In 1902, the new Philadelphia baseball rivalry spilled over to pro football

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The 1902 Philadelphia Athletics  (pic) rivalry with the Phillies spilled over to pro football

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, one of the biggest sporting days in the world. It is estimated that well over 100 million people worldwide will tune in to watch the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams battle to become this year’s champions of the National Football League at some point.

The game won’t hold the same edge-of-your-seat passionate interest that last year’s game did here in Philadelphia. A year ago, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated New England in a thrilling 41-33 contest to capture the first-ever Super Bowl crown in franchise history.

As soon as this year’s game ends and the last of the chicken wings, pizza, and beer has been consumed here in Philly, local sports fans will begin to much more seriously consider the upcoming Philadelphia Phillies baseball season.

The Phillies pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to Clearwater, Florida exactly ten days from today for the official start of 2019 spring training camp. The position players will join later that week, and the first game of the Grapefruit League season is scheduled for Friday, February 22.

A fun fact that most Phillies fans are probably not aware of is that there was once a Philadelphia Phillies professional football team in town. In fact, there is a direct link, as the football team was actually owned by the baseball team.

In 1902 a first-ever attempt to form a pro football league took place right here in Pennsylvania. And in fact, that formation was a direct result of the beginning of the baseball wars the previous year with the formation of the new American League.

The Phillies had been in existence as members of the National League since the 1883 season, though they were often referred to as the ‘Philadelphia Quakers’ during their first seven seasons. The NL had been founded seven years earlier, on February 2, 1876.

Ben Shibe (2nd from left, front row) was the original owner of the Philadelphia Athletics – both the baseball and football versions. (Bain News Service/WikiCommons)

Founded on January 28, 1901 the American League set out to become an alternative “major league” and expand opportunities for both players and fans to participate in the game at the highest levels.

During the 1901-02 seasons there was outright war between the more established “Senior Circuit” of the NL and the new kids on the block, the “Junior Circuit” of the AL. The two would finally establish a ‘Pax baseball’ following the 1902 season, with establishment of rules regarding player contracts as well as a World Series between champions of the two leagues.

But while that initial war was still being fought, the idea of professional football was brought into the fray. Phillies owner John Rogers started a football team named after his baseball club. Ben Shibe, owner of the Philadelphia Athletics in the AL, decided to start one of his own in response.

Out in Pittsburgh, the Homestead Library & Athletic Club had what was considered the best football team in the nation made up of professional paid players. The team was funded by Pittsburgh Pirates minority owner William Chase Temple, and had not lost a game during either their 1900 or 1901 schedules.

Football promoter Dave Berry took many of those Homestead players and formed a pro team called the Pittsburgh Stars. The team is believed by many to have remained funded by either Temple or the Pirates majority owner, Barney Dreyfuss.

Can the 2018 Eagles do what the 2009 Phillies could not?

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Despite Utley's heroics the Phillies fell just short in repeat world title attempt

Tonight is the 2018 NFL season opener between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Atlanta Falcons. That would be the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, by the way. Those words still look and sound so glorious, do they not?

The Birds and their fans will celebrate their title one final time with the raising of the first-ever Super Bowl banner at Lincoln Financial Field this evening. But after that, the game will begin. The football calendar will officially turn to a new season.

In that new 2018 season the Eagles will be defending an NFL championship for the fourth time in franchise history. It marks just the second time in the last 35 years that a Philadelphia major pro sports team will attempt to repeat as a champion.

Philly fans remember well the last time it happened Just nine years ago the Philadelphia Phillies played the 2009 season as defending champions of Major League Baseball.

The long playoff run and Fall Classic triumph had been punctuated by a Halloween parade around City Hall and down Broad Street to Citizens Bank Park.

The Eagles experienced pretty much the same thing. A long playoff run, early February Super Bowl, parade this time up Broad Street from the stadium area and out the Ben Franklin Parkway to the Art Museum.

There was a shorter than normal off-season as the Phillies did the banquet and awards circuit that winter and then returned to Clearwater for spring training in February 2009. The Eagles had a month shorter off-season as well. While the Birds and their coaching staff were prepping for the Patriots, the rest of the NFL was already getting a jump on 2018 preparations.

As far as personnel were concerned, the 2009 Phillies returned largely the same cast of lead characters who had won the crown. The only change among starting position players came with Raul Ibanez replacing Pat Burrell as the left fielder.

On the mound, the biggest change at the start was that young lefty J.A. Happ stepped into the starting rotation in place of the Kyle Kendrick and Adam Eaton combination from the previous year.

Lee arrived at the July 2009 trade deadline to provide a needed shot in the arm.

Those Phillies had to make a big injury adjustment when Brett Myers hit the DL for three months in late May. You probably won’t recall that they gave Antonio Bastardo five June starts, or that they signed Rodrigo Lopez and plugged him in for five July starts. But you will recall that they traded for Cliff Lee and signed Pedro Martinez in July, bolstering the rotation for August and beyond.

There was a World Series hangover at the beginning of the season. Six weeks in, the Phillies went through a stretch in which they lost six of eight games. On Friday, May 15, the 2009 Phillies woke up with a 16-16 record. And then it all changed.

Following that mid-May rough stretch, the Phillies went on a five-game winning streak. It began a stretch that saw the club capture 19 of their next 26, moving them to a season-best twelve games over the .500 mark and to a four-game lead in the NL East.

And then the bottom seemed to again drop out. A loss on Friday, June 12 began a horrendous stretch in which the club dropped 11 of 13 games. Despite falling to just three games over .500 they remained atop the division, but barely. With just a half-game lead, they once again turned things around.

From June 27 to the MLB All-Star Game break the Phillies went 11-4, hitting the break with their lead back up to four games. They didn’t let up when play resumed, winning their first five. It kicked off a 10-2 run that pushed their record overall to 58-40 and stretched their division lead out to seven games.

Finally Eagles, Finally!

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Head coach Doug Pederson, owner Jeffrey Lurie celebrate Eagles victory in Super Bowl LVII

"Fly Eagles, Fly!" is the official fight song for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League.

After winning the first Super Bowl championship in franchise history last night, we can at least temporarily change those first three words of the song to "Finally Eagles, Finally!"

The Eagles and New England Patriots threw haymakers at one another all night long on Sunday night during Super Bowl LII in Minnesota in a game that was reminiscent of the climactic fight of the film "Rocky II".

In that epic slugfest, Philly's favorite fictional underdog fighter, Rocky Balboa, traded big blows with and ultimately defeated a legendary unbeatable champion named Apollo Creed.

Last night it was a real, live legendary champion named Tom Brady who was throwing bombs at the Eagles. For most of the night, Brady found the Birds weak spots, landing punishing shot after punishing shot.

But the Eagles kept taking those shots and answering back with big shots of their own. Leading the way was a man every bit the underdog that the fictional Rocky had been in that film series.

Nick Foles has had big moments as an NFL quarterback before, including in an Eagles uniform. But his career had gone a bit off the rails over the last couple of years to the point where he was ready to retire from the game.

Given another shot at NFL life, Foles was signed by the Eagles for the 2018 season. Brought in to serve as a backup to rising stud Carson Wentz, most Eagles fans thought - in fact hoped - that Foles would never see the field.

As everyone now knows, the unthinkable happened. Wentz led the Eagles to the NFL's best record and was the leading NFL MVP candidate. But it all seemed to evaporate when Wentz suffered a debilitating knee injury, ending his season in a Week #14 victory in Los Angeles.

In stepped a cold Foles. With no training camp, having taken no game snaps all year long, the 28-year old in his sixth season was suddenly put under center for the NFC's top team.

It was a no-win situation for Foles. If the Eagles collapsed at that point, blame would all go to the Wentz injury. If they lost at any point in the playoffs, there would always be those who would wonder "what if Carson" had stayed healthy?

In retrospect - if it had to happen at all - the timing of Wentz' injury could not have been better. His great play had been the biggest key in the Eagles having clinched a playoff berth. He put the team in position to finish as the top overall seed in the NFC playoffs.

That timing allowed Foles to come in and play in two full games and parts of two others before the playoffs would begin. It was just enough time to get him up to game speed and ready to perform once again on the big stage.

Perform he would. Foles threw for 246 yards and managed the game well as the Eagles held off the tough defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons by 15-10 in the Divisional Round.

Taking it up a notch, Foles put on a show in throwing for 352 yards and three touchdowns as the Eagles crushed the Minnesota Vikings dreams of hosting the Super Bowl in their home town with a 38-7 victory in the NFC Championship Game.

That all led to last night, and the battle with Brady and his Patriots. Brady threw for an unreal Super Bowl record 505 yards and three touchdowns.

But for nearly every Brady drive of excellence, Foles had an answer. He threw for 373 yards himself, and matched the great Brady with three touchdown passes of his own.

He also did Brady one better. While Brady dropped a possible TD reception on a second quarter trick play, Foles caught one tossed by tight end Trey Burton. Foles thus became the first player in NFL history to both pass for and catch a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

The game itself was much like those fictional Balboa-Creed battles. Big shots. Back and forth action. When each seemed within a blow of landing a knockout punch, the other would come roaring back to life.

After the two teams traded early field goals, Foles was first to put his team into the end zone when he connected with wide receiver Alshon Jeffery on a 34-yard TD pass with 2:41 to play in the first quarter.

Halfway through the second quarter, former Patriots' running back LeGarrette Blount bulled his way in from 21 yards away with the help of strong blocking from his teammates to give the Birds a 15-3 lead.

That lead nearly got even bigger. On their next possession from the New England 43-yard line, Foles tried to connect with Jeffery down along the sideline at the eight-yard line.

The Andy Reid Era

Another NFL season has now finally come to an end with my hometown Philadelphia Eagles failing to win the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. That's 0-46 if you're counting at home.

To listen to some fans around these parts, you would think that Andy Reid has been the head coach for all of them, that he is to blame for the team never having won the Big One.

Let's get a little perspective.

The Philadelphia Eagles regular season record in the 'Andy Reid Era' is now 126-81-1. He has guided the team to 9 playoff appearances in 13 seasons, with an overall 10-9 record in the post-season. He has guided the Eagles to 7 NFC East titles, and 9 times under his watch the Eagles have been ranked either #1 or #2 in the NFC at season's end. He led the team to the 2004 NFC Championship, it's lone Super Bowl appearance during his tenure.

I began watching the Eagles around 1971-72 when Veteran's Stadium opened with Eddie Khayat at the helm. Watched through the regimes of Mike McCormack, Dick Vermiel, Marion Campbell, Buddy Ryan, Rich Kotite, and Ray Rhodes.

During that time: 204-216-6, 10 playoff appearances, 1 Super Bowl appearance over 28 seasons.

NFL Playoff Predictions

There is really only one way to make predictions on the outcome of some game or tournament and have yourself taken seriously, and that is to make them before even a single moment has been played.

So here we are, just moments away from the kickoff of the first game of the NFL playoffs, and that makes it time for my personal predictions on how this month-long tournament will play out.

Let's start at home with our Philadelphia Eagles. What a tremendous, in some ways over-achieving season it has been for the Birds. When the team left training camp in early September, most fans were planning on a rebuilding year as Kevin Kolb took over at quarterback after a decade behind Donovan McNabb. An 8-8 finish that showed positive signs for 2011 would probably have been considered a success at that point.

But in the opening game against Green Bay, Kolb was injured. In stepped Michael Vick. The rest, as they say, is history. Vick emerged as an uncommon weapon, and an NFL MVP candidate. The team took off behind his acrobatics, bolted to the front of the NFC East, and then capped it all with a rally for the ages in a late December game against the rival New York Giants to take the division crown.

That the team faltered in it's final two regular season games should not be as much cause for concern as it seems to have become for some fans and members of the media. The team was obviously thrown off by the sudden switch of the Vikings game from Sunday night to Tuesday night due to snow a couple of weeks ago.

That surprising defeat led to the full-scale benching of regulars for the finale against Dallas, as Andy Reid basically gave them a bye week. The result was a close, last-minute loss by the Eagles subs to the Cowboys regulars.

The more important factors for the Eagles entering the opening week matchup are their opponents, and the condition of their own players. The Eagles have lost key contributors in the past couple of weeks, while the Packers have played extremely well since the return to health of their outstanding quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

I want the Eagles to win. I will be rooting hard for it to happen.

Goodbye, Donovan McNabb

There has been a battle brewing in my pro football-crazed town of Philadelphia over the past couple of football seasons. That battle has been over the fate and future of it's quarterback, Donovan McNabb.

Is McNabb good enough to lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl? Should McNabb be traded away?

The answer apparently came on Easter Sunday night when the Eagles traded McNabb to the division rival Washington Redskins for a pair of draft picks.

Some have been waiting for more than a decade for McNabb to stumble and fall. These were the Eagles fans infamously known as the 'Boo Birds', the fans who showed up for the NFL Draft in 1999 hoping and praying that their beloved Eagles would select running back Ricky Williams to lead them out of the wilderness of losing seasons that had befallen the team.

With the 2nd overall pick, Williams was there waiting for the Birds. But much to the chagrin of the rabid fan base, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped to the podium and made this announcement:

"With the 2nd pick the Philadelphia Eagles select Donovan McNabb, quarterback, Syracuse University."

Never before has such a torrent of boisterous "boo" calls rained down upon an NFL Commissioner as the Eagles fans delivered on that infamous day. And that is saying a lot, considering the Draft is held in New York, rabid Jets fans show up regularly in numbers, and their team has made some awful picks over the years.

1980: Not A Kid Anymore

All this year at my Facebook page, which you can view from the link in the sidebar here at my website by joining up yourself and 'friend'-ing me, I am taking a daily trip back in time to the 1980's.

Each month I am highlighting a different year chronologically, and this month have been featuring the music, tv, movies, and important events of the first year of the decade: 1980.

In 1980 the world changed, both in my own individual life and the world at large, in some of the most important and influential ways it ever would. Just one year earlier, as 1979 dawned, I was a 17-year old high school senior living in an apartment in South Philly with my dad and brother. Little did I know how much a life could change in less than a year.

I had been dating a girl, Anne Jacobs, ever since meeting her down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood, New Jersey during the late summer of 1976. We overcame the fact that I lived in South Philly without a car and she lived out in the Delaware County suburb of Prospect Park to become high school sweethearts.

Anne was a year behind me in school, and so while I was finishing up my senior year and preparing to graduate from St. John Neumann high school in South Philadelphia during the first half of 1979, she was still just a junior at Archbishop Prendergast high school out in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

It was at some point in the late spring of '79 that we began to realize something big might be up. There were increasingly unmistakable signs to us that Anne had become pregnant, and by the early summer we knew it was true. We told our parents at the end of that summer, and I put my LaSalle University plans aside to go out and find a job.

The Philadelphia Eagles Are Winners

Within this same week we saw perfect examples in the tales of two Philadelphia pro sports organizations, one a winner and one a loser.

First, the big 'L' gets hung on the forehead of the Philadelphia 76ers organization for signing one of its all-time loser players in Allen Iverson. I covered that topic already earlier in the week.

It's time now to highlight Philly's winning winter sports organization, the Philadelphia Eagles. This past week the Birds signed head coach Andy Reid, the winningest coach in franchise history, to a contract extension that will keep 'Big Red' as the football boss through 2013. By the conclusion of the contract, Reid will have been the head coach for 15 seasons, nearly unheard of in today's pro sports world.

After a decade in Philadelphia, Andy Reid is now the 2nd longest tenured head coach in the entire NFL, trailing only Tennessee head man Jeff Fisher. He has already passed Greasy Neale (1941-50) as the longest tenured coach in Eagles history.

Reid has led the club to a regular season record of 105-66-1 and another 10 wins in the playoffs, which his teams have participated in 7 times. He has 5 NFC East titles and 1 NFC Championship and Super Bowl appearance to his credit.

Andy Reid's teams have fashioned a regular season .614 winning percentage which is the 16th highest in NFL history. The names ahead of him are all legends of the game: Lombardi, Madden, Halas, Lambeau, Shula, and Walsh. But the list of the 15 coaches ahead of him also highlights what his detractors see as his one weakness: he has never won a Super Bowl.

It's Easy to Root for Kurt Warner

He is 37 years old now, which is getting pretty long in the tooth for an NFL starting quarterback.

He is also a decade removed from his first trip to the Super Bowl, when he led Dick Vermiel's Saint Louis Rams to victory and was named the MVP of the Super Bowl. He also won the first of two NFL MVP awards that season.

The Midwest boy, born and raised in the Iowa corn fields, grew into one of the most accurate passers in the history of the National Football League. But perhaps more importantly, Kurt Warner grew into a leader of men, and a strong, positive example for mankind.

That's a mouthful to say about a football player, but the Arizona Cardinals quarterback is far from being your normal high-profile athlete. First, that football career.

Kurt Warner stayed home and played college ball at Northern Iowa. He was not able to win the starting job there until his senior year when he was named the Gateway Conference Player of the Year.

Still, the NFL did not come calling. Warner went undrafted in 1994, and so he went to work at a grocery store.

In 1995 the local Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League offered him a contract, and over the next three seasons he played well enough that he was considered the best quarterback in the AFL.

Officials with the Saint Louis Rams noticed, gave him a tryout, and signed him to a contract for the 1998 season. Warner spent that 1998 season riding the bench and went into 1999 expecting to again be a backup.

Big Red Opens Green Camp

The Philadelphia Eagles opened training camp for their upcoming 2008 season on Monday at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

The camp will run from now through August 13th, when the Birds will pack up and head to Philly.

The Birds open their pre-season schedule at the Pittsburgh Steelers on August 8th, then open at home on August 14th against the Carolina Panthers.

The team will then close out its pre-season with games at New England and at home against the New York Jets.

Coming into camp, the Birds have been installed by the odds makers in Las Vegas as the third-best team in the NFC.

Unfortunately, they are also the 3rd best team in their own NFC East division. Vegas has the Dallas Cowboys as the NFC favorites, with the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants ranked just slightly ahead of our Birds at this point.

Over in the AFC, New England is the favorite, and is the overall favorite as well, followed by Indianapolis and San Diego tied for the second overall favorite to win it all. Jacksonville is the 4th highest rated club, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are tied with the Eagles for 7th overall.

The success or failure of the upcoming season is, as always, in the hands of Donovan McNabb. At age 31, McNabb will be starting his 10th NFL season at the helm of the Birds 'West Coast' offense, and will be trying to rally a club that started slow a year ago as he recovered from injury.

Please Release Me, Let Me Go

Quarterback Brett Favre retired from professional football in early March of this year after a 17-year career that lifted him to legendary status. After beginning his career as a backup for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1991 season, Favre was traded to Green Bay where he became an icon for the Packers franchise. He led the team to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances following the 1996 & 1997 seasons, winning the NFL title in a 35-21 victory over the New England Patriots in January 2007 at the Superdome in New Orleans. Favre threw for over 61,000 yards and tossed 442 touchdown passes in his career, and was still going strong at the end. Last season, in his 17th year at the age of 38, Favre threw for over 4,000 yards for the 5th time in his career. He had a 28-15 touchdown to interception ratio, and a quarterback rating of 95.7 to finish among the league leaders. Perhaps more amazing than all of his statistical and team accomplishments is that fact that, at one of the most vulnerable positions on the field, Favre has started and played every game for the past 15+ seasons. In short, Brett Favre is simply one of the top handful of quarterbacks to ever play the game. He takes a back seat to no one in performance or reputation. After retiring, Favre relaxed for a few months and then, as many athletes do, he began to have second thoughts. His body felt good, his mind felt good, and he decided that he actually did want to return for the 2008 season. He began to send out 'feelers' through various channels to let folks close to him and the team know of his feelings. Problems began when he began to receive responses that were lukewarm at best. The fact was that the Packers were coming off a strong season, and did not want to take a step back with Favre retiring. They had handed the starting QB position to Favre's understudy, 25-year old Aaron Rodgers, and had turned the organizational page on the Favre era. As Favre's desire and determination to come back grew, and the approach of NFL training camps draws near, the quarterback solidified his requests, and the Packers, realizing that he was serious, began to address the situation on a practical level. The player wants to come back and play. The team has moved on, but is not prepared to just give away a valuable asset. In this situation, after all that Brett Favre has meant to and accomplished for the Green Bay Packers franchise over the past decade and a half, the team should release him outright and allow him to play out his career with another team. If the Pack management was willing to bring him back and guarantee that he would retain his starting position, that would be the only other viable and fair option. But they have stated their position, that they have moved on and that Rodgers is their man. So let the legend go. He will always be a Packer, will always be remembered as such, will always be a hero in the community and in the annals of the team. But rather than have the situation get ugly, the best solution would be for the Packers to release Favre, wish him all the best wherever he decides to play, and then do what they say they want to do, turn the page. Brett Favre has certainly earned that much respect, as much as anyone who has ever played the game.