Philadelphia Athletics Pro Football Team

In this edition, we discuss the history of the Philadelphia Athletics Professional Football team, which played in 1902.

Photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of The Philadelphia Athletics were a professional football team comprised of members of the AL's Athletics and football players from various local teams.

Our last look at early professional football teams focussed on the Philadelphia Phillies. In this edition, we will look at what one could consider their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Athletics gridiron team. Both squads shared a similar origin sprouting from the Philadelphia Athletic Club in 1901. The group was more widely recognized around Eastern Pennsylvania as the Philadelphia Professionals or the Philadelphia Pros for short. The Pros were the first entirely professionally paid football roster in the Philadelphia area. Penn graduate, Wilson Wright, was the team’s chief financial backer and manager. One of Wright’s first moves was to bring in an experienced football man to help organize the team. Former Penn Quaker Captain Blondy Wallace was the person of choice.
Last time we also discussed the heated rivalry of the rival Baseball Leagues; the American and National spilled over into the pro gridiron genre as well, with the owners of the two Philadelphia-based hardball franchises sponsoring pro football teams as well. Ben Shibe, the A’s owner, asked his baseball team’s skipper, Connie Mack, to recruit Blondy Wallace to build a roster of paid football stars that would not only compete against the Phillies team of rival owner John I. Rogers but against a team from Pittsburgh too. These teams would comprise an original version of the National Football League in 1902.
Wallace recruited some outstanding players to his team. Former Carlisle Indian Left Tackle Hawley Pierce was joined by Left End Sims and sometimes Baeder, Right End Merrian, Left Guard McFarland, Pop Sweet (Washington and Jefferson) at Center, Kingden at Right Guard, and Captain Wallace playing the Right Tackle position. Earl Hewitt (Penn State) was the quarterback, while the rest of the backfield was compromised of Baeder or McNulty, Reiter, and Bull Davidson at fullback.
The Athletics would go on to have a final overall record of 10-2-2, and with it disputedly claim that they were the World Champions with a 3-2-1 League mark. However, it doesn’t even appear that they won their three-team league. Statistically, the Athletics and the Pittsburgh Stars were the top two teams of this original NFL, and they played a game to decide on a champion on November 27. The game ended in a scoreless tie, but that was not enough of a resolution, so Wallace and company wanted to play the following week again in Pittsburgh to crown a champion. The Pittsburgh Stars won this meeting handily 11-0, and Commissioner Dave Berry announced that the Stars were World Champs. The Athletics rather concede their rights to the title. The PFRA’s Coffin Corner says, “After a while, the A's players decided that maybe the Saturday game with the Stars could be explained away as an exhibition. Maybe it didn't count, and they were the champs. Eventually, they convinced themselves and enough other people that their yarn even found its way into a few record books.” 
In other the sour grapes of the second-place team. We know that for sure because on December 6, 1902, the Athletics played a rubber match third game against the crosstown Phillies and won it 17-6.
The story of the Athletics is only partially complete. Later in December 1902, the team was invited to compete in an indoor World Series of Football tournament at Madison Square Gardens. Concept of Tom O'Rourke, manager of the venue, who was looking for an attraction during the holidays to sell some tickets.

Though he could not get a full team from the now-disbanded National Football League, he did coerce some players from the Phillies and Athletics to play together and form what was called the "New York" team. Wallace of the Athletics and Roller of the Phillies joined forces along with some of their former teammates in what had many appearances of the 1901 Philadelphia Athletic Club reunion. The New York Philadelphia team was the hands-on favorites to win the tournament but the Syracuse Athletic Club spoiled that party. We will get to their story next week as we chat about the Watertown Red Blacks eleven.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following 

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of The Philadelphia Athletics were a professional football team comprised of members of the AL's Athletics and football players from various local teams. The team played in the 1902 NFL which was the first attempt to establish a professional national football league.

References:

1. Retro Seasons
2. The Coffin Corner: Vol. 9, No. 6 ((1987)). "When did they start?". Professional Football Researchers Association.Professiona Football Researchers Association's Coffin Corner
3. Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette: November 6, 1901 , p. 10 Quaker Stars Show up Strong
4. Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football’s Missing Origin Story, Gregg Ficery, p. 84
5. Phillies Nation website Phillies Nation.com
6. The Philadelphia Inquirer  07 Dec 1902, Sun · Page 14 [url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/168324269/?terms=%22Athletics%22&match=1]Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 7, 1902 P 14{/url]