Pittsburgh Shamrocks

Pittsburgh has had  a rough history when it comes to professional football. Their first ever professional team, the Alleghenys, only lasted a little over two years in the AA before returning to an amateur team. The city’s second attempt with the Triplets lasted just about as long, only playing three seasons of football before folding outright in 1915. The city’s brief and short history prevented any other team from propping up, but that did not stop local businessman James O’Leary when the NYPL approached him on potentially owning a team in 1929. O’Leary immediately said yes, and the Pittsburgh Shamrocks were born. Instead of naming the team after the iron industry, he named the team in honor of the Irish heritage of Pittsburgh, as O’Leary’s grandparents immigrated to Pittsburgh to escape the ongoing famine in Ireland. The team got off to a rough start to begin, but it was thankfully not as rough as the other two teams that failed in the city. The Shamrocks didn’t have their first truly good season until they signed RB Lonnie Douglas in 1935, where he nearly single-handedly carried Pittsburgh to a championship in his rookie season, but they finished runner-up in back-to-back years in 1936 and 1937. They remained a contender throughout his time in Pittsburgh, but they made one last miraculous push in Douglas’ final year in 1947. They almost won their first ever championship, but they faced a dominant Brooklyn Kings team that stopped them short. They have remained a fan-favorite team in the NYPL due to their consistent underdog status, but they could forge their own identity by joining the AFL.


RB Marion Waters has been the understudy of Lonnie Douglas, and proved that he could live up to Douglas’ potential, as he has become the focus of the offense that doesn’t really have any other pieces to use. QB Leslie Snow has proven that he cannot effectively lead an offense, and the team has a ton of young WR’s that have not been able to prove themselves. Arguably their defense is what the Shamrocks have been more known for than their underdog status. DL’s Archie Webber and Roy Forbes terrorized teams last year from the front, with LB’s Jackie Gustafson and Hugh Bray providing support in the middle. DB Harold Wilkins and S Alexander Kirby are the leaders in the secondary, but they might give way to the youth movement that makes up most of their backups in the secondary, such as S Raymond Waters, who showed massive potential in his rookie season last year. The Shamrocks might just be able to win the East, as they only have Buffalo as the other competitive team in that division, and may be able to shock the AFL and win their first title if they can play their cards correctly.


The Shamrocks have been a green team since the start, and have relatively had the same uniform set since their inception in 1929. The only exception to that is their helmet, when they added the shamrock as part of the 1947 season, becoming the first professional team to put anything on their helmet. Lonnie Douglas painted the Shamrock on his helmet as a good luck charm when the team was not doing great, and it changed the fortune of the team, as the rest of the players painted on their own shamrocks to keep up the good luck. The team didn’t win it all in the end, but the design stuck and the Shamrocks still rely on their own good luck charms today.

 

Brands:

1952-1953 


 
1954-present (TV Numbers added 1955)
 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chicago Hogs

Image
The Hogs are one of the oldest teams in the nation, first coming together in 1919 as the Rockford Athletic Club during the AA. After it fell apart, the Athletics limped along for almost 10 years, with the Depression almost forcing the team to fold. They were saved at the 11th hour by former AA star Donovan Hasenkamp in 1929, who moved them to the south side of town to play in a better and more comfortable market. Unfortunately for Hasenkamp, Chicago was already occupied by MWFC commissioner Virgil Bradshaw and his Chicago Stars, and a deep hatred developed between the two. Two years later, the Stars and Athletics played a particularly brutal game in muddy conditions, with Bradshaw proclaiming that Hasenkamp coached his players to “behave like feral hogs in a bloody pigpen.” Hasenkamp was already considering changing the team’s brand at this point, and loved his rival’s insult so much he changed the team’s name to the Hogs. After the rebrand, the Hogs’ play began to improve, winning the
Read more

Buffalo Hammers

Image
The first and older of the two teams joining is Buffalo, who was one of the charter members of the New York Professional Football League in 1923, which eventually became the New York-Pennsylvania League a few years later. The Hammers are actually one of the older teams in the U.S., founded in 1905 as a company team for the newly-relocated Lackawanna Steel Company. They became an amateur team in 1913, and went pro when they joined the NYPL in 1923. The team almost didn’t make it to going pro, as Lackawanna was in the process of being bought out by Bethlehem Steel and was going to end its company team after the purchase was complete. Willis Ware, who was an executive in Lackawanna, rushed in at the 11th hour and used what he had left of his savings to buy the Hammers and joined the NYPL, where they stormed through the whole league and won its first-ever title. The Hammers have always been successful during their time as a pro team, finishing in the top half of the NYPL in all but 2 of th
Read more

Washington Federals

Image
COLUMBUS BUCKEYES  Columbus is the oldest team of the inaugural AFL teams, formed by former players of the University of Ohio in 1906, hence why both of them share the same name. They were an independent team for a long while, and joined up in the AA for all three of its seasons before joining the MWFC. They were dominant in their early years, winning 2 out of the 3 AA titles and snagging the first ever Bradshaw Cup in the Championship. Now, UOhio has basically become a feeder team to the pro Buckeyes, but even then that isn’t helping the Buckeyes get back to the top. They have not been contenders lately, and have been living in the basement for some time now, mainly due to the Buckeyes going through 2 ownership changes and several roster rebuilds in order to be relevant once more. Randolf Durant is the 3rd owner the Buckeyes have had since their last championship, and was the final owner approached by Hasenkamp to form the league. Durant believes the exposure that the league will have
Read more