Last Team Standing (22 page)

While Steagles tackle Ted Doyle labored in the Westinghouse factory and on the football field, his wife was left to manage the household while raising two children, a three-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl.

“I was busy,” Harriet Doyle remembered. Like countless millions of other patriotic American homemakers, she saved kitchen fats and turned them in to her butcher, so they could be converted into glycerin to make gunpowder. She assiduously recycled tin cans, observed “meatless Fridays,” and cultivated a small “Victory Garden” to supplement the family's diet. Finding shoes for her children was one of the greatest difficulties Doyle encountered.

“Their feet were growin' all the time! And with two of 'em, why, it was interesting. But when we ran out of ration coupons, our neighbors would help us out.”

Technically that was a violation of OPA regulations: ration stamps were to be used only by the household to which they'd been assigned. In fact, they were to be removed from the booklet
only in the presence of the shopkeeper to whom they were being redeemed. The reality, said Harriet Doyle, was very different.

“We exchanged ration coupons with the neighbors all the time. There was an elderly couple next door that didn't have any children, so they gave us extra coupons. And a bachelor who lived across the street shared coupons, too.”

Like every other American institution, the National Football League was forced to adapt to wartime conditions.

“Equipment was very scarce,” recalled Dan Rooney, the son of the Steelers' founder. “We kept it in the basement of our house so we didn't lose it. Cleats were really hard to get because they were a rubber product.” Footballs were hard to get too, because their bladders were made of rubber. What little equipment that was available was often appropriated by the military for recreational use. What's more, travel restrictions made it difficult for “non-priority” travelers like football players to get seats on trains. When Ted Doyle commuted to games, he shared a berth with Bill Cullen, one of the Steelers' radio announcers (and later a popular TV game show host), an arrangement that probably garnered Doyle more airtime than the average lineman. Ballpark concessions were difficult to procure as well. A bottle shortage rendered soft drinks (“soda” in Philadelphia, “pop” in Pittsburgh) a precious commodity. Paper for game programs was also in short supply. And it was almost impossible to get the uniforms cleaned, since laundry services were inundated with military business. After his first day at training camp, tackle Al Wistert handed his sweat-soaked jersey and pants to the Eagles' trainer, Fred Schubach.

“We can't get laundry service,” Schubach barked. “Wear that stuff a while!” Wistert took his uniform back home to his wife Ellie, who cleaned it in the tub.

In some ways the wartime conditions actually benefited the National Football League. Games were played on Sundays, many workers' only day off. The ballparks were close to trolley lines or other public transportation, so fans could get there without
expending precious gas rations. And, by the fall of 1943, nearly 300 colleges had dropped their football programs for want of players, thereby eliminating the pro game's primary competition.

Although football had not yet acquired much of the martial vernacular that has since come to characterize it—“blitz” and “bomb” meant very different things in 1943—the game's obvious parallels with war also may have contributed to its popularity on the home front. The objectives of penetrating enemy territory while defending your own, the recurring and often violent physical confrontations: football was a benign substitute for the real thing. Nor did the NFL discourage the perception. On the cover of game programs, images of soldiers and football players were frequently juxtaposed. While one threw a hand grenade, for example, the other threw a touchdown pass.

The league presented football not merely as diversionary, but as necessary.

“Democracy makes us a pacific people,” said Chicago Cardinals head coach Jimmy Conzelman in a 1942 radio broadcast. “The young man must be toughened not only physically but mentally. He must become accustomed to violence. Football is the No. 1 medium for attuning a man to body contact and violent physical shock. It teaches that after all there isn't anything so terrifying about a punch in the puss.”

Football also gave Americans a respite from fear, especially in the gray autumn of 1943, when the United States had already been at war for two long years and no end was in sight. The threat of invasion had subsided: In October, the government even lifted a ban on the publication and broadcasting of weather reports. Americans were confident, but victory in Europe and especially Asia was still far from certain.

“We were all concerned about the war,” remembered Harriet Doyle. “Our hopes were high but we were very concerned. It was something that we prayed and hoped for, that everything would turn out all right. Ted had a brother in and so did I. [Ted's brother was killed in action.] It definitely concerned us all. I was
very happy that my husband didn't have to go in. It's very selfish, but with two children—I would've had my hands full.”

There were few entertaining escapes that autumn. Baseball was over, and Hollywood, awash in unctuous patriotism, offered an endless stream of banal war movies, the most popular of which,
This Is the Army,
starred Ronald Reagan. Popular music was similarly preoccupied (e.g., “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” by Kay Kyser). Football provided a release. After dropping off precipitously in 1942, attendance rebounded dramatically the following season, with war- and work-weary fans turning out in droves. The NFL would average 24,228 fans per game in 1943, a 33-percent increase over the previous season and the best in league history at that time.

“Fans had found football a good way to forget the war for a few hours,” is how Bears owner George Halas explained it.

In Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—cities where first-place teams were as common as palm trees—the Steagles' early success excited sports fans. Suddenly, unexpectedly, they had a winner, albeit one with an unusual name and pedigree.

“The Steagles have been a distinct surprise,” gushed Chet Smith in the
Pittsburgh Press
after the Giants game. Even the scribes of the Midwest, professional football's epicenter, were impressed. In the
Chicago Tribune,
Edward Prell wrote that the “whispering is growing louder that here is a team which may represent the east in the championship playoffs.” When a reporter told Vic Sears that the Steagles had a good line “considering the times,” the ulcerous tackle bristled.

“Look,” he said, “this is a good line, war or no war.”

Bert Bell was asked if the Eagles had ever started the season with two wins.

“Hell,” he laughed, “I don't even remember them ever winning two games in a row before!”

In fact the Eagles never had started a season with consecutive victories, and the Steelers had just twice, in 1936 and 1937.

Bell could not contain his enthusiasm for the Steagles.

“Their spirit is wonderful,” he said. “We have no great, outstanding players, but we do have what's better. That's a squad of players that think they can win a ball game. And by golly, that's what counts.” As for their next opponent, the mighty Chicago Bears, Bell said, “I'm not saying we'll beat them.” But, he hastened to add, “They can be beat…. It will be a ball game.”

On the evening of Friday, October 15, the Steagles departed Philadelphia on a train bound for Chicago. The trip would take more than 15 hours, their longest road trip of the season by far. (The second longest were the trips to Pittsburgh for home games.) En route the train picked up the Pittsburgh contingent, including Ted Doyle and the Steelers' radio announcers, Joe Tucker and Bill Cullen. It was reported that “quite a number” of Steelers fans boarded the train as well, even though the Office of Defense Transportation had instructed pro football teams to “restrict sales of tickets to residents of the area in which the game is played” in order to make space on trains available for soldiers and other people “traveling on war business.” Like so many wartime rules, this one was greeted with a wink and a nod. The Steelers fans could buy their tickets at the Wrigley Field box office, where no one would bother to ask them where they were from.

Pullman cars were available for the players to sleep in, but it was still a long, uncomfortable ride. Greasy Neale didn't mind, though. The Eagles head coach enjoyed long train trips. He believed they fostered the kind of family atmosphere he strived for among his players. On the train the players read, played cards, and hung out in the dining car. Even when air travel became common after the war, Neale preferred the rails, believing that “flying has a deleterious emotional effect on certain players which it is well to avoid.” He felt that “train travel on the whole, is much more restful, and brings the team to its destination in better physical condition, and in a more emotionally stable frame of mind” than air travel.

“I think Greasy might've owned stock in the railroad,” joked center Ray Graves.

The train pulled into Chicago around nine o'clock Saturday
morning, and the team went straight to Wrigley Field for a brief workout to shake off their train legs and inspect the turf. Afterwards they checked into the Edgewater Beach Hotel on the far north side, where they ate lunch in the café. Greasy Neale was a punctilious coach, and his rules for road trips were rigid. He seems to have had a particular fixation on food.

“All meals are to be eaten in the hotel coffee shop,” players were instructed in a handout, “and checks must be signed by players. If two or more players have their meal together, each of the players must sign the check.” Among the other rules: smoking was permitted “at all times” except during meals, in meetings, in the locker room, or on the field; no gambling was permitted except for penny ante poker, rummy (“with small stakes”), pinochle (“at five cents per hundred”), and bridge (“at 1/20th cent a point”); and no drinking of beer or whiskey was permitted “at any time except when the entire squad is granted permission by the Head Coach.”

Curfew the night before a game was 10:00 p.m., but in Chicago all the players were already in bed well before then. They knew they needed all the rest they could get. Their task the next day was gargantuan. The Bears were redoubtable; they hadn't lost a regular season game since before Pearl Harbor. Their roster was loaded with older, experienced players, including five future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Danny Fortmann, Sid Luckman, George Musso, Bronko Nagurski, and Clyde Turner). Apart from the departure of owner George Halas for the Navy, the Bears were largely unscathed by the war. It seemed a bit suspicious, actually.

B
ACK IN MID
S
EPTEMBER,
just before the start of the season, the Bears had issued a press release announcing that five more players were returning to the team for the upcoming campaign. The release also noted the jobs the players would be leaving to join the team:

• Harry Clark, a pipe fitter at a defense plant in Morgantown, West Virginia.
  
• Al Hoptowit, a farm worker in the Yakima Valley of Washington state.
  
• Dante Magnani, a pipe fitter at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California.
  
• Hampton Pool, a mechanic at a shipyard in Sunnydale, California.
  
• Clyde “Bulldog” Turner, a civilian Army employee in Abilene, Texas.
  

As was customary, the release was published nearly verbatim in the Chicago papers. Almost immediately, the phone at the Chicago office of the War Manpower Commission began ringing. Callers were angry. Why were these men being allowed to leave important war jobs to play pro football? William Spencer, the top WMC official in Chicago, decided to find out. Declaring it “a matter of public morale,” Spencer said his investigation would determine whether there was any “irregularity” in the transfer of the players from essential industries to a nonessential one.

“If rules have been violated,” Spencer promised, “I will attempt to straighten them out.”

As part of a “job stabilization program” begun in late 1942, the WMC required a worker to obtain a “certificate of availability” from his employer before leaving a war job. This was supposed to prevent a worker from leaving his employer in a lurch when he quit. Employers were not allowed to hire a worker who did not have a certificate of availability. The goal of the program was to keep workers from leaving essential jobs without good cause—to simply go to a higher paying job, for example. In fact, it bound workers to their employers: You needed your boss's permission to quit a war job. At issue was whether the five Bears in question had obtained their certificates of availability. Also at issue was the question of which employer was “regular” and which was “vacation.” If the football club was considered the players' regular employer, then their war work was merely “supplemental,” and
not under the jurisdiction of the WMC. However, if the Bears were their vacation employer, that was another matter altogether.

Ralph Brizzolara, who was running the Bears while George Halas was in the Navy, insisted the team had done nothing wrong.

“If there has been any violation,” he said, “it was entirely inadvertent.”

To NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden, the whole situation was keenly embarrassing.

“The league clubs have always cooperated in the war effort,” the image-conscious commissioner said. “If there are any irregularities we want to know about them too and they will be corrected. The war comes first.”

The possible repercussions were enormous.

“If the players failed to obtain certificates of availability,” Spencer said, “it would be doubtful if they would be permitted to continue playing football. They might have to return to essential industry.”