Jttsaz
#40 Never Forget
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050327/1058122.asp
This guy is a real piece of work!
By LARRY FELSER
The NFL may have the solution to all those illegal immigrants streaming across the Rio Grande from Mexico. Let's make a deal: Mexico City gets to keep the Arizona Cardinals if the Mexican government agrees to patch all those gaping holes in its border.
The Cardinals, the gypsy band of pro football, are on the prowl once again. Even though they are supposed to start playing in a new stadium in Arizona in 2006, they will play one of their eight home games this year, on Oct. 2, in a 100,000-seat stadium in Mexico City.
The team's wanderlust began 47 years ago, in Buffalo. It's still active.
In 1958, the Cardinals, then based in Chicago where the franchise was founded, opened their home season in Buffalo in what was still called Civic Stadium. The Old Rockpile had been built in the Depression '30s by the Works Project Administration. It was a stadium without frills - no roof, no seat-backs, no amenities. There was merely space for the posteriors of people who wanted to watch football or auto racing, or anything else for which a promoter might be willing to pay rent.
The Bills came later, in 1960, when Mayor Frank Sedita cajoled the Common Council into agreeing to OK the building of a roof and chair-back seats in the place.
The Cardinals were looking for a foster city, at least temporarily, since they were being shut out of their normal home, Comiskey Park, since baseball's Chicago White Sox were making an unaccustomed run at the American League pennant. Since the White Sox owned Comiskey, they told the Cardinals it wouldn't be available to them until late in October or even November.
Buffalo was courting team
Buffalo had been enduring a decadelong heartache after losing the original Buffalo Bills when the All-America Conference folded after its 1949 season. The city was in the market for an NFL expansion team, or even a relocated team. Since Chicago seemed to be a two-team football town, the Bears and nearby Notre Dame, the Cardinals were the NFL franchise most likely to move.
Sedita had put Pat McGroder, then his parks commissioner, in charge of attracting a team. Since Houston and Dallas were among other cities anxious to attract the Cardinals to their towns, there was competition for the home opener, which was seen as a sort of municipal audition for an NFL franchise. McGroder's sales pitch on behalf of Buffalo convinced the Cards to schedule the game here.
The Cards' opponent was the New York Giants, who had lost their last five exhibition games. The NFL scheduled six exhibitions in the '50s, almost half the regular-season schedule, because the gate receipts were all gravy since the player payrolls, paltry anyway, didn't kick in until the real season began. The Cards were no bargain, either.
At least the Giants had glamour. Frank Gifford was already a star and Charley Conerly a proven quarterback. Andy Robustelli was an all-pro defensive end and they had a promising kid at middle linebacker, Sam Huff. Coach Jim Lee Howell had a couple of pretty good assistants, too. They didn't call them coordinators then, but Tom Landry was the defensive coach and Vince Lombardi handled the offense.
The Cardinals, coached by colorless Pop Ivy, had a good running back in John David Crow and Night Train Lane at cornerback, but not much more. Their starting quarterback was M.C. Reynolds, who in 1961 played for the Bills.
The Giants blew the Cards out of the stadium, 37-7.
Cardinals disappointed
I was working for the Courier-Express then and my job was to speak to the owners to get their reaction about the crowd support in relation to a possible future NFL team for Buffalo. Mrs. Violet Bidwill, the widow of team founder Charley, was the owner. Her second husband, the dour Walter Wolfner, operated the team. He told me he was "disappointed" in the crowd of just over 22,000.
I asked Wellington Mara, the Giants owner then as now, if he agreed with Wolfner. Mara laughed. "It's 4,000 more than we would have drawn in Chicago," he said.
Two years later, Buffalo had its team as the Bills were reborn in the AFL courtesy of a Detroiter, Ralph Wilson. The founding of the AFL pushed the NFL into moving the Cardinals to St. Louis before the AFL could get into the Missouri city.
The widow Bidwill died and the football team went to her son, Billy. The Cardinals couldn't win in St. Louis nor were they taken to the bosom of the community. In 1988, they moved to Phoenix. They changed from the Phoenix Cardinals to the Arizona Cardinals. They switched from the NFC East to West. From Chicago to St. Louis to Phoenix, they went 50 years before winning a playoff game.
Maybe they can find happiness in Mexico City, but what's the Spanish word for loser?
(Larry Felser, former News columnist,
appears in Sunday's editions.
This guy is a real piece of work!
By LARRY FELSER
The NFL may have the solution to all those illegal immigrants streaming across the Rio Grande from Mexico. Let's make a deal: Mexico City gets to keep the Arizona Cardinals if the Mexican government agrees to patch all those gaping holes in its border.
The Cardinals, the gypsy band of pro football, are on the prowl once again. Even though they are supposed to start playing in a new stadium in Arizona in 2006, they will play one of their eight home games this year, on Oct. 2, in a 100,000-seat stadium in Mexico City.
The team's wanderlust began 47 years ago, in Buffalo. It's still active.
In 1958, the Cardinals, then based in Chicago where the franchise was founded, opened their home season in Buffalo in what was still called Civic Stadium. The Old Rockpile had been built in the Depression '30s by the Works Project Administration. It was a stadium without frills - no roof, no seat-backs, no amenities. There was merely space for the posteriors of people who wanted to watch football or auto racing, or anything else for which a promoter might be willing to pay rent.
The Bills came later, in 1960, when Mayor Frank Sedita cajoled the Common Council into agreeing to OK the building of a roof and chair-back seats in the place.
The Cardinals were looking for a foster city, at least temporarily, since they were being shut out of their normal home, Comiskey Park, since baseball's Chicago White Sox were making an unaccustomed run at the American League pennant. Since the White Sox owned Comiskey, they told the Cardinals it wouldn't be available to them until late in October or even November.
Buffalo was courting team
Buffalo had been enduring a decadelong heartache after losing the original Buffalo Bills when the All-America Conference folded after its 1949 season. The city was in the market for an NFL expansion team, or even a relocated team. Since Chicago seemed to be a two-team football town, the Bears and nearby Notre Dame, the Cardinals were the NFL franchise most likely to move.
Sedita had put Pat McGroder, then his parks commissioner, in charge of attracting a team. Since Houston and Dallas were among other cities anxious to attract the Cardinals to their towns, there was competition for the home opener, which was seen as a sort of municipal audition for an NFL franchise. McGroder's sales pitch on behalf of Buffalo convinced the Cards to schedule the game here.
The Cards' opponent was the New York Giants, who had lost their last five exhibition games. The NFL scheduled six exhibitions in the '50s, almost half the regular-season schedule, because the gate receipts were all gravy since the player payrolls, paltry anyway, didn't kick in until the real season began. The Cards were no bargain, either.
At least the Giants had glamour. Frank Gifford was already a star and Charley Conerly a proven quarterback. Andy Robustelli was an all-pro defensive end and they had a promising kid at middle linebacker, Sam Huff. Coach Jim Lee Howell had a couple of pretty good assistants, too. They didn't call them coordinators then, but Tom Landry was the defensive coach and Vince Lombardi handled the offense.
The Cardinals, coached by colorless Pop Ivy, had a good running back in John David Crow and Night Train Lane at cornerback, but not much more. Their starting quarterback was M.C. Reynolds, who in 1961 played for the Bills.
The Giants blew the Cards out of the stadium, 37-7.
Cardinals disappointed
I was working for the Courier-Express then and my job was to speak to the owners to get their reaction about the crowd support in relation to a possible future NFL team for Buffalo. Mrs. Violet Bidwill, the widow of team founder Charley, was the owner. Her second husband, the dour Walter Wolfner, operated the team. He told me he was "disappointed" in the crowd of just over 22,000.
I asked Wellington Mara, the Giants owner then as now, if he agreed with Wolfner. Mara laughed. "It's 4,000 more than we would have drawn in Chicago," he said.
Two years later, Buffalo had its team as the Bills were reborn in the AFL courtesy of a Detroiter, Ralph Wilson. The founding of the AFL pushed the NFL into moving the Cardinals to St. Louis before the AFL could get into the Missouri city.
The widow Bidwill died and the football team went to her son, Billy. The Cardinals couldn't win in St. Louis nor were they taken to the bosom of the community. In 1988, they moved to Phoenix. They changed from the Phoenix Cardinals to the Arizona Cardinals. They switched from the NFC East to West. From Chicago to St. Louis to Phoenix, they went 50 years before winning a playoff game.
Maybe they can find happiness in Mexico City, but what's the Spanish word for loser?
(Larry Felser, former News columnist,
appears in Sunday's editions.
