The League by John Eisenberg

Author:John Eisenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2018-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

IN THE FALL OF 1941, CHARLES BIDWILL ADMITTED TO HALAS that owning the perennially mediocre Cardinals was not especially exciting. Bidwill asked Halas about the possibility of moving the team to Los Angeles. The NFL had been flirting with putting a team in Southern California, which was becoming an attractive sports market as its population exploded around midcentury. Five years earlier, the league had granted a “probationary franchise” to a Los Angeles group with the idea that it would develop a team that would, in turn, eventually join the league. The Los Angeles Bulldogs developed quickly, winning three of six games against NFL squads that traveled west for exhibitions in 1936. But the league broke its promise, establishing a new team in Cleveland rather than adding the Bulldogs in 1937. Most owners were against the idea of regular travel to the West Coast. Joe Carr, still in charge at the time, supported the idea of a team in Ohio, his home state.

After being turned down by the NFL, the Bulldogs joined the American Football League, Harry March’s brainchild, then in its second and final season, and won the title with an 8-0 record in 1937. After that, they returned to independent status and continued to play exhibitions against NFL teams, then changed their name to the Hollywood Bears and joined a lesser league.

As sports teams on the West Coast played to larger and larger crowds, it was evident the NFL had to consider a franchise in Los Angeles. If Bidwill wanted to move the Cardinals there, Halas would not attempt to stop him. Halas certainly owed Bidwill, who had helped the league in many ways over the years; he had arranged for Halas to obtain a loan when Halas was on the verge of losing the Bears in 1932, and, more recently, he had provided money to help the sale of the Lions go through.

Bidwill’s lukewarm interest in his own team was a source of amusement in league circles. In 1938, a reporter had asked whether he would be in New York to watch his Cardinals take on the Giants. No, Bidwill said, he would be in Chicago to watch the Bears. By the early 1940s, the gap between Chicago’s two teams was widening. Halas had built a powerful squad that played to large, enthusiastic crowds. The Cardinals continued to lose and shrink further into the Bears’ shadow. Moving them to the West Coast was one solution. But Halas asked Bidwill to keep the idea between them for the time being. The Los Angeles situation was delicate, as several West Coast groups also were interested in obtaining an NFL franchise. Hopefully, Halas told Bidwill, we can make it happen sooner rather than later. That pledge would cause more trouble than either man could have imagined.

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