SCREAMER

THE FORGOTTEN VOICE OF THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS

EARLY STEELERS' FRANCHISE HISTORY

Play for Pay Football had its roots in and around Pittsburgh in the 1890’s. While baseball never had to contend with those who demeaned professional sports, football (and hockey) did.

The start of a pro football team in Pittsburgh was the result of Art Rooney bailing out the fledgling National Football League (NFL) by buying a franchise for $2500 in 1933. At this time, college football was king in Pittsburgh. Pitt was a constant contender for the phantom national championship and Carnegie Tech and Duquesne played admirably as well before appreciative fans.

In 1933 Art did not view his NFL football franchise as much different from the sandlot group that was its base. Art continually dipped into his pocket for the cash needed to continue the franchise, viewing the sport as a hobby while his real profession was handicapping. To induce pro football fan interest, Art “comped” up to 4,000 per game until the NFL limited ticket give aways to 1,000. The paying gate was rarely 2500.

In accepting the franchise, Art had to move from the sandlots to a stadium. The University of Pittsburgh would not consider the use of Pitt Stadium for philosophical and practical reasons. On the first point, there was a group adverse to professional sports that desired to maintain football as competition among amateurs. The practical side was the possibility that in providing a venue for a professional activity, the City might seek property taxes that would well exceed any rental the University would gain from leasing its premises.

The only possible place for games was the Pirates baseball field. To lease the field, football could not be scheduled before the theoretical end of the baseball season including the World Series. Since Art had no other option, the baseball team charged high rent and kept all profits from concessions, squeezing the treasury and putting continual financial pressures on Art.

The first home game in 1933 was scheduled with the NY Giants. This was to be a first, a pro sports activity in Pittsburgh on Sunday. The advantage Art was able to gain was that the Pennsylvania Blue Laws that had prohibited any sports attraction on a Sunday had been loosened allowing a game to start after 2PM, but it had to end at 7PM. The last hurdle to overcome was that the Legislature had provided for a local option whereby city government could continue to impose the stringent Blue Laws of no activity.

The Pittsburgh City Council had not voted on whether to impose the option. With the game scheduled, the Christian clergy and all the newspapers opposed the heresy of entertainment on the Christian Sabbath. The Council would not vote on the local option until the following Tuesday. The frantic clerics obtained an injunction and sought the law, the Superintendent of Police and the Director of Public Safety, to enforce it. They could not locate them. Why? All they had to do was enter Forbes Field and find them safely inhabiting a box on the 50-yard line in front of Art Rooney.

As the years passed, the newspapers gave scant coverage to the team. As far as they were concerned, the pro team was simply a sandlot group of guys, an intercity extension of the intracity games that played on weekends on the vacant lots around the city. The papers best writers had their fill covering Saturday college games and wanted time with their families on Sundays. To the extent the games were covered, the papers sent Cub reporters.

To the extent Art got talent under contract, he eventually had to sell the contracts to the Giants, Bears, Packers or Lions. Art could not get the papers to understand the future of pro football.
The first turning point for the franchise and probably the foundation for its remarkable history in one city came in 1936. From his pay day at Saratoga, Art was able to pay salaries for a first rate coach, Joe Bach, and most of the players. He also got one radio station, WWSW, to put a rookie announcer, Joe Tucker, at a microphone describing a game he saw only in his imagination, guided by a Western Union ticker tape.

Two great players succeeded Bach as attractions. Johnny Blood in 1937 and Byron White in 1938. There was really nothing left either on the team or in Art’s ability to bankroll the club after 1940.
The ‘immaculate switch’ in 1940 with Lex Thompson giving Art $160,000 for the Pittsburgh franchise, and Art and Bert Bell teaming to take the Eagle’s franchise and swapping it with Lex permitted the resurrection of pro football in Pittsburgh with a new team name, the Steelers. For many years the franchise for the Pittsburgh team read, the Philadelphia Athletic Club.

But the real ascendancy came with the return of the most gifted player in early Steelers’ history, “Bullet Bill” Dudley, and the greatest coach in this history, Dr. John Baines “Jock” Sutherland. Together they put fans in the stands and made it possible for pro football to stand on its own in what was then, “The Smoky City.”