"Crazy Legs" (left) and "Deacon Dan"
December 23, 1951: The City of Los Angeles, and all of the State of California, gets its 1st World Championship in a major league sport.
It wasn't won by the Dodgers: They were 6 years away. It wasn't the Lakers, either: They were 9 years away.
In 1945, the Cleveland Rams won the NFL Championship. But they barely drew enough fans to fill the Cleveland Indians' 22,000-seat League Park. They got to host the NFL Championship Game, and they put it in the 86,000-seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium. But it was the coldest Championship Game in American football history, 8 degrees above zero Fahrenheit -- the 1967 "Ice Bowl" was an NFL Championship Game, but not a world championship -- and only 32,178 fans paid their way into the big stadium on the shore of Lake Erie.
Dan Reeves -- no relation to the later football coach of the same name -- lost $64,000 owning the Rams in the 1945 season. And, with the war over, a new league was being formed, the All-America Football Conference. And they would have a Cleveland team, soon to be named the Browns. Reeves knew that it would be folly to stay in Cleveland.
So he went to the previously untapped market of Los Angeles, and moved the Rams there. It worked: With quarterback Bob Waterfield winning games, the minds of male fans, and the hearts of female fans -- he was married to actress Jane Russell -- and an offense that included the 1st black players in the NFL in 12 years, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, the Rams averaged 42,475 fans per game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
It took the Rams until 1949 to reach the Championship Game again. In a rare Southern California rainstorm, they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles at the Coliseum. They got back to the title game in 1950, but had to go back where they came from, playing their replacements, the Cleveland Browns, at a once-again-frigid Municipal Stadium, and lost on a last-minute field goal by Lou Groza.
Washington bowed out due to injury, and Strode was making more money as an actor. But, under head coach Joe Stydahar, one of the Chicago Bears' 1940s "Monsters of the Midway," the Rams got better. They got a 2nd great quarterback, Norm Van Brocklin. Their running backs included 2 black stars, Paul "Tank" Younger and "Deacon" Dan Towler, a Heisman Trophy winner in Glenn Davis, and Verda Thomas Smith, known as "V.T." or "Vitamin" Smith. And in Tom Fears and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, Waterfield and Van Brocklin had the 2 best receivers in the NFL.
They went 8-4. They scored 52 and 48 points in their 2 games against the New York Yanks (that's correct: Not "Yankees," and the team folded after the season), hung 45 on the Chicago Cardinals, 42 on the Bears, and another 42 on the Green Bay Packers. But a not-so-good defense meant that they lost regular-season games to the Browns, the Washington Redskins, the Detroit Lions, and the team that was now firmly established as their regional arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers.
But it was enough to win the NFL Western Division, by half a game over the 49ers and the Lions, both of whom went 7-4-1; and a full game over the Bears, who went 7-5. And, since it was an odd-numbered year, it was the Western Division Champion's turn to host the NFL Championship Game. It was their 3rd straight season making the Game, and, this time, the weather would not be a problem: It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum, and 59,475 fans came out, the most that had yet seen an NFL Championship Game.
It should have been more: While it was the 1st one broadcast coast-to-coast, on the DuMont Network, it was blacked out in Southern California: If you lived there at the time, and you didn't buy a ticket, you had to listen on the radio.
It was a rematch with the Browns. Paul Brown's even more powerful offense, led by quarterback Otto Graham, had lost their season opener to the 49ers, but had won the next 11 straight, and were favored going in, even on the road.
But Groza missed a field goal on their opening drive, and Waterfield led the Rams down the field, resulting in a 1-yard touchdown run by Dick Hoerner early in the 2nd quarter. Groza kicked a 52-yard field goal, at the time the longest in NFL Championship Game history, and Waterfield threw 2 interceptions. Though leading, 7-3, Stydahar, replaced Waterfield with Van Brocklin. Before halftime, Graham threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Dub Jones, and the Browns took a 10-7 lead.
In the 3rd quarter, Larry Brink hit Graham and forced a fumble. Andy Robustelli, later a Hall of Fame defensive end for the New York Giants, picked it up on the Browns' 24, and returned it to their 2 before being stopped. Towler ran the ball in, and it was 14-10 Los Angeles.
It was Graham's turn to throw 2 interceptions, and Waterfield kicked a field goal to make it 17-10. But Graham recovered, and led a 70-yard drive ending with Ken Carpenter's 5-yard touchdown run, tying the game at 17-17.
But the Rams struck right back, with Van Brocklin finding Fears, who hauled a pass in for a 73-yard touchdown. The Rams won, 24-17, and had their 1st title in Los Angeles. While the Los Angeles Angels and the Hollywood Stars had won Pennants, that was in the Pacific Coast League. Despite the PCL's pretensions, it was not major league. By this point, there was no longer any question that the NFL was, and the Rams were Champions.
The Browns returned to the NFL Championship Game in 1952, losing to the Lions; 1953, losing to the Lions; 1954, beating the Lions; and 1955, beating the Rams. Despite having some good teams over the years, the Rams didn't reach another NFL championship game, under any name, until the 1979 season, when they lost Super Bowl XIV to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They moved to St. Louis for the 1995 season, and selfish choice by team ownership, and won Super Bowl XXXIV, beating the Tennessee Titans, in 2000; and lost Super Bowl XXXVI to the New England Patriots in 2002. Once the novelty of "The Greatest Show On Turf" wore off, and the team began to be broken up, they stopped drawing fans in St. Louis. A new owner moved them back to Los Angeles for the 2016 season.
UPDATE: The Rams reached Super Bowl LIII, losing to the Patriots; and Super Bowl LVI, beating the Cincinnati Bengals. That game the Rams 4 NFL Championships: 2 in Los Angeles, 1 in Cleveland, and 1 in St. Louis.
The Rams do not have a team Hall of Fame, but they have several members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
* From their 1951 NFL Champions: Founding owner Dan Reeves (no relation to the later Denver and Atlanta coach), head coach Joe Stydahar (elected mainly on the basis of his playing with the Chicago Bears), quarterback-defensive back-kicker Bob Waterfield, quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, receiver Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, and end Tom Fears.
* From later in the 1950s and in the 1960s: Reeves, head coach George Allen, running back Ollie Matson, defensive end David "Deacon" Jones, defensive tackle Merlin Olsen, and linebacker Les Richter. Jones, Olsen, defensive tackle Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier and defensive end Lamar Lundy formed the line known as "The Fearsome Foursome."
* From their 1979 NFC Championship: Guard Tom Mack, defensive end Jack Youngblood, and offensive tackle Jackie Slater.
* From their appearance in the 1985 NFC Championship Game: Slater, running back Eric Dickerson, and linebacker Kevin Greene. Slater and Greene would also play for the Rams in the 1989 NFC Championship Game.
* So far, no players from their Super Bowl LIII defeat have been honored -- and any players from their Super Bowl LVI win wouldn't be eligible yet, anyway.
The Rams have retired 8 uniform numbers: Waterfield's 7, Dickerson's 29, Olsen's 74, Jones' 75, Slater's 78, Youngblood's 85; and 2 players from their St. Louis era, the 28 of running back Marshall Faulk and the 80 of receiver Isaac Bruce.
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December 23, 1951 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 75-72 at the Onondaga War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Indianapolis Olympians, 91-88 in overtime at the Boston Garden.
* And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 81-79 in the gymnasium at North Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Clearly, calling the NBA "major league" at this point was still a little premature.
Not so for the NHL, and its entire "Original Six" was in action:
* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at the Boston Garden. Yes, it hosted the NBA and the NHL on the same day.
* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
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