There was a time when Chicago was home to three NFL teams: the Bears, the Cardinals and the Tigers. The Tigers didn’t last long, but the Bears and Cardinals, as football fans know, still play today. While the Bears still call Chicago home, the Cardinals have since moved to St. Louis and now call Arizona (Glendale) home. But it was in Chicago where the Cardinals celebrated their greatest successes winning the NFL Championship in 1925 (although it took a few years before they accepted the title) and 1947 when they beat the Philadelphia Eagles. The Cardinals greatest year might have been 1948 when they went 11-1, but lost the championship game to the Eagles 7-0 in a huge snowstorm. There is so much history about the Cardinals time in Chicago and the relationship the team’s owner, Charles Bidwell, had with the Bears owner, George Halas. Both men helped save each other’s team – and that’s just one of the stories Joe Ziemba discusses with me on this edition of Sports’ Forgotten Heroes. Joe is quite a passionate Chicago Cardinals aficionado and his love for the team comes through vividly. Joe, who wrote the book, “When Football Was Football: The Chicago Cardinals and the Birth of the NFL,” also talks about some of the team’s greatest stars such as Duke Slater, Ernie Nevers, Charley Trippi, Paddy Driscoll and more. Joe and I also get into the reasons why the Cardinals left Chicago, their championship games, why they didn’t accept the 1925 title (at first) and how the team came about. We also talk about the battle for Chicago and so much more on this episode of Sports’ Forgotten Heroes.
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