Ripley Believed in Football Archaeology

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us again this week to educate us on another aspect of football. This week we chat about the work of Robert Ripley and an early connection to the history of football.

We have all heard of Ripley's Beleive It or Not before either by visiting one of their imaginative museums, reading a publication or watching a television program about them. There was a guy named Ripley that started the interesting sideshow like intrest of the unexplained, odd and down right amazing. His name was Robert Ripley who started with a newspaper column panel, and eventually worked it into the the Believe It or Not feature. The write-ups and pictures entertained the masses and proved popular. The concept was later adapted into a wide variety of formats, including radio, television, comic books, a chain of museums and a book series. 

In the podcast episode above historian Timothy P. Brown explains how Ripley's original newspaper spot called "Champs and Chumps," sort of got the ball rolling for his franchise with a football post back on December 7, 1919. Check out the original article on Tim's pages:

Today's Tidbit... Ripley’s Thoughts on Football, Believe It or Not

You can learn more on Tim's posts and subscribe to his Daily Tidbits and more there too.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Timothy Brown and his FootballArchaeology.com website.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Three players by Ripley in a 1916 column on a cartoon of baseball players Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson by Robert Ripley