Pennsylvania Keystoners

The Pennsylvania Keystoners was the idea for an American football team thought up by then-Pittsburgh Pirates owner, Art Rooney, in 1939 to have a single National Football League franchise based in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The team would play half of its home games in each location. The idea for the Keystoners is the result is from a "franchise two-step" between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Steelers that still exists with the most convoluted in sports history.

History

Origins

During their early histories, the two Pennsylvania professional football franchises were among the weakest in the league. In his first eight years of operating the Pittsburgh franchise, Pirates founder Art Rooney estimated he lost $100,000. As documented in the newspapers of the day, neither team had posted a winning record in their first eight years of existence. Losses on the field were compounded by the combined loss of about $190,000 in Depression dollars. In 1940, the Pirates were so bad that Rooney sold them at the end of the season to Alexis Thompson, a 26-year-old steel heir from Boston, Massachusetts frequently described in the press as a well-heeled New York playboy. Thompson renamed the Pirates the Ironmen, but he planned to move the franchise to Boston and play games in Fenway Park. Eagles owner Bert Bell brokered a deal in which Rooney sold the Steelers for $160,000 which was 64 times his original franchise start-up fee of $2,500 in 1933, and Rooney in turn invested $80,000 to become partner with Bell in the Eagles. The deal, which also involved the trade of 11 Steelers to the Eagles and eight Eagles to the Steelers, came to light on December 8, 1940, the day the Chicago Bears walloped the Washington Redskins, 73-0, in the NFL title game.

Meanwhile, the Eagles were owned by a syndicate headed by Bell, but the team lost $80,000 and 21 games in its first three seasons. All of the teams investors dropped out, and by the end of the 1935 season Bell had the Eagles to himself. Bell became the coach, general manager, scout and public relations director, and took to hawking tickets on downtown Philadelphia street corners. Because the rent was cheap, the team played in the 102,000 seat Municipal Stadium before at least 100,000 empty seats. One rainy Sunday, 50 people showed up for a game against the inept Brooklyn Dodgers; Bell invited them up to the covered press box, where he provided free coffee and hot dogs.

The deal

Rooney and Bell had become close friends during the early NFL years, and so, soon after he sold the Pittsburgh franchise, Rooney bought a half interest in the struggling Philadelphia operation. The plan was to field a combined Philadelphia-Pittsburgh team called the Keystoners that would play home games in both cities. The original proposition was that Thompson would buy the franchise and take the Pittsburgh club to Boston and Bell and Rooney would pool their interests in a Philadelphia-Pittsburgh club, splitting the home games between Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium.

Second thoughts

The Pittsburgh team was originally renamed the Iron Men, and later the Pittsburgh Keystoners, but the move to Boston fell through. The Rooney/Bell idea to have one Keystone franchise with games in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was vetoed as well. Rooney, meanwhile, had second thoughts about leaving Pittsburgh, and he caught Thompson just at the right time. Rooney and Bell would take their Philadelphia operation back to Pittsburgh and rename it the Steelers while Thompson, who lived a playboy lifestyle in New York City, could move a franchise to Philadelphia and play as the Eagles.

Afterwards

Before the 1941 season, Rooney emphasized the break with the past by sponsoring a contest to give the new team a name, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bell began the season as the Steelers' coach, but after two losses, Rooney hired Aldo Donelli. Bell continued as part owner of the Steelers until 1946 when he was elected NFL commissioner. Bell served as commissioner until 1959 when he died of a heart attack at Franklin Field in Philadelphia during a game between two teams he had helped form, the Steelers and the Eagles.

Because the Steelers never actually missed a game in Pittsburgh, the NFL considers the Rooney Family's ownership reign to be unbroken. But from 1941 to 1946, when Bell became NFL commissioner and gave up his half interest in the Steelers, the club's operating name was still referred to as the Philadelphia Eagles Football Club Inc.

The teams would merge though for one season in 1943 as the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh "Steagles" due to player shortfalls brought on by World War II.

References

• Blood Brothers: The 1943 Steagles became an unlikely product of the war years
• Steagles: When the Steelers and Eagles were One in the Same [sic]
• The Steagles: Hybrid Team Zany Moment in Steelers' Past