By Chris Willis, NFL Films
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| Red Grange at Cubs Park, Nov. 1925, Chicago Bears |
The St. Louis team was organized by Art
Donnelly, a local mortician and sports promoter, who helped fellow promoter Bud
Yates with the $2,000 guarantee (some news reports say it was $5,000) to get
Red and the Bears to come to St. Louis. Because of the hastily put together
game the squad was mostly comprised of local talent who played at St. Louis
University. Yates was able to attract former Cornell All-American halfback
Eddie Kaw, former Michigan star center Ernie Vick and current Detroit Panthers
player-coach Jimmy Conzelman (who had starred at S.L.U.) to play for St. Louis.
They only had a week to get ready.
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| Bud Yates, St. Louis Sports Promoter |
The Bears arrived the evening before the game at Union Station in St. Louis just after 6:00 p.m. local time, greeted by several hundred fans and the press. Conzelman also showed up to greet his former teammates with the Staleys, Halas and Sternaman, as well as meet Red for the first time. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch took a photo of the Galloping Ghost and Conzelman smiling together.
The team was taken to the Coronado Hotel where they stayed the night. At the hotel Red gave an interview to the St. Louis Star and Times. The paper called Red “quiet and assuming,” while asking him about several topics that included his opinion of the pro game compared to the college game.
“I like it…the professional game is different. Unhampered by the overwhelming college insensitive, the players concentrate on straight football, with the result that the player and spectator are much better pleased. Please understand, this is no disparagement of the college spirt or the very natural and healthy desire to win for his alma mater. It is a question of good football and the colleges certainly seem to inspire players to win at all and any cost.”
The
one thing Red enjoyed about being a pro football player was that he could just
concentrate on football, twenty-four hours a day- no classes, no teachers, no
work, etc. The game was played on a Wednesday afternoon at Sportsman’s Park-
home of the baseball’s Browns and Cardinals- on the city’s northside. Tickets
were sold at the ballpark and Leacock’s, the city’s leading sporting goods
stores for the past twenty-five years. Prices were set at: $4.40 (box seats);
$3.20 (grandstands) and $2.20 (bleachers and pavilion) plus tax. Ads in the St. Louis Star and Times read:
“RED GRANGE
At Sportsman’s
Park
Wednesday, Dec. 2
Tickets at
Leacock’s (10th and Locust); and Sportsman’s Park.”
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| Nov. 30, 1925: Football Game Ad St. Louis Star |
No mention in the ad of the Chicago Bears
or the Donnelly’s All-Stars, just the Galloping Ghost. “For those games left on
the Chicago Bears schedule the posters read ‘See the Chicago Bears with Red
Grange’” recalled Grange’s friend from Wheaton “Beans” DeWolf in a 1987
interview. “But when they began the barnstorming trip, the posters were changed
to read ‘See Red Grange with the Chicago Bears.”
Kickoff was set for 2:30 p.m. Local
sportswriters John Alexander of the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch and Ted Drewes of the St. Louis Star and Times joined the Chicago writers in the press
box. The press reported 8,000 fans braved the 40-degree “cold” afternoon
contest. Pyle was disappointed in the crowd.
As for the game it was a lopsided affair.
With only a few days of practice the Donnelly’s (St. Louis) All-Stars looked
more like duds. Red gave the small crowd plenty to cheer for while playing a
little more than a half of football. On the first two drives of the game the
redhead scored touchdowns. Bears fullback Earl Britton would make his
professional debut by replacing Dutch Sternaman in the second quarter. The
scoring continued in that quarter with another score by Red, as the Bears took
a 27-6 halftime lead. In the fourth quarter Red scored his fourth touchdown of
the game as the Bears cruised to an easy 39-6 victory. The Chicago American wrote Red “was
in great form and ran wild early in the game.” Alexander of the Post-Dispatch wrote:
“It is hard to describe that action. Essentially, it seems to be the ability to make tacklers miss him completely without forcing him to lose headway and to shake them loose once they catch hold…One such run as yesterday’s is worth the price of admission. One does not often see a player who can run into an apparently muddle of enemies and shake them from his shoes like so much mud. Grange does that. His footwork is deft and artful and when he breaks loose in an open field, he resembles nothing so as Eliza skipping over the ice floes with the bloodhounds baying at her heels and a child tucked under one arm, changing pace and varying her course slightly each successive hop.”
Red was a success on the field this time, albeit against an inferior team, but it was the first time he was a failure at the box office. Shortly after the game the gate receipts “officially” came out. Promoter Yates announced the paid attendance at 5,032 with a total gate receipt of $13,657. Based on the report, the Grange-Pyle-Bears got $7,834 while the local team got $1,547. Irving Vaughn of the Chicago Tribune was more cynical, writing, “The highly polished Grange did his act to the extent of four touchdowns, and it was to see him in his traveling togs that 8,000 people paid in the neighborhood of $20,000, so nobody was gypped.”
The Bears left St. Louis early Thursday
morning (Dec. 3rd) around 9 a.m. to head to Philadelphia to play the
NFL’s Frankford Yellow Jackets. Dutch Sternaman paid $1,183.36 for 27 train
fares that included 20 players plus Pyle, Coolley, Lotshaw, and Harry MacNamara
of the Chicago Herald-Examiner. On
the train headed east the Bears passed their time playing cards. Frank Hanny
and Jim McMillian held court at the card table, while Johnny Mohardt “lectured Red and George Trafton in the
observation car on the human anatomy.” After his football career ended Mohardt
would go on to become a doctor and one of Chicago’s leading brain specialists.
The tour was now headed east.
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| Chicago Bears Railroad Expense Sheet, St. Louis to Philly (Pro Football Hall of Fame) |
NEXT:
Dec. 5th Grange-Bears at Frankford Yellow Jackets (Philadelphia)
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