 
|
Dayton Triangles' Impact
on Early Records
Contemporaries viewed Triangle players Al
Mahrt, Lou Partlow, Norb Sacksteder and Hobby Kinderdine as top players in their
era.
Lee
Fenner deserves special recognition for playing with the Triangles every year from
1916 to 1929 -- a total of 14 seasons. He weighed only 150 pounds during his playing days,
and accomplished the additional feat of playing for two entire seasons without being taken
out of a game.
By the late 1920s, the Racine Cardinals
moved to Comiskey Park and become known as the Chicago Cardinals. The Decatur Staleys
moved into Chicago and became the Chicago Bears. Of the remaining eight charter-member
teams which attended the league's organizational meeting on September 17, 1920, seven had
folded. Of the ten charter-member teams of the NFL, only the Dayton Triangles remained
playing as originally organized.
On July 12, 1930, the Dayton Triangle
franchise was purchased by syndicate from Brooklyn headed by John Dwyer. He moved the
franchise to Brooklyn, New York, and renamed the team the Brooklyn Dodgers. To view the
historic football records of the Brooklyn Dodgers 1930-1943 (N.F.L.), and 1946-1948
(A.A.F.C.), and the Brooklyn Tigers 1944 (N.F.L.) click
here.
Triangle manager Carl Storck continued to
serve the NFL. When Joe Carr, NFL president since 1921, died in Columbus on May 20, 1939,
the NFL named Dayton's Storck as acting president five days later. He served in that post
for almost two years, resigning due to poor health, on April 5, 1941. He was replaced by
the NFL's first commissioner, Elmer Layden of Notre Dame.
In 1989, the NFL celebrated its seventieth
season of play with little fanfare regarding the Dayton Triangles' key role in the
founding and early history of the league. The Dayton Triangles team was one of the charter
members of the National Football League. The first league game played in the NFL was
played in Dayton at Triangle Park on October 3, 1920. The first touchdown in the NFL was
scored in that game by Lou Partlow of the Dayton Triangles.
In addition, Dayton provided one the
league's organizational founding fathers, the manager of the Triangles, Carl Storck.
Storck participated in all of the league's first organizational meetings and served the
NFL for the first 21 years of its existence.
|
