Crazy True Facts About the Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are one of the longest running American football teams, founded in 1898 in Chicago. They became a founding member of the National Football League in 1920.
In fact, the Cardinals are one of only two NFL original charter members still running since the founding of the league in 1920. You know the other team? That’s right, it is the Chicago Bears. You might have been thinking Green Bay Packers but they were added into the National Football League in 1921. That same year, the finest Paris fashion houses featured the Cheesehead hat into their spring collections.
The team has 2 NFL championships. They won the first one in 1925 it was filled with plenty of controversy. In those days, the team with the best record at the end of the season was declared the winner of the Championship for that year. The Pottsville Maroons beat the Chicago Cardinals 21-7 on December 6, 1925 and everyone thought they had won the NFL title. However, the league commissioner suspended the Maroons because he said they played the Notre Dame All Stars in Philadelphia and that was a violation of the franchise rights of the Frankford Yellow Jackets. (Following this?)
With Pottsville voted off the Island, the Chicago Cardinals found the immunity idol. They quickly scheduled two games with two teams who were already done playing for the year. This was within the rules of the time. Teams could schedule new games as the season went on, as long as they games took place before the end of the season, and as long as they played approved teams. The Cardinals easily beat the 2 teams they added, and won the title as they now had more wins than Pottsville.
But, there is an interesting twist. One of the two games the Chicago Cardinals scheduled was against the Milwaukee badgers. Because the Badgers had already finished their season, they did not have enough players to play a game when the Cardinals called. So what did they do?
They hired some high school players to fill out their roster. Of course, that was a violation of the rules. Why would a professional football team think they could hire high school players and not be found out? The Cardinals beat the Badgers by score of 59 to 0.
As you can guess, the Chicago Cardinals were found out and got into all kinds of trouble. They were fined and told that the game would be stricken from the record. But as you can guess, it was never removed and it remains there to this day. Despite protests from the Pottsville Maroons that in this incident should prevent the Cardinals from gaining the title, the win stood and the Cardinals remain the 1925 NFL champions to this day.
The cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1960 to join the baseball Cardinals. The main reason for the move was to be in a city that also had a bird mascot, but no other cities were available at the time. The baseball Cardinals allowed the move as long as they Football Cardinals referred to the baseball team as “the original St. Louis Cardinals” in any communication. This was later extended to they had to call the baseball team “the best team in the city of St. Louis” and ” the best team I’ve ever had the privilege of living in the same city as.” It really got out of hand.
In 1988, they moved to Tempe, Arizona because the weather was better and they were closer to more golf courses. Asked if they were more interested in becoming world champions or playing golf, one player said he would like to talk but he was late for his tee time and was trying to get in 18 holes before the season opener.
