When a Chicago sports team refused to recognize its championship

A Chicago Cardinals football fan from '52 thru '59 till it moved to St. Louis, I long thought they'd only won the '47 NFL title.

But back in '25 they were involved in likely the strangest title season in all of sports.

No NFL championship game back then, much less a Super Bowl. The NFL was still an undisciplined, chaotic league. Schedules were anything but. Teams moved game sites, even scheduled more games to improve their record, the championship going to the best one.

That caused the controversy. The Cardinals somehow arranged for high schoolers to play for their late season opponent Milwaukee Badgers. It worked with the Cardinals cruising 58-0. Didn't help the Cards as the Pittsfield (PA) Maroons dominated the Cardinals 20-7 in Comisky Park, ensuring them the title.

But NFL President Joe Carr rescinded the Maroons title for violating a league rule preventing them from scheduling a game in the Frankfort (PA) Yellow Jackets home territory. In awarding the title to the Cardinals, Carr ruled the Cardinals’ cheating not pertinent as it was engineered by a single player unbeknownst to the owner.

Cards owner Chris O’Brien then did the right thing. He took responsibility for Cards' cheating, refusing the title even tho it stayed on the NFL books.

But when future owner Charles Bidwell, who acquired the Cardinals in 1946, realized the NFL still recognized the Cardinals as the ’25 champs, he placed the ’25 NFL title back in the Cardinals’ historical record.

Tho the Cards won the NFL title outright in '47, they've won none since even in their St. Louis and Arizona versions. Karma? Might be that re-claiming the '25 title put the kibosh on future Cardinal success.