The History of the Decatur Staleys with Historian and Author Joe Ziemba

Before they were the monsters of the Midway, the Chicago Bears had their start in a different Illinois town and somewhat took a much different evolution from most of the other original APFA teams.

Joe Ziemba, the great author and podcast host of When Football Was Football visits the Pig Pen once again to guide us through the history of the Decatur's dailies.

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yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com hello my football

friends, this is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com and welcome once again to the Pig Pen. Another day of getting to talk about some early professional football teams.

And we have our friend Joe Ziemba of When Football Was Football podcast and author of multiple books. Joe Ziemba, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Oh, Darin, it's always a pleasure to be here and you are, I'm not saying becoming. You are now the source of pro football history and a whole bunch of people enjoy that, including myself.

So thank you again for allowing me to participate.

Well, I thank you because it's folks like you and our other guests that we have on here that really bring the history to life. I'm just a facilitator and moderator of Bringing It Together.

I appreciate all of you coming on and sharing your passion and your knowledge and you definitely have a ton of it and we're glad to be able to tap into that once again tonight.

So thank you very much. Yeah, you've selected a great topic and can't wait to jump in on it.

Well, I guess before we get to it, because it's sort of on topic, you just told me the other day in an email that that book you've been writing on Chicago football is now you've got a title for it and you've got sort of a plan of a release date.

Maybe if I know you've talked about it on your podcast, but maybe if you could share that with our listeners what the title is and what's going on with the book.

Oh, great. Thank you I appreciate that. Yeah.

And that's when the Cardinals left Chicago with more than a slight nudge from George Ellis of the Bears. And a lot of that might be due to the burgeoning TV exposure the NFL was getting and the blackout situation.

But it was a bitter rivalry when the two of them met two or sometimes three times a year in Chicago for almost 40 years.

So I'm hoping your listeners will enjoy reading that or give it a shot and looking forward to seeing finally come to fruition after a whole bunch of research over the years.

Well, that's got to be exciting for you and everybody that's helped you. I know, just me hearing being on the outskirts and hearing talking to you usually once a week.

We did for basically most of this year just hearing little tidbits of what you were doing. I know. I'm excited. And the people you were working with and what your research hours is going to be good. I know it now.

I guess we're going to be talking, talking a little bit about one side of that book tonight, and we're going to be talking about the history of the Decatur Staleys, one of the original APFA NFL teams. And I'm excited to hear all about that. So I'll let you lead us into where you want to start on that story.

Oh, sure. And it is a great story. The Decatur Staleys, who are now the Chicago Bears. And many people think that when George Hallis was hired by the A.E.

And for some of the research for tonight and a lot that I used in my book, we have the Staley Fellowship Club Journal, which was published on a monthly basis by the A.E. staley Company started out as an eight page flyer and eventually became a 40 page magazine, perhaps even longer.

And it talked about everything from safety in the plant. Because the Staley Company was a starch manufacturer in Decatur, Illinois, hence the Decatur Staleys.

At one time they tried to get a nickname for the baseball team. Had a contest among the employees and the name Squirrels came up. But the management didn't really like that as one of the contenders.

So they just stuck to the Staley's the time being.

But now, Joe, do you know how big was the Staley Starch Company? How big of a place was it? How many employees would they have had?

Oh, good question. That I do not know. I know that it had even back then sales in the millions, because that was another thing that I wanted to look into at the time.

And was the biggest employer in Decatur, which was a good sized city even back then, 100 years ago. So they had their own facilities, their own fields, their own manufacturing plants, of course, different sections.

In fact, the first baseball team drew its participants from all parts of the plant. And would mention in the Fellowship Journal, we'll call it the Journal, how the team did and where the different players were from the plant.

Our Battery column was feeling bad and it seemed like our boys were listless. So it was pretty harsh criticism for an intramural team. Basically all the players came from within the plant and that was their traveling team.

They also had intramural squads. And so you had representative teams from the Carpenters, the Electricians, the Lump Starch section.

And the Journal covered their participation of the team in the Commercial League. And they were able to land the flag. They won the pennant that first year.

For example, the Journal stated in a game against the Wabash Car Shops won the pennant and the Staleys had the material, they said, but something the opposition was encountered were players that would show up who didn't seem to know what team they're actually playing for. And they thought these other industrial teams maybe were bringing in ringers. And the Journal also complained.

And here's a good quote, it said, when someone complained about our players, they said, we meekly allowed these men to be barred from playing while some of the other teams play. Not their own employees, but rake the city to reinforce their teams.

It's hoped that if our team is entered in the league next season, matters will be handled in a more businesslike manner.

But the Journal described what it was like to have the major league baseball team come to Decatur instead of the other way around, which we think would be what would happen in a game between two such opponents. And it said the special train from Chicago bringing the White Sox to the game was switched into the yard on time. So that's news indicator.

The photographer was on hand to get a picture of both teams, and even the movie man was turning his machine on them. And 3,000 fans showed up to watch the White Sox beat the Staleys 8 to 1.

So I'm thinking about that time they're getting large crowds, they're attracting a major league team and somewhat competitive.

But then in July of that year, the guy who was a foreman in the company, that was the manager, Jack Fletcher, gave way to Joe McGinty, Iron Joe, a major league baseball player who appeared on the roster of the Staley's. And the reason they gave for Jack Fletcher departing was that he was managing a lot of the construction work.

And then he had to answer telegrams, make phone calls, make schedules. And he was one of the more important foremen in the plant. He just didn't have time.

So to me, that's saying that, whoa, all of a sudden they're going from a local guy running the team to bringing in a former major league player. And around that time, I think, is when the football team started.

That would have been October, September, October, I think September 24th was the first practice. And they had a coach from the University of Illinois, which was a construction superintendent at the plant named James Cook.

He had those guys out there practicing every night at 5 o' clock on the Staley field, as we mentioned. And according to all indications, the Journal said they're going to turn out to be one of the finest bunch of semi pro football players in the world.

But then after a cancellation against those dastardly Rantoul Aviators, they won their final six games in a row to finish with a 6 and 1 record.

There were some rumors that the players were receiving 10 or $20 a game in addition to their salaries that they received working at the Staley plant. But that was figured to be a little bit lower than what some of their opponents were getting.

It might have been University of Illinois, Millikan, places like that.

And I was talking about Halas played earlier the year before with the New York Yankees and now he was going to be working for the Staley's.

He said he played sensational baseball with Illinois and the Great Lakes Naval Training Station before he was signed and given a trial by the New York Yankees. Whereas we know he couldn't hit the curveball.

And it said George was a wonderful football and basketball man, will be a big addition to the Staley team. So though they didn't have a bat, they did have a basketball team. And apparently George Hallis did not play basketball for the Staley's.

But they could also take off a little early in practice every day, which was a huge advantage.

And there was really no professional league when he started this. But Alice moved around the country and at least on the Eastern and Midwest part, recruiting players, looking for some of his old teammates.

He had Dutch Sturneman from Illinois, Jimmy Councilman from St. Louis was on the team, and they had a pretty good season as part of the American Professional Football association, finishing in second place. Alice brought together a bunch of players, had him practice, had them working there. I believe he, as I mentioned, pretty much cleaned up the roster.

So they went kind of like the baseball team.

And here's that correlation to having a professional manage the team as the baseball did, as well as recruiting players who were players, not really starch workers.

Although when you bring in guys from Nebraska and Michigan and Illinois to play for your team against the Moline Universal Tractors and the Kawanee Wawers, you're probably going to have some success. And so they did have a great deal of success, winning their first five games easily. They had a tie with the Rock Island Independents.

This is quite a famous game.

I believe this is where the Rock island fans were so incensed at the playing of George Trafton of the Staleys that they literally started attacking the team as they left the field. And. And Ellis had given Trafton the money and told him to run for his life, basically, and don't worry about the money so much.

So that was one of those interesting stories we'll mention in the book as well, about the early days of pro football and how wild it was after that tie game.

So there wasn't much revenue coming back into the A.E. staley company. And Halas got the idea to go to Cubs Park. This is before it was named Wrigley Field.

But nothing, nothing really could surpass this new rivalry. They started with a team called the Cardinals. And that first game took place on November 28th at Normal park in Chicago.

And it would turn out to be the only defeat. There was controversy at the end because the crowd literally was right up to the edge of the field.

They had ropes to hold them back, but that didn't do too much. And one of the players on the Cardinals was running along the sideline and kind of disappeared into the crowd.

And George Hallis claimed later and claimed to the officials that the fans interfered with his players going to make the tackle. The Cardinals, with that touchdown and the extra point by Patty Driscoll, won 7 to 6.

But Hallis was so upset by it, he was still Talking about it 20 years later, how unfair it was. And Red Smith, the great columnist, wrote something like Hallis implored the referees to make a change in their decision.

But looking at the overpowering crowd behind the Cardinals, referees decided they'd rather not be dead. Didn't change the decision or make any decision on that.

The teams had such a great time, they decided to play again the next week, moving back to Cubs park. This time, 11,000 people showed up. Biggest crowd ever to see pro football in Chicago.

And The Staley's won 10 to 0 to kind of ambush the Cardinals and get revenge for that defeat. The Staleys thought they had a real good shot at catching Akron pros for the championship of the league that first year.

Yes.

So in that short amount of time, less than six months, I'm assuming he was hired by the Staley company, took over the football team, had enough power to go to Canton to meet both in the August 20th and the September 17th meeting of the APFA and I guess APF C and then APFA meeting and start a new league and then take second place in LA. That's truly amazing. He was a fairly young man at that time too, wasn't he?

Plus he played baseball and they had a pretty lengthy schedule.

I don't know if I had that much gumption when I was 22, 23 years old to do all that. That's a lot.

He could focus on football as the coach and acting as the general manager as well.

So I take it that he probably didn't have a lot of duties in the plant with the Staley company. He was probably, you know, pretty much focused on the football and baseball aspects. Is that, would that be a fair statement?

Yeah, he had an engineering degree and he, you know, I don't know exactly what he did in the plant, but his autobiography, he alludes. He doesn't really talk about much about what he did besides football either.

A couple mentions here and there about work, but always proud that he got the assurance that they could take time out to practice during the workday.

Yeah. So 21. As we mentioned, the Staley's did win the. What would become the NFL title that year with their 101 and 1 record.

They start out the season playing a couple home games at the Staley field. They beat The Waukegan Legion 350 and the Rock Island Independence 14 to 10 and then started.

They played every game at home, basically because the remaining schedule, the last 10 games were all at Cubs Park. And in that time, in mid October or so late October, is when Halas was called into A.E. staley's office. And Staley wanted to know what was.

I'm trying to do this nicely. I have an opinion in my book, but I'm not going to share it right now.

But what Halas said in his autobiography is that Mr. Staley came in and offered him seed money of $5,000, telling him that the football team, with its success and its notoriety and had brought a lot of good publicity to the company, which is one of the intents of having a baseball and football team. But Mr. Staley indicated to Hellas that this needs a bigger city.

And he suggested that they move the team to Chicago then for the remainder of the season. And Hallis talks about how he had to go right away up to Cubs park and try and reserve it for the end of the season. So.

He brought Chick Harley, probably the most famous football player around in college at Ohio State the year before, a couple years before, to come and play for the Staley's as well. So that was one thing that kind of odd that he would have a partnership in the team when the Staley's really owned it.

So they were talking about different players and those first two games is when the decision was made. One thing that always caught my eye is Mr. Staley did not. There's no records left.

I've checked with the Staley Museum and some historians in Decatur and there's no records from Mr. Staley, any correspondence except the one letter that served as a contract for George Hallis to take the team to Chicago. And the one line that got me was at the end of this letter that of course indicated that Mr. Staley would provide the seed money for the team.

He only wanted the team to be known as the Chicago Staleys until the end of the season.

So he was paying for advertising in the program and continuing to play, pay the players even though the players now were free to depart to go to Chicago.

But the one line that kind of got me in that letter and that letter has been published a lot and it says once you leave, we do not expect you to return. If I'm quoting that somewhat correctly, and I thought that was kind of a little bit harsh.

But later on, as I research more and you see things like the partnership with the, with the Harley brothers and the rental agreements with Cubs park, everything fell into place pretty nice. But much of this comes from the autobiography, Autobiography of Hellas, which took. He wrote about 50 years later. He did write a series that was.

The autobiography was based on in the late 60s and the 70s, his autobiography came out. So 50 years later he's kind of recollecting some of this stuff. So there are a couple of contradictions is the word I'm looking for.

But whatever it was, the Staley's did move to Chicago. They enjoyed some decent, not great attendance that year. 8,000, 10,000. They had 12,000 when the Buffalo, all Americans came.

But even in their last game of the season, they had a tie with the Cardinals. Zero, zero. Tie. Only 2,000 people showed up. But Hallis was pretty convinced that pro football had a future.

Buffalo still thinks they won it because of a late game between the two teams that seemed. Buffalo apparently thought it was for an exhibition Hallis thought otherwise and convinced the other owners for that.

But all in all, it does capture how pro football started in Decatur, Illinois, how George Hallis was one of the founders and how that team moved to Chicago to become the Chicago Stales and now known as, of course, the Chicago Bears, one of two remaining franchises, along with the Cardinals, that are still in the National Football League.

So, okay, so the team was technically the Decatur staleys for what, one or two seasons?

Right.

Okay. Just wanted to make that clear.

And then the owners meetings after that 21 season is where there was a lot of controversy because the owners had to decide who had the franchise. Would it be George Hallis and Dutch Tournament or would it be the Harley brothers? Both applied because both, all four thought they were the owners.

And so that got a little messy as well. But Alice was awarded the franchise. Harley's ended up in a lawsuit, which took a couple years to clear up.

So those early years seemed like something always happened at the end of the year. I'm glad now they've kind of gotten it straightened out. Maybe not altogether, but 100 years to work on it there. Darren.

Well, I'm not so sure you talked about the Buffalo All Americans claiming to title.

Some of the activities that happened back then that Mr. Hallis was a part of. So he's still controversial?

Oh, he is. Almost every year.

So all sorts of things, all sorts of controversies in those early years of pro football. And I guess that's why we enjoy talking about it.

Not forgetting what some of those early pioneers went through to get the game on the field as we know it today. But always fun stuff talking when we go back.

But we think that Mr. Schneider in Washington and Mr. Jones in Dallas are controversial owners. I think Hallis might had him beat, you know, a century earlier.

Yeah. Hallis always had his hand in something. And whether it was even he picked up Paddy Driscoll to play for the Staleys. And one of their.

When you look back in the history and research it pretty. Pretty thoroughly. And I hope we have done that for this new book.

But even why one team decided not to play against the Bears because they specifically didn't like some of the financial maneuvering they called it by the management of the team.

Some things never change, right?

Yeah. Yep.

22. I think they did fairly well. I guess I should have known that, but I don't have that in front of me.

I actually do have it in front of me because I have a draft of the book in front of me. I think they. They continue to do well, but slipped a little bit. But 22 was the season where they had a great riot with the Chicago Cardinals.

And I think the loss to the Cardinals hindered them a little bit. They didn't win the championship that year,

but so they were. They were vying for the title. Their first. The first three years of the NFL, so to speak, you know, under. Under APFA for the first two.

But that's quite a testament, though.

So the guy, you know, starts out right six months before the first season, helps organize the league and is competitive the first three seasons with this team and the players he's bringing in. So that's quite a testament to the team and to what Mr. Hallis did

So he bounced back after that again.

I. I guess so, yeah. And when did Mr. Hallis pass away? Was it the. The 90s or the 80s when he was.

Oh, boy. I think it was 83.

83?

Yeah, because he was about 88. Yeah. I shouldn't say that because I don't know, but I thought it was the early 80s.

Yeah, I know, I know. It was in my lifetime. I remember him, you know, I'm showing him in the booth, you know, during a game or two.

You know, he wasn't, of course, coaching at that time or anything, but. Fascinating man, for sure. Quite a. Quite a polarizing individual in the history of the NFL. So very interesting.

What a nice, strong individual, though, that was able to push through those early days with no money and then hit the depression. Depression and able to adjust and move forward then the war and still keep that franchise going. It is quite amazing.

Yeah, it definitely is. Well, we are definitely looking forward to hear more detail on this or read more detail once your book comes out. Now, did you say you.

Well, we know how things are going in the world as far as getting things to consumers, so I'm sure the book business is probably same boat that everybody else is in. So, yes, hold with bated breath. Very excited to do that.

So when you hear something, please let us know and we will pass it on to the listeners here or even have you on again to break the news because we appreciate doing that and we're all very interested in reading your great book, another one that you have.

Thank you. And as always, we appreciate what you're doing. And not only for myself, but for everyone else who is interested in the history of pro football.

Thank you for all you do. And as I've told you personally, I don't know how you do it every day with the amount of material that you share. So thank you.

All right, Joe, appreciate you once again, my friend, and have a great holiday season.

Thank you so much. You too, Darren. And thanks again for having me on.

Picking up at the clock, the time's running down. We're going to go into victory formation, Take a knee and let this baby run out. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you back tomorrow.

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