Thursday, November 22, 2007

WERE THE MAROONS ROBBED?

Pottsville Maroons fans seek what was stolen from them

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

It might just be the most impressive sports trophy you'll ever see.

Carved out of a chunk of anthracite coal, polished to an impressive shine, weighing in at 180 pounds, the trophy commemorating the Pottsville Maroons' 1925 National Football League championship makes the Lombardi Trophy, given these days to the Super Bowl winner, look like a cheap tin charm from a Cracker Jack box.

There is just one problem. The trophy, which sits in a display case in Pottsville's city hall, is not the real thing. The NFL recognizes the Chicago Cardinals as the 1925 champs, even though the Maroons soundly defeated them in a specially arranged challenge game for the title.

"It's called the stolen championship," said Nick Barbetta. "It was actually stolen from us."

Barbetta was just a lad when Pottsville had its NFL franchise. Barbetta, who was 13 when the Maroons left town for Boston in 1928, remembers peddling the special editions of The Pottsville Journal heralding the Maroons' win over the Cardinals.

Those papers, and others around the country, including in Chicago, called the Maroons the league champs after that game. The world champions claim came a week later, when the Maroons beat the legendary Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in a special exhibition game.

That 9-7 win in Philadelphia's Shibe Park established the legitimacy of the NFL, which up until that point had been considered college football's poor sister. It also cost the Maroons their official championship recognition. A combination of dubious territorial claims by the Frankford Yellow Jackets and a pair of even less credible Cardinals wins in hastily added games led to the Maroons being suspended from the league and the Chicago being declared champions.

It also led Barbetta to place a curse on the Cardinals franchise, which has stuck with the team through moves to St. Louis and Arizona. In the 82 years since the Maroons were robbed, the Cardinals have won just one championship - in 1947.

"It's the oldest curse in sports. The Bambino curse was 80 years old. This is 82," said Barbetta, who has spent most of those 82 years trying to get the NFL to return the Maroons' title. "I have people in Arizona believing so bad they are writing to me and calling me, asking me to drop the curse."

Barbetta said he will die before he will remove the curse without the Maroons getting their due. He's 92. Some in Arizona might have thought they could wait him out. But a few weeks ago Barbetta picked up an ally when ESPN Books published "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship."

Written by David Fleming, a columnist for ESPN's magazine and Web site, the gripping account of the 1925 Maroons seems destined to keep the curse alive. Any chance that people in the coal region would forget about the Maroons once old-timers like Barbetta were gone vanished with its publication. In less than a week, more than 1,600 copies were sold in Pottsville alone, many of them signed by Fleming, who came to town for a commemorative "Maroons Week" coinciding with the book's release.

"People kept asking me to sign them with things like, 'To the next generation of Maroons fans, keep up the fight, now it is up to you,' "

Fleming said. "A lot of people thought it was over, ... I am thrilled it might keep the story alive."

Barbetta and others on the old Maroons Memorial Committee did most of their lobbying the old-fashioned way, writing letters and showing up at NFL headquarters or NFL owners meetings. The younger generation has its own tactics. An online petition has garnered nearly 8,000 signatures since it was posted Oct. 16.

The English teacher in Pottsville coach Kevin Keating wants to believe Fleming's book will bring about that celebration. The realist in Keating knows that is unlikely.

"A movie, if that would happen, it would really get the Maroons widespread attention. That is how our society is these days," Keating said.

The movie might just happen. The book has been optioned. A screenplay has been completed and Gavin O'Connor, who directed "Miracle," the 2004 film about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, is on board. If the film is made and gets wide release, it might do the trick, Fleming said. "There has to be a groundswell of support, not just in Pennsylvania, but the entire nation. The only way the NFL is going to act is if they are embarrassed.

"The producers' dream scenario would be to run a modern day clip during the credits of the championship being returned to Pottsville," Fleming said. "That would be the perfect ending."

CHRIS A. COUROGEN: 255-8112 or ccourogen@patriot-news.com