Todd from Havre, MT
Next week, the Packers will retire Brett Favre’s number, a significant moment in Packers history by any definition. However, isn’t there another historical significance to a Packers-Bears game on Thanksgiving? If I recall correctly, the last time the Packers were to host the Bears on Thanksgiving was 1921. And despite having signed a contract to play in Green Bay didn’t Bears coach and owner George Halas fail to honor that contract?
Not true. In 1921, the Packers’ first season in what is now the NFL, many of the games were scheduled week to week. Plus, the Packers, presumably for financial reasons, planned to only schedule home games. Thus, they played four non-league games and their first four league games at Hagemeister Park. But everything changed after they beat Hammond on Nov. 13 before another small and disappointing crowd. “Once more the management lost money and it is probable that for the remainder of the season, the Packers will have to travel abroad due to the lack of support at home,” George Whitney Calhoun wrote in the Green Bay Press-Gazette the next day. Inserted at the top of his story was a short news flash that the Packers had scheduled a game for the following Sunday against the Cardinals in Chicago. On Nov. 20, the Packers tied the Cardinals, 3-3, before a small crowd on a muddy field, but the score caught the attention of others in the loosely organized league. Little Green Bay had nearly beaten – the Cardinals tied the game with four minutes to go – the longest established football team in Chicago. It also turned out to be a good payday for the Packers when Cardinals owner Chris O’Brien ponied up the visiting team guarantee, $1,200, albeit after a nervous wait. Forty years later, Calhoun wrote, “(O’Brien) said to me rather brusquely, ‘we never pay off here at the park and I always pay off in cash. Walk down to the poolroom two blocks down on the left hand side of the street and I’ll be there in a few minutes.’ We went to the poolroom and finally Chris came in. He pulled out a bunch of bills – none of them were big bills – and we got our money and out the door we went.” That same day, the Bears beat the Cleveland Tigers at what is now Wrigley Field and drew an estimated 10,000 fans, a huge crowd at the time. While the Bears had a game already scheduled for Thanksgiving (Nov. 24) against the Buffalo All-Americans, Halas was impressed enough by the Packers’ showing against the Cardinals that late on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 22, he agreed to play them in Chicago the following Sunday. In a letter to Packers management that accompanied the signed contract, Halas wrote, “We realize that we are biting off quite a chunk in playing the Packers two days after our game with the All-Americans, but the Green Bay team has made such a record on the gridiron this fall that we were forced to meet them before laying claim to the professional championship of the country.” The Packers lost, 20-0, but the game drew 7,000 fans and a rivalry was born. The next year, the Packers were deep in debt and tried in early November to lure the Bears to Green Bay for a Thanksgiving game. However, those efforts “fell flat,” according to the Press-Gazette. “The Chicago team is packing ‘em in at Cub park and Manager Halas wasn’t any too anxious to leave his ‘gold mine’ and come hither,” the paper explained. “The Bear manager played it safe by asking $4,000 to bring his team here, knowing that no club in the pro circuit would attempt to meet such a high guarantee.” So there was no Packers-Bears game in 1922.