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by David Fleming

Author:	David Fleming
Subcategory:	Miscellaneous
Language:	English
Publisher:	ESPN; 1st edition (October 9, 2007)
Pages:	311 pages
Category:	Outdoors and Sports
Rating:	4.7
Other formats:	azw lrf lrf lit

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The NFL heavily sanctioned both Chicago and Milwaukee following their game, going so far as to force the Badgers owner . Fleming, David (2007). Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship.

The NFL heavily sanctioned both Chicago and Milwaukee following their game, going so far as to force the Badgers owner to sell the team Aftermath. Cardinals owner Chris O'Brien was later offered - but refused to accept - the Championship title for his team.

Boys : The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship For 80 years, Pottsville fans have fought to have the championship restored.

Breaker Boys : The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship. Fleming recounts the story of how, in 1926, the Pottsville Maroons, a semi-pro football team from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, was stripped of its championship title. For 80 years, Pottsville fans have fought to have the championship restored.

Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Author · Left on 2009. The Best American Sports Writing (2009).

Chronicles the story of the Pottsville Maroons, a semipro football team that in 1925 joined the National Football League, defeated the first place Chicago Cardinals near the end of their first season, and later had their NFL championship rescinded and awarded to the Cardinals. No current Talk conversations about this book. A quick and entertaining read that is a written in a narrative style that gives it the feel of a folk tale. Received as a Christmas gift, thanks Charlie, and finished within a couple days of starting it.

The 1925 National Football League Championship, officially held by the Chicago Cardinals, has been the subject of controversy since it was . Template:Citation/identifier.

The 1925 National Football League Championship, officially held by the Chicago Cardinals, has been the subject of controversy since it was awarded.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. His latest book, "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship,", published by ESPN Books, has been optioned as a movie. In addition, he is the author of the memoir "Noah's Rainbow.

This book also does an outstanding job of placing the team in its era and locale.

C Douglas BakerSenior Analyst INovember 27, 2010. This book also does an outstanding job of placing the team in its era and locale. He renders up what it must have been like to live in a tough coal mining town in the 1920’s, as well as what professional football was like at a time when many of the professional teams were located in smaller markets. He also relates the importance of the team to the town. It was the one common element between the poorest of the poor, the hard working coal miners, and the wealthy owners of the mines and other establishments.

Fleming recounts the story of how, in 1926, the Pottsville Maroons, a semi-pro football team from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, was stripped of.

Fleming recounts the story of how, in 1926, the Pottsville Maroons, a semi-pro football team from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, was stripped of its championship title. Breaker boys : the NFL's greatest team and the stolen 1925 championship, David Fleming. Fleming, David author. Publication Information. 311 pages, pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm. Summary.

We can tell you if you would like this book! Rate some books to find out!

We can tell you if you would like this book! Rate some books to find out! Blurb.

In 1925, the Pottsville Maroons, a football team from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, joined the fledgling National Football League. Built by an eccentric owner, molded by a visionary coach and loaded with hardscrabble miners, college All Americans and the sky's the limit ethos of the Roaring Twentys, the Maroons did the unthinkable and dominated the NFL in their rookie season. (Their improbable rise was chronicled each week in the local paper by a rookie Pottsville sportswriter named John OOHara.)

Little Pottsville outscored its first seven opponents 162-6. The boys so thoroughly pummeled one opponent, angry fans shot up their train car as the Maroons rode out of town. In the final game of that first season the Maroons traveled to the Midwest to face the league-leading Chicago Cardinals in what was viewed as the championship game for 1925. The Maroons overcame a Windy City snowstorm and an injury to their best player to defeat the Cardinals 21-7.

But the fans wanted more.

College ball was still king. And as news of PottsvilleOs success was splashed across the news reels and headlines throughout the country, a movement began to have the Maroons face a team of college All-Stars from the University of Notre Dame, featuring the legendary Four Horsemen, the finest collection of talent the game had ever known. Experts believed the NFL was still decades away from competing with college football. But on a neutral field in Philadelphia, in a battle described as The Greatest Football Game Ever Seen, the Maroons shocked the world and turned the football establishment upside-down, defeating Notre Dame 9-7 on a last-second field goal by their captain Charlie Berry who had his kicking cleat bronzed for eternity.

The championship was theirs. The NFL was finally on the map. The Maroons victory over Notre Dame had legitimized the league. It also destroyed the town and the team that made it all possible.

Claiming the upstart Maroons had violated the territory of another franchise by playing Notre Dame in Philadelphia, the NFL suspended Pottsville and awarded the 1925 NFL championship to the Chicago Cardinals. The Cardinals refused to accept the bogus title and the 1925 crown was never officially awarded. For more than 80 years, fans of the Pottsville MaroonsNthe team Red Grange said was the greatest he ever facedNhave fought to have the 1925 title returned to its rightful owners.

With Breaker Boys their remarkable story is told at last.

Comments:

Rich Vulture

If you love good writing, football history and the meaning of football to society, look no further than this account of the 1925 Pottsville Maroons. This is sports history and sports writing at its very best.

The Pottsville Maroons were a team located in a small, hard scrabble coal mining town in Eastern Pennsylvania, the kind of small town that would never be able to successfully host a professional team in 2010. But 1925 was a different era when professional football was a more quixotic endeavor and college football reigned supreme.
The team featured some great players that came from the coal mines, like the tough running back Tony Latone, who the author convincingly argues should be in the NFL Hall of Fame. The author tells the stories of many of the key players on this team, including the player/coach Dick Rauch and the colorful owner Dr. John G. Striegel. It was a very fascinating era and group of men.

This book also does an outstanding job of placing the team in its era and locale. He renders up what it must have been like to live in a tough coal mining town in the 1920's, as well as what professional football was like at a time when many of the professional teams were located in smaller markets.

He also relates the importance of the team to the town. It was the one common element between the poorest of the poor, the hard working coal miners, and the wealthy owners of the mines and other establishments. This team was the one thing the entire town could rally around. It gave the very hard working denizens of Pottsville something to look forward to.

And of course the team itself is just absolutely fascinating. It was a motley group of men with some great players and a dedicated coach who had a year that should have crowned them in perpetuity as champions of the football world.

This book walks us through the entire 1925 seasons with the context of previous seasons mixed in so we understand just where the Pottsville Maroons stood. They only lost two games that year but they avenged each close loss later in the season with convincing blow out wins over the Providence Steam Roller and the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The 1925 Pottsville Maroons went 14-2 including a 9-7 win over the Notre Dame All Stars. At that point in history, college teams were superior to professional football teams and no professional team had ever won this exhibition game. This win over the storied Notre Dame players and the Four Horsemen put the NFL on the map and legitimized professional football.

At the end of the season the Pottsville Maroons were the rightful owners of the NFL title. But then a travesty occurred. At that time in professional football they had "territories" where no other professional team could play an exhibition game in another teams "territory." Being cash strapped and wanting to prove to the world how great they were, the Pottsville Maroons played the exhibition game against the Notre Dame All Stars in Philadelphia, the territory of the Frankford Yellow Jackets (a suburb of Philadelphia). The jealous general manger of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, Shep Royle, protested and in a convoluted turn of events the Pottsville Maroons had their title striped from them by then NFL commissioner Joseph Carr.

The championship was given to the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) who are officially listed at the NFL Champion of 1225, despite that the Pottsville Maroons beat them convincingly 21-7 in the lat game of their season. The controversy of the Pottsville Maroons continues today.

Halloween

This is an amazing book. After finishing it, I can understand why author David Fleming had just passion writing it. It is a story so long overdue, it's ridiculous. It is a disgrace to the National Football League that the 1925 Pottsville Maroons have never been given their due. At least they are with any pro football fan who has the good fortune to check out this book.

After reading this, there are some names you'll never be able to forget: like running back Tony Latone, coach Dick Rauch and owner Doc Striegel. What those guys - along with the rest of the Maroons - overcame and accomplished was almost like reading about Seabiscuit and the likes Charles Howard, Red Pollard and Tom Smith.

These were extremely tough men in tough times in a small Pennsylvania coal town and their story is unforgettable. This is simply a great read.

Amerikan_Volga

I grew up in the Anthracite Coal Region of eastern Pennsylvania (Mount Carmel) and remember my Dad speaking of the Pottsville Maroons on several occasions. I didn't give the team much creedence, after all they seemed to be nothing more than a forgotten footnote in NFL history that generated some local pride. The team had never been the subject of any literary work, just the subject of a few short articles over the years in the local Pennsylvania newspapers. Now David Fleming breaths life into the Maroons and brings them out of the shadows. This book is great! Not only does Mr. Fleming tell the dynamic story of a deserving team that was wronged, but he also presents a vivid depiction of the Anthracite Coal Region during the roaring Twenties. Fleming's description of Pottsville's heyday is hard to imagine given the state of the decay the town is in now as are most other Coal Region towns including Mount Carmel. The main characters in the Maroon's story are brought to life and by the time you turn the last page you'll be drafting a letter to the current NFL Commissioner demanding that the Maroons be re-instated as 1925 NFL Champions.

GoodLike

After eight decades, a history of the Pottsville Maroons NFL football team has finally been written. Those of us football fans who were fortunate to know of the Legend that is the Maroons knew that theirs was one of the greatest untold stories of professional sports - until now. This book is an excellent chronicle of the team from the small city of Pottsville, in the coal regions of Central Pennsylvania. Finally, a whole nation of football fans can appreciate their tale. Before reading the book, start by studying the pictures of the players found in the middle of the book. After reading the book, look at their photos again; after going through the whole season with them, you will have a sense of knowing who they really were. You will hear both sides of the argument about the stolen championship of 1925; the book will show you what caused this whole incident: who was involved, and the motivation behind each actor. The author's research has produced an indepth record of the 1925 Maroons, very easy and enjoyable to read, and a book of interest to die-hard football fans and historians everywhere. Contemporary newspaper accounts and other primary sources, as well as interviews with descendents of the players and information later published, were painstakingly collected and assembled in a way that makes you want to keep reading to see what happens next. After reading this book, you will have formed your own well-informed opinion of how the matter of the "Stolen Championship" should have been handled in the past, and since it is still an ongoing issue, how it should be handled in the future.

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