joeknows Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 with the end of the season , i thought it would be great if there were a series of threads detailing the history of the franchise. I'm not talking about a general overpass but rather a fairly comprehensive view from the very conception of the team to the modern day.i am not, as many of you know, any type of professional writer. it is my desire to provide the ES community with a view of our favorite team from a historical perspective.while my writing style, punctuation and grammar will probably have most of you crying for mercy, the important things is that the facts that will be communicated will be accurate in their entirety. i think it would be great if these threads generated discussions that are relative to the influence of football on American culture and vice versa, a platform to discuss the history and personalities of the individual players that have made this franchise great, as well as providing a place where people can give specific accounts of their experiences during the represented years of the given thread this will be a multi thread endevour and i will try to post one thread a week highlighting specific time periods or even maybe a specific season depending on the significance of that season IN THE BEGINNING the 20's were a time of great prosperity in the united states. Americans were diversifying their entertainment interests to include everything from jazz music to theater radio, movies and sports. a man by the name of George Preston Marshall was a Washington DC entrepreneur who owned local businesses, most notably the Palace Laundry. George wanted to take advantage of the countries desire for entertainment. his business partnership with George Halas, the owner of the Chicago Bears, and Max Rosenblum a Cleveland department store mogul, spawned the American Basketball League. the ABL was the first true national basketball circuit in the country. Marshal fielded a team known as the Palace Big Five, which played at the Arcadia, located at 14th and Park in Washington. Three years later the franchise was a financial disaster and Marshall sold it in 1928 His involvement in the ABL strengthened his friendship with Halas and led him to develop a good friendship with Joe Carr who was the president of the ABL as well as president of the NFL. the two persuaded Marshall to invest in an NFL team. the NFL, formerly the American Professional Football League, had grown to 26 teams by 1926 and enjoyed a moderate level of success. however, nearing the end of the decade many of the franchises ran into financial troubles and folded or forfeited themselves to the league. it was at this time that Halas and Carr realized that they needed investors with money. big money. ones that could absorb some losses in an effort to establish the NFL on more solid ground. Halas, Carr, and other NFL owners approached Marshall with the offer of picking up the Newark Tornadoes, which had been forfeited to the league after the 1931 season. The only catch was that the team was to be located in Boston at the start of 1932 season. the offer was to allow him and his 3 fellow investors to purchase the franchise for $1500 and to post another $1500 to insure that the team would complete the season. years later Marshal recalled that his investment group never actually paid the $1500 pick up fee nor the $1500 security fee. it turned out that he never paid a dime of franchise fees for picking up a defunct team. on July 10, 1932, the NFL owners voted in Atlantic city to make Boston an official franchise of a league that had been reduced to 8 teams George Marshalls first move was to secure a playing field. he signed a lease to play at Braves field, home of the then Boston Braves baseball team. he decided to name the team the Braves as it would be a team name that the city would be familiar with. Marshall then hired Lud Wray to coach. Wray was a former player and coach of the University of Pennsylvania and had also played in the nfl with the Buffalo All-Americans as well as with the Rochester Jeffersons. Marshall gave Wray free reign in recruiting players. as there was no college draft at the time, all 8 of the franchises were free to sign whomever they wished. Wray recruited approximately 40 players which included Turk Edwards and Cliff Battles. both of whom were later enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame. The team took the field for the very first time to play the semi pro Quincy Trojans, whom they defeated 25-0. it was the first of three exhibition games. the second game was a loss to the Providence Steamroller with a score of 9-6. with a mere 24 hours of rest they returned to destroy another semi pro team 31-0, setting up what was sure to be an exciting inaugural regular season opener against the Brooklyn Dodgers. GPM Lud Wray Cliff battles Turk Edwards As stated before, this will be a many parted history of the team. i look forward to composing these threads and the many discussions they may spawn. i encourage everyone to participate and elaborate as well as contribute pictures of players, coaches, games etc. i would like this set of threads to maybe become an "OFFICIAL HISTORY" thread if the mods and fellow ES'ers see fit. HTTR! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conn Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 You've posted this twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeknows Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 this was written a couple of months ago and was written in WORD so i had to copy and paste it. sorry if it is hard to read... i will fix the format on the next installment since it didnt seem to transfer so well. i figured since i had seen discussion about the origin of the team name in a few threads lately that now would be a good time to go ahead and post this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrecker Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 this was written a couple of months ago and was written in WORD so i had to copy and paste it. sorry if it is hard to read... i will fix the format on the next installment since it didnt seem to transfer so well.i figured since i had seen discussion about the origin of the team name in a few threads lately that now would be a good time to go ahead and post this Sorry, I can't look at it. My eyeballs retreated into the back of my skull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Fixed your formatting. Spell check & punctuation are on you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeknows Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 thank you very much TK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark The Homer Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Excellent idea! I'll add some tags.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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