Chicago Rockets

Author, expert historian on Chicago professional football, and Sports History Network Award winning podcast host of When Football Was Football, Joe Ziemba joins us in the Pigpen to talk about the Windy City edition of the All America Football Conference, the Chicago Rockets.

As we continue our trek through each team of the AAFC, we come to another of the little-known franchises, the Chicago Rockets. Joe Ziemba, author of multiple books on Chicago football history including When Football Was Football, Cadets, Canons and Legends, and his latest one coming out soon Bears vs. Cardinals: The NFL's Oldest Rivalry. The Rockets played in the All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949. Some know the franchise's version during the 1949 season as the Chicago Hornets. They were, let's say, not one of the better teams in the League. 

The Rockets franchise was owned by Chicago trucking executive John L. "Jack" Keeshin,  the President of the National Jockey Club that owned and operated Sportsman's Park race track in Cicero, Illinois. At one point, Keeshin famously wanted to purchase the Chicago White Sox from the Comiskey family but was kindly turned down. Jack Keeshin would not give up his dream of having a major pro ball club, so he bought into the AAFC. Joe Ziemba shares some great stories about Keeshin in our podcast above.

The Windy City was a competitive place to start a new ball club as the NFL already had two well-established franchises, the Chicago Cardinals and the Chicago Bears, both vying for fans' support. When Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward suggested starting a pro football team in the AAFC, he intended to have a club in his backyard. With the Bears and Cardinals playing simultaneously, Keeshin stood little chance of success. He did cause a stir by attempting to sign Chicago Bears stars Sid Luckman, George McAfee, and others without success. One thing the Rockets had going for them was that they played their home games at Soldier Field. Though the stadium was built years earlier, the Bears did not call it home until 1971.

As we discussed, the Chicago franchise played in the best division of the AAFC, the West. Their competition with the Cards and Bears was merely for newspaper space and fan draw; the onfield opponents, powerhouse AAFC squads of the LA Dons, San Francisco 49ers, and the Cleveland Browns, were indeed an uphill battle as they were the best teams in the AAFC, and each played the Rockets twice each season. Their dismal record of 11-40-3 placed them in or near the basement of the AAFC all four years.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, both the franchise's All-time Passing Leader and All-time Rushing Leader were the same person, Bob Hoernschemeyer, whose 833 total rushing yards with two TDs was matched with the yardage of his passing of  2,472 yds and 21 TDs.

The Chicago Rockets All-time Receiving Leader was Ray Ramsey, 52 rec, 1,134 yds, 12 TD.

The Rockets met their demise when the AAFC was merged into the NFL before the 1950 season. The NFL only accepted three All-America Football Conference teams into its ranks: the San Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Colts, and Cleveland Browns.

The picture in the banner above is from the Wikipedia Commons photo collection of the Public Domain of a cropped installment The Soyuz rocket with Expedition 33/34 crew members, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer Kevin Ford of NASA, and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin of ROSCOSMOS onboard the TMA-06M spacecraft launches to the International Space Station on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin will be on a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station., taken by Bill Ingalls of NASA.

Special thanks to Pro Football-Reference.com, Stathead.com and Joe Ziemba.