The Pittsburgh Press (November 30, 1946)
Background of news –
The first Army-Navy game
By Bertram Benedict
The Army-Navy game at Philadelphia today is a far different affair from the first game between the Military and Naval Academies. This was played 56 years ago, on November 29, 1890, at West Point. The Navy won.
A number of Army and Navy officers witnessed the 1890 game, but none of the highest rank. Secretary of the Navy Tracy had been scheduled to go, but was kept away by other business.
The New York Herald gave the 1890 game two columns, under the following headline: “Sailor Ladies Beat Soldier Boys.” Nowhere in the account was the final score given. The Herald did say that the score at the end of the first half was 12-0, as a result of three touchdowns scored by Navy. The goals after each of these were missed, so that evidently a touchdown counted four points in those days.
The Navy achieved two more touchdowns in the second half and kicked goal after each. As other accounts give the final score as 24-0, a goal after touchdown evidently counted two points.
This was before the day of newspaper photography in The Herald, but the enterprising paper did have sketches of the teams. The players wore cone-shaped caps with short tassels, looking a little like the ski caps of today; they wore shirts buttoned close under the neck, not unlike today’s baseball shirts.
‘Active despite bulk’
The Army line of 1890 averaged all of 184 pounds, which was considered remarkably heavy. The Herald reporter observed that the Army linesmen “were quick and active in spite of their bulk.” The Navy line averaged 175 pounds. “Such players as these,” said The Herald, “need only the practice to make them equal to a first-class college eleven.”
The Army team of 1890 had much to learn. The Herald commented that the West Pointers “don’t know how to play the game very well. There is no semblance of teamwork.”
Several times Army backs made good gains, but “all by themselves” because “their ‘rushers’ look on without knowing that they ought to interfere in behalf of their runners.” The Navy quarterback gave the signal for a play by shouting: “Clear ship for action!”
As for the spectators: “The pretty girls outside the ropes exclaim, ‘How cute’ or ‘Horrid’ according as they sympathize.”
‘22 Lusty Collegians’
On the preceding Saturday, Harvard had beaten Yale by 12-6, and Walter Camp had described that game for The Herald, with diagrams. One subheading for this game in The Herald was: “A Contest that was Decided in a Gentlemanly, Fair-Minded, and Spirited Manner by 22 Lusty Collegians.”
The diagrams show that one favorite formation for a line buck was the “wedge,” in the form of an inverted V, with five men on one side and five on the other, and the fullback in the center. The most frequent other formation was seven men on the line, then the quarterback, then the three backs in a horizontal row.
The halves were 45 minutes; there were no quarter periods. A forward pass still was illegal.
Although Baltimore is only 30 miles from Annapolis, The Baltimore Sun gave the Army-Navy game of 1890 only three paragraphs, sandwiched between the words of the national anthem of Brazil and the account of a sermon in Augusta, Maine. Two paragraphs in The Sun’s story gave the names of the players. The one paragraph devoted to the game itself observed: “The Naval cadets… showed they had had more assiduous practice than their military brethren.”