May 29

Our highlights of the gridiron events of May 29 include a key court ruling and how it effected the NFL and an early two way player was built tough in a rugged era. We will provide you with a little bit of football nostalgia. This daily football history segment features the Great events, Franchise formation anniversaries as well as the birthdays of notable Hall of Fame players, coaches or anyone else in our great game and many more  Legendary stories of the Gridiron.

The Scranton, Pennsylvania Times-Tribune on May 30, 1922 had this heading on their pages:

Organized Ball Not Trust, Says Highest Court

And this is our Newspapers.com Football History Headline of the day.

The Supreme Court on this day in 1922 handed down a decision in the Federalist League vs. the National League case where professional baseball was not under the jurisdiction of interstate commerce laws. This made the sport exempt, even to this day, from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. While MLB is fully exempt other pro sports are not. The NFL has very limited freedoms concerning antitrust laws. 3 Supreme Court decisions in the 1950's upheld that professional football is subject to most federal antitrust and interstate commerce laws. Is this a double standard since baseball is exempt? Many still to this day think so.

If you want to be able to be able to read through some old articles like The Chicago Tribune, you need to check out Newspapers.com. At Newspapers.com, you can get access to over 640 million pages’ worth of news from the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland and more dating back from 1798 to yesterday.  Get a free one week subscription to Newspapers.com by visiting SportsHistoryNetwork.com/newspapers. And with a paid subscription, you’ll also be helping to support the production of this and other Sports History Network shows. 

May 29, 1892 - Portage, Wisconsin - Colgate University’s two-way tackle from 1912 through the 1915 season, Earl Abell was born. The National Football Foundation has a nice bio on Abell where they say he has a very appropriate nickname of “Tuffy.” He had a very build as he was big at 5 foot-11 inches tall, and clocking in at 204 pounds. Built like a brick outhouse, Tuffy's broad shoulders and thick neck made him well suited to play the hard-nosed, bruising brand of football known in the Pioneer years of the game. The NFF piece goes on to say that Ellery Huntington, a teammate on the 1913 team, remembered Abell as being, "remarkably fast. He broke through like a streak to spill the play before it formed. Abell was fast enough to play end." "Tuffy" was as versatile as he was huge, often handling Colgate kicking and punting chores. He once drop-kicked a field goal from the 41-yard line in a 1915 game against Yale. The 1915 team shut out five opponents and scored 107 points against R.P.I. The Maroon finished with five victories in six games and Tuffy earned All-America recognition. During Earl's playing career, Colgate won 21, lost six and tied two.  The College Football Hall of Fame proudly placed a display in honor of Earl Tuffy Abell into their legendary museum in 1973.

Notable Birthdays:

May 29, 1958 - Sam Clancy was an NFL Pro Bowl Defensive End for the Seahawks, Browns and Colts. He attended the University of Pittsburgh where he was a basketball standout and never played a down for the Panthers in football. After college he played pro hoops in the CBA then switched to football in the USFL for the Pittsburgh Maulers and the Memphis Steamboats. After his playing days were over he served as an assistant in NFL Europe and then with the Saints and Raiders in the NFL.

May 29, 1975 - Matt Bryant was an NFL Pro Bowl Kicker for the Giants, Colts, Dolphins, Bucaneers and Falcons. He played his college football at Baylor University.

See all the football players born on May 29th at Pro Football Reference

See something that happened on this date that we missed? Please let us know via email at PigskinDispatch@gmail.com. 

The picture in the banner above is from the US Library of Congress' collection and was contributed by Harris and Ewing Photographers circa 1924 and is titled " U.S. Supreme Court 1924."