Breaker Breaker: An Interview With Dave Fleming …

Posted: November 19th, 2007 | Filed under: Interviews | 9 Comments »

The big question is: Why would you have a blog if you can’t use to promote the books of your friends? Today’s interview is with one of my favorite people, ESPN The Magazine’s Dave Fleming, who wrote the fascinating and terrific book Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship. It is about, uh, you know, the NFL’s greatest team and how they had their 1925 championship, you know, stolen.

Its a wonderful book about the Pottsville Maroons and a time in football that you may not know much about. I didn’t. Dave’s an excellent writer — he used to write for Sports Illustrated, and he now writes about the NFL for ESPN, so I threw in a few NFL questions in there as well including the obligatory “Will the Patriots go undefeated” question. And because he’s from Detroit, he may even mention Mark Fydrich somewhere along the line. You never know. Enjoy.

So, all the time I’ve known you, we have never once discussed 1920s NFL football. how exactly did you come up with an idea to write about the Pottsville Maroons?

I had heard about this team when I worked for Sports Illustrated. Then, at the 2003 NFL owners meeting I saw one line on the agenda that said something like: The City of Pottsville (Pa.) will petition owners to have their 1925 NFL title restored. One line. That’s it.

That was four years ago. I jumped on LexisNexis for a few minutes and after learning just the basic outline of this story — the wild, colorful characters set against the revolutionary times of the 1920s, the controversy surrounding the stolen championship, the brutal frontier days of the NFL and how this team helped legitimize the league, and the fact that this unknown team from some tiny coal town actually beat up the Notre Dame Four Horsemen — I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

You know how it is. Sometimes it feels like there are no more great stories to tell. And then you come across a team and a story like this. The Maroons coach was a world renowned ornithologist? There best lineman wore a baseball cap instead of a helmet? The tailback was a dentist? Their best running back had been forced into the mines at 11 and ended up running for more yards and more TDs in the NFL than Red Grange? An 82-year-old controversy between a small town and the Goliath NFL? You couldn’t make it up any better.

Let’s get this out of the way: Patriots … undefeated or no?

Naw. I spent a lot of time with Tony Dungy the year the Colts almost went undefeated and while we all like to speculate, the truth is the players and coaches don’t really care all that much about 16-0 and they certainly won’t risk wearing out their starters or getting them injured before the playoffs just to get 16 wins. I could see a Ditka or a Wyche going for it but, sadly, those kinds of coaches aren’t around anymore. Instead we get sourpusses like Belichick who will derive some kind of sick pleasure from depriving fans and media a chance to see this happen.

Plus, fast forward to Week 17. The Pats will have the No. 1 seed wrapped up, with no incentive to play hard and they’ll be playing their backups in New York against the Giants who will be fighting for their post-season life. As much as I hate that Miami champagne ritual, 16-0 is not gonna happen. (Did you know the 1972 Miami team had the second easiest schedule of any Super Bowl champ?) So if they keep going the way they are and win the Super Bowl, the Patriots won’t need 16-0 to be considered the best team ever. You don’t define greatness with a stat, anyway.

Having written a book about the Negro Leagues, I know some of the challenges of trying to write about a forgotten and distant time. Was there one person in particular — sort of your Buck O’Neil — who was able to really help connect you with that time?

Your book was amazing, by the way. (Editor’s note: Considered editing this out. But, nah. Christmas is coming). You know how it is, it’s like putting together an 80,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

While I was writing the book my wife, Kim, and I would be out to dinner with friends and she’d see me space out (more than usual) and she’d whisper something like, “You need to leave Pottsville and your little friends on the Maroons and join us back here in the 21st century.”

On another day, I’m at my desk, I’ve got research stacked up around me like The Cat in the Hat decorated my office, and I’m digging around for information on the Dowitcher Snipe, a bird from the Canadian Arctic that the Maroons coach studied during the off-season, and I just had one of those moments where you just start laughing, going, ‘what the heck am I doing with my life?’

Most of the time, though, it’s exhilarating. Like the day I met Nick Barbetta, a 92-year-old Pottsville native and, perhaps, the last eye witness to the team. The players boarded with families on his street. He used to ride to the games in a Model T car. He and his friends used to sneak under the fence of the football stadium to watch the Maroons. On a dare at the train station he once snuck up behind Red Grange and tugged on his trademark raccoon coat. I spent many hours with Nick. He talked about the 1920s, the speakeasies, the flappers, the social revolution that was going on. I really tried hard to write from the perspective of 1925 and without Nick that would have been impossible. He’s dedicated his life to getting the 1925 NFL title back for the team and the town and it hurts to see how painful it is for him to think he might not live to see his dream come true. I hope this book can change that.

How good do you think the football was then? We all know about how much bigger, faster, more juiced up the players are these days … but those guys were playing for blood and to stay out of the coal mines. Talk a little bit about the quality of the football.

It was awful — until the Maroons came along. I really mean that. Canton dominated the league in 1922 and 1923 by scoring, like, 15 points a game. The NFL was a scary joke. It was nothing for a dozen players to die each fall. The No. 1 requirement of an NFL player at the time was the ability to absorb tremendous amounts of pain.

And trainers, I love this, they treated every injury about the same: with iodine and four fingers of whiskey. Critics lampooned the NFL as barbaric and soporific. “Paid punting” it was called. The Maroons quarterback once suggested a pro game as a possible date to his girlfriend and she slapped him across the face. When Grange met the President he told him he was with the Chicago Bears and Calvin Coolidge responded, “Oh wonderful, I love animal acts.”

(Editor’s note: As someone who watches the Kansas City Chiefs play week-in, week-out, yeah, I know about that “paid punting” thing).

College ball was king back then. Experts said the NFL players who could beat Notre Dame hadn’t even been born yet. The Maroons changed all that. They beat Canton 28-0. They beat Green Bay 31-0. They beat Chicago 21-7. They beat the team that would become the Eagles 49-0. They once roughed up a team so bad angry fans shot up their train as they raced out of town.

And in an exhibition called The Greatest Football Game Ever Seen, the Maroons beat Notre Dame 9-7 on a last second field goal. That game helped legitimize the NFL. Imagine if Appalachian State had beaten the Patriots instead of Michigan — that’s what it was like when the Maroons beat Notre Dame. And how did the league reward this team of pioneers from Pottsville? They suspended them for playing ND in another team’s “territory” and took away their NFL title.

Rudy or Mitt?

I lived in New York when Rudy was mayor and he proved how much politicians can actually get done when they’re willing to do the right thing no matter who it angers. Mitt’s got Presidential hair, though.

You and I are both huge fans of old-time journalism with the purple “on a sun-dappled afternoon with the chill of autumn hanging just beyond the goal post” sports writing. That had to be one of the most fun parts of writing this book — going back and reading that stuff.

It’s like reading a different language. I spent countless days in the basements of libraries reading microfilm of old newspapers and the hours would just fly by. Back then, Philadelphia had, like, 20 daily newspapers. They’d cover every Maroon game and so it was like having 20 different perspectives on the same event.

One of those Philly writers described a Maroons lineman like this: “Hathaway was built on the slim, Grecian lines of a packing case, works faster than four aces in a poker game and covers more territory than the dew.” I was so engrossed when I read that I forgot where I was and just yelled out OH MY GOD! I got thoroughly shushed by the librarians for that one.

The Pottsville writer who covered the Maroons was Walter Farquhar. Walter was working with a young cub reporter at the time by the name of John O’Hara who would go on to become one of the greats of American literature. O’Hara quit the newspaper business in 1926 because his editor wouldn’t give him the night off for a date. He’s my hero.

Norv Turner. Disaster?

Nice guy. Good offensive coordinator. A horrible, unimaginative retread as a head coach. And the Chargers have taken on that exact same personality. Owners in the NFL fear change even when it’s to their own detriment. Dan Rooney has to be the oldest owner in the league and yet he’s the most progressive thinking owner in the NFL? The Rooneys, by the way, have been outspoken supporters of the Maroons and their cause for the last 50 years. (And you thought I wouldn’t be able to work in a reference to the book in this one?)

Your first book was a very emotional and personal book. How much different was writing this one?

You’re kind to mention it. The book is called Noah’s Rainbow: A Father’s Emotional Journey From the Death of his Son to the Birth of his Daughter. Our first child, Noah, died during child birth and a year later, almost to the day, our daughter Ally was born. It’s a memoir based on a journal I kept during that year and it’s my hackneyed way to try and honor my son and help other parents going through the same thing. Not by telling them what to do, or preaching to them but just by sharing our experiences so that they understand they aren’t alone in their grief. I think it ended up being far more about hope than death. The book poured out of me so it’s very real and very raw and very flawed. It’s contradictory. It’s jarring. It’s exhausting and draining. But I left it that way because that’s what the year felt like.

Any way– sorry, got off track a bit, as usual — when I finished Noah’s Rainbow I knew nothing would ever be as difficult to write and that’s very freeing in a way. And so I really enjoyed the writing part of Breaker Boys. The research and the sourcing was the grueling part.

More of a writer question: You lead off the book with a great story about Red Grange going on about the greatness of the Maroons. How important was it for you, as a writer, to sort of give the reader a sense of the Maroons greatness before telling the story?

When I first heard about the Maroons in 2003, I considered myself some kind of quote-unquote NFL expert — and yet I had no idea this team even existed or just what an important role the Maroons played in the frontier days of the NFL. The first editor I pitched this to rejected it flatly, saying something like, how long have these guys been dead for? So I knew if somebody picked up Breaker Boys in the book store and started leafing through the first chapter (like we all do) I had to convince them right away this was an amazing, important team that all NFL fans needed to learn about. Lucky for me Red Grange, a pillar of the game, was also one of the Maroons most outspoken supporters. That’s what hooked me at first and that’s what eventually hooked editors: if people like Red Grange, George Halas, Dan Rooney, Jeff Lurie and Paul Tagliabue are so passionate about the Maroons maybe the average NFL should be too.

Tony Latone is your favorite character, isn’t he? Wouldn’t it have been a lot of fun to write about him live?

When his father died, Tony was forced into the coal mines at the age of 11 to help support his family. (He started out as a Breaker Boy in the coal mines, that’s where the name of the book comes from.) He ended up being a coal car pusher which developed the same muscles and technique needed for what they called ‘line plunging’ back then in the NFL. He emerged from the mines, traded in his pick for a pigskin, and went on to become the leading rusher of the NFL during the 1920s. In fact, in 30 fewer games he ran for more yards and scored more touchdowns than Red Grange.

The Galloping Ghost himself once said that Latone was “one hell broth of a rugged coal miner and, for my money, the most football player I have ever seen.” Halas said if Latone had gone to college he would still be a household name. He was fearless and very successful but because of his time in the coal mines he had the game and life in perspective. That’s rare. He knew he was lucky to even be alive after eight years in the mines and his play reflected that. He ran with pure joy and fearlessness.

Before writing the parts on Latone I went down into a coal mine to get some perspective on his life. I’m glad I did it because before then I did not have the proper respect for the people of this region who basically risked their lives every day to provide the fuel for the Industrial Revolution.

Favorite player in the NFL today?

Can I pick three? Okay,
1) Saints linebacker Scott Fujita. He’s Caucasian, but was adopted by a Japanese family. His father was actually born in an American internment camp during World War II. Beside’s being a great player (that the Chiefs let go, I might add) Scott’s a Cal grad with a unique perspective on the xenophobia that sometimes passes as patriotism in this country and he’s not afraid to speak out about it. He’s a guy who stands for something more than just himself—sadly, that’s a rare thing in the NFL.
2) Colts linebacker Gary Brackett. As an undersized rookie free agent from Rutgers trying to make the Colts roster Brackett lost his mom, his dad and his brother in the span of 18 months. He made the team, even while suffering from fatigue and sickness because he was donating bone marrow to his brother who was fighting cancer. Now Brackett’s the defensive captain in Indy, a Super Bowl champ and the heart and soul of that team. Good guys do finish first once in a while. And that’s nice to know since we also work in a field where ego and talent are almost always inversely related.
3) Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith. He’s like the AI of the NFL. He’s fearless. He treats every play like a street fight. He’s one of the few players I would pay to watch. Because of our collective 2.8 second attention span we tend to paint everyone in broad, simple brush strokes. When the truth is, just like Steve, none of us are all bad or all good. I interviewed him while driving around Charlotte. It was intense and combative, at first, and getting a little heated and then he plops in his favorite tune: Kenny Roger’s The Gambler. Go figure.

Your book helped explain why the Cardinals are so bad, it’s a curse, right?

The league voted to give the 1925 title to the Chicago Cardinals. A team the Maroons beat 21-7. The Cardinals were also involved in their own scandal for boosting their record by setting up a game against high school players. So the team’s owner would not accept the 1925 NFL title. It was only when the Bidwill family bought the team in 1933 that the Cardinals started claiming the 1925 title. For the last 50 years the Bidwill’s have been using their influence behind the scenes to squash the Maroons campaigns for justice. (I have never seen Dan Rooney as angry as when he described what Bill Bidwill did behind the scenes at the owners meeting in 2003 to prevent the league from even discussing the Maroons.) Any way, back in the 1960’s Pottsville placed a Curse on the Cardinals for their role in stealing their NFL championship. It seems to be working. The Cards have one playoff win in the last 59 years.

Barack or Hillary?

Barack.

Here’s a fun one for you: You wrote a terrific piece in ESPN mag about Detroit Lions quarterback and religiously-tinged man Jon Kitna. Where do you come down on the idea of religion and sports blending?

I’ll put it this way: I don’t ask my priest for fantasy football advice so I probably won’t seek out spiritual enlightenment from a football player either. This doesn’t say much for the current crop of God squaders in sports but I was shocked at how open, educated and interested Kitna was in dissenting and different views from his own. He’s one of the few evangelics in sports that I’ve met who doesn’t confuse closed mindedness with conviction.

No matter how hard I tried he just wouldn’t accept this, though: NFL locker rooms do not tolerate pluralism of any kind so teammates are not going to voice displeasure in someone always invoking God because dissent of any kind is seen as bad for the team. Most people prefer to keep their faith private and personal. The result? No one speaks up against the God squaders who mistake that silence as tacit approval that no one minds what they’re doing—when, in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

How emotional an experience was it writing this book — I mean at the heart of this thing is an injustice. Was that what drove you as you were writing or was the injustice just part of what you saw to be an amazing story?

That injustice is what drove me to do this book. It’s clear the NFL lacks the proper reverence for the players, teams and cities that made it great. Not just the disabled, retired players who sacrificed their bodies and minds for the NFL, but men like Tony Latone, teams like the Maroons and little towns like Pottsville.
In this case, the so-called ‘historians’ of the league came up with a theory to support the NFL’s initial decision to give the 1925 title to Chicago. Then they built a case to fit it. It’s a sloppy, amateurish, flawed and completely biased work. It’s a joke, really. I mean they left out stuff like signed affidavits that prove the Maroons case and the little fact that the rule used to suspend the Maroons has never actually been produced.

But this is what really angered me and got me motivated to do this book: when anyone dared dispute their unsourced opinions and wildly biased theories, how did these guys react? Not like professionals but like grade school bullies: by being nasty, condescending and dismissive of Pottsville fans. (Here’s a good example: When Breaker Boys came out in October one of these cronies trashed it on Amazon.com. Problem was, he hadn’t even read the book.)

It’s one thing to deny the Maroons and Pottsville their legacy and the championship they earned on the field. But you don’t have to be ugly and unprofessional about it. When you read some of this stuff from the league it’s clear these ‘historians’ never imagined in 100 years that they would have to answer to anyone outside of Pottsville. They thought Pottsville would never have a voice.

But anyone who learns about the team and the controversy, as well as the NFL’s treatment of the town, instantly becomes a supporter of the Maroons. And if enough NFL fans get involved my hope is the league will be embarrassed into doing the right thing.

There is a lot of interest now in some old-time football — Sally Jenkins and Lars Anderson just both wrote books about the Carlisle Indian School featuring Jim Thorpe, Sports fans tend to know a whole lot about baseball history — the 1919 Black Sox, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb all that. Do you sense that football history, especially before World War II, is a more open field?

Absolutely. The idea that pro football has become our national pastime is a relatively new one and so it’s only logical that people would then want to read and learn more about the frontier days of the NFL. The league is so well covered now that, perhaps, the only way to find great, untold stories, is to go back in time and then slow down a bit and tell them without being in such a huge rush. The Maroons truly embodied the ’sky’s-the-limit’ ethos of the Roaring Twenties and because of that this amazing time in our history becomes a big part of the book.

As a Detroit guy: Favorite baseball player, ever.

Oh, that’s easy. Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych. The 1976 AL Rookie of the Year who used to talk to the ball and groom the mound by hand? The Detroit Free Press gave out an iron-on Mark The Bird Fidrych t-shirt decal and I wore than thing for, like, a month straight. Okay, it was two months. People thought he was crazy because he was comfortable in his own skin and he threw the ball like every pitch was his last. I think he was the sane one, actually.

This book is like a movie — anything in the works there with ESPN?

Actually, yeah. The movie rights were optioned before the book was even published. There is a completed script and Gavin O’Connor, the guy who directed Miracle, is attached to direct the Breaker Boys movie. As soon as the writer’s strike ends, he will be attaching a few actors to the project and then pitching the package to studios for development deals. It’s come a long way fast but it’s still a long shot. All movies are, really. The script is amazing. It evokes and honors the coal region’s impact on football the same way Hoosiers taught us about the Indiana farmers contributions to hoops. You’d be perfect to play the role of the Maroons team owner, Doc Striegel, what do you say, Pos?

(Editor’s note: No.)

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