Big Al's Sports Report (Love That Tinkle!)

In honor of the World Series, in which no other country in the world has been invited to play, Sliderback Saturday winds up and pitches some cartoons from the even more exclusive World Series of 1922.

"The Fan" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, Oct. 4, 1922

Not only was the 1922 World Series limited to teams from one country, it was limited to teams from just one city. The series pitted the New York Giants against the New York Yankees, so you might suppose that the rest of the country would have lost all interest in what had become a strictly New York affair.

"Total" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, Oct. 4, 1922

But that wouldn't sell papers, would it?

"The Ball Weevils" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. 8, 1922

If any interest in the series fell off in the rest of the country, there were still enough fans of the game, or at least gambling on it, to warrant this cautionary cartoon out of Dallas.

Any gamblers who bet on the Yankees were shut out of luck: the New York Baseball Giants swept them four games to none. (There were five games in this subway series; Game 2 ended in a 3-3 tie after ten innings.)

"Hats Off to M'Graw" by Bud Counihan in New York Evening World, Oct. 9, 1922

One newspaper job that disappeared decades ago was that of the sports cartoonist. Major newspapers like the New York Evening World might even have more than one on staff.

Here Bud Counihan salutes the winning coach, John J. McGraw and illustrates highlights of the final game of the series for the benefit of those who might have only read about the games the next day in the paper, if they didn't happen to have access to one of them new-fangled radio thingamabobs.

"Oh, the Melancholy Days" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. ,4 1922

Fortunately for fans then and now, if one's baseball team falls by the wayside short of the World Series, one can always turn to football. It's the start of the gridiron season, and anything is still possible.  

"Impressions of the Pitt-Bucknell Football Game" by Bertin F. Link in Pittsburgh Press, Oct. 29, 1922

Judging by the sports cartoonists of the day, there were more fans of college-level football than of the professional variety. The newly-named National Football League consisted of sixteen teams, only two of which remain with us today: the Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) and Racine/Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals.

"A Tragedy of the Football Field" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 29, 1922

One thing that has changed has been efforts to protect football players from serious injury. You'll notice in these cartoons that the football players' helmets are nothing more than leather caps. They have no mouth guard (although by the 1920's, some players were improvising attempts at creating them); disfiguring facial injuries were commonplace. Concussions were expected and accepted. 

This may seem difficult to believe, but in football, there was more of a priority in protecting the player’s upper body, than in head protection. The invention of football shoulder pads was by L.P. Smock, who was a student a Princeton. His 1877 design were made of wool and leather and were actually stitched onto the player’s jersey. After the turn of the century, we see the development of the ‘harnessed’ shoulder pads that are over the head and attached via the chest area. While an improvement in design, they continued to be made of a combination of canvas and leather. It wasn’t until the 1960’s and 70’s that plastic shoulder pads appeared. By the 1990’s we saw the advent of the bulky padding that our players today wear.

"Speaking of Fullbacks" by Woodson M. Cowan for George Matthew Adams Syndicate, ca. Oct. 13, 1922

The general attitude was that players were tough guys able to withstand a little brain damage. Since the print is quite small, I'll point out the doctor examining University of Iowa fullback Gordon Locke on the right side of Iowa native Wood Cowan's cartoon:

Scientist: "The X-ray shows your skull to be exceedingly thick."

Text: "Scientist discovered that his dome is especially constructed for use as battling ram to hit the line with."

As pointed out elsewhere in the cartoon, Locke was no simple-minded bonehead. He would graduate third in his class at the University of Iowa College of Law, graduating in the top three of his law school class. After coaching football at U of I and Western Reserve University, he was general assistant law director for the city of Cleveland, then general counsel in Washington D.C. for the Committee for Oil Pipe Lines.

Sticking with football for one more cartoon, I'll note here that off the playing field, striking coal miners had reached agreements with mine owners and gone back to work. But then as now, supply chain issues meant that cold weather was moving in before adequate supplies of coal to heat everyone's homes and businesses. What supplies there were fetched premium prices.

"Neighborhood News" by Fontaine Fox for Wheeler Syndicate, Oct. 28, 1922

Then as now, it was surely all Joe Biden's fault.