SWC75
Bored Historian
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1928
That summer Ray Barbuti ran to glory and fell on his face in Amsterdam. Unfortunately he had played his last game for the Orange. So had a lot of other Syracuse University Athletes. The University Athletic Governing Board dropped soccer, hockey, boxing, golf, rifle, tennis, wrestling and fencing as inter-collegiate sports. The ostensive reason was to “increase participation” in these sports by putting them on an intramural basis. Most recognized it for what it was: an economy drive. “Football, baseball and basketball, as the big moneymakers and crowd pullers, were kept in tact.” Even the football team was “a small squad with no reserve players to speak of”, with Harold Baysinger elected captain.
The Carnegie foundation was at this time preparing a report on “the odious practice of giving scholarships to athletes”. SU had anticipated this polemic by several years and had begun to seek a better balance between sports, learning and civic duty in the comportment of its students. The Alumni News supported the University position but still had the temerity to ask ‘Is it out of order for us to sigh for a more powerful line and better interference?”
Syracuse opened the season with a narrow 14-6 win over Hobart but the closeness of the win was not the main concern: “the real story was the problem with ‘youth control’ in the stadium. There was so little of it, in fact that all children were banned from the next home game, against William and Mary”, according to Michael Mullins in “Syracuse University Football: A Centennial Celebration”. In those days, schools boys could be admitted to the games for free, just like the college students. (Imagine Jake Crouthamel admitting anyone for free). Some 1,000 of the 7, 500 fans at the Hobart game were underage and they acted like they had the run of the place, actually running down on the field and interrupting the game in the fourth quarter. They weren’t actually banned from the William and Mary game: they could still come and could still get in free. But they had to be accompanied by an adult who would be held responsible for their actions.
There was little hope of controlling the crowds of youngsters for the Johns Hopkins game. That game featured a visit by the two leading lights of the athletic world of the time, as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in attendance at the Archbold oval. It’s not known how much of a football fan the Babe was but Gehrig had attended Columbia on one of those “odious” football scholarships and would have played against SU had he not switched to baseball and then to the professional ranks. He did play SU in basketball at Columbia and went up against Vic Hanson, whom he called “One of the three best basketball players I’ve ever seen”. Hanson also played baseball and in the New York Yankees system no less, but never made it to the bigs. When Lou and the Babe were in town, Vic was scouting Colgate as an assistant coach at SU.
Babe and Lou were in town on one of the post season barnstorming tours that were common then. Usually the Babe had a team called “The Busting Babes” and Gehrig had one called “The Larrupin’ Lous”, both made up of ex-major leaguers but in this case, the Babe was going to play for the local champion amateur team, Sacred Heart and Lou was going to play for an “all-star” team made up of ex-major leaguers and local sports celebrities. This game was of special importance to Syracuse, which had just lost its International League franchise. The Syracuse Stars had been one of the first two teams bought by Branch Rickey when he started the first farm system back in 1920, (the other being Fort Worth of the Texas League), and several of the later stars of the St. Louis Cardinal’s “Gashouse Gang” teams had played here in the 20’s. But Rickey wanted a new ballpark to replace Star Park and the city fathers, penny wise and pound foolish, refused to build one and thus lost the team to Rochester where they became the Red Wings. Six years later MacArthur Stadium, (then called Municipal Stadium), was built as a WPA project and Syracuse got a franchise from New Jersey. They called the new team the Chiefs. But in the interim, amateur ball was all that Syracuse had to offer baseball fans in the summer- that and barnstorming tours by major leaguers.
Ruth and Gehrig were “met by a delegation of enthusiastic local fans crawling out of their Pullman at the New York Central station at 8AM “, (the Babe probably was crawling at 8AM), “and taken on a tour of the city which included breakfast and a news conference at the Hotel Syracuse” and visits to several boys clubs. They didn’t stay at the (then relatively new), Hotel Syracuse but rather at the Hotel Onondaga where they “looked gloomily out into the drizzle” from their hotel room window. Their game was postponed to the next week. Gehrig commented that he “hoped Montreal weather was better than Syracuse weather”. That was their next stop. In the meantime they were stuck in Syracuse. The Babe might have had other ideas for entertainment but Gehrig wanted to see the football game and it was decided that would be good publicity.
The paper shows them in overcoats posing on the SU sideline with Orange star Harold Baysinger, who Gehrig reported that he was quite impressed with. Both Ruth and Gehrig had syndicated columns, (the Babe’s was probably ghost written by future baseball commissioner Ford Frick, who did the same for this autobiography). Judging by the example in the Sunday paper, Lou may have done his own work. He reported that this was his first effort at reporting on a football game but that he couldn’t tell much from this one because it was so one-sided, (SU walloped the Blue Jays 58-0). He said the Babe told him that the greatest excitement was waiting for the cannon to go off after one of the many SU touchdowns. He advised SU to be wary of their next opponent, Nebraska, because those Cornhuskers are “husky”.
Pictured along with Ruth, Gehrig and Baysinger was a teenaged boy named Bobby O’Hara, who “put in one of the best days of his life as companion to the Babe and Lou during their Syracuse stay.” One story was about a young boy and his mother who had waited near the elevator in the Hotel Onondaga for two hours until the Babe walked out. He scooped the kid up in his arms and, lacking something to put his autograph on, pulled out an Al Smith button, autographed that and pinned it on the kid’s shirt. Everywhere they went the pair was sounded by thongs of children of all ages. They descended on Archbold Stadium in droves and completely ignored the game, shouting “We want the Babe! We want the Babe!” Ruth said “Listen to those little cusses! Hear ‘em holler”. He also said “Say couldn’t we go out that way, if it’s just as easy?” Eventually, guarded by a dozen policemen, they made their way out the Irving Avenue entrance through the huge archway.
They returned a week and a day later to play their exhibition at Star Park. Vic Hanson was back in town and played second base for the “All Stars”, with Gehrig at first. Shortstop was played by a promising local kid named Dutch Dotterer, who was later elected to the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame after a 60 year career in baseball as a player and scout for major league teams. Center field was manned by another former, SU football star, Gotch Carr. It was too much for Ruth and his Sacred Heart team, who lost 4-3, despite Ruth taking the mound for the last couple of innings. The Babe had two hits but none went over the fence. Gehrig did hit one out and Ruth gave up a homer to Bill Kelly, who was playing in the International League at the time. Lawrence Skiddy pronounced the exhibition, “As fine an entertainment as was ever crowded into an afternoon at a local ballpark.” And added “The two slugging heroes of the World Series did everything but stand on their heads to please.” Ruth spent much of the game throwing balls into the stands at every possible occasion. Eventually the 20 dozen balls that had been made available were exhausted and an appeal had to be made for someone to temporarily give up their souvenir so the game could be completed.
Skiddy enthused, “There may be bigger men in the world than Babe Ruth- men who count much more in the scheme of destiny by swaying empires or leading the way into progressive thought. But there are few men living- and the judgment is of a reporter who has followed Lindberg and Al Smith into crowds- who arouse more interest in their fellow human beings than the Home Run King of the Universe.”
When the big celebrities left, attention turned to the big game- Colgate. Syracuse had gotten off to a pretty strong start, struggling to beat Hobart, then blowing out William and Mary and Johns Hopkins. They went out to Nebraska to take on those “huskey” Cornhuskers, losing only 6-7 to a team that was unbeaten until Army beat them late in the year. Then they tied Penn State, 6-6. After that, things started to fall apart. Pittsburgh handled the Orange, 0-18. Then came another game against those pesky “Battling Bishops” of Ohio Wesleyan.
The Bishops had their own mini-hoodoo going against the Orange. They were brought in as a “tomato can” for SU to beat up on before the Colgate game. They were actually pretty good on the small-college level but should not have been a match for the mighty Orange, who could rest their starters and not have to reveal too much of their playbook before the big game, (in those days before films where teams had to scout their opponent’s previous games to find out about them). It had backfired in 1925 with a 3-3 upset tie. The same thing had happened in 1927 with a 6-6 tie. It was about to happen again.
SU actually dominated the game, which was played almost entirely in OW territory. Harold Baysinger’s passes drove Syracuse down the field and his punts kept the visitors pinned back in front of their goal line for almost the whole game- almost. Just before the half, Ted Franz, who had had the 85 yard interception return that created the previous year’s tie, ran down the sideline to make a finger-tip catch of a pass, then ran down to the SU 10 for a 65 yard shocker. Then Wesleyan sent Franz to the left and threw back to the right while the SU defense ran after Franz. The resulting touchdown made it 0-6. The Bishops still couldn’t kick the extra point, but it wouldn’t matter. There was time for just one play in the half- the kick-off Warren Stevens gathered in the ball and found a seam up the sidelines. He got past the Wesleyan tacklers and would have cruised into the end zone except the field was muddy and he started to lose his footing. He never slipped down but it was enough for his pursuers to catch up to him and force him out of bounds before he could score- and after the clock went to 0:00. SU spent the whole second half knocking on the Wesleyan door but never scoring. The Orange went down 0-6 and their record, once 3-0, fell to 3-3-1 with their arch rivals scheduled to arrive in a week. One encouraging thing was the attendance of 12,000- said to be the most ever for a non-Colgate game.
Like Syracuse, the Colgate, under new coach Earl Abel, had brushed aside three small-time teams, St. Lawrence, Wabash and Hobart. Unlike SU they’d actually beaten some big-time teams, Virginia Tech and Michigan State. They also lost, 7-12 to a very good Vanderbilt team, (the Commodores were a southern power at the time). However they had been totally devastated by Chick Meehan’s “Violent Violets” of NYU, led by the great Ken Strong, who led the nation in scoring that year and went on to star for the New York Giants. Strong and his mates had crushed the Maroon, 47-6, “about the most severe defeat the Maroon has suffered….Both Colgate and Syracuse have had a world of woe this season thus far and all the hopes and ambitions of each team now lay in this one clash.”
With several injured players coming back for the big game, Lew Andreas was able to return to his original starting line up for the first time since the Nebraska game, prompting the rather odd headline, “Nebraska starters to face Colgate eleven Saturday”. Syracuse might have done better using Nebraska’s starters. Another plus was said to be the “belligerent frame of mind” of the players, who had not won in four weeks and not scored in three. There was concern about the number of passes completed against the Orange “for which little or no reason could be seen except that the backs were not alert when the occasion presented itself for quick thinking and muscle co-ordination.” Also, the line had “shown little or no ability to cross the line of scrimmage and gum up the formation of plays now and then.”
While Syracuse was being “belligerent”, Colgate was reported to be in a “happy frame of mind, confident that victory over the Orange this week will wipe away the stains which defeats by Vanderbilt and NYU have put on the Maroon record this season…in fact the entire team has been working smoothly and the big question now is to arouse the fighting spirit for which Colgate has ever been famous at Syracuse time.”
Meanwhile, the Salt City had some more famous visitors. Knute Rockne’s Notre Dame team stopped off in Syracuse on the way back to South Bend from their confrontation with Army in Yankee Stadium. They stopped long enough to celebrate mass at St. Lucy’s church and were photographed by the Herald on the way out of the church. It’s doubtful that they heard anything in the church that inspired them any more than they were already inspired. They had been tied, 0-0 at half time against the Cadets, trying to salvage a rare off season, (the Irish were beaten four times that year). Rockne gathered then together in the locker room at that time and told them the story of what had happened to George Gipp. “Someday, Rock, when the going gets tough, ask the boys to win one for the Gipper”, Rockne quoted Gipp as telling him on his deathbed eight years previously. “Well, boys, you are that team…and this is that game!” The Irish charged out and beat the favored Cadets, 12-6 and now they were on their way home after perhaps Rockne’s greatest victory. Perhaps that inspiration would rub off on the local teams. Or, perhaps not.
Syracuse University had purchased a canvas covering for the field in Archbold from a company in Chicago. They had it shipped in by train and eagerly spread it out over the gridiron. It was taken off the field occasionally “to let the wind do its work” in drying out and hardening the field. Skiddy described it as “the best investment ol’ Bill Orange has ever made”. A panorama in the Thursday edition of the paper shows the Archbold oval as it existed in 1928. The old grandstand on the west side had been torn down by now and a brand new set of wooden bleachers ringed the field below the concrete, increasing the capacity to 40,000 seats, all of which were expected to be used for the big game against Colgate.
“On the Thursday preceding the game, a ‘Cheerfest’ at Crouse College brought out a full 50% of the student body. The next day 4,000 students marched downtown in anticipation of the battle, causing traffic to stand still. The parade turned around and went back up The Hill, reassembled in Archbold and burned various Colgate figures in effigy at a bonfire. It was a busy weekend. Also on that Friday, eighty SU students raided the Colgate chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, which was sporting a dummy of Bill Orange, the Saltine Warrior, in a hearse on the front lawn. The SU delegation tried to take the hearse away but were caught red-handed by two hundred vigilant Colgate faithful. They were ‘tried’ in a quickly convened Kangaroo Court and punished with a sound paddling and an unplanned swim in Taylor Lake.”
Skiddy proclaimed that “two of the most evenly matched football teams that have ever come to grips in the annual classic will be pitted against each other”. He felt Colgate to be superior in the line but that SU had the better backfield, both by slight margins. Comparing the backfields, the ‘Gate still had Galloway, their “Galloping Ghost” who had failed to make fans forget Eddie Tryon, much less Red Grange. They had Vaughn, their biggest, strongest back, a player named Yoblock, who was considered their most versatile back and a new kid named Hart, (Skid didn’t necessarily use first names), who was surprising a lot of people. Syracuse answered with (Harold) Baysinger, perhaps the nation’s outstanding passer, (Milford) Berner, the biggest back on either team and (Warren) Stevens, the fastest.
“At Syracuse in the coaching camp, there was a feeling of grim confidence. The squad’s morale is wonderful. Instead of being down-hearted by recent reverses the players are in a happy mood, looking back on the many bad breaks that they have had all season and feeling that the law of averages will apply and they will escape misfortune in this coming game of games.” Hmmm….”grim confidence” sounds like something of an oxymoron. And a football team needs to have more going for it than the “law of averages”. Nothing is averaged on the scoreboard. In Hamilton, Coach Able “was not in any mood for predictions but was content to express assurance that his team would give the best it had at its command and would make the supreme effort of the season in this game.”
Skid advised fans “don’t drive your car to the game…parking conditions about the field will be far from ideal, as there are sure to be many who come in from long distances who will drive anyway.” Things have hardly changed in that regard over the last ¾ of a century. But he urged “Be there. The Colgate-Syracuse game is ‘the event’ of the year in Syracuse. If you’ve been there before, you certainly won’t miss the contest. If you haven’t been once, go anyway.”
The Orange never knew what hit them. “Like a bolt of lightening from the blue, letting loose all the pent up fury of a team that has been twisted and torn in early season disappointments, the Maroon Horde of Colgate struck fast and fatally yesterday afternoon, uncovering an attack that swept Syracuse off its feet and left the Orange stunned and staggering, a hopeless victim. Colgate put on the most sensational first period offense that Archbold Stadium has ever known.”
Andreas’ plan was the same as the previous year- use Baysinger’s powerful leg to gain field position. (Observation: if you listed the plays of 50 yards or more in those days it’s likely most of them would have bene defensive plays or in the kicking game as coaches were adverse to trying to do too much on offense in their own territory.) What he didn’t count on was the efforts of Julius Yoblock, (the Sunday paper acknowledged the players first names). “Probably the outstanding feature of the game was Yoblock’s return of the punts. He threw caution to the wind, having perfected confidence in his own ability to catch them when running backward or sideward or pick mean bounces off the ground. Not once does he play it safe. Always he was a gambling chance taker and always he gambled well. The field, hard and firm, was perfect footing for him and he squirmed and dodged his way through open fields in a manner that stamped him as one of the best.” One wonders if Andreas thought that canvas rug from Chicago was such a wonderful investment.
Syracuse got the opening kickoff, which Sebo returned to the 22. Dissatisfied with that, Andreas had Baysinger punt immediately but Yoblock returned it to the Orange 44. Three runs got the ball to the 20. “Colgate had shown a power to hit that line and yelled defiance of ‘Old Bill’. Sebo and Berner, backing up the line, exhorted their mates to get in there and toss them back.” But Leslie Hart, after taking the pass from center, “ran over to his left and then let loose a long pass to Cyril ‘Si’ Sullivan”, who “jumped high, took the bullet-like pass in his hands and, coming down squarely on his feet, romped across the goal line.”
“Having tasted blood, the Maroon was turned into a pack of hounds on the trail of its prey. As ‘Old Bill’ staggered the boys from Chenango Vail just clipped him some more on the jaw.” An exchange of punts put the ball on SU’s 40, where Hart got lose for a 30 yard scamper down the sidelines. After one play into the line, Yablock, who was calling the signals, went back to the play that had scored for them. Hart again took the ball from center, ran to the sideline and hit “Si” Sullivan with a pass he didn’t have to leap for. He was standing in the end zone and it was shortly 0-14.
Colgate was on the move again late in the period. They had the ball on the SU 40 when Yoblock “shot the ball into the hands of hill-climbing Hart and the near New Yorker, (he was from Yonkers), flashed around off tackle and up the field on as pretty a run as eyes have ever witnessed, straight arming two men out of his path and finally sliding across with the third touchdown.” That made it 0-21. The first quarter ended a few minutes later. The game was already over.
Colgate played it close to the vest after that. The second period was scoreless. In the third period they got still another block of one of Baysinger’s punts. Syracuse’s Milt Bernar fell on it in the Orange endzone for a safety. At least it wasn’t a touchdown. But the score stood at 0-23. SU responded with their only scoring drive of the game. Stevens had what appeared to be a lengthy TD run but the refs insisted he had stepped out of bounds at the 35. This only delayed things and the determined Stevens pushed the ball over from the 7. The extra point was blocked but at least Syracuse had scored.
This seemed to revitalize Colgate, who executed a long, grinding 70 yard march, entirely on the ground, (they only completed three passes the whole game and two of them went for touchdowns). They gave the ball to their big backs, Vaughn and a coming star, Len “Iron Legs” Macaluso, who ran between the tackles the whole way, with Vaughn making the final plunge which resulted in the final score, Syracuse 6, Colgate 30, the worst defeat the Orange had absorbed in seven years, (since a 0-30 loss to Pop Warner’s Pittsburgh team in 1921), and worst loss to Colgate since 1894.
“With the game over, Colgate’s student body swept down on the field and claimed it as their own. They gave the Orange treasury a setback, requiring an investment in a new set of goal posts. The checkerboard posts which stand out in such bold relief served as splendid trophies of the hunt in the parade which they went on to ‘make the old town a hot town’ as they reminded the world that every night is Colgate night for another year.” Actually, it would be another ten years.
An announcement was made that “The Athletic Governing Board of Syracuse University in session yesterday voiced its satisfaction with the splendid efforts that have been made by the Orange football team this season…. There won’t be any change in the general direction of the Orange forces for the coming year. Contracts were not considered for the simple reason that this is not contract time.”
The Hoodoo continued…
That summer Ray Barbuti ran to glory and fell on his face in Amsterdam. Unfortunately he had played his last game for the Orange. So had a lot of other Syracuse University Athletes. The University Athletic Governing Board dropped soccer, hockey, boxing, golf, rifle, tennis, wrestling and fencing as inter-collegiate sports. The ostensive reason was to “increase participation” in these sports by putting them on an intramural basis. Most recognized it for what it was: an economy drive. “Football, baseball and basketball, as the big moneymakers and crowd pullers, were kept in tact.” Even the football team was “a small squad with no reserve players to speak of”, with Harold Baysinger elected captain.
The Carnegie foundation was at this time preparing a report on “the odious practice of giving scholarships to athletes”. SU had anticipated this polemic by several years and had begun to seek a better balance between sports, learning and civic duty in the comportment of its students. The Alumni News supported the University position but still had the temerity to ask ‘Is it out of order for us to sigh for a more powerful line and better interference?”
Syracuse opened the season with a narrow 14-6 win over Hobart but the closeness of the win was not the main concern: “the real story was the problem with ‘youth control’ in the stadium. There was so little of it, in fact that all children were banned from the next home game, against William and Mary”, according to Michael Mullins in “Syracuse University Football: A Centennial Celebration”. In those days, schools boys could be admitted to the games for free, just like the college students. (Imagine Jake Crouthamel admitting anyone for free). Some 1,000 of the 7, 500 fans at the Hobart game were underage and they acted like they had the run of the place, actually running down on the field and interrupting the game in the fourth quarter. They weren’t actually banned from the William and Mary game: they could still come and could still get in free. But they had to be accompanied by an adult who would be held responsible for their actions.
There was little hope of controlling the crowds of youngsters for the Johns Hopkins game. That game featured a visit by the two leading lights of the athletic world of the time, as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in attendance at the Archbold oval. It’s not known how much of a football fan the Babe was but Gehrig had attended Columbia on one of those “odious” football scholarships and would have played against SU had he not switched to baseball and then to the professional ranks. He did play SU in basketball at Columbia and went up against Vic Hanson, whom he called “One of the three best basketball players I’ve ever seen”. Hanson also played baseball and in the New York Yankees system no less, but never made it to the bigs. When Lou and the Babe were in town, Vic was scouting Colgate as an assistant coach at SU.
Babe and Lou were in town on one of the post season barnstorming tours that were common then. Usually the Babe had a team called “The Busting Babes” and Gehrig had one called “The Larrupin’ Lous”, both made up of ex-major leaguers but in this case, the Babe was going to play for the local champion amateur team, Sacred Heart and Lou was going to play for an “all-star” team made up of ex-major leaguers and local sports celebrities. This game was of special importance to Syracuse, which had just lost its International League franchise. The Syracuse Stars had been one of the first two teams bought by Branch Rickey when he started the first farm system back in 1920, (the other being Fort Worth of the Texas League), and several of the later stars of the St. Louis Cardinal’s “Gashouse Gang” teams had played here in the 20’s. But Rickey wanted a new ballpark to replace Star Park and the city fathers, penny wise and pound foolish, refused to build one and thus lost the team to Rochester where they became the Red Wings. Six years later MacArthur Stadium, (then called Municipal Stadium), was built as a WPA project and Syracuse got a franchise from New Jersey. They called the new team the Chiefs. But in the interim, amateur ball was all that Syracuse had to offer baseball fans in the summer- that and barnstorming tours by major leaguers.
Ruth and Gehrig were “met by a delegation of enthusiastic local fans crawling out of their Pullman at the New York Central station at 8AM “, (the Babe probably was crawling at 8AM), “and taken on a tour of the city which included breakfast and a news conference at the Hotel Syracuse” and visits to several boys clubs. They didn’t stay at the (then relatively new), Hotel Syracuse but rather at the Hotel Onondaga where they “looked gloomily out into the drizzle” from their hotel room window. Their game was postponed to the next week. Gehrig commented that he “hoped Montreal weather was better than Syracuse weather”. That was their next stop. In the meantime they were stuck in Syracuse. The Babe might have had other ideas for entertainment but Gehrig wanted to see the football game and it was decided that would be good publicity.
The paper shows them in overcoats posing on the SU sideline with Orange star Harold Baysinger, who Gehrig reported that he was quite impressed with. Both Ruth and Gehrig had syndicated columns, (the Babe’s was probably ghost written by future baseball commissioner Ford Frick, who did the same for this autobiography). Judging by the example in the Sunday paper, Lou may have done his own work. He reported that this was his first effort at reporting on a football game but that he couldn’t tell much from this one because it was so one-sided, (SU walloped the Blue Jays 58-0). He said the Babe told him that the greatest excitement was waiting for the cannon to go off after one of the many SU touchdowns. He advised SU to be wary of their next opponent, Nebraska, because those Cornhuskers are “husky”.
Pictured along with Ruth, Gehrig and Baysinger was a teenaged boy named Bobby O’Hara, who “put in one of the best days of his life as companion to the Babe and Lou during their Syracuse stay.” One story was about a young boy and his mother who had waited near the elevator in the Hotel Onondaga for two hours until the Babe walked out. He scooped the kid up in his arms and, lacking something to put his autograph on, pulled out an Al Smith button, autographed that and pinned it on the kid’s shirt. Everywhere they went the pair was sounded by thongs of children of all ages. They descended on Archbold Stadium in droves and completely ignored the game, shouting “We want the Babe! We want the Babe!” Ruth said “Listen to those little cusses! Hear ‘em holler”. He also said “Say couldn’t we go out that way, if it’s just as easy?” Eventually, guarded by a dozen policemen, they made their way out the Irving Avenue entrance through the huge archway.
They returned a week and a day later to play their exhibition at Star Park. Vic Hanson was back in town and played second base for the “All Stars”, with Gehrig at first. Shortstop was played by a promising local kid named Dutch Dotterer, who was later elected to the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame after a 60 year career in baseball as a player and scout for major league teams. Center field was manned by another former, SU football star, Gotch Carr. It was too much for Ruth and his Sacred Heart team, who lost 4-3, despite Ruth taking the mound for the last couple of innings. The Babe had two hits but none went over the fence. Gehrig did hit one out and Ruth gave up a homer to Bill Kelly, who was playing in the International League at the time. Lawrence Skiddy pronounced the exhibition, “As fine an entertainment as was ever crowded into an afternoon at a local ballpark.” And added “The two slugging heroes of the World Series did everything but stand on their heads to please.” Ruth spent much of the game throwing balls into the stands at every possible occasion. Eventually the 20 dozen balls that had been made available were exhausted and an appeal had to be made for someone to temporarily give up their souvenir so the game could be completed.
Skiddy enthused, “There may be bigger men in the world than Babe Ruth- men who count much more in the scheme of destiny by swaying empires or leading the way into progressive thought. But there are few men living- and the judgment is of a reporter who has followed Lindberg and Al Smith into crowds- who arouse more interest in their fellow human beings than the Home Run King of the Universe.”
When the big celebrities left, attention turned to the big game- Colgate. Syracuse had gotten off to a pretty strong start, struggling to beat Hobart, then blowing out William and Mary and Johns Hopkins. They went out to Nebraska to take on those “huskey” Cornhuskers, losing only 6-7 to a team that was unbeaten until Army beat them late in the year. Then they tied Penn State, 6-6. After that, things started to fall apart. Pittsburgh handled the Orange, 0-18. Then came another game against those pesky “Battling Bishops” of Ohio Wesleyan.
The Bishops had their own mini-hoodoo going against the Orange. They were brought in as a “tomato can” for SU to beat up on before the Colgate game. They were actually pretty good on the small-college level but should not have been a match for the mighty Orange, who could rest their starters and not have to reveal too much of their playbook before the big game, (in those days before films where teams had to scout their opponent’s previous games to find out about them). It had backfired in 1925 with a 3-3 upset tie. The same thing had happened in 1927 with a 6-6 tie. It was about to happen again.
SU actually dominated the game, which was played almost entirely in OW territory. Harold Baysinger’s passes drove Syracuse down the field and his punts kept the visitors pinned back in front of their goal line for almost the whole game- almost. Just before the half, Ted Franz, who had had the 85 yard interception return that created the previous year’s tie, ran down the sideline to make a finger-tip catch of a pass, then ran down to the SU 10 for a 65 yard shocker. Then Wesleyan sent Franz to the left and threw back to the right while the SU defense ran after Franz. The resulting touchdown made it 0-6. The Bishops still couldn’t kick the extra point, but it wouldn’t matter. There was time for just one play in the half- the kick-off Warren Stevens gathered in the ball and found a seam up the sidelines. He got past the Wesleyan tacklers and would have cruised into the end zone except the field was muddy and he started to lose his footing. He never slipped down but it was enough for his pursuers to catch up to him and force him out of bounds before he could score- and after the clock went to 0:00. SU spent the whole second half knocking on the Wesleyan door but never scoring. The Orange went down 0-6 and their record, once 3-0, fell to 3-3-1 with their arch rivals scheduled to arrive in a week. One encouraging thing was the attendance of 12,000- said to be the most ever for a non-Colgate game.
Like Syracuse, the Colgate, under new coach Earl Abel, had brushed aside three small-time teams, St. Lawrence, Wabash and Hobart. Unlike SU they’d actually beaten some big-time teams, Virginia Tech and Michigan State. They also lost, 7-12 to a very good Vanderbilt team, (the Commodores were a southern power at the time). However they had been totally devastated by Chick Meehan’s “Violent Violets” of NYU, led by the great Ken Strong, who led the nation in scoring that year and went on to star for the New York Giants. Strong and his mates had crushed the Maroon, 47-6, “about the most severe defeat the Maroon has suffered….Both Colgate and Syracuse have had a world of woe this season thus far and all the hopes and ambitions of each team now lay in this one clash.”
With several injured players coming back for the big game, Lew Andreas was able to return to his original starting line up for the first time since the Nebraska game, prompting the rather odd headline, “Nebraska starters to face Colgate eleven Saturday”. Syracuse might have done better using Nebraska’s starters. Another plus was said to be the “belligerent frame of mind” of the players, who had not won in four weeks and not scored in three. There was concern about the number of passes completed against the Orange “for which little or no reason could be seen except that the backs were not alert when the occasion presented itself for quick thinking and muscle co-ordination.” Also, the line had “shown little or no ability to cross the line of scrimmage and gum up the formation of plays now and then.”
While Syracuse was being “belligerent”, Colgate was reported to be in a “happy frame of mind, confident that victory over the Orange this week will wipe away the stains which defeats by Vanderbilt and NYU have put on the Maroon record this season…in fact the entire team has been working smoothly and the big question now is to arouse the fighting spirit for which Colgate has ever been famous at Syracuse time.”
Meanwhile, the Salt City had some more famous visitors. Knute Rockne’s Notre Dame team stopped off in Syracuse on the way back to South Bend from their confrontation with Army in Yankee Stadium. They stopped long enough to celebrate mass at St. Lucy’s church and were photographed by the Herald on the way out of the church. It’s doubtful that they heard anything in the church that inspired them any more than they were already inspired. They had been tied, 0-0 at half time against the Cadets, trying to salvage a rare off season, (the Irish were beaten four times that year). Rockne gathered then together in the locker room at that time and told them the story of what had happened to George Gipp. “Someday, Rock, when the going gets tough, ask the boys to win one for the Gipper”, Rockne quoted Gipp as telling him on his deathbed eight years previously. “Well, boys, you are that team…and this is that game!” The Irish charged out and beat the favored Cadets, 12-6 and now they were on their way home after perhaps Rockne’s greatest victory. Perhaps that inspiration would rub off on the local teams. Or, perhaps not.
Syracuse University had purchased a canvas covering for the field in Archbold from a company in Chicago. They had it shipped in by train and eagerly spread it out over the gridiron. It was taken off the field occasionally “to let the wind do its work” in drying out and hardening the field. Skiddy described it as “the best investment ol’ Bill Orange has ever made”. A panorama in the Thursday edition of the paper shows the Archbold oval as it existed in 1928. The old grandstand on the west side had been torn down by now and a brand new set of wooden bleachers ringed the field below the concrete, increasing the capacity to 40,000 seats, all of which were expected to be used for the big game against Colgate.
“On the Thursday preceding the game, a ‘Cheerfest’ at Crouse College brought out a full 50% of the student body. The next day 4,000 students marched downtown in anticipation of the battle, causing traffic to stand still. The parade turned around and went back up The Hill, reassembled in Archbold and burned various Colgate figures in effigy at a bonfire. It was a busy weekend. Also on that Friday, eighty SU students raided the Colgate chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, which was sporting a dummy of Bill Orange, the Saltine Warrior, in a hearse on the front lawn. The SU delegation tried to take the hearse away but were caught red-handed by two hundred vigilant Colgate faithful. They were ‘tried’ in a quickly convened Kangaroo Court and punished with a sound paddling and an unplanned swim in Taylor Lake.”
Skiddy proclaimed that “two of the most evenly matched football teams that have ever come to grips in the annual classic will be pitted against each other”. He felt Colgate to be superior in the line but that SU had the better backfield, both by slight margins. Comparing the backfields, the ‘Gate still had Galloway, their “Galloping Ghost” who had failed to make fans forget Eddie Tryon, much less Red Grange. They had Vaughn, their biggest, strongest back, a player named Yoblock, who was considered their most versatile back and a new kid named Hart, (Skid didn’t necessarily use first names), who was surprising a lot of people. Syracuse answered with (Harold) Baysinger, perhaps the nation’s outstanding passer, (Milford) Berner, the biggest back on either team and (Warren) Stevens, the fastest.
“At Syracuse in the coaching camp, there was a feeling of grim confidence. The squad’s morale is wonderful. Instead of being down-hearted by recent reverses the players are in a happy mood, looking back on the many bad breaks that they have had all season and feeling that the law of averages will apply and they will escape misfortune in this coming game of games.” Hmmm….”grim confidence” sounds like something of an oxymoron. And a football team needs to have more going for it than the “law of averages”. Nothing is averaged on the scoreboard. In Hamilton, Coach Able “was not in any mood for predictions but was content to express assurance that his team would give the best it had at its command and would make the supreme effort of the season in this game.”
Skid advised fans “don’t drive your car to the game…parking conditions about the field will be far from ideal, as there are sure to be many who come in from long distances who will drive anyway.” Things have hardly changed in that regard over the last ¾ of a century. But he urged “Be there. The Colgate-Syracuse game is ‘the event’ of the year in Syracuse. If you’ve been there before, you certainly won’t miss the contest. If you haven’t been once, go anyway.”
The Orange never knew what hit them. “Like a bolt of lightening from the blue, letting loose all the pent up fury of a team that has been twisted and torn in early season disappointments, the Maroon Horde of Colgate struck fast and fatally yesterday afternoon, uncovering an attack that swept Syracuse off its feet and left the Orange stunned and staggering, a hopeless victim. Colgate put on the most sensational first period offense that Archbold Stadium has ever known.”
Andreas’ plan was the same as the previous year- use Baysinger’s powerful leg to gain field position. (Observation: if you listed the plays of 50 yards or more in those days it’s likely most of them would have bene defensive plays or in the kicking game as coaches were adverse to trying to do too much on offense in their own territory.) What he didn’t count on was the efforts of Julius Yoblock, (the Sunday paper acknowledged the players first names). “Probably the outstanding feature of the game was Yoblock’s return of the punts. He threw caution to the wind, having perfected confidence in his own ability to catch them when running backward or sideward or pick mean bounces off the ground. Not once does he play it safe. Always he was a gambling chance taker and always he gambled well. The field, hard and firm, was perfect footing for him and he squirmed and dodged his way through open fields in a manner that stamped him as one of the best.” One wonders if Andreas thought that canvas rug from Chicago was such a wonderful investment.
Syracuse got the opening kickoff, which Sebo returned to the 22. Dissatisfied with that, Andreas had Baysinger punt immediately but Yoblock returned it to the Orange 44. Three runs got the ball to the 20. “Colgate had shown a power to hit that line and yelled defiance of ‘Old Bill’. Sebo and Berner, backing up the line, exhorted their mates to get in there and toss them back.” But Leslie Hart, after taking the pass from center, “ran over to his left and then let loose a long pass to Cyril ‘Si’ Sullivan”, who “jumped high, took the bullet-like pass in his hands and, coming down squarely on his feet, romped across the goal line.”
“Having tasted blood, the Maroon was turned into a pack of hounds on the trail of its prey. As ‘Old Bill’ staggered the boys from Chenango Vail just clipped him some more on the jaw.” An exchange of punts put the ball on SU’s 40, where Hart got lose for a 30 yard scamper down the sidelines. After one play into the line, Yablock, who was calling the signals, went back to the play that had scored for them. Hart again took the ball from center, ran to the sideline and hit “Si” Sullivan with a pass he didn’t have to leap for. He was standing in the end zone and it was shortly 0-14.
Colgate was on the move again late in the period. They had the ball on the SU 40 when Yoblock “shot the ball into the hands of hill-climbing Hart and the near New Yorker, (he was from Yonkers), flashed around off tackle and up the field on as pretty a run as eyes have ever witnessed, straight arming two men out of his path and finally sliding across with the third touchdown.” That made it 0-21. The first quarter ended a few minutes later. The game was already over.
Colgate played it close to the vest after that. The second period was scoreless. In the third period they got still another block of one of Baysinger’s punts. Syracuse’s Milt Bernar fell on it in the Orange endzone for a safety. At least it wasn’t a touchdown. But the score stood at 0-23. SU responded with their only scoring drive of the game. Stevens had what appeared to be a lengthy TD run but the refs insisted he had stepped out of bounds at the 35. This only delayed things and the determined Stevens pushed the ball over from the 7. The extra point was blocked but at least Syracuse had scored.
This seemed to revitalize Colgate, who executed a long, grinding 70 yard march, entirely on the ground, (they only completed three passes the whole game and two of them went for touchdowns). They gave the ball to their big backs, Vaughn and a coming star, Len “Iron Legs” Macaluso, who ran between the tackles the whole way, with Vaughn making the final plunge which resulted in the final score, Syracuse 6, Colgate 30, the worst defeat the Orange had absorbed in seven years, (since a 0-30 loss to Pop Warner’s Pittsburgh team in 1921), and worst loss to Colgate since 1894.
“With the game over, Colgate’s student body swept down on the field and claimed it as their own. They gave the Orange treasury a setback, requiring an investment in a new set of goal posts. The checkerboard posts which stand out in such bold relief served as splendid trophies of the hunt in the parade which they went on to ‘make the old town a hot town’ as they reminded the world that every night is Colgate night for another year.” Actually, it would be another ten years.
An announcement was made that “The Athletic Governing Board of Syracuse University in session yesterday voiced its satisfaction with the splendid efforts that have been made by the Orange football team this season…. There won’t be any change in the general direction of the Orange forces for the coming year. Contracts were not considered for the simple reason that this is not contract time.”
The Hoodoo continued…
