Pay Checks and Packers

There was one moment, at New York's Polo Grounds last week, when it looked as if the New York Giants, champions of the East for three years, might win their most important football game of the year. That was in the first quarter when they stopped the Boston Redskins one foot short of a touchdown. Except for another goal-line stand, this time when the Redskins needed four yards to score, the rest of the game, roughest and grimmest of the season, was Boston's all the way. Ankle-deep mud slowed down the Giants' best ball carrier, Alphonse ("Tuffy") Leemans.

Accidents sent three other New Yorkers to the hospital -- Les Corzine with a broken ankle, Gene Rose with a bone bruise, Tony Sarausky with a concussion. Darkness came on so early in the afternoon that the second half was played under flood lights. In a cold, steady rain, the game remained partially concealed from 18,000 spectators by a cloud of steam arising from the players' bodies. When the lights went off and the mist cleared, Boston had won, 14-to-0, with one touch down on Donald Irwin's line plunge climaxing a 38-yd. march, one on Cliff Battles' 74-yd. run.

Last week's game was the most important of the season for both Redskins and Giants because it meant championship of the Eastern Division, one of the two into which U. S. professional football's National League is divided. Championship of the Western Division was clinched last fortnight by the Green Bay Packers. This week the Redskins play the Packers for the League championship.

Because the Redskins, highly popular on the road, have been so thoroughly ignored at home that their owner, Washington Laundryman George Preston Marshall, next season plans to move them home to the capital, professional football's No. 1 game of the year will be played in New York City.

Professional football in the U. S. started about 40 years ago. It has become a big business in the last two years. When the National League, oldest in the game, started in 1921, a franchise was worth $50. The Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and New York Giants are now worth about $250,000 each. Last week the nine National League teams had drawn 1,200,000 spectators to their 54 games this season, 20% more than last year. Biggest crowd of the year was 76,000 at a pre-season game between the Detroit Lions and a team of picked college stars last September. The collegians tied the Lions, 7-to-7, but this was less a set-back than a tribute to professional football. Most of the ablest members of the amateur side were only waiting for the referee's final whistle after a second charity game against the New York Giants a week later before signing contracts as professionals.

The National League was organized 15 years ago by a onetime Columbus, Ohio sportswriter named Joseph Francis Carr, who has been its president ever since. Unlike professional baseball, professional football is not yet governed by complicated laws. There are roughly 1,500 professional and semiprofessional teams in the U. S. But the best amateurs may graduate directly from college into the game's major league. Average span of a National League footballer's career is four years. Price of players sold from one team to another runs as high as $7,500. Average pay check is $125 a game. The National League is made up of onetime college players. So was the ill-fated American League which started last September, disbanded before finishing its schedule. How unimportant "All-America" teams are is proved by professional records. Few All-Americans make good as professionals. Most outstanding professionals--their abilities undetected early enough for ambitious alumni to ease their way at major colleges--were members of teams representing obscure institutions. Ablest ballcarrier in the National League this season has been "Tuffy" Leemans of the New York Giants, in his first year as a professional. He has gained a League-leading total of 830 yards, averaged four yards every time he ran. Last year, when Leemans played at George Washington University, he was not named on any major All-America team. Last summer, he worked as an instructor at Washington, D. C. playgrounds. When newspaper balloting for last September's All-Star college team began, Leemans' pupils organized a campaign that made his vote enormous. Selected for the team, he was outstanding in both All-Star games.

Since the War, the history of professional football has been in a sense the history of the Green Bay Packers. Organized in 1919. the Packers are the oldest team in the National League. Coach of the Packers since 1919 has been Earl Louis ("Curly") Lambeau, a Green Bay boy who played at Notre Dame in Knute Rockne's first year as head coach. He organized the team, got a local packing company to supply uniforms. Since 1921, when they bought a franchise in the National League, the Packers have not only made the little dairy town of Green Bay, Wis. (pop. 45,000) a U. S. sporting institution, by winning the National League championship three times, but they have made themselves the No. 1 institution of Green Bay where, unlike the members of football or baseball teams representing other cities, most of them have settled down to live, follow off-season callings like truck-driving, baseball and the law. In the first 18 years of their history, the Packers have had many narrow escapes. In 1922, when their sponsors owed $1,600 in back salaries, local businessmen formed a corporation to finance the team. The Packers repaid their benefactors by attracting as many as 15,000 spectators to a single Green Bay game. In 1934, the team had financial difficulties again. A spectator fell off the grandstand and was awarded $5,500 damages. The mutual company with which the Packers were insured went into bankruptcy during the trial. The bankruptcy put the Packers' debt up to $10,000. Green Bay citizens then subscribed $13,000 to keep the team going.

In 1935 the Packers missed the League's Western Division championship by the margin of one point, having failed to kick a goal after a touchdown against the Chicago Cardinals. This year they played ten games in a row without a similar omission. The Packers lost their second game of the season, 30-to-3, against the Chicago Bears, in Green Bay's City Stadium. The humiliation was so extreme that they won every game thereafter until they clinched the Western Division championship last fortnight.

To the winner of the Packers v. Redskins game this week will go the professional championship of the U. S. Among the Packers' stars favored to win it are: Halfback John Blood, whose service record of 13 years is the longest in the League, whose size (6 ft., 190 Ib.) is pygmy compared to a team averaging 20 Ib. more, and whose orangutan arms make him equally dreaded as a pass catcher and a tackler; End Don Hutson, whose 34 catches this season broke the League record; Arnold ("Flash") Herber, whose accuracy has enabled him to throw completed passes totaling 1,225 yards, which is not only a record individual total but more than the total gained by any other team in the League this year. Last week, the Packers warmed up for their crucial game against the Redskins by playing a monotonous 0-to-0 tie with the Chicago Cardinals.

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