Author wins debate over Maroons’ title

Author wins debate over Maroons’ title
BY STEPHEN J. PYTAK
STAFF WRITER
spytak@republicanherald.com
04/21/2008

David Fleming, who argued again and again there was no territorial rule to prevent the Pottsville Maroons from playing the Notre Dame All-Stars on Dec. 12, 1925, won The Great Maroons Debate on Friday night.

The historic debate, organized by Lasting Legacy of Pottsville, pitted Fleming against Joe Horrigan, the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s vice president of communications and exhibits.

The issue: Do the Pottsville Maroons deserve the 1925 NFL title?

According to three judges scoring the event, Fleming won the debate 254-218.

Four of the 13 questions, which moderator Jim Coles, sports director for WNEP-TV 16, asked during the two-hour event before a packed house at Sovereign Majestic, dealt with the topic of whether the Maroons infringed on the territory of the Frankford Yellow Jackets when the Maroons played the Notre Dame All-Stars at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park.

And Fleming, the Davidson, N.C., author of “Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship,” said those questions were the most crucial.

“The territory rule never existed. And to this day it probably still doesn’t exist,” Fleming said.

Horrigan’s answer to Question 6 — “Did the NFL have a written rule of territorial rights during the 1925 season? Can its existence be verified?” — was an important point in the debate.

Horrigan quoted the 1926 league rules concerning territorial rights (Section 14, Article 6) then said, “I cannot produce any written rules of any sort from 1925.”

“I think that’s pretty clear that nobody knew if a rule existed,” Fleming said.

“I think that’s a persuasive fact,” said one of the three judges, John E. Jones III, Pottsville, a U.S. district judge. “Much of what Joe argued was from 1926 and it seems to me that he argued that things were much clearer in 1926 than they were in 1925, and that seems to prove David’s point, that this was an ad hoc decision by the (then-commissioner) Mr. Carr and the league in 1925.”

The event’s judges — Jones; Rod Eyer, Melville, N.Y., a graphic artist and correspondent for Newsday, Long Island, N.Y., who wrote an article about the Maroons in 2000; and Ernest Accorsi, New York City, general manager of the New York Giants from 1998 to 2006 — scored Fleming and Horrigan’s responses on a scale of 0 to 10.

Eyer, tied up in traffic in his commute, arrived late, just before Question 3.

The debate result alone will not determine whether the Pottsville Maroons will be given the 1925 title, Fleming said. That decision lies in the hands of the 32 NFL owners. The last time the NFL owners put the Maroons on their agenda, Oct. 30, 2003, they struck down a motion to reconsider the Maroons’ case by a vote of 30-2.

At night’s end, Fleming and Horrigan shook hands and embraced.

“I thought he was great. Just the fact that he would show up and be gracious and understand what he was up against, I think he deserves as much credit as anybody. If he didn’t agree to it, this wouldn’t have happened. And it shows that he’s dedicated to the true history of the NFL and not just selective history,” Fleming said.

“I’ve known Joe for years and I admire how he came here as such a good sport, when he knew the odds were kind of stacked against him. Still his heart was in the right place. He had a great spirit about him,” Accorsi said.

The judges were impressed with Fleming’s approach to the history.

“I think David has the more compelling argument. I am trying to be as objective as I can, but I am a native Pennsylvanian,” said Accorsi, a Hershey native.

“I thought Horrigan makes a very powerful argument, but at the end of the day, I thought David Fleming’s arguments were more persuasive. I think that as a good advocate, his facts were more persuasive. But I think Joe is a tremendous sport to come in here to do this,” Jones said.

Ian Lipton, a member of the Lasting Legacy board of directors, said the event’s 224 tickets were distributed by the end of March as fans gobbled up a chance to witness the first head-to-head debate over the 83-year-old controversy by outside experts.

The event began with a one-minute video message from Gov. Ed Rendell, who boldly stated: “The Maroons were screwed. They won it fair and square. They lost it on a technicality.”

On Dec. 6, 1925, the Maroons defeated the Chicago Cardinals at Chicago, 21-7. Then on Dec. 12, 1925, the Maroons defeated a non-NFL team, the Notre Dame All-Stars, 9-7, in an exhibition game at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park.

The Philadelphia-based Frankford Yellow Jackets claimed the Maroons invaded their territory. The league fined the Maroons $500 and suspended them from all rights and privileges and declared their franchise forfeited in the league, the book states.

While the Cardinals refused to accept the 1925 NFL championship, Fleming said, it was never officially awarded to any team.

During the debate, each question was projected on a jumbo screen behind the candidates.

Question 11 was: “The NFL never formally awarded the 1925 championship to the Chicago Cardinals. In fact, Chris O’Brien, 1925 owner of the Cardinals, wouldn’t accept the title. Why is awarding the Cardinals the 1925 Championship more appropriate than having co-titles or even a vacant title?”

Fleming said: “Joe keeps giving examples of how great the NFL (was) at compromise. If the NFL wants to be seen as this fair organization, then they need to compromise on things that are difficult, things that might not actually make them look so great. This begs for compromise. It is the perfect example of a situation that calls for, at the very least, co-championship, no question about it.”

“There was compromise,” Horrigan insisted, defending the league’s decision to suspend the Maroons in 1925, then reinstate them in 1926.

“Making them a co-champion rewards a team that was forfeited for violating a rule. They did not complete the season. To even be considered even as a co-champion in a compromising fashion, they would have to be able to say they completed the season,” Horrigan said.

The last question was: “Is it possible the NFL will never change the decision concerning the 1925 championship because doing so would be an admission that they acted improperly during their infancy?”

“I don’t think that that would be the case. I don’t know that I would support the concept that they did something improper in their infancy. Certainly there were things that happened in their infancy that we would not allow to happen today,” Horrigan said, admitting the league suffered “growing pains.”

“To say that they’re closing the door on much of this because they would have to admit to wrongdoing, I don’t think they’d do that at all,” Horrigan said.

In turn, Fleming said, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL owners would always be open to hear this case.

“I hope, I don’t know if it’s a fact, but I hope that’s what the NFL’s all about. It is our national pastime. That’s what it’s been turned into. Franchises are now worth in excess of a billion dollars. At the very least, these men can do, is listen to the Maroons, whether it’s after 83 years or 183 years, it doesn’t matter. The NFL owes the Maroons that much,” Fleming said.

Among those in attendance was Patrick Rizzotti and Brett Forbes, the partners who run Fortress Features, Los Angeles, which is co-producing the “Breaker Boys” film project with Sentinel Entertainment, Los Angeles, and Solaris Entertainment, Venice, Calif.

They said the script for “Breaker Boys” is being reviewed by a few NFL owners, who Rizzotti and Forbes hope will verbally support the project.