Last Team Standing (26 page)

More ominously, the strike threatened to cripple war production nationwide. The Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation announced that the strike would force it to begin reducing iron and
steel production Wednesday or Thursday. Mills that had been operating at 100 percent of capacity prepared to reduce to zero. Shortly before 5:00 p.m. on Monday, President Roosevelt seized control of the nation's 3,000 mines and put Interior Secretary Ickes in charge of them. Roosevelt also ordered the strikers back to work the following day, an order the miners refused to obey. They would only answer to another president: John L. Lewis. Meanwhile, Lewis and Ickes began negotiating a settlement.

On Wednesday, U.S. Steel announced that it was shutting down nine blast furnaces in Pittsburgh and Youngstown. Shortly after six o'clock that night, Lewis and Ickes announced that a settlement had been reached.

The miners won a raise of $1.50 a day to $8.50. (Anthracite miners received a slightly smaller increase.) They also won a 45-minute allowance for portal-to-portal travel. The papers immediately hailed the settlement as a smashing victory for Lewis and the miners, but the fine print told a different story. The agreement increased the miners' workday by one hour and reduced their lunch break from 30 minutes to 15, prompting one commentator to quip, “Lewis bargained for eight months and the miners lost their lunch.” Before the strike the miners had worked seven hours a day for seven dollars. After the strike they worked eight-and-a-half hours—for eight-and-a-half dollars.

The details did not concern most Americans, though. All that mattered was that coal would be mined again.

However questionable their victory, the miners' militancy emboldened other workers, and, for the rest of the war, strikes would plague vital industries.

The strife would not affect professional football, however. Each player signed a contract with a “reserve clause” that bound him to his employer in perpetuity. There was no free agency. If the player and the club could not agree on a salary, then the salary would be “such as the Club may fix.” The players had no benefits: no health insurance, no life insurance, no pension. There was no minimum salary, and players were usually not paid for exhibition games (the source of Roy Zimmerman's dispute
with Redskins owner George Preston Marshall). The owners would not formally recognize a players' union until 1968.

A
T TRAINING CAMP IN
1937, Redskins head coach Ray Flaherty was showing a hotshot rookie named Sammy Baugh how to throw a pass.

“Sammy, you're in the pros now,” Flaherty said to the strapping cowboy from Sweetwater, Texas, “and they want the football where they can catch it. Hit 'em in the eye.”

Baugh looked at his coach and asked, “Which eye?”

He wasn't joking.

An all-American football player at Texas Christian University in 1935 and 1936, Samuel Adrian Baugh was planning to pursue a baseball career until George Preston Marshall enticed him to Washington with a contract believed to be worth $8,000. Marshall got a bargain. By the time “Slingin' Sammy” retired after the 1952 season, he was the NFL's career leader in passing attempts (2,995), completions (1,693), completion percentage (56.5), touchdown passes (188), and passing yardage (21,886). Those records have since been eclipsed, but Baugh's influence has not. Almost single-handedly Baugh dragged professional football into the modern era. When he came into the league, passing was an act of desperation. When he left, it was
de rigueur.

Baugh is remembered as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, but he wasn't even a quarterback for his first seven seasons in the league. The Redskins didn't adopt the T formation until 1944. Before then Baugh was a tailback, usually in the wing formation, which afforded the passer little protection.

Baugh's extraordinary talents were not limited to passing. He was also one of the greatest punters in NFL history. His lifetime average of 45.1 yards per punt still ranks second all-time. He was an outstanding defensive back as well, intercepting 31 passes before he stopped playing both ways after the 1945 season. And he did it all with good humor and grace and not a trace of pride.

In 1943, Sammy Baugh was at the height of his considerable powers—and the opposition was bereft of talent. (Since he owned
a cattle ranch in Texas, Baugh was deferred from the draft.) He would end the season leading the league in passing, punting, and interceptions—football's version of the “triple crown,” and a feat never to be duplicated in today's game of specialized players. In 1943, Sammy Baugh was practically unstoppable.

But Greasy Neale and Walt Kiesling thought they could stop him.

Persistent rain limited the Steagles to just two full practice sessions in the week before the Redskins game. At those practices and in the nightly “skull sessions” at the Hotel Philadelphian, Neale and Kiesling drilled into their team the importance of harassing, hampering, and harrying Sammy Baugh. The coaches believed “the best way to stop an aerial attack is to rush the passer so that he must get his tosses off hurriedly.” The Steagles would rush Baugh relentlessly to put him off his game.

Redskins head coach Arthur “Dutch” Bergman had his own strategy for winning, and it seemed to be working. Bergman inherited the team when his predecessor, Ray Flaherty, joined the Navy after the 1942 season. Bergman, who had played for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, immediately replaced Flaherty's single-wing formation with something called the Notre Dame box. (Suffice it to say that it involved a lot of players moving around in the backfield before the snap, but Sammy Baugh still passed a lot.) Considering that the Redskins had just won the championship with the single wing, it was a risky move. But the Redskins responded positively to the new formation and reeled off four straight wins to begin the season. Including the previous year, they had won 13 games in a row.

Philadelphia had not seen the Steagles since their unexpected victory over the Giants at Shibe Park four weeks earlier. Absence, apparently, had made the heart grow fonder: Advance ticket sales for the game were said to be the highest in the history of the Eagles franchise.

Nobody was anticipating the game more keenly than Steagles quarterback Roy Zimmerman. He'd been looking forward to it since the day he was traded from the Redskins to the Eagles.
While the
Washington Times-Herald
claimed Zimmerman “was never completely popular with his teammates” in Washington, he seemed to have no trouble making friends on his new team.

“Zim was a nice person,” said halfback Ernie Steele. His teammates also appreciated Zimmerman's leadership.

“He came up and did a pretty good job,” said center Ray Graves. “I think he was a good quarterback and took charge pretty good.” In Washington, though, Zimmerman was not missed.

“If he were still with Washington,” the
Times-Herald
sniffed, “he'd still be sitting out most of the Redskin games.” Shortly before the game, a rumor circulated that the Redskins intended to “do a job” on their old teammate. The Steagles intended to do likewise on Sammy Baugh.

Bookmakers made the Redskins ten-point favorites. The point spread was a relatively new concept in 1943. Previously, most bookies set odds. For example, the odds of the Redskins winning would have been 5-to-7, while the odds of the Eagles winning would have been 5-to-1. The point spread was popular with gamblers because it allowed them to bet on underdogs without having to worry about the underdogs actually winning—all they had to do was lose by fewer points than the spread. Bookies liked it too. Under the odds system they could be wiped out if, say, a 100-to-1 long shot actually won. The point spread minimized risk. By adjusting the spread according to the wagering, a shrewd bookie could balance his bets on either side of it and collect his commission—the “vigorish” or “vig.” The point spread led to an explosive growth in gambling on pro football and, not coincidentally, in the game's popularity.

The Redskins arrived at Shibe Park about two hours before the 2:30 p.m. kickoff on Sunday, November 7. It was a warm day and by game time the ballpark was filled with, in Art Morrow's words, “a howling, excited multitude of 32,693.” The crowd included 3,000 servicemen attending as guests of the Steagles, as well as hundreds of Redskins fans who'd made the trip north. It was the largest audience ever assembled for a National Football League game in Philadelphia.

The multitude was howling and excited nine minutes into the second quarter, when Larry Cabrelli intercepted a Sammy Baugh pass and returned it 24 yards to give the Steagles a 7-0 lead.

The Redskins answered less than four minutes later, when Baugh lobbed a 15-yard pass over the crossbar and into the arms of his favorite receiver, Wilbur Moore, who was dashing across the back of the end zone.

At halftime the score was 7-7.

During the intermission, volunteers from the Navy League passed through the stands collecting donations for the purchase of cigarettes for the troops overseas. According to the organization, servicemen considered smokes “next in importance to food and ammunition.”

“Give generously,” the Navy League implored. “The least we can do is to keep cartons of cigarettes flowing to them in a constant stream.” The tobacco companies did their part by donating millions of cigarettes directly to the armed forces.

Less than a minute into the fourth quarter, with the game still tied at 7-7 and the ball on the Steagles 23, Roy Zimmerman dropped back to punt. The Redskins were well aware that Zimmerman was a notoriously slow punter—he took four steps before he kicked the ball—and this time they came at him with everything they had. The Steagles line could not hold. Bob Masterson infiltrated the right side and blocked the kick. Lou Rymkus, a lumbering 223-pound tackle, scooped up the ball around the three and crawled into the end zone on his hands and knees. Masterson kicked the extra point to give the Redskins a 14-7 lead.

Bobby Thurbon returned the subsequent kickoff to the Steagles 45. A pass to Tony Bova advanced the ball to the Redskins 35. Then Zimmerman lobbed a short pass to Ernie Steele, who was standing near the left sideline. Steele caught the ball and streaked downfield behind a wall of blockers. He was tackled just as he crossed the goal line. The Redskins complained vehemently that Steele had stepped out of bounds a yard shy of the end zone, but the touchdown stood.

“I caught the pass and made the touchdown and
Zimmerman wanted to take all the credit,” Steele later joked. “He said, ‘I called that play just for you!'”

Zimmerman converted the extra point to tie the score.

The Redskins threatened to take the lead in the game's waning moments, but Ray Graves intercepted a Baugh pass on the Steagles 12 to extinguish the threat. Fifteen seconds later the final gun sounded, ending the game at 14-14. The Redskins' 13-game winning streak was over.

The Redskins hadn't lost but they had been beaten. Bob Seymour took a knee in the ribs. Dick Farman picked up an ugly black eye. Early in the fourth quarter running back Andy Farkas was tackled so viciously that his pants were ripped off, forcing Washington to expend a valuable timeout so he could change into a new pair while his teammates huddled around him. It had been a hellacious game, “a slam-bang brawling affair from start to finish, with a lot of roughhouse tactics tossed in,” according to the
Washington Times-Herald's
Vincent Flaherty. The animosity between the teams was palpable. Much of it stemmed from Zimmerman's feud with Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, but Ray Graves said it went deeper than that: “There were players on both teams who had played against each other in college and didn't like each other.” And with only four officials to police the action (as opposed to seven today)—and no facemasks to get in the way—scores were easy to settle.

The Steagles' tactic of ruthlessly harassing Sammy Baugh was a smashing success. Although he still managed to pass for 147 yards, Baugh did not resemble the passer who had thrown a record six touchdown passes just a week earlier. He spent much of the game running for his life. Steagles guard Rocco Canale broke through the Washington line and ripped Baugh's burgundy No. 33 jersey off his back—twice. (The jerseys were made of tightly woven wool and did not tear easily.) Baugh played much of the first half in tatters, his left arm exposed to the shoulder and his white undershirt visible on his back.

“Baugh … was roughed, slammed and walloped,” wrote Vincent Flaherty. The Steagles had definitely done a job on Baugh,
but Roy Zimmerman did not escape unscathed. The Redskins roughed him up at every opportunity, and he suffered a deep gash in the back of his left leg when Bob Masterson spiked him late in the game.

Like their teams, Baugh and his former understudy played to a standoff. Each threw one touchdown pass and three interceptions. Both punted brilliantly. And both were on the field nearly the entire game: Baugh played 55 minutes, Zimmerman 59. Despite the new rule allowing unlimited substitution, most coaches still kept their 11 starters in the game as much as possible.

“They didn't really take advantage of it,” Steagles tackle Ted Doyle said of the new rule. “I guess it's because it was foreign to the coaches. They didn't recognize it as an opportunity—which it really was, a big opportunity—but they didn't recognize it as such.”

After the game, Zimmerman limped into the Redskins locker room to shake hands with his former teammates. The hatchet was buried—but when the teams met again in three weeks it was sure to be dug up. The Redskins already had retribution on their minds.

Greasy Neale, who turned 52 two days before the game, considered the tie something of a birthday gift, but tie games were one of the NFL's nagging bugaboos. On the same day the Steagles and Redskins tied, the Giants and Lions played to a 0-0 draw on a hopelessly muddy field at Briggs (later Tiger) Stadium in Detroit—the last scoreless game in league history.