November 2, 1924: Death In South American Soccer

November 2, 1924: Uruguay, which recently won the Gold Medal in soccer at the Olympics in Paris, playing Argentina at home at Parque Central in Montevideo. The game ends in a 0-0 draw. That's good enough to clinch the South American Championship, the tournament now known as the Copa América, for Uruguay.

That night, a group of Argentine fans gathered at the door of the Colón Hotel, where the Argentina delegation were staying. The fans began to sing, and the players came out to salute them. A bit noisy, perhaps rude, for the locals at such an hour, but it shouldn't have been that big a deal.

It became one when a Uruguayan began a counterdemonstration, and, as had so often happened before in soccer fandom, and has since, the songs and the insults flew. Soon, also flying were fists and objects. Then came some shooting, and 3 men were wounded. One of them, Pedro Demby, a 26-year-old Montevideo bank clerk who had been punching Argentines, died.

He went down as the 1st man ever to die as a result of violence connected to South American soccer. He would not be the last, as fan groups, including Argentina's Barras bravas (meaning "fierce gangs") have attempted to show that, contrary to common sense, sports, especially soccer, can be war.

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November 2, 1924 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played that day:

* The Frankford Yellow Jackets, of Northeast Philadelphia, beat the Buffalo Bisons, 24-0 at Bison Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Cleveland Bulldogs beat their fellow Ohioans, the Dayton Triangles, 35-0 at League Park in Cleveland.

* The Columbus Tigers beat their fellow Ohioans, the Akron Pros, 17-6 at Indianola Park in Columbus.

* The Chicago Bears and the Rock Island Independents, both of Illinois, played to a tie, 3-3 at Cubs Park in Chicago. (The stadium was renamed Wrigley Field 2 years later.)

* The Milwaukee Badgers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 17-8 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Green Bay Packers beat their fellow Wisconsans, the Racine Legion, 6-3 at Bellevue Park in Green Bay.

* The Duluth Kelleys beat their cross-State rivals, the Minneapolis Marines, 6-0 at Nicollet Park in Minneapolis.

* The Hammond Pros, from a city in Indiana just outside Chicago, beat the Kansas City Blues, 6-0 at Muehlebach Field (later Municipal Stadium) in Kansas City.

Of all of these teams, only 3 still exist: The Bears, the Packers, and the Cardinals, who have moved twice, from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960, and to Arizona in 1988.