The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
1945 Cleveland Rams won crown, left town
Team won title in December, was on its way to Los Angeles in January
The 1945 Cleveland Rams team was not lacking intriguing subplots before they won the title and left town.
The 1945 Cleveland Rams were not lacking in intriguing subplots.
Their rookie quarterback was already one of America’s most famous athletes.
His wife was an A-list movie star.
The newly hired coach was the general manager’s brother.
And that’s even before the team’s lasting legacy: They won the NFL title — then bolted Cleveland.
But not before leaving an indelible imprint.
The Rams had been in Cleveland
since 1937 and were owned by New York millionaire investment banker Dan Reeves.
A lively 1945 began Jan. 17, when Rams coach Aldo Donelli stepped down. Donelli had been accepted for U.S. Navy duty and would soon report for training.
Nearly two weeks later, Rams general manager Chile Walsh refuted a report the franchise may move to Brooklyn.
“If you can find out who is tossing around all these rumors,” Walsh said, “I would like to know it, for such a story as transferring the Rams can do us a lot of damage. Personally, I don’t think any team in our league would be interested in moving to Brooklyn.”
In March, Walsh disputed the Rams wanted to move to Los Angeles.
“Cleveland is our home, and we intend to stay here,” Walsh said, after returning from a “long visit” to California.
He pointed to the team’s fiveyear lease at League Park, to which the Rams had moved games in 1944 after playing fulltime to that point at Cleveland Stadium.
“As it stands now, I see no reason why we should not be hopeful of operating this year,” Walsh said.
March 14, the Rams announced their new coach, Adam Walsh.
Chile’s 43-year-old brother was Notre Dame’s line coach and an All-American center for the Fighting Irish in his playing days.
The Rams got a boost in June when it was announced one of their 1944 draft picks, former UCLA star quarterback Bob Waterfield, had signed on for 1945.
As a result, Waterfield wouldn’t be the only big name coming to Cleveland — he was married to movie star Jane Russell.
A squad expected to be around 40 was welcomed for training camp, held at Bowling Green from Aug. 11-Sept. 22.
“I don’t know how this club will compare with other teams in the league,” Adam Walsh said. “The fellows have worked hard, and we have an admirable spirit.”
The Rams started exhibition play by blanking the Steelers in Buffalo, 210, getting rushing touchdowns from Fred Gehrke and Buffalo native Tommy Colella, along with a 27yard TD pass from Waterfield to Harvey Jones.
The home opener followed Sept. 7 against Sammy Baugh and the Redskins at Cleveland Stadium, a 21-0 victory. Waterfield scored on a 14-yard run and connected with Jim Benton during a fake field goal for a 17-yard TD pass. Sept. 23, the Rams took on the Eagles at Akron’s Rubber Bowl, falling, 17-7. The hosts had no answer for Eagles star QB Steve Van Buren, who ran for a score and passed for another.
Reeves was expected to be in attendance for the Rams’ league opener against the Chicago Cardinals. It was the second time Reeves, a U.S. Army Air Corps captain, had seen the Rams since buying out Fred Levy Jr. as sole owner in December 1943.
The owner got a show, as the Rams enjoyed a 373-95 yards advantage in a 21-0 rout at League Park. TDs were contributed by Waterfield on a run, a Steve Pritko reception and a Jim Gillette run.
With the Bears next on the docket at League Park, the Rams had a chance for a statement with their young squad, featuring 15 rookies on a 33-player roster.
They got it with a 17-0 shutout, the first time the Bears had been blanked in 59 games. Waterfield scored on an eight-yard jaunt, hooked up with Pritko for a 25-yard score after Ralph Ruthstrom recovered a fumble and kicked a 28yard field goal. Riley Matheson had a fumble recovery and an interception.
Oct. 14, the Rams traveled to Green Bay to take on the world champion Packers and silenced them and an overflow crowd, 27-14, to take sole possession of first in the NFL’s western division for the first time in their history. It was their second win over the Packers in 15 tries.
Down, 14-6, entering the fourth, the Rams scored the game’s last 21 points, two TDs by Colella and the other by Don Greenwood.
Waterfield then masterminded the Rams’ 4121 win in Chicago over the Bears on Oct. 21, throwing for 252 yards.
Another showdown with the Eagles loomed, this one a league game instead of the teams’ exhibition earlier in the year.
“A team with our potential just won’t lose three in a row,” Eagles coach Greasy Neale said after his squad had lost to the Lions and Redskins.
Neale was right, as the Rams were handed a 2814 road setback. Twice the Rams fumbled inside the Eagles’ 5.
In a moment of frustration in the final minute, the Rams’ Pat West tackled Don McDonald in the back of the end zone out of bounds after a TD, prompting McDonald to throw punches. Eagles fans rushed the field to assist McDonald, and several policemen had to stop the altercation.
At the Polo Grounds on
Nov. 4, the Rams returned to their winning ways, 21-17 over the Giants. In the fourth, trailing, 17-14, the Giants went for it on fourth-and-short. Matheson stopped Bill Paschal for a one-yard loss. Two plays later, Gehrke sped over right guard into daylight for the eventual winning score on a 35-yard TD.
The trip to New York, pushing the Rams to 5-1 in league play, concluded a month-long road trip.
That the Rams were contending was unlikely.
The franchise had suspended operation in 1943. So when it returned in 1944, they had 10 players. Chile Walsh scoured the country for 14 free agents, two newcomers out of the service and a trade with the Lions to acquire Colella. Matheson and Benton were the lone holdovers from the 1942 Rams, and with so many rookies, only 12 players were holdovers from that 1944 team that went 4-6.
A crowd of close to 30,000 was expected at League Park against Don Hutson and the Packers. The capacity crowd got a treat, as Gehrke rumbled for scoring jaunts of 78 and 42 yards in the opening quarter as the Rams recorded a 20-7 win. The 78-yarder came on the first play from scrimmage.
Perhaps as remarkable as the sight at League Park of the Rams dispatching the reigning world champions was one off the field during that season.
Waterfield and Russell — noted at the time as the “most photographed woman in the world” — lived in a one-room downtown apartment with a kitchenette. Waterfield would wake up at 8 a.m., get a cup of coffee from Russell and leave for practice by 9 a.m. The couple was said to take in movies downtown nightly.
The Rams rolled past the
Cardinals, 35-21, at Comiskey Park, with Benton hauling in a pair of TDs, and clinched a spot in the NFL championship game the following week with a 2821 victory over the Lions in Detroit. Benton had 10 catches for 303 yards and a touchdown, shattering Hutson’s then-NFL single-game yardage record.
The Rams closed the regular season with a 20-7 win over the visiting Boston Yanks to get to 9-1.
After tussling for the eastern division title to the final week, the 8-2 Redskins emerged as the victor and the Rams’ opponent for the NFL title.
The Rams were installed as the betting favorite and were said to have a better line, riling Redskins line coach Turk Edwards.
“That’s a lot of malarkey about Cleveland having the better line,” Edwards said. “You usually can get the answer to that one by checking the team records, and we allowed fewer points than any other team, east or west.”
In the days leading into the game at Cleveland Stadium, Northeast Ohio was hit hard by snowfall. Chile Walsh asked the city to help clear the field at the team’s expense.
Cleveland law director Lee Howley employed 35 city garbage collectors to move 18 inches of snow off a tarp sitting on top of 9,000 straw bales.
The problem was, a new snowstorm arrived just as the old snow was being moved that made seats and aisles impassable. So Howley crafted a plan.
A group of 100 men from the United States Employment Service would begin work at midnight to clear the field and seating area.
Then at 7 a.m. on game day, in temperatures estimated at 8 below zero, a group of high school students and Cleveland utility workers began removing the straw bales. Those were loaded into 30 truck trailers, 15 backed up to each sideline, and “dumped near the stadium.”
“It ought to be quite a pile,” Howley said.
As for fan parking? “We are not even thinking about that,” Howley said.
As for the Rams, they were forced to practice at the 107th Cavalry Armory. The Redskins, with Baugh nursing a back injury, were hoping to have a practice on an area field. They planned to bring 1,000 fans and their 120-piece marching band.
The game was expected to still draw around 45,000, with gate receipts surpassing $150,000.
When kickoff came at 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 16, 1945, the temperature was a balmy 6 above.
The conditions dropped the crowd to 32,178 hearty souls. Russell, who had spent most of the season with her husband, was not one of them, having been called back to Hollywood for a movie. She listened to the game on the radio.
Back in Cleveland, an upper-deck water main burst, leaving a sheet of ice for fans to navigate. Several fell, but no one was seriously hurt.
Those hearty souls did witness history, though.
The Rams edged the Redskins, 15-14, to win the NFL championship.
The unheralded Gillette, with Adam Walsh capitalizing on Redskins’ overshifting, accounted for 101 yards and a 44-yard receiving touchdown. Benton caught nine passes for 126 yards, and Waterfield kicked an extra point that was partially blocked but reached the crossbar, teetered and went over.
Two Redskins field-goal attempts were no good in the fourth. Backup and Lorain native Albie Reisz sealed the Rams’ win in the final minute with an interception.
A few fans, eager to get on the field and celebrate, set leftover straw on fire, which was quickly extinguished.
“You were great all the way,” Adam Walsh told his euphoric team postgame.
Waterfield had a memorable exit that afternoon, leading the Rams to a title as a rookie and agreeing to a three-year, $60,000 contract that made him the highest-paid player in the NFL.
He then departed for his Los Angeles home by car.
Reeves had an odd reaction to the win.
“Well, they did it,” he said. “I’ve been used to losing for so long I wasn’t counting on anything until it was all over.”
It was all over for the Cleveland Rams at that point anyway.
On Jan. 13, 1946, it was announced the Rams were indeed moving to Los Angeles.
Reeves denied the move was happening nearly to the day it was made official.
Cleveland newspapers were on strike, so the lone local account of the move came in the Painesville Telegraph.
“It has been my longrange plan to move to Los Angeles, ever since I took over the Cleveland franchise in 1941,” Reeves said. “I have lost money every year, $40,000 with a championship team last season. I consider Los Angeles the greatest city for the future of football in the United States.”
But not before the Cleveland Rams, far from lacking in subplots, made an indelible imprint as an NFL champion.