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| 11/3/46 - Chicago Cardinals @ Boston Yanks |
Even though the games have all been played and fans are awaiting
the NFL Draft, the GUD's season never stops. You may have notice some
'old-timey' updates being installed on the site with more to come in the near
future.
Also, for those of you who do not frequent the GUD's Forum, an
ongoing project is worth checking out. Two topics, in particular, we hope, will
draw your attention.
As most of our viewers know, we have been able to successfully
document the uniforms being worn for all games back through 1950. We also have
better than 95% accuracy for the 1940s. We are still working on filling in
those missing gaps.
In order to do so, we have been scouring the online newspaper
archives as well as recruiting assistance from public and university libraries
in the areas in which games took place.
We have several hurdles in our work.
First, teams in Brooklyn (Dodgers & Tigers), Staten Island
(Stapletons), Cincinnati (Reds), and Portsmouth (Spartans) were not well
covered photographically by their local media. These teams account for over 90%
of our undocumented games from the 1930s.
Second, locating photos of games that were played in Philadelphia
and Detroit is financially difficult. The public libraries in those cities want
to charge a large sum of money to have their librarians search through their
newspaper archives since none of the GUD leadership lives in the area to
conduct the search themselves. The funding must be paid up front with no
guarantee of success. Other libraries have either performed the searches for
free since we know the dates of the games or have charged a modest $5 to $10
fee depending on the size of the request.
When looking upon the photo at the opening of this blog, I'm
reminded of a line from the opening minutes of the movie Titanic.
Despite its grainy appearance, should this photo have remained hidden - so to
speak - from football fans forever? The Yanks wearing bright mono-yellow
uniforms cast against the bright red of the Cardinals. The Boston Public
Library was nice enough to send this to me in response to my request since a
photo for this game did not appear in the online archives of the Boston
Globe.
Here is a photo of those glorious 1946 Yanks uniforms displayed on
QB Paul Governali...
Thirdly, a small degree of hubris may be a contributing factor, as
well. By that I mean that several teams like the Redskins, Lions, Steelers,
Packers, and Bears spent a number of years with only one uniforms combo. When
we assembled the weekly uniform match-up pages, this was taken into
consideration. We knew that when the Cardinals would play the Lions that the
Cards would be in red jerseys and white helmets and pants. We knew that the
Lions would be in blue jerseys with silver helmets and pants. We did not need
to see a photo to know what had to be. Still, for games such as these, we'd
still like to possess a photograph from that game.
Additionally, some of these games we are working off of the
research of our own Tim Brulia who dug into this very topic years ago before
the GUD was born. However, at the time, he only documented the uniforms rather
than saving a photo off of microfilm. A good example of this would be the
10/7/50 Cleveland Browns @ Pittsburgh Steelers game. We just haven't been
able to wrangle the photo that Tim located years back.
As you may have noticed, the GUD has also been working to include
Preseason games in our weekly matchups for each season. Unfortunately, these
photos have been especially hard to track down. Even home games were rarely
covered with photos by major newspapers. Also, in the 1950s, teams had a habit
of playing the majority of their preseason games in 'barnstorming' fashion by
making trips to cities like Winston-Salem, Hershey, Mobile, Lincoln, Salt Lake
City, and Portland. Again, many public libraries were very accommodating to
requests. But, alas, even the local papers in those cities appear to have not
published photos from every game despite the fact that it was a pretty 'big
deal' to have the pros come to play in these non-NFL cities..
In the 1940s, teams didn't play a set number of preseason games.
Some played five or six games while others, like the Cardinals and Dodgers,
often only played two or three games.
Additionally, teams like the Steelers and Dodgers spent a few
years playing their Preseason games against several semi-pro and independent
teams. Obviously we will not be expanding our coverage to include those teams
but we'd still like to document the League teams, especially in a situation
where they wore something out of the ordinary for a given season.
Recently, we uncovered photos of the 1948 Los Angeles Rams playing
two exhibition/preseason games in Honolulu against the Hawaiian Warriors team.
In the games, the Rams wore their 1947 pants (yellow-blue-yellow stripes)
instead of their 1948 pants (blue-yellow-blue stripes).
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| 9/6/48 - LA Rams @ Hawaiian Warriors |
Below are the lists of the games for which we are seeking photos,
both regular season and preseason. If you have any leads or contacts through
which we could find photos from any of these games, please contact the GUD
hierarchy so we can continue to insure that we are 'just getting it
right.'
And thank you for all of the continued love and support you all
throw our way. We love hearing from you!
Regular Season
9/25/32 - Brooklyn Dodgers @ Staten Island
10/2/32 - Chicago Cardinals @
Portsmouth Spartans
10/2/32 - Chicago Bears @ Staten
Island
10/9/32 - Staten Island @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
10/16/32 - Portsmouth Spartans @ Staten
Island
10/20/32 - Portsmouth Spartans @ Staten
Island (N)
10/30/32 - Brooklyn Dodgers @ Chicago
Cardinals
11/6/32 - Chicago Bears @ NY
Giants
11/6/32 - Portsmouth Spartans @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/13/32 - Chicago Cardinals @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/13/32 - Portsmouth Spartans @ Chicago
Bears
11/20/32 - Boston Braves @ Portsmouth
Spartans
11/20/32 - Chicago Cardinals @ Staten
Island
11/24/32 - Green Bay Packers @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/24/32 - NY Giants @ Staten
Island
11/27/32 - Chicago Bears @ Portsmouth
Spartans
11/27/32 - Green Bay Packers @ Staten
Island
11/27/32 - NY Giants @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
12/11/32 - Green Bay Packers @ Chicago
Bears (I have several photos from the Chicago Tribune but they are too
grainy to decipher anything due to snowy playing conditions.)
9/17/33 - Cincinnati Reds @ Portsmouth
Spartans
9/24/33 - NY Giants @ Portsmouth
Spartans
10/1/33 - Chicago Cardinals @ Portsmouth
Spartans
10/4/33 - Boston Redskins @ Pittsburgh
Pirates
10/8/33 - Chicago Bears @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
10/8/33 - Chicago Cardinals @ Cincinnati
Reds
10/11/33 - Cincinnati Reds @ Pittsburgh
Pirates
10/18/33 - Portsmouth Spartans @ Philadelphia
Eagles
10/22/33 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Cincinnati
Reds
11/5/33 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Cincinnati
Reds
11/5/33 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/12/33 - Green Bay Packers @ Portsmouth
Spartans
11/26/33 - Boston Redskins @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
12/3/33 - Brooklyn Dodgers @ Cincinnati
Reds
12/3/33 - Chicago Bears @ Portsmouth
Spartans
9/23/34 - Chicago Cardinals @ Cincinnati
Reds
9/30/34 - Chicago Cardinals @ Detroit
Lions
10/3/34 - NY Giants @ Pittsburgh
Pirates (N)
10/7/34 - Chicago Cardinals @ Cincinnati
Reds (N)
10/10/34 - Chicago Bears @ Pittsburgh
Pirates (N)
10/17/34 - Boston Redskins @ Detroit
Lions (N)
10/28/34 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Brooklyn
Dodgers (newspaper article states BRK in green helmets & jerseys)
10/27/35 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/3/35 - Detroit Lions @ Chicago
Cardinals
11/10/35 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Chicago
Cardinals
11/17/35 - NY Giants @ Chicago
Bears
12/8/35 - Boston Redskins @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
9/28/36 - Chicago Cardinals @ Detroit
Lions (N)
10/4/36 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
10/14/36 - Detroit Lions @ Brooklyn
Dodgers (N)
10/25/36 - Chicago Cardinals @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/5/36 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Philadelphia
Eagles (N)
11/22/36 - Detroit Lions @ Chicago
Cardinals
9/19/37 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
9/24/37 - Chicago Cardinals @
Washington Redskins
9/26/37 - Chicago Cardinals @ Philadelphia
Eagles
12/5/37 - Chicago Bears @ Chicago
Cardinals
9/23/38 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
10/2/38 - Chicago Cardinals @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
10/26/38 - Philadelphia Eagles v Chicago
Cardinals @ Erie PA
11/13/38 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/20/38 - Chicago Bears @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/20/38 - Philadelphia Eagles v Pittsburgh
Pirates @ Charleston WV
12/4/38 - Cleveland Rams v Pittsburgh
Pirates @ New Orleans LA
9/20/39 - Cleveland Rams @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/6/39 - Pittsburgh Pirates @ Brooklyn
Dodgers
11/26/39 - Chicago Bears @ Chicago
Cardinals
9/22/40 - Philadelphia Eagles @ Cleveland
Rams
9/28/40 - NY Giants @ Philadelphia Eagles (N)
10/5/40 - Chicago Cardinals @ Detroit Lions
10/26/40 - Brooklyn Dodgers @ Philadelphia
Eagles (N)
9/27/41 - Detroit Lions @ Chicago Cardinals (N)
9/27/41 - Brooklyn Dodgers @ Philadelphia
Eagles (N)
11/23/41 - Chicago Cardinals @ Cleveland Rams
10/9/43 - NY Giants @ Phil-Pitt Steagles (@PHIL)
11/19/44 - Brooklyn Tigers @ Boston Yanks
11/19/44 - Cleveland Rams @ Card-Pitt (in Chicago)
10/7/45 - Chicago Cardinals @ Philadelphia Eagles
12/7/47 - Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions
10/4/48 - Chicago Bears @ Chicago Cardinals (N)
10/7/50 - Cleveland Browns @ Pittsburgh
Steelers
10/16/54 - Baltimore Colts @ Detroit Lions
11/5/55 - Baltimore Colts @ Detroit
Lions
Preseason Games
8/21/42 - Pittsburgh Steelers v Cleveland Rams @ East Liverpool,
OH
9/5/42 - Chicago Bears @ Pittsburgh Steelers
9/19/42 - NY Giants v Western Army All-Stars @ Syracuse NY
9/20/42 - Brooklyn Dodgers v Long Island Clippers @ New Brunswick
NJ
9/8/43 - NY Giants @ Sampson Naval Training Station @
Sampson NY
9/12/43 - Brooklyn Dodgers v Camp Lee @ Camp Lee VA
9/19/43 - Brooklyn Dodgers v New Brunswick All-Stars @
New Brunswick NJ
9/26/43 - NY Giants v Camp Lee @ Camp Lee VA
9/23/44 - NY Giants @ Detroit
Lions
10/1/44 - Washington Redskins @ Chicago Bears
9/5/45 - Detroit Lions @ Windsor (ON)
Rockets
9/19/45 - Green Bay Packers v Pittsburgh Steelers @ Hershey PA
8/23/46 - Pittsburgh Steelers @ Scranton (PA) Miners
8/24/46 - LA Dons v San Francisco 49ers @ San
Diego CA
8/30/46 - Pittsburgh Steelers v Newark Bombers @ Hershey PA
9/12/46 - NY Giants @ Jersey City
(NJ) Giants
9/13/46 - Chicago Cardinals @ Greensboro (NC)
Patriots
9/15/46 - Detroit Lions @ Charlotte
(NC) Clippers
9/15/46 - Pittsburgh Steelers @ Paterson (NJ) Panthers
9/15/46 - Washington Redskins @ Norfolk (VA) Shamrocks
9/17/46 - Boston Yanks v Long Island Indians @
Lynn MA
8/22/47 - Pittsburgh Steelers v Bethlehem Bulldogs @ Erie PA
8/22/47 - Buffalo Bills v Baltimore Colts @
Hershey PA
8/24/47 - LA Dons @ San Francisco 49ers
8/31/47 - Boston Yanks v Detroit Lions @ Flint MI
9/6/47 - Pittsburgh Steelers v Norfolk Shamrocks @ Wheeling WV
9/13/47 - Pittsburgh Steelers v Richmond Rebels @ New Kensington PA
9/17 /47 - Philadelphia Eagles v Bethlehem
Bulldogs @ Bethlehem PA
9/23/47 - NY Giants @ Jersey City
(NJ) Giants
9/8/51 - NY Giants v Washington Redskins @ Birmingham AL
by Bill Schaefer
