Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The baseball newsletter that drops into your inbox like a Gaylord Perry spitball.

Happy Father’s Day to all of our readers who are dads.

Hopefully you got to relax today and watch some baseball on this beautiful Sunday!

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about how baseball players co-founded the NFL.

George Halas and Jim Thorpe are two of the most influential figures in American sports.

But before they were football royalty, both had careers in professional baseball.

Halas was enlisted in the Navy temporarily during World War I, and was a key factor in winning the Rose Bowl with the Great Lakes Naval Training Base.

He played for the Yankees in 1919, but his numbers were awful - he hit a measly .091.

Then his career was cut short by an injury after only 12 games.

Ultimately, it turned out to be a blessing, but we’ll get to that in a minute. 

Thorpe, on the other hand, is known as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.

Jim won two olympic gold medals for the USA, then he went on to play professional football, baseball and basketball.

He played for the New York Giants (not the football team) during six different seasons and almost won a World Series with them.

Don’t get me wrong, Thorpe was no Shoeless Joe Jackson or anything like that, but he held his own in the league and racked up almost 700 AB’s.

So how did George and Jim cross paths?

When Halas’ short lived baseball career ended, he got a call from Staley Starch Works, a manufacturing plant located in Decatur, Illinois. 

Staley, the owner, wanted Halas to oversee the day-to-day operations, and he also asked him to coach the company’s football and baseball teams.

At this time, professional football had begun to gain traction, but their was no dominant league.

Then in 1920, a meeting took place in Canton, OH that changed football forever.

Representatives of 10 teams gathered together in Ralph Hay’s showroom.

Ralph was the man in charge of the Canton Bulldogs and he brought along his best player, Jim Thorpe.

The gathering led to the establishment of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which later evolved into the NFL.

They unanimously voted for Jim Thorpe as the league’s first president.

The APFA's initial season kicked off that same year.

Halas would go on to realize that Decatur, Illinois didn’t draw a lot of fans of the game, so he moved the team to Chicago.

As tribute to Staley, he initially named them the Chicago Staleys.

In 1922, he changed the name to the Bears as a way to show love to the Chicago Cubs - who allowed the Staleys to play ball at Wrigley Field.

The Bears went on to win six titles under Halas.

ONE QUICK QUESTION

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Ripper Collins was small, but mighty.

He was 5’ 9” but was known for his power.

Collins played in the big leagues for nine seasons, but his best year was definitely his 1934 campaign.

Ripper had a helluva year - he co-led the NL in home runs and won a World Series ring with the Cardinals.

That team was known as “The Gashouse Gang” and had at least a half dozen hall of famers on it.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Jeep: Joe Carter & Dave Winfield prank a rookie

• The Big Save: How losing the World Series saved a life

• The Frozen GOAT: Why is Ted Williams’ head is frozen in Arizona?

That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!

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