Exploring the 1948 Championship Game: Eagles vs. Cardinals

When you have a great game of two really good teams, all you want to do is have a rematch when it's all done.

And I'm not sure if you can see it or not.

I've got a Frankfurt yellow jacket T shirt on.

That's from our guest tonight, courtesy of Shib Vintage Sports.

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 back to our series on pre Super Bowl NFL championships.

And we are having a blast.

And that is no exception.

Today we have a great guest who's actually returning guest to the Pig Pen from a few years ago.

You may have heard him on our Frankfurt Yellowjackets podcast and we'll get more into that in a second because he's got some new connections to that team.

His name is Brian Michaels from the city of Philadelphia.

Brian, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Hi, Darren.

Thanks for having me back.

Hey, yeah.

We are glad to have you, Brian.

And you know, we know you got a few things cooking here.

Maybe you could give us just a gloss over and we'll get into more detail here after we talk about the 48 and 49 seasons.

Sure, yeah, of course.

As I mentioned last time I was on, I'm the owner of Shib Vintage Sports here in Philadelphia, which is a throwback sports retailer.

So we specialize in all Philly sports history of the main teams, the defunct teams, and all those the fun stories that you guys talk about on the podcast.

So that's kind of my sports background.

I'm from Philadelphia, So obviously I'm for four fan.

I have it right here.

And from the research in that book, we found a lot of Frankfurt Yellow Jackets Archives, game programs, memorabilia, football flags, actual pieces from the team, accounting ledgers, all this great information at the Frankfurt Historical Society that we had to.

We decided that we had to do another book just on the yellow jacket.

So that's what we've been working on the past couple of years.

Actually, just sent it all to the publisher, and it should be out in the fall.

So I would love to talk more about that, but today it's Eagles, and this year it's Eagles.

It's a big year for the Eagles winning championships, and today we're going to talk about their first.

Yeah, most definitely.

But, you know, you go back to the Frankfurt thing.

That's actually how you and I got connected.

I was looking to do a story on Frankfurt Yellow Jackets.

I contacted the Historical Society down there, and they said, hey, you want to talk to this guy?

He's been nosing around in the books and knows quite a bit about it.

And so we appreciate them for helping out.

That, too.

So they're carrying on the history of their area and region quite well and letting us historians help tell the story.

So great job by them.

Sure.

Well, the Eagles were kind of at a turning point, in a good way.

For 10 years, they had losing seasons.

They.

They just couldn't get it together.

Fourth, fifth place, the basement.

So they started to get better players.

So that was a big move towards professionalization, and the players really loved him as a coach and brought the team together.

But the 48 season, to answer your question, they were riding high.

Things were on a positive note.

Yes, they lost the championship game, but for the first time in a long time, they were good.

Right.

So that was exciting.

And this was the start of, you could say, a mini Eagles dynasty and one that, you know, kind of had to carry the team for the next decade till they were successful again.

It was it's kind of peaks and valleys with the Eagles history, but this was their first big peak as a franchise heading into the 48 season.

Yeah, it was kind of interesting.

Our guest on the 47 season, Josie Emba, with the first Cardinals Eagles matchup in the championship game.

We were talking about it, you know, because these were the first time for both of these teams being in a championship game.

And actually I believe it's the first championship game since 33 where it wasn't the Redskins, Giants, packers or Bears in it.

So that made it kind of a unique and special too.

And now the.

And the other thing that's unique is these two teams along with the Steelers had these merged teams just a couple years earlier and basically, you know, cellar dwellers and you know, with the infusion of great talent coming out of the war and kids out of college and you know, some great coaching, you know, like greasy Neil coming to The Eagles, all three of them in 47, they're postseason playing in a postseason, you know, because it's the first sort of playoff game or play in game in the NFL history when the Eagles and the Steelers tie and then you know, the Cardinals and Eagles in the championship, you know, a few years in a row.

And that's, that's just awesome playing against each other and the Eagles much more after that.

So really, really cool how the abrupt face of the peril of these teams turns into some great fortune.

Yes, yes, definitely.

You know, there was a lot of kind of turmoil, like you said, with the rosters certainly during World War II, but after as well.

But the Eagles did have their fair share of veteran players, literal veterans from the war, Pete Pios, Chuck Bednarak, who was drafted in 49, Al Wissert as well.

So, you know, they benefited from having those guys, you know, not at war in the whole country and on the football field.

Yeah, well, I mean, just some great names you say right there.

There's a, an all star of the hall of Fame squad right there.

The wonder they were so good.

Exactly.

Like I said, it was one of the first times, you know, they had some of these star players and you know, I didn't even mention yet.

Steve Van Buren, right.

Who was kind of the Saquon Barkley, if you will, of the 47, 48, 49 season, wham, bam, Van Buren, he was a halfback from Honduras that the Eagles drafted and you know, was their star player for all those seasons as well as in the championship games and really kind of catapulted them to victory.

Hall of Famer of course too.

Yeah.

And you can't go wrong with him, you know, in concrete, Charlie.

And you know, everything else, you know, just some, some great names and players back and legends of the game that are still talked about here.

You know, we're almost 90 some years afterwards, so definitely some great, great people.

So how, how did these guys, you know, what's sort of the story, how they were put together?

Yeah, like I said, a lot of it came through the draft.

As you know, some of them were local guys.

Chuck Benarek, obviously people knew from the University of Pennsylvania.

Greasy Neal was familiar with the city and the region because he played for the Phillies.

He was a baseball.

So that was a big part of it.

Greasy Neil, his experience in sports, both in baseball and football, his managing style, which was very, well, one foul mouthed with famously, but in a way laid back, you know, friendly with the players, joked around with the players, but also very creative.

He was a defensive genius.

Right.

This is well before Buddy Ryan was here in town.

And you know, he had different schemes, different setups that people never saw before, let alone, you know, introducing player scouting and film studies and things like that.

So, you know, he was a real revolutionary.

So I think it started at the top with Greasy Neil and he was brought on by their owner, Alexis Thompson, who, as you've probably discussed before, used to own the Steelers and then they swapped franchises and later became the Eagles owner, also a veteran as well.

So he had the team, interestingly enough, up until the after the 48 season, which not to get ahead of ourselves, the Eagles won the championship game and then he promptly sold the team afterwards.

So very interesting in that regard too.

Yeah, that's one of those little secrets that, you know, I live in Western Pennsylvania and I'm a Steelers fan, but most Steelers fans don't realize that the Rooneys didn't continuously own the Steelers since 33.

There was that brief, it was only a couple months, but where Bert Bell and Art Rooney end up doing the switcheroo with Alexis and changing teams.

That's a whole nother podcast.

Yeah, it definitely is, but kind of an interesting story in itself that you bring up, definitely.

So yeah, there was a lot of those interesting parts during the season.

You know, Burt Bell was the commissioner of football at the time.

So, you know, a lot of things were kind of aligning for the Eagles to be good.

Finally, you know, they were playing over at Shy park, which they were regularly selling out at the Time, which held about 38,39,000 people up in North Philadelphia.

Um, but it was growing in the city as well.

You know, we talked about the Yellow Jackets, which was a big part of pro football history in Philadelphia.

But Philly was also really big into college football.

University of Pennsylvania, Penn, Villanova, Temple Lafayette, and Lehigh, Penn State, of course, all really close by.

And, you know, those.

For a lot of different reasons, some of those teams were no longer as good.

And now, you know, pro football was becoming more popular in Philadelphia, and people were going to the games.

Right.

That is by far, you know, the top sport here in town.

So, you know, things were kind of building to this point.

And, you know, I think, like we said, Greasy Neil was.

Was a big part of that, bringing that professionalism to the game.

But like I said, having hall of Famers like Steve Van Buren, Pete Pios helped as well.

Their quarterback, Tommy Thompson, which you may have mentioned before, was blind in one eye.

Right.

That didn't stop him.

He didn't tell.

He didn't tell a lot of people.

He didn't tell the team at first, and he ended up winning the two championships with the team as quarterbacks.

So it certainly didn't hinder his efforts on the field.

No, that's a.

That's a great story.

When you can.

You have a little bit less vision than everybody else is playing.

You're playing against, and you're playing at the highest level of football.

Amazing.

And you're.

You're winning everything.

That's.

That's pretty good.

Yeah.

So.

So tell us some.

So who.

Who's the main competition for Philadelphia in 48 in the East?

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's always Giants, Washington are big, and, you know, they really always had trouble with some of the Western teams, Chicago Bears in particular, actually, in the 49 season, that was their only loss.

Right.

And to be honest, they didn't have much trouble at all with.

With the league and the division.

So only three losses over those two seasons, in addition to 11 shutouts over those two seasons.

Now, we had a famous restaurant here in Philadelphia called Bookbinders, which was like a seafood and steak place.

And they offered players and their families free dinner for every shutout that they had during the season and the postseason.

So over those three years, between 47 and 49, they had 11 shutouts.

So to be honest, there wasn't really much competition there in their division.

And again, that isn't why the restaurant is no longer with us, is it?

They go bankrupt feeding all these football players.

Yeah, no, they lasted for a long time.

That was, that was the place to see and be seen a lot of pro sports deals with Ed Snider and the Sixers and Jerry Woolman and all that back a little bit later.

All that happened at Bookbinder.

So really famous place.

Yeah.

What, what a great promotion.

You know, if you're a fan.

I mean, they wouldn't be able to do it nowadays because people would be trying to get reservations in there because they know the team won.

And yeah, you see them, they're eating.

But yeah, great, great promotion.

Great story.

So, okay, so, yes, I see, you know, they figure a few games ahead of Washington that year, I believe.

Right.

Is that who it was?

Yeah.

Of the Redskins, who were friendly in the championship game, as we just discussed earlier, like four or five times the previous, you know, half decade.

So, you know, overcoming them is quite a bit.

And they, it looks like their losses were like you said they were against the Chicago Cardinals out in the West.

They tie the Rams out in the west and, you know, losing to their loss was to the Boston Yanks who were in the East.

But that's sort of one of those end of the year things.

They probably had everything all sewn up by then.

And one of those things, like we sort of have today.

So great, great season.

So those are the team.

I mean, those, you'll see those teams coming up, those two, those western teams.

So they've kind of built a little bit of rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals.

And you'll see the Rams as we'll talk about.

Yeah.

So.

Well, why don't you take us into the game?

What happens in the 48 game?

Not much.

It snowed, it was a blizzard.

Right.

It was the same old, same old.

For these championship games.

Right?

Yeah.

Right.

You know, this super bowl this year was, was, was not as exciting as the first super bowl for the Eagles blowout.

But this was not.

This was a low scoring game at Shy park in the blizzard.

So much so that Steve Van Buren thought the game would be canceled.

He didn't even show up on time.

He had to take, I think it was like three trolleys and walk a couple of blocks miles in the snow to get to the game.

But obviously in the snow, in those kind of poor weather conditions, you need, you need your halfback, you need your star running back.

So Van Buren was there.

Um, he scored the only touchdown.

It was a 7 nothing victory for the Eagles over the Cardinals.

The Cardinals famously fumbled the ball I think on the, on the two yard line to set up the Eagles score.

And we have a really interesting photo in our book which I'll share with you guys.

It was a cartoon in one of the local papers with the, you know, all this snow and a big St.

Bernard kind of delivering the Eagles the, the championship kind of rescuing everyone in know and, and the, the officials are off in the, the background kind of looking at each other saying, I can't see anything.

So it was one of those snowy games, freezing cold.

So the players didn't make a lot of money off the gate receipts.

So that was a big deal that I, you know, it was, I forget the number, but it was, it was a pittance.

The, the crowd I think was about 28,000 out of 36 was, was announced for the paid attendance.

So the touchdown didn't come until a minute left in the fourth quarter.

So you know, the game was a lot of.

Nothing kind of exciting at the end, of course, certainly for the, for the Eagles and Eagles fans.

But you know, it was cold, it was snowy.

It was one of those games that, you know, probably more people said that were there than, than actually showed up that day.

You know, not to put you on the spot because I don't know the answer to this either.

But think of it, think about it back then.

Let's, you know, you're late in a game.

The, let's say the Cardinals don't fumble and it ends up being scoreless at the end of the game.

They probably, they probably play some kind of an overtime or extra session maybe till somebody wins.

I don't know what the rules were back then.

I, I don't know.

It, it.

Yeah, I don't know.

Or maybe I don't think they had it happen on any other game I can think of.

It seems like they just played the games or they would either continue and certainly the weather didn't stop the teams.

Like I said, the 47.

The field was frozen out in Chicago.

This was a blizzard.

The following year was a rainstorm.

So, you know, neither rain or sleet or snow are going to stop the NFL championship game in the 40s.

But again, it certainly wasn't as big a deal as the Super Bowl.

Right.

We know this.

The players weren't getting paid as much.

The sponsors weren't as huge.

The, the crowds weren't as big.

So, you know, not going to the game because it was snowing was probably, you know, a smart decision back then and not a lot of people may not have missed it as much as they came to realize later in the years.

But yeah, it really wasn't as big of a thing.

And, and the Phillies were actually getting good at this time too.

So you know, it was still a baseball down in terms of pro sports at this time.

And of course the Athletics are still in Philadelphia too at that time.

So yeah, big sports town then too.

So.

Yep, yep.

So again.

And they all played at shy park, which is the reason we named our store after the place.

Okay, I was going to ask that.

That connection, I couldn't remember quite well what the story was on that.

So that's pretty, pretty neat.

Now, is your store located near lake where Shib used to be or not quite.

Shy was at 21st and Lehigh.

We're at 13th and Walnut, you know, two, three miles at most.

But it's all the, all the stadiums have since moved to South Philly where there's a lot more room, less densely populated where the stadiums used to be.

I mean when they first built shy park it was farmland and now, you know, it's row home.

So it's, there's no room for a stadium there anymore.

Okay.

And why don't we, why don't we just, as we're talking about it, why don't you give some information, we'll flash it up on the screen here too where people can visit if they want to look and see what you guys have to offer at SHIB.

Sure.

Yep.

Anyone can go visit us online at shibsports.com that's s h I b e sports.com but we also have our location in Center City Philadelphia, which just celebrated our 10 year anniversary last year.

We have.

Thank you.

We have spots out in Wayne, Westchester and Ardmore west of the city as well.

So you can get all your Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, Sixers, yellow jackets, Maroons gear in the store on the website.

So definitely come check it out.

Yeah, definitely.

And folks, if you're driving, don't have a pen and pencil, don't worry, we're going to put it into the show notes of both the podcast and the YouTube channel so you can come back at your leisure, give you a link and get connected with Brian and, and Shib Vintage Sports gets catch all their great gear that they have there for you and you have some of your books in there too.

So that's another good feature to have.

So stay tuned for that and some more on shy vintage sports.

It's all coming up Thursday here on Pigskin Dispatch.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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