November 21, 1902: The First Night Football Game

 

Before the National Football League formed in 1920, American football looked very different. The ball was round, had few rules and little protective equipment, and it was generally a chaotic effort. In fact, there were no professional football players until 1892, just 10 years before the game's first World Series.

National Football League

Unaffiliated with the NFL you see every Sunday these days, the National Football League, formed in 1902, was quite a misnomer, consisting of only three teams from Pennsylvania. In fact, two of those teams—the Athletics and the Phillies—were from the same city (guess which one!), leaving the Pittsburgh Stars to drop off the roster. That doesn't mean, of course, that they were the only team to play the game in the country; The National Football League regularly features teams from around the northeastern United States. In fact, on November 21 of that year, they made history when the Philadelphia Athletics played their first ever night football game against Canavella Athletic Club in Elmira, New York. Amazingly, K.A.C. What was originally a cycling club evolved into a professional football team, possibly accounting for the Athletics' blistering winning score of 39–0.

First world series of football

The Athletics led their victory to another historic moment when they teamed up with Phillies players to form an even more confusingly named team called New York to play in the first World Series of football. This new team wasn't the only part of the game that left it scratching: The "World Series" was by no means a World Series, as no team—all five of which were from either "New York" or New Jersey—a. - Played the other more than once. In truth, it was little more than a publicity stunt on behalf of Madison Square Garden, which had trouble attracting crowds during the winter, but they made history anyway when New York was defeated by Syracuse in what became the first indoor professional football. The game is considered. , Syracuse won the series.