Frankford Yellow Jackets

In this edition we discuss the first East Coast team of the NFL, the Frankford Yellow Jackets. This team according to our guest, author Brian Michael was one of the top Pro Teams of the 1920's, even taking the title of the NFL in 1926! Brian has recently written a book titled, THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES PHOTO HISTORY BOOK which comes out in September 2021. Listen to Brian as he expertly takes down the historic road of the Yellow Jackets. We will provide you with a little bit of football nostalgia. This early team football history segment features the Great events, Franchise formations and the stories of these long forgotten teams in some cases that helped shaped arena of American pro football into what it is today.

Our expert on the Frankford Yellow Jackets is Philly native Brian Michael. Brian is the Author of the THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES PHOTO HISTORY BOOK due out September 1, 2021. Pre-sale is available now so get your copy reserved. As you will see the history of the Eagles is the Yellow Jackets and Brian has studied the club for years. He infact with some partners has purchased a local sporting goods store that they have rebranded as the Shibe Vintage Sporting Goods Store. Make sure you check out their great selection of vintage and modern items centered around the athletic teams in the Philadelphia area including the Yellow Jackets and Pottsville Maroons who with the help of some local artists have brought those old franchises a little bit of life in our era. Please enjoy the knowledge of Brian both in the podcast and the post below and don't forget to check out his store and his book for more information.

19 Dec 1926, Sun The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

The story of the Yellow Jackets starts back in 1899 when the Frankford Athletic Club organized a couple of local teams to play baseball, football and some other sporting events for the entertainment of their members. Frankford which is a portion of Philadelphia, and a place that local author Brian Michael describes as a city within a city, similar to the way Brooklyn is to New York City. 
The Frankford Athletic Club’s Committee eventually started making some money off of the teams they sponsored, especially the ones on the gridiron. The group started donating some funds to local charity organizations but eventually took other proceeds to begin paying players. Of course the squad was originally made up of local talent, especially players that attended the University of Pennsylvania, Lafayette College and even Penn State. Eventually though they were able to land some other stars of the gridiron from outside the local area. According to an article on the Penn State University website archives:
“The Jackets were tested in 1922 when they played a scrimmage against their first NFL opponent, the Rochester Jeffersons. Although they were still an independent team, Frankford came away from the match with an easy 20-0 victory. The Yellow Jackets scrimmaged several more NFL teams in 1922 and 1923, compiling a respectable 6-2-1 record. It was not long before the NFL recognized the talent of the Yellow Jackets, and the team finally joined the league in 1924.”

The Frankford team played their inaugural game as an official member of the NFL by knocking off a tough Rochester team 24-0. That first year was indeed a successful campaign for the Jackets as they played to a 17-3-1 overall record and an official NFL mark of 11-2-1, with both of those losses coming at the hands of George Halas and his powerful Chicago Bears team. They played more games than most others mainly due to the Pennsylvania blue laws that prohibited professional sports to be played in the Commonwealth on the Sabbath. Brian Michael’s research on this describes that this forced the Frankford eleven to play their home games on Saturdays and then often travel with their opponents back to that teams home and play again on Sunday. Playing twice a week was grueling but really displays just how good this squad was to accomplish such a lofty record. The debut season for the Yellow Jackets ended up placing them in third place in the NFL, but they had their sights set on a higher goal. Club President Shep Royal, with his team one year removed from gaining entrance into the NFL, hired a veteran player/coach Guy Chamberlin, who had just coached teams to the NFL title the three previous seasons. The former coach of the Canton Bulldogs took the team to the best record in the NFL in 1922 and 1923 and then won it again with the Cleveland Bulldogs in 1924.

19 Dec 1926, Sun The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

The 1925 season saw another local Pennsylvania franchise join the NFL fray, the Pottsville Maroons. The leaders of these two PA squads placed sort of a side bet ahead of the season, as a local promoter staged an event that whichever of them should have the better record in the NFL then that team would gain the very lucrative meeting with the Notre Dame All-Star team. This was a large incentive for both squads as the Irish would be a big draw at the box office and place much needed funds into the pockets of the players. The Maroons famously had the best record in the NFL but the game they played with the Notre Dame stars in Philadelphia violated the territorial rights of the Yellow Jackets, who were holding a home game that same day in the City of Brotherly Love. This complication went to the NFL head at the time Commissioner Joe Carr who ruled in favor of the Frankford team and subsequently stripped the NFL title from Pottsville giving it to the Chicago Cardinals.
The Yellow Jackets came back in 1926 to regain their moxy. The team won the NFL title by posting a 14-1-1 record by scoring 28 touchdowns and holding their opposition to a mere 6 TDs on the season. The Red Grange and C.C. Pyle led the first edition of the American Football League and had another franchise of their own placed in Philadelphia, the Quakers, who subsequently won the AFL title. Talk arose throughout the area trying to get a matchup between the Jackets and the Quakers to see who truly was the best pro team in America. It would have been the first AFL versus NFL title game if it would have occurred, preceding Super Bowl I, but alas it never came to be. The NFL’s 7th place New York Giants did however play an exhibition against the Quakers, and displayed a lopsided victory over the AFL champs that same year.
The Penn State article goes on to say that; “Between 1924 and 1931, Frankford scheduled more games than any other team in the league, including many non-league games. When the Yellow Jackets played at home, they usually attracted a capacity crowd of 9,000 at Frankford Stadium. At a cost of $100,000, Frankford Stadium was built in 1923 on a converted horse track at Frankford Avenue and Devereaux Street, in the Northeast section of Philadelphia”

Famous players of the Frankford teams over the years include eventual Hall of Famers; Chamberlin, Hap Moran and Link Lyman. Others on the roster were Johnny Budd, Doc Bruder, Two-Bits Homan, Wooky Roberts, Swede Youngstrom and Houst Stockton. Brian’s research has found that Stockton is the grandfather of NBA great John Stockton.

Eventually father time caught up with the great players of the Yellow Jackets and their record and attendance both declined. By 1931 the franchise was in dire financial straits and had to stop all activity. As Upton Bell told us in our February 2021 interview with him, Bert Bell and Francis Upton Bell purchased the Yellow Jackets at a bankruptcy auction and re-branded the franchise as the Philadelphia Eagles.

Brian Michael’s upcoming book on the Eagles History can be pre-ordered and purchased at this link: Eagles History Photo Book.

Also Brian’s store Shibe Vintage Sports sells great retro gear like tee shirts of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, Pottsville Maroons, Philadelphia Eagles and even Steagles. Here is the link to the Shibe Vintage Sporting Goods store.