Spec series: 150 Years of Football

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
#1

I suspect some of the posters here are not Spectator subscribers… Steve Milton has written and posted a number of fascinating articles on Hamilton football over the years. One of the more interesting pieces is an article written by Gary Lautens in 1959. I would love to copy it here, but there might be copyright issues. Instead, here’s the link:Lautens 1959 article

Here’s a snippet:
In 1910, the club carefully budgeted such items each game as "apples and sandwiches — $7.50; oranges and gum — $3.85; street car to grounds — $7.50."In 1958, the club spent $57,000 on travel alone — $20,000 of that for one game, the Grey Cup contest in Vancouver.

#2

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

#3

An observation, just for the other old guys who are regulars in this forum – The photo in that article is not, as claimed, of a 1959 Montreal @ Hamilton game, unless it was, possibly, a pre-season game when both teams were wearing old uniforms, as they may have done back then.

The Ticats, starting in 1958, wore jerseys with “UCLA” stripes circling the shoulders to the underarms, and gold helmets with a wide white stripe, and a thin black stripe in the middle of it. In '59, the Alouettes had wrap-around white stripes, mid arm, on their red jerseys, and a white stripe on their red helmets.

#4

Love it!!, Thanks for posting! :slight_smile:

#5

Good catch, OttawaCat!

That photo, which is for sale on e-bay, is from a 1953 game between Hamilton and Toronto!

In addition, that can’t be Don Maynard because he only played for the Cats in one year - 1959!

He was selected in the 9th round of the 1957 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. In 12 games as a rookie, he had 12 rushes for 45 yards (3.8 yards per carry), caught five passes for 84 yards (a 16.8 yard average) and played on special teams. After being released by the Giants during their 1959 training camp, he played one season in the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, catching just one pass for 10 yards. In the off-season, he worked as a plumber and a teacher.

Number 87 for the Cats was Ray Truant in 1953.

I’m pretty sure that the error was made by the Spec, and not the great Gary Lautens. R.I.P.

Update: I just sent an email to Steve Milton with this information.

#6

ClosetCat:
I appreciate your support of my “catch,” but I do believe the other team, in that photo, is the Alouettes. The Argos’ uniforms, in '53, included striped arms and light coloured helmets:

#7

Once again, you are correct. Thanks! I guess the ebay seller got it wrong too (perhaps made his product more marketable?).

Milty confirmed that the photo caption was an error. They had a person outside [the Spec] do the research for the photo. Still, a good article in my view…

#8

Closet: Thanks for finding this!

One of the most interesting things for me about the Gary Lautens article were the references about the gradual changes from rugby to football…such as the snap evolving from heeling the ball back (as in the rugby scrum) and the forward pass which was not allowed in rugby.

In the US the forward pass was legalized in 1906 when rugby games were played mainly at the college level.
In Canada we hung on to the original rugby rules longer and did not legalize the forward pass until 1929.

But some things never changed in the CFL. Long live the rouge! :smiley:

#9

The photo in the Hamilton Spectator article to which ClosetCat provided a link in his first post has now been changed.

:slight_smile:

#10

The Tiger-Cats I take it are wearing the cream coloured uniforms.

And note that there were no face masks in 1953! It was in 1954 that they started to catch on and by 1955 I think all players wore them.

:slight_smile:

#11

Hamilton introduced the snap.? Wonder how accurate this is?

Edit. Anyone else get an error message when they sign in or after they post?

#12

Testing 1 , 2 …

#13

In the replacement photo:

The Argos, in white, have the striped-arms and the Ticats uniforms were all “gold.”
It was an interesting time, in Canadian football, when close rivals played each other, home & away, on the Saturday and Monday of holiday weekends. The photo, of that Cats’ 26-0 victory, was taken, in Toronto, on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend '53. Two days later, the Argos won, here at Civic Stadium, 30-12.