The Chicago Athletic Association [2]
Chicago 10-0 Northwestern
October 21, 1892 [at Cleveland, OH]
Chicago 28-0 Cleveland#
#Possibly played 10-22-1892
October 25, 1892 [at Rochester, NY]
Chicago 35-0 Rochester^
^Possibly played 10-24-1892
October 25, 1892 [at Cambridge, MA]
Chicago 0-28 Harvard University+
+Possibly played 10-26-1892; A final score of 0-32 is also on record
October 29, 1892 [at Philadelphia, PA]
Chicago 10-12 Pennsylvania University*
*By prior agreement the first half lasted 45 minutes & the second half 30 minutes.
October 31, 1892 [at Princeton, NJ]
Chicago 0-12 Princeton University~
In 1892, the Alleghany Athletic Association and Pittsburgh Athletic Club planned to face off in their annual bitter rivalry game. Each team looked for a leg up on the other.
They both had the same idea: pay Willie Heffelfinger to play for them. The PAC offered him $250. When Heffelfinger said no, the AAA offered him $500 and he signed on.
On November 12, 1892 of the game Heffelfinger suited up and became the first football player to be paid for his services outright.
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pudge-Heffelfinger
Excerpts from the article:
Heffelfinger introduced the concept of the running, or pulling, guard to the game, the forerunner of modern blocking. After college he was the first documented American football player to be paid: $500 plus travel expenses for a game in Pittsburgh in 1892, in which he scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery for the only points in the Allegheny Athletic Association’s victory over the Pittsburgh Athletic Club.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1992/11/14/pudge-heffelfinger-of-cash-and-carry/93eb4edf-a71d-457b-8abc-771c83b8427c/
Excerpts from the article:
Before Heffelfinger, players had admitted to being semi-pro, meaning they had accepted travel expenses, often inflated, from their amateur clubs or been given watches or other gifts. Baseball by 1892 had been openly professional for 23 years.
In mid-October, the larger PAC challenged the more experienced AAA -- and a crowd of about 3,000 attended. The game ended in a 6-6 tie, each team scoring a four-point touchdown and being successful on a conversion kick worth two points. Not to be overlooked, each club was able to recruit about 100 new members because of the game.
There also was controversy, because the PAC apparently had used a ringer. The player it referred to as a neophyte just off the street named "Stayer" actually was the captain of the football team at Penn State, A.C. Read.
As the AAA plotted to get even, the PAC in the weeks leading up to the rematch seemed poised to land an even more impressive ringer than the Penn State captain. That ringer was Heffelfinger.
According to reference-book accounts, two PAC members were on hand when a touring Chicago team that included Heffelfinger played a game in Cleveland. Heffelfinger was awesome that day, causing a fumble and returning it for a touchdown.
Rumors that eventually reached print in a Pittsburgh newspaper had the PAC offering Heffelfinger and a Chicago teammate $250 each to play in its rematch with the AAA.
Well, Heffelfinger played that memorable and attitude-altering day all right, but not for the PAC. If reports that the PAC had offered him $250 were correct, the AAA doubled it. What a bidding war that must have been.
You can imagine the reaction. Let's say Dallas Cowboys fans showed up at RFK Stadium last season and learned, shortly before kickoff, that Emmitt Smith would be playing for the Redskins. Yes, the PAC and its supporters were in-your-face livid.
"All bets were off," an account of the game said.
The teams did agree to play an "exhibition" that was supposed to consist of two 30-minute halves. Because the haggling had lasted so long, darkness forced the action to end 18 minutes earlier than scheduled.
The AAA was rewarded, winning by 4-0, Heffelfinger having picked up a teammate's fumble and run 25 yards for the only touchdown. Besides the $500, Heffelfinger got $25 in expenses.
Pro football moguls in 1992 could well say to their anxious-to-be-free players: "Look what eventually happened to the Allegheny Athletic Association." After paying Heffelfinger and some other imports $100 each for back-to-back games in November 1896, the AAA went broke.
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https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-30D
Excerpts from the article:
On November 12, 1892, Pittsburgh's two best elevens were scheduled to collide at Recreation Field, not far from where the Steelers play today. Although the Allegheny Athletic Association, nicknamed the 3As, was only two years old, and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, dubbed the East Enders, was a year younger, their rivalry was already heated. On Columbus Day, they had clawed out a 6-6 tie. Both sides were desperate to win the rematch. Badly enough, in fact, to circumvent the rules and to alter the game's complexion.
The day's events between the goal posts–two victories for the Allegheny side–hardly matter. What happened before the game ever started is what cements the date in football history. That is when the 3As paid William "Pudge" Heffelfinger $500 to become an Allegheny for the afternoon, ten times the cost of renting the field!
The most celebrated footballer of the nineteenth century, Heffelfinger revolutionized line play during his four years at Yale. Instead of playing against whoever lined up against him, Heffelfinger used his speed and strength to pull out from his guard position to run interference for the ball carrier behind. Named to the first three All-America teams, he moved to Nebraska after graduating in 1891 for an office job with the Great Northern Railroad. In the fall of 1892, he left to join the Chicago Athletic Association on an East Coast tour for six weeks. Chicago had agreed to pay double expense money for his services. And the pot would sweeten.
With its showdown against the 3As fast approaching, Pittsburgh sent a scout to watch Heffelfinger against Cleveland. Shortly after the game, the Pittsburgh press reported that the club made Heffelfinger and another Chicagoan an offer of $250 each to suit up against Allegheny. Then it was 3As turn.
Organized by a group of Pittsburgh pillars who also had played football at Yale, the Allegheny wanted Heffelfinger badly. They matched Pittsburgh's offer. When Heffelfinger balked at jeopardizing his amateur standing for $250, they doubled it. On November 12, Heffelfinger and two Chicago teammates stepped onto Recreation Field in Allegheny colors. And then all hell broke loose.
Pittsburgh refused to play against the ringers. The great Heffelfinger, charged its coach, would upset the balance and skew the wagering. Allegheny countered that Pittsburgh had approached Heffelfinger first. "Confusion dire reigned," reported one local sportswriter. When Pittsburgh boarded its bus to go home, the referee declared Allegheny victorious by forfeit, but to salvage the afternoon–and the anticipation of the large crowd who had paid to see both a grudge match and the great Heffelfinger–Allegheny agreed to take on a quickly assembled eleven from nearby Western University.
Ten minutes into the game, the East Enders returned with a compromise proposal, agreeing to play if the game were declared an exhibition and all bets determined by the forfeit cancelled. Allegheny consented, and what followed was another tight contest. Heffelfinger scored the only touchdown; he forced a Pittsburgh fumble and then raced twenty-five yards into the end zone yards with the recovery. The final tally,under the old points system, was 4-0.
It took some time for tempers between the clubs to settle. The East Enders protested any payment made to Heffelfinger. The 3As justified it as a pre-emptive strike. Clear proof of any money openly changing hands did not exist until Allegheny's expense accounting for the season, unequivocally displaying the Heffelfinger payment, surfaced eight decades later.
Sources:
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https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/the-first-pro-football-game-of-course-it-was-in-pittsburgh/
Excerpts from the article:
William ‘Pudge’ Heffelfinger
By accepting a cash payment to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association, Heffelfinger (pictured) became the first professional football player.
$500
The amount Heffelfinger was paid (approximately $13,500 in 2017)
3,000
The approximate attendance of the game
A Railroad Office in Omaha
Heffelfinger, who was an All-American football player at Yale, took a leave of absence from his job in a Nebraska railroad office to play football, first for the Chicago Athletic Association (where — at least officially — he wasn’t paid) and then for Allegheny.
Allegheny 4, Pittsburgh 0
The Allegheny Athletic Association won the game 4-0; at the time, touchdowns were worth four points. The only score was a fumble both forced and recovered by Heffelfinger.
The East End Gymnasium Club
The original name of the Pittsburgh Athletic Club; it adopted a more professional name after a string of wins. The team was born in a high-end East Liberty gym.
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https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/heffelfinger-william-walter-pudge
Excerpts from the article:
While pursuing a career after graduation, Heffelfinger continued his participation in football. He reportedly played on a few semiprofessional teams in the fall of 1891 while studying law and railroad economics at Yale. Heffelfinger is generally credited by football historians with giving birth to pro football when he became the first professional player by signing a contract for $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association football team in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club team on 12 November 1892. Prior to that game Heffelfinger contended he had been paid only in silver pocket watches. In 1892 he also played for the Chicago Athletic Club, appearing in six games in twelve days.
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