The 1951 Los Angeles Rams football
team has long been a subject of particular interest here. The Rams won their
only Los Angeles-based NFL championship that year, after losing both the 1949
and 1950 NFL title games.
Every book the Los Angeles Public
Library system had that even mentioned the ’51 Rams made it to the SpeedyLeeway
home after a quick checkout many years ago and other books that have even a
glancing glimpse of the title team now sit proudly on a bookcase here in the
Official Office of SpeedyLeeway. Yeah, there are a few.
Imagine the excitement here, then,
when the Professional Football Researchers Association picked the 1951 Rams for
the organization’s next research project and book. Holy cow, that was good
news. Your Loyal Blogger was selected to contribute not one but TWO essays on
the Rams and those essays have been completed. The opportunity to delve into
the history of the Rams franchise and explore components of the only
championship the franchise produced in California was a wonderful personal
experience. In fact, the opportunity produced a new excuse to purchase still
more books about that Rams team.
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| Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield. |
The Rams teams of that era featured
Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin, Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears, the Bull
Elephant backfield and more. Joe Stydahar was the head coach and assistant
coach Hamp Pool’s wide-open offense was the headliner. Oh my, the points they
scored.
A moment of personal triumph can be
noted here. Your Loyal Blogger was slogging away, looking for something
different to write. Something was needed that would hopefully make an important
contribution to telling a story that has long been cherished by this writer.
And, in a moment of confused clarity, the thing presented itself on a YouTube
video of that fabulous 1951 title game between the Rams and Cleveland Browns.
 |
| Rams running back Dan Towler. |
YLB has loved the professional game in
general and the Rams in particular since birth. However, nobody has ever
confused YLB with a football coach. In fact, many, many football coaches have
made roughly the same comment: “You don’t know anything,” they have said, “you
aren’t a coach.”
But on the jumpy and sometimes
difficult to watch video of the title game something jumped out at YLB that was
different and it happened over and over again as the game went on. Straight to
the bookcase went YLB and a tattered copy of an old book was reviewed. And
reviewed again. The book explained that the unusual ploy was intentional,
something the Rams’ offense featured during the years that Pool ran the
offense. And, dear readers, the ploy was put into use on the play that won the
championship game for the Rams, the 72-yard bomb thrown by future Hall of Fame
quarterback Van Brocklin to future Hall of Fame wide receiver Fears. The book
will argue that the ploy was actually the move that won the game, an unheralded
play by an unknown player among all those Hall of Famers.
Want to know more? The PFRA’s book on
the 1951 Los Angeles Rams will be out later this year. It will be published by
McFarland & Company Publishers, the same publishing house that published
the much-heralded Civil War classic, That
Bloody Hill: Hilliard’s Legion at Chickamauga, in 2018.
Previously, McFarland has published The 1966 Green Bay Packers: Profiles of
Vince Lombardi’s Super Bowl I Champions and The 1958 Baltimore Colts: Profiles of the NFL’s First Sudden Death
Champions. Your Loyal Blogger penned an essay on Colts coach Weeb Ewbank.
The books on the Packers, Colts and Rams are part of the PFRA’s Great Teams in
Pro Football History series, which is a unique set of books produced by the
PFRA and McFarland. You can order the Packers and Colts books through McFarland
or any online service, either the printed version or as e-books.
Thanks for reading.
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