1934 NFL Championship Game

1934 NFL Championship Game

Chicago Bears	New York Giants
13	30

	1	2	3	4	Total
Chicago Bears	0	10	3	0	13
New York Giants	3	0	0	27	30

Date

December 9, 1934

Stadium

Polo Grounds

City

New York City

Attendance

Timeline

Previous game

Next game

1933

1935

The 1934 National Football League Championship Game, also known as The Sneakers Game, was played at the Polo Grounds in New York City on December 9, 1934. The final score was New York Giants 30, Chicago Bears 13. It was the 2nd annual NFL championship game.

A freezing rain the night before the game froze the Polo Grounds field.^[1] After Ray Flaherty, a Giants end, made a remark to Giants' head coach Steve Owen suggesting that sneakers would provide better footing on the frozen playing surface, Owen sent Abe Cohen to Manhattan College to get some sneakers. Cohen arrived in the third quarter with nine pairs of basketball sneakers from the college.^[2]

The Bears were leading the Giants 13-3 when the Giants switched to the basketball sneakers. Giants quarterback Ed Danowski threw a touchdown pass to Ike Frankian to make the score 13-10 (actually, the pass was intercepted at the Bears' 2-yard line, but Frankian then grabbed the ball out of the defender's hands). On the Giants next drive, running back Ken Strong scored on a 42-yard touchdown run. Later an 11-yard run by Strong was turned into another touchdown for the Giants. Finally the Giants closed it out with Danowski's 9-yard touchdown run. The game ended with the Giants ahead: 30-13.

Many of the participants have been interviewed since the game took place, most notably Bronko Nagurski of the Bears and Mel Hein of the Giants. Generally, players from both sides have attributed the Giants' second half dominance to their selection of footwear. A mini-documentary of the game, narrated by Pat Summerall, can be seen in the 1987 video "Giants Among Men."

Scoring summary

NY - FG Strong 38 3-0 NYG
CHI - Nagurski 1 run (Manders kick) 7-3 CHI
CHI - FG Manders 17 10-3 CHI
CHI - FG Manders 22 13-3 CHI
NY - Frankian 28 pass from Danowski (Strong kick) 13-10 CHI
NY - Strong 42 run (Strong kick) 17-13 NYG
NY - Strong 11 run (kick failed) 23-13 NYG
NY - Danowski 9 run (Molenda kick) 30-13 NYG

Citations

^ Pervin, 2009, pp. 9-10.
^ Cavanaugh, 2008 pg. 111

References

Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)
The Sporting News Complete Super Bowl Book 1995 (ISBN 0-89204-523-X)
Strange But True Football Stories (ISBN 0-394-80198-9)
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House. eISBN ISBN 978-1-58836-697-9
Pervin, Lawrence A. (2009). Football's New York Giants. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-4268-3

Preceded by 1933 NFL Championship Game	NFL Championship Game 1934	Succeeded by 1935 NFL Championship Game

New York Giants 1934 NFL Champions

Red Badgro · Bob Bellinger · Knuckles Boyle · Dale Burnett · John Cannella · Stu Clancy · Ed Danowski · Johnny Dell Isola · Ray Flaherty · Ike Frankian · Butch Gibson · Len Grant · Mel Hein · Tex Irvin · Potsy Jones · Max Krause · Jack McBride · Bo Molenda · Bill Morgan · Harry Newman · John Norby · Bill Owen · Henry Reese · Kink Richards · Babe Scheuer · Wee Willie Smith · Harry Stafford · Ken Strong
Head Coach Steve Owen

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Founded in 1925 • Based in East Rutherford, New Jersey

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1 – From 1966 to 1969, the first four Super Bowls were "World Championship" games played between two independent professional football leagues, AFL and NFL, and when the league merged in 1970 the Super Bowl became the NFL Championship Game. 2 – Dates in the list denote the season, not the calendar year in which the championship game was played. For instance, Super Bowl XLI was played in 2007, but was the championship for the 2006 season.