The Philadelphia Record
December 14, 1925

POTTSVILLE FANS TO HONOR TEAM

Banquet is Planned for This Wednesday Night at Hotel Allen.

STRIEGEL STATES VIEWS

Pottsville, Pa., Dec. 13 -- The Pottsville Chamber of Commerce, which has arranged a banquet for the Pottsville Maroons, in honor of the winning of the National League championship, will not alter its course because of attempts being made to have the league refuse to award the championship to Pottsville.

"The Maroons have honestly won the league emblem by the number of games won, and any attempt to take their honors from them by a few men sitting in a room and issuing decrees will not count with the sports of the country.," declared officers of the Chamber of Commerce. The banquet will take place at Hotel Allen, Wednesday night, and among the speakers will be sporting writers of national prominence.

Dr. Striegel, as manager of the Pottsville club, was today notified by supporters of the organization that his action in playing the Four Horsemen yesterday has unanimous approval in the coal region. Nearly everybody locally knows Striegel won the National League honors at considerable financial loss to himself. Even the Chicago game, when the Cardinals were defeated lost the Maroons $2000 because of a billboard which cut off attendance.

"The league gave me permission to play at Philadelphia yesterday ," stated Dr. Striegel today. "After I signed the contract, and when the game was already being advertised, I was notified by the league not to play the game. I asked whether the league would make good on the financial loss caused by the breaking of the contract. The answer was the league would do anything within reason. This meant nothing to me and we went on with the game, as we were in honor bound to do.

"Although I have not as yet received any notification of any action of the league, yet they prevented my team from playing at Providence today, although all the Providence newspaper men say the fans of that city wanted to see Pottsville play. Our interests will be amply protected by law."

The Philadelphia Record
December 17, 1925

POTTSVILLE STILL MEMBER OF PRO LEAGUE

Manager Striegel Has Received No Word From President Carr and Is Confident That Team Will Be Retained in National Circuit.

Pottsville, Pa., Dec. 16 -- "Pottsville Maroons are still members of the National Professional Football League. The club which won the highest standing has not been ejected from the organization, notwithstanding the many published statements to this effect," declared Dr. Striegel, manager of the Maroons, at a banquet given the players by the Pottsville Chamber of Commerce tonight.

The banquet was made the rallying place for all the prominent football experts of the Schuylkill district and mingling with the Pottsville victors were the managers and prominent members of Coaldale, Shenandoah, Gilberton and Mahanoy City clubs of last year, all of whom won high standing.

Dr. Striegel piloted Pottsville to the championship of the coal region last year, and when he got into deeper waters this year and joined the National League, few of his coal region backers dreamed that he would end hte [sic] season at the head of the league and that among the clubs that Pottsville would overthrow in its march to victory would be such teams as Frankford, Chicago Cardinals, Providence, Akron, Canton, Green Bay, Buffalo, Columbus and Cleveland.

"I believe the National League will do us justice," continued Dr. Striegel. "We have not willfully violated any rule, we won our standing honestly and in the eyes of the sporting world we are the national champions. And this is even more to use than the emblems and gold footballs handed out by the league to the club declared the victor."

Members of the club present were presented with valuable trophies of Pottsville's great year in football in the shape of expensive traveling bags. Captain Charlie Berry, Jack Ernst, Duke Osborne and "Hoot" Flanagan were unable to be present, but the laurel wreaths of victory were placed upon their brows in their absence.

Coach Rick Rauch, Eddie Doyle, Barney Wentz, Danny Hughes, Fungie Lebengood, Herb Stein, Russ Stein, Russ Hathaway, Frank Racis, Frank Bucher and trainer Eddie Gillespie were present to hear the laudations bestowed upon them by manager Striegel, Theodore Schneider, of the board of managers, Ed Bennis, former Penn star, and others.

Notwithstanding a new formation of the National League has been announced as in contemplation containing none but cities of large population. Pottsville is hopeful that it will continue in fast company next year. All the speakers at the banquet tonight were strong on this point.

Schneider pointed out that in the large cities football patronage is divided up among college teams, whereas in towns like Pottsville, having Schuylkill county's population of 250,000 to draw upon, the professional teams have no opposition. Pottsville, Schneider stated, pays its players as much money as does any big city.

He praised the nerve and sportsmanship of Manager Striegel, who is a physician in active practice, and who assumed considerable of the financial risk in promoting the Pottsville team this year, the venture being risky only because of the miners strike. Had it not been for this strike, declared the speakers, Pottsville would have $25,000 more in its treasury than it now has. This is no vague conjecture, as the park at every game this fall was surrounded by thousands unable to pay their way in.

There was much disappointment that Judge Bon[?]well and Ray Curran, of Philadelphia, who were expected, found it impossible to present.