh at some of the falls and the way the men ploughed up the muddy spaces on their noses or went down on the slippery spaces like fellows just learning how to skate.”

Detailed box scores did not exist at this time, but every game summary noted that New York held Philadelphia to a single first down in the 31-0 thrashing. The score could have been much worse. While it was only a 3-0 advantage at halftime, the Giants missed a field goal and had 68-yard punt return touchdown by Jack Haggerty and a 50-yard touchdown rush by Jack McBride called back on penalties. As it was, Quaker coach Folwell was so fed up with his team’s effectiveness he substituted his entire backfield at halftime.

Fans could not be blamed if they had thought the officials were showing some mercy on Philadelphia. While being pinned on their own goal line for a punt in the second half, the ball was moved up to the 10-yard line for the players’ safety, as snowbanks were three feet high inches beyond the end line.

The wintery conditions also contributed to a comical scene that ended with a player from each side being ejected. Al Nesser, who played without a helmet or shoulder pads, and who was cited by the Brooklyn Daily Times for having an outstanding game on the line for New York, was at the center of the event.

The International News Service account read: “Football officials today were puzzling over a new wrinkle – ‘What penalty shall be inflicted upon a player who buries an opponent in a snowbank?’ This new breach of the rules came up in yesterday’s professional football game between the New York Giants and Philadelphia Quakers, played on a gridiron banked by snow drifts. During a play on which a touchdown was made, Al Nesser, a bald-headed plumber who has been playing professional football for nineteen years, ‘took out’ (Joe) Kostos of the Quakers with undue roughness. Kostos promptly thrust Nesser’s bald head into a snowdrift and a slugging match ensued, for which both players were put out of the game.”

The star of the game was Giants back Jack McBride, who racked-up 19 points on his own. He scored two touchdowns, one a three-yard rush (where he landed head-first into a snowbank) and the other a 20-yard interception return. He also kicked a field goal and four point-afters. The Brooklyn Daily Times said, “Jack McBride, which is the same as saying the Giants, did enough to win the game alone, but the other 10 helped some.”

Jack Haggerty, who had a reverse-field touchdown run, and Hinkey Haines also appeared in the game summaries as having big days running the ball. The other touchdown was a 35-yard interception return by Tillie Voss.

The shocking result was summed up succinctly in the Pittsburgh Post, “It seemed incredible that this was the same (Quakers) team which defeated Grange’s outfit twice in one week. The Giants simply played rings around them.”

The Truce and Reparations

The fallout from the inter-league exhibition was swift and final. The American League’s credibility was shattered after their champion was humiliated by a good-but-not-quite championship-caliber squad. It was reasoned that, if the Giants, who had lost twice to the National League champion Yellow Jackets, had their way with the Quakers, how good were any of the teams in the American League?

A series of owners’ meetings took place in February, April, July, and August of 1927 with the intent of repairing and enhancing professional football. Initially, there was a proposal to have all National League and the remaining American League teams combined into one circuit divided into two divisions. It was also hoped that Grange would be featured on a team based in Brooklyn.

Two owners decided they’d had enough of pro football. Humbert Fugazy sold his share of the Horsemen to Eddie Butler. Billy Gibson sold his share of the Giants to Tim Mara, who took over the title as team President. Both promoters turned their efforts full time to boxing.

The July meetings saw the National League instead pare itself down from 21 teams to 12, a major step toward Carr’s ultimate vision of having pro football entrenched in large cities. To the consternation of some, charter teams like Canton and Akron were left on the outside. Pottsville and Brooklyn suspended operations for one year, with the goal of returning to action in 1928.

In addition, a truce was agreed upon by Mara and Pyle. Using the franchise charter of the suspended Brooklyn franchise, Mara leased the position to Pyle’s Yankees, who were allowed to play their home games at Yankee Stadium, provided the Giants were not at the Polo Grounds on the same date. The result was the Yankees played 10 of their 16 games on the road, with one of those home games being against the Giants.

With the Yankees being the only American League team accepted into the streamlined National League, pro football contracted from 31 teams in 1926 to 12 in 1927. The dispersal of players meant a higher quality of play all around. The New York Times reported: “The abundance of players left as a result of the elimination of seventeen franchises has enabled the owners to cut down on salaries, and increased competition will result in a better brand of football and higher attendance. The lateral pass and other changes, which will go into effect with the opening of the intercollegiate football season this Fall, also will also be adopted in full by the professionals, but with the more experienced set of players the professionals are planning to make use of the innovations which are expected to open up the game, thus presenting a better spectacle for the fans.”

The Giants came out of the contraction better than anyone. They had a legendary season in 1927, going 11-1-1 on their way to their first championship, which they capped off in the sweetest way possible, ending the campaign with a home-and-home sweep of the Yankees to the aggregate score of 27-0.

The Yankees bowed out of the league after the 1928 season, and Mara continued to lease the charter to the Staten Island Stapletons before terminating it.

Dr. Harry A. March sold his share of the Giants to Tim Mara after the 1931 season, which placed the franchise fully in the hands of the Mara family. John V. Mara assumed the title of President, which at the age of 24, he is believed to be the youngest professional football executive on record.

After working in the league offices for several years, Dr. March launched the second American Football League in 1936. This one fared better than the first. The salary escalation between the leagues didn’t reach the dramatic heights of 1926, and despite folding after the second year, its legacy still lives on as the Cleveland Rams franchise continues to this day, where they are better known as the Los Angeles Rams.

The Football Giants remain one of the flagship franchises of the National Football League and are still 50 percent owned by the Mara family. Tim Mara presided over the Giants until his passing in 1959 and was an inaugural inductee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. His son Wellington Mara was the principal owner until his passing in 2005 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997. Wellington’s son John K. Mara has been the steward of the team since 2005 and has seen the team win their 7th and 8th championships under his watch.

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Sources:

New York Giants
Don Smith 1960 Coward-McCann Sports Library

The Giants of New York: The History Of Professional Football’s Most Fabulous Dynasty
Barry Gottehrer 1963 Putnam

Illustrated History of the New York Giants: From The Polo Grounds To Super Bowl XXI
Richard Whittingham 1987 Harpercollins

From Sandlots to the Super Bowl: The National Football League 1920-1967
Craig R. Coenen 2005 The University of Tennessee Press

The National Forgotten League
Dan Daly 2012 University Of Nebraska Press

Historical New York Times, The York Herald-Tribune, and Washington Post searchable archives (via ProQuest)

Historical New York Daily News, Brooklyn Standard Union, Brooklyn Daily Times, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The Brooklyn Citizen, The Yonkers Herald, The Yonkers Statesman ,The Yonkers Herald, The Binghamton Press, The Buffalo Evening News, The Buffalo Evening Times, The Elmira Star-Gazette, The Glens Falls Post-Star, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Asbury Park Press, Plainfield Courier-News, The Paterson Morning Call, The Paterson Evening News, Atlantic City Daily Press, The Boston Globe, Appleton Post-Crescent, Los Angeles Times, Racine Journal-News, The Hartford Daily Courant, The Lancaster News Journal, San Bernardino Daily Sun, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, New Brittain Daily Herald, Wilkes-Barre Evening News, Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Atlantic City Sunday Press, Atlantic City Daily Press, The Bayonne Times, Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette, The Missoula Sentinel, The Scranton Republican searchable archives (via Newspapers.com)

Pro Football Reference
New York Giants Franchise Encyclopedia