Unveiling the 1945 NFL Championship: A Historical Perspective

Welcome back to our editions where we're covering the Pre Super Bowl NFL championship games.

Coming up in just a moment is our guest historian to tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another championship day.

Joe Squires is our guest today from Gridiron Greats magazine and the Gridiron Greats podcast.

Joe, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Great to be on.

I love your preamble.

That's very energetic, Darren.

Well done.

Oh, thank you.

Do you have that memorized or do you have a cue card above your monitor?

I could.

No, it's all.

It's all memorized.

Yeah.

Quite often it's stuttering.

Today wasn't such a bad display.

Came off the tongue.

You nailed it.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

You know, speaking about nailing it, you know, you and Bob Swick have such a great podcast on Gridiron Grace where you get to talk about football history through the trading cards and collectibles, and it's just so interesting because they're so connected to the history of the game.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about the podcast and what you do in your football fandom.

Oh, I've.

I say it and I.

I repeat it often.

I have the best seat in the house.

I get to talk hobby with, you know, hobby giant Bob Swick, you know, a couple times, you know, every other week.

And it is.

It is amazing.

Just like you and I, you know, we, you know, we were, you know, catching up before the show.

I mean, I don't know how many times Bob and I have, you know, you know, you know, logged in to do the show and just sat there and talked, talked hobby for, you know, you know, you know, 10, 15 minutes.

The text threads that we have back and forth are amazing with friends just sharing hobby.

Yeah, I've got the best seat in the house.

I get to talk, like I said, you know, talk football with hobby giant.

You know, Bob Sway, the Captain.

We call him the Captain.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we had Bob on nine episodes ago.

He did the 36 Green Bay season and we've got some great reviews about that.

So folks, you can go back and.

Check that out that he took the Packers.

Yeah, it was a stunner.

It was a stunner.

It was by invite though.

I helped him along the way though I knew, I knew his passion.

So push the right buttons for him.

Now we have you going a little bit outside because you are a fan of the Seattle Seahawks and you like I a fan of the Steelers.

I'm not a fan of.

Well, I'm kind of excited about that still, but that's okay.

But as a Steelers fan, I didn't have anything to talk about for these things, so I can't be any expert on her.

So why don't you tell us a little about the 45 season and who won it.

I'm very familiar with that.

You know, NFL, you know the NFL and the, you know, the, the Cleveland Browns coming up.

And so I was very aware of, you know, the Cleveland Browns displacing the Cleveland Rams.

You know, they moved to la, you know, and I'm, I'm a big fan of, you know, Bob Waterfield and you know, Elroy Hirsch and you know, Tom Fears.

And both of them chose not to turn pro that time.

And despite that, the Rams won the, the championship that year.

That was stunning to me.

I had to go back and look at the dates and like wait a minute, why weren't they on the roster?

Which I didn't know.

It's fascinating.

Elroy Hirsch was drafted first round number five selection as an end out of Michigan and Decided to go into the AFC instead.

So I mean, imagine, I mean, the Rams won.

Won the championship.

They went 9 and 1 and then beat the Redskins.

But imagine that team stacked with a little bit more talent of two future hall of Famers, you know, Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears.

That was one little tidbit I walked away from is I had no idea they drafted those two future hall of Famers that year.

And they both moved.

They both did other things.

Yeah, I didn't realize they draft them that year.

Same year either.

That's pretty good draft, even though they didn't get to enjoy it for a few years.

Yeah, it was very stacked.

Yeah.

Elroy Hirsch, you know, as I was reading about it, because, you know, you go down these rabbit holes, as we all do as hobbyists, where it's like, you know, you know, ended up becoming one of the highest paid, you know, NFL players when he ended up coming back to the Rams.

But really cool.

I mean, to, you know, to, you know, do, you know, deep, deep dives on some of these, you know, some of these topics.

Like, I didn't know the Rams had that good of a record.

One of the things I really walked away from is the, the stadium that they played their games at.

They, the Rams played at League park, which is in Cleveland, but it's a baseball field.

And the capacity of the stadium varies because they eventually fled Cleveland because, you know, the Cleveland Browns, the afc were starting up and they, you know, the, you know, the, the owner, Reeves knew that they would be, they wouldn't be able to compete.

And they, they never made money.

You know, like the, the previous four or five years, Cleveland Rams never made money.

Even in their championship run, they lost money.

So those two things forced him to move to la and like, well, how big.

What part did they play at?

They played at League Park.

They had four home games out of the, they had the first week by.

So they had 10 games and four of them were home games, which isn't a very good split.

Right.

First, the first, the season opener.

10,800 people came to the season opener out of a capacity of 22,000.

So you can imagine the stands Look a little barren.

The next game against the Bears, 19,580.

So kind of sold out.

But then they had two away games to the Eagles in October.

38,000 people went to Shy Park.

And then the week, a week later at the giants polo grounds, 46,000 people showed up.

In the four home games that year they had a total attendance of 77,000 people.

But one third of those came in week eight against the Packers.

Bob Swick will be happy to hear that.

28,000 or 1/3 of their attendance came against the Packers.

So people came to see the packers, an established team that your Don Hudson was on the team.

I mean it was a good stack talent team.

Right.

You can just look at this and go attendance is abysmal.

Yeah, I mean it's, the stands are 75% full for most of their games and then they go away, they go, you know, to New York.

The, the game with the Eagles and the Giants was, had a total attendance of 84,000.

Those two games were like 30% more for the, than the entire attendance to all four games, you know, at home.

So why did they leave?

Why did they go to la?

It was two pronged.

They lost money and they, and they're reinforced out.

The championship game.

You know, so a lot of players, you know, you know, on both teams leaving to go, you know, going to military service, coming back.

I mean we were talking about Tim Brown's new book coming out and you know, just.

Yeah, I almost divulged something I should have but the attendance to the championship game which was held at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

So I went down a rabbit hole.

How big is Cleveland Municipal Stadium?

78,000 capacity.

They played in a 60 year old park, 55 year old park with a 22,000 seat capacity.

I, I, I live 100 miles from Cleveland and in the 70s the Browns still played in Cleveland Municipal.

And it was, you know, it was a, it was a real treat.

You know, I would go there as a Steelers fan of course and when you go up into the sixth level, it was like you were climbing a ladder.

That's how these seats were built.

I mean it was like straight up and I was like a know 12 year old kid.

So his steps were probably 4 inches wide and you're climbing up there and they had these giant columns.

So if you watched a Baseball game or football game there, and it would take out, you know, 10, 15 yards of the, the field because these things were big cement columns holding the structure up.

So, yeah, it was quite a behemoth.

And it was probably, you know, state of the art when it was first built in the, the early 20th century.

But.

Yeah, yeah, but big stadium though.

Yeah.

1931, it was built for the Cleveland Indians, but I really got into the timing of when this stuff happens.

So the Rams are playing in league part 22,000-55-year-old stadium.

And then the Cleveland Browns come along in this upstart AFC and they get to play at Cleveland Municipal.

So kind of a weird slap in the face where it's like this established team that, you know, that has been there doesn't get to play in the nice new shiny stadium, but, you know, the upstart team does.

I don't, you know, who knows, you know how that happened?

Well, I've got an inkling to that.

Yes.

Yeah, well, Paul, Paul Brown's probably the reason for that because he, he was a high school coach at Massillon, which is right down the road from Cleveland.

They ended up winning a national championship in high school, won the national championship at Ohio State.

And then, you know, what he did with the Browns is, you know, phenomenal.

But I mean, how many people have won as a head coach four national championships or three national championships at each level of football?

That's, that's unbelievable.

In two leagues.

I didn't know about him in the high school league.

Yeah, that's interesting.

My son and I were just getting into the conversation, you know, if Patrick Mahomes wins his super bowl and know, has four rings, will he be the second best quarterback ever to, to lace him up behind, you know, Tom Brady?

Then I'm like, well, have you heard of Joe Montana?

He went four for four.

What about Otto Graham?

What about Bart star Johnny United?

You know, and I, I, you know, I always go back, you know, he's like, nobody cares about Autogram.

Really.

I care about Autogram.

I think he's one of the greatest ever.

Lace him up.

I, yeah, yeah, they should because he was phenomenal.

You know, AFC championships and then when they joined the NFL, they, they, you know, made short work of the NFL and won the championship.

So I don't know, but so interesting.

I love that you've been, you know, to the Municipal Stadium.

So what's the, what's the nickname for it?

Do you just call it the Muni or.

I'm not sure what they Called it.

I think it just, it was just Cleveland Municipal is what we call it.

I mean, I'm an Erie, I'm in Pennsylvania, so it's.

That's.

But.

And I wasn't a guard or Indians fan or a Browns fan, but I would go to games there if they, you know, like we, the Yankees play the Indians one time just because, you know, the 77 Yankees were, you know, they were the bomb.

They were the World Series champion.

So we watch them.

So.

Of course, yeah.

So you can see Paul Brown, obviously the reason that, you know, first year, you know, the Cleveland Browns in the AFC get to play in this, you know, beautiful stadium, a capacity of 78,000.

And to add insult to injury, League park became the practice field for the Browns after the Rams left.

So.

Oh, no kidding.

What.

What was their prime stadium became the, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the practice field.

Pretty interesting.

Yeah.

That's 22 Celsius for you, you know, metric listeners.

Game attendance was 32,000.

It, I mean, even the championship game was 32,000.

The two away games that the Rams had, like I mentioned, The Eagles was 38,000 and the Giants, you know, at Polo Grounds was 46,000.

So even winning the NFL championship didn't draw a crowd.

I mean, it's by far their biggest game.

As I mentioned, The packers on November 11th drew 28,000.

And since the capacity of League park was 22, I'm assuming they put, you know, bleachers, you know, in the end zone, you know, round, you know, who knows?

But they packed the Packer game, so good game, Sammy, you know, Cleveland Rams against the Redskins, the Washington Redskins at the time, Sammy slinging Sammy Baugh, number 33, lacing him up for the Redskins as I, I knew what the score was.

And sometimes when you see a score of 15 in the old days, you're like, oh, well, you know, they, they had some weird pointing systems.

They, you know, kicking the extra point wasn't automatic, etc.

What I didn't know is the first score of the game was a safety.

Sammy Bar dropped back into the end zone there like the 3, 4 yard line.

Sammy Ball drops back into the end zone to throw.

And as he throws the ball hits the upright of the goal post.

The goal posts were at the front of the end zone back then.

And the rule was if the ball hits the, the goal post, it's a safety.

So the first score of the game was a safety on the Redskins 2 nil.

Rams, which reminded me of.

I'm gonna segue.

Reminded me of that Seahawk super bowl against the Broncos where the Seahawks started off with a two.

Nil.

That's right.

That's the phone.

And I always laugh at what the.

You know, some of the super bowl bets are.

You know, first score, coin toss, etc, you know, I think the odds of a safety happening as the first score, you know, you know, whatever.

50,000 to 1.

It's.

It's a tough one.

I can't remember.

It might have been the first score of the Steelers, vikings, Super Bowl 9, too.

I.

I can't remember.

I know there was a safety, and it might have been the first score then, too.

I think LC Greenwood recovered or tap, made a tackle on Tark, and I love that.

Yeah, I have to look that up.

But it might have been the first score.

Oh, very cool.

Yeah, I.

I love that.

Yeah.

The.

The.

The.

Boy, those were the days.

We're always just.

We were just talking about what your first super bowl experience was.

Which one you remember.

Mine was Steelers, Cowboys.

And I.

Okay.

I had the cards of each player, you know, on the team that I had sitting there and, you know, Bradshaw, you know, and I'd go, like, I've got that card.

And midway through the game, you know, my dad's like, I get it.

I get it.

You've got those cards.

Let's just watch the game.

Second score.

Bob.

It said Bob was taken out.

He suffered bruised ribs or replaced by backup quarterback Frank Philch, who.

I had no idea.

It's.

It's one of those, like, you know, who.

Who stood in for Terry Bradshaw when he was hurt.

Oh, that's lost to history.

Unless you're a Steelers fan.

Yeah, my crew.

Jack.

Yeah, it was.

No, I'm going back.

No, that was too far back.

I was gonna say when I would.

Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

I was at that game when Bradshaw got dumped on his head by Turkey Jones.

And it.

You know, it was a Super bowl year.

Mike Krujek came in and had to rest the season, like, eight straight games, and Bradshaw comes back in the playoffs, and they go to the Super Bowl.

So have my K stepped in in the Super 70s.

Well, you got to have a.

Have a little bit of depth at that position, especially back then when, you know, you didn't have to gently let the quarterback down on a bed of pillows.

Right.

So, Phil, check comes in throws a 38 yard strike to Steve Bogus.

And you know, again, somebody I hadn't heard of.

Redskins take a 72 lead.

Rams score before halftime.

Rookie quarterback UCLA sensation Bob Waterfield.

I don't know why, but I am a huge Bob Waterfield fan.

Maybe it's his 48 leaf card that I admire.

There's a lot of these guys where I just, I love their card and you, you begin to know people's names, you know by card and what college they went to.

But I'm a big Bob Waterfield fan.

37 yard touchdown pass to Jim Benton.

Extra point was partially blocked but it describes the ball teetering on the, you know, the, the, the horizontal arm and then dropping over to the other side for the extra point.

So seven point scored.

It is a nine seven Rams lead at halftime.

Third quarter Rams increase their lead.

Jim Gillette scores on a 44 yard touchdown reception from Bob Waterfield.

Extra point missed.

Redskins can come back to score on an eight yard touchdown catch from backup quarterback Phil Chalk.

And in the fourth quarter the Redskins.

Redskins drive twice and miss two field goals that would have won the game of 46 and a final one of 31 yards.

With a couple minutes in the game kind of a nail biter 31 yard field goal which is a chip shot in today's NFL.

It's almost an extra point with the new rules and to win the NFL championship and it was missed.

It's amazing how the kicker's accuracy was back then because everything was kicking with your toe.

So you know, you have a rounded shoe and you're kicking a round ball.

You don't know which direction it's going to go.

And it's unbelievable.

You know today we're used to people being, you know, hitting 90 some percent of their kicks from anywhere and back then if it was like a 50, 50 sometimes you would say that, oh yeah, he was 10 of 19 this year on extra points.

You know, you're like what the hell, that sucks.

I, I can remember the, a football card of Tom Dempsey, the guy with a half a foot for the Saints and where he would just line up straight up, kick the ball just straight, not, not coming in from the angle soccer style on the, you know, on the insole of your foot.

But I just remember, yeah, Dempsey know kicker.

It's just so.

Yeah, you're right.

It wasn't automatic extra points.

None of it.

It's at some point I, I think it, I think it was Paul Brown, who was like, you know, we got to get better at this.

We're starting to lose points.

These are deciding games, you know, so.

And I think he started specialized, and I know, like, Ray Guy, you know, was the first specialized punter they drafted first round.

And, you know, what are you doing, Al Davis?

And suddenly he starts breaking out 80 yard, you know, punts.

And people like, okay, we get it.

Yeah, very interesting.

The.

I wanted to share a couple things that I found.

Please do.

And by the way, the power of ebay.

Miami Seahawks, you know, which is an AFC team.

So a couple quick things I found.

First was this ticket on ebay, which I thought was pretty interesting.

$2,000.

You can have a seat or, you know, a used ticket stuff.

And you can see some tape marks there.

But do you know what the price of the ticket was?

When?

Back in the day, to get to the game.

Yeah, I saw that it was written.

It's probably like five bucks or something.

Ridiculous.

Yeah, I think it was 550 or so.

And then.

Yeah, but it was, you know, it was said they lost money on the championship game because they had to rent a different stadium.

You know, they had to, you know, they had to go to Cleveland Municipal and rent that.

But, yeah, I thought this was pretty interesting.

I.

I being able to find little pieces of, you know, history like that.

Yeah, that is cool.

Next up was.

I have to do these one at a time.

I always tell Bob that we have to.

We need a producer.

This was a really cool little, you know, photo that somebody colorized that I thought was really cool.

Yeah, it's almost like in 3D.

Yeah.

Yeah, really cool.

And there's the columns you were talking about, you know.

Right.

You know, at Cleveland Municipal.

So I was like, this month, obviously, this must have been a really.

A touchdown run or something.

What's the significance of this place?

I'm like, well, who's number 66 on the Rams?

So I reverse engineer.

It's Don Greenwood.

He was a fullback.

He played nine games, you know, for the, you know, for the Rams that season.

And I'm like, well, how many stats?

What.

What were, you know, what were.

Don Greenwood, number 66 stats.

One run for 10 yards.

So this is.

That's his one run.

Claims fame.

He had one run at the game.

Somebody took a photo and decided to, you know, to memorialize it by colorizing.

That's really cool.

Look at.

I mean, if you look in the middle of that, you can see like a pile of dirt, like, right in front of where he's running the ball.

You can see in the background.

I know.

Cleveland Municipal, of course, you know, they.

They never had grass grow on the infield for the.

Because the Indians played there too.

Uh, I wonder if that was.

Maybe that's just some dirty snow or something.

Yeah, I mean, it was.

Yeah, it was really cold.

Look at that.

Yeah, you're right.

Maybe some hay stacked up to throw down in the field, you know, just in case.

This was pretty interesting.

A.

A pretty cool book on the Cleveland Rams, which I'd never heard of.

The Cleveland Rams, the NFL champs who left too soon, 36 to 45.

So, I mean, I don't.

I've never heard of this author, but really cool book is.

Yeah, that is neat.

I've never heard of that one either.

Me neither.

I figured you'd, you know, you know, kind of small circles in that.

Well, that reminds me, do you know how the Cleveland Rams got their nickname?

How they became the Rams?

I don't know.

Because I was sitting there thinking, I'm like, going, okay, they were the Rams originally in Cleveland.

There's not any mountains.

There's no Rams that live around Cleveland.

It's the same area I live in, you know, and.

But yeah, that's how they got.

Because of the Fordham Rams success.

And Fordham's not even near Cleveland either.

But it's just because they had sort of like the Princeton Tigers.

Every team was named the Tigers because of Princeton back in the day.

Oh, interesting.

So a little bit of name recognition.

And lastly, I couldn't find, like.

Like the ticket stub.

I couldn't find a program of the game.

But what I found is a poster, you know, facsimile of the game.

25 cents for a program, 5 bucks for access.

You know, whatever they did.

Graphics.

So so much better back in the day than we do now.

And that's really, really cool.

I like that.

I could not agree more.

They just don't make them like this anymore.

Look at that.

Just absolutely beautiful.

So lot going on in a city skyline in the background, the player in the forefront, the stadium.

Very neat.

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

It was just an absolutely beautiful program that I really enjoyed.

So that was it.

Those were my.

Yeah, those are.

I bought a T shirt.

So some somebody who makes T shirts.

Thanks you for inviting me on the show.

Very cool.

As I mentioned, I thought it was very fascinating that Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears, imagine how far they, they won the championship.

They did it.

But talk about a powerhouse draft choice.

And you know, when Tom fears joined in 48, followed by, you know, Elroy Hirsch in 49, you know, they, they won the, the championship as the LA Rams that year as well.

So, so just Bob Waterfield, future Hall of Famer and added a couple future hall of Famers.

It was pretty good.

Well, even you think about just from 45 in Cleveland to 46 as the LA Rams, they added Norm Van Brocklin in the hall of Fame because they had the dual quarterback system going on for a couple years.

And of course Van Brocklin goes on and wins championships with the Eagles, you know, and then we had you also that year in 46.

Yeah, well, they had Kenny Washington and Willie Strode.

You know, they end up re breaking the, the racial barrier for the NFL and some, some cool things.

But the other amazing thing is if you sit there and think about it, you know, the city of Cleveland, they've really had some bad, bad luck in the NFL in our time.

You know, the modern time, the super bowl era.

Just, you know, you have the drive and the fumble and you know, John Elway always seemed to get in the way or the Steelers or the Oilers or somebody would get in the way.

Then they, they lose the franchise.

And then the first year after they lose the franchise, the Baltimore Ravens go to super bowl and win it.

So then they have the whole LeBron James thing with him leaving and you know, detriment.

But I always tell people, Cleveland in essence won four professional football championships in a row.

You know, between if you have count Cleveland Rams winning the in 45, 46 through 49, the Browns win the AAFC and then 50, the first year Browns are in the NFL, they win the National Football League championship.

That's pretty impressive.

With two different leagues with two different franchises, six years in a row, nobody's done that.

And that's why when, you know, I mean, when Otto Graham has to be in that conversation of some one of the best ever.

I mean, I know we're getting a little off topic from the 45 championship, but that led into why they left.

I mean, it's just, it's interesting.

I mean, it's a business.

And you think abysmal, abysmal.

You know, attendance at A game and playing at a second rate stadium.

I don't know, I don't know what, you know, you know, I don't know what the seating at League park was like, but I would imagine it's, you know, it's a very uncomfortable park bench in Cleveland in winter and you're, you.

Know, I'm sure it is not, not pleasant.

So.

Yeah.

Well, Joe, thank you for, for sharing that history with us.

Why don't you tell us a little bit.

Do you guys have anything, any recent or upcoming episodes on Gridiron Greats that people could tune into if you go.

To, you know, like, like I mentioned, Bob is, Bob's the publisher of Gridiron Greats magazine and the Gridiron Greats podcast.

I'm a, I'm a frequent writer for Gridiron Grades.

Although I do owe Bob an article.

I keep promising I'm not a perfectionist by any means, but I like to make him tidy.

And then the podcast and he's, he's such an amazing, you know, resource for the hobby and you know, like you, as we were talking before the show, these, these, these things we're doing are, you know, they're for the people coming behind us and that's why I tip my hat, you know, to you putting your time into doing these things.

If you go to Gridiron gr, there's a, you know, there's a link there for the podcast and you can go on there and you can hear me being Bob's faithful sidekick and making fun of his mustache.

And folks, I, I highly advise you to do it.

I listen to it quite often.

I've been a guest on the, the show.

It's a great show.

It's a great way to see history through the collectibles and just the talk of the collectibles.

You guys have some great shows and some great guests and we appreciate things you do.

You do an amazing job memorializing, you know, the, the, the game, the football history.

Bob and I tend to talk a lot more about the collectibles and so, you know, when auctions coming up and you know, etc.

We, we try not to dive too much into the games unless, you know, it's a guest like you, you know, who, you know, who wrote a book or two, you know, Tim has been a guest on the show.

You were saying he's a, you know, he's a weekly, you know, spot on your show.

Yeah, we have a Tuesday.

Tim is what we call him Tim Brown every Tuesday.

So footballarchaeology.com yeah.

So it's great stuff.

Well, Joe, we really appreciate you coming on today and sharing your knowledge and doing some research on this team.

I really enjoyed diving down on that.

I, like I said, I, I learned, you know, about these games, but when you dive down, I mean, you just learn something.

You read a book on it, you have a guest on it.

And I love diving down and learning a lot more about these, you know, little, little things.

It's just.

So I really appreciate inviting me on and helping me, guiding me towards this, this, this topic.

Thank you very much, Darren.

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