Thanksgiving has always been a football holiday. The first football game was played between Princeton and Rutgers on Nov 6, 1869. The first Thanksgiving Day game was played only two weeks later between two independant teams in Philadelphia.
Since then, Thanksgiving has been a major milestone on college and high school schedules.
Today everyone thinks about the Lions and Cowboys hosting on Thanksgiving, but between the APFA/NFL's inception in 1920 and WWII, Thanksgiving was a busy day for the pro circuit, and usually featured major rivalries and landmark events. Red Grange's first appearance in the NFL with the Bears was in the battle of Chicago against the Cardinals in 1925. The first nationally broadcast football game was the 1934 Thanksgiving Day game between the Lions and Bears.
The Giants overall record on Thaksgiving Day is 7-5-3. In modern times they are 1-3, but prior to WWII they were 6-2-3. Interestingly, the Giants have never played a home game on Thanksgiving, all 15 contests were on the road, albeit it the majority at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn and Thompson Staadium in Staten Island, so travel was not a hardship.
Here's a link to the archived thread from last year which features game-by-game highlights and newspaper photos where I could find them.
Enjoy!
https://corner.bigblueinteractive.com/index.php?mode=2& thread=576074
Tuffy Leemans carries the ball through the Dodger line at Ebbets Field on Thanksgiving Day 11/25/1937
One of the things I really enjoyed that the league did from 2001-2004 was have the Thanksgiving games as throwback contests, I wish they'd return to that. The Lions plain silver and blue unforms are one of my favorites.
I learned while working on this project that Dallas did not host a Thanksgiving game in 1977. That year the St.Louis Cardinals had the game and played Miami. The next year Dallas hosted Washington and has held down the late afternoon slot ever since.
Thanksgiving Games at Gridiron Uniform Database - ( New Window )
Wondering if you had a theory about this? (and as a longtime season ticket holder, I'm not complaining at all over this)
Wondering if you had a theory about this? (and as a longtime season ticket holder, I'm not complaining at all over this)
That's a good question, I don't really know. For whatever reason they would play the Stapes and Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in October then away on Thanksgiving. I don't know the reasoning behind it.
When I had season tickets I'd always thought it would have been fun to go to a game at Giants Stadium on Thanksgiving and was annoyed that the Lions and Cowboys had their monopoly on it. (I'm not talking about a night game, I hate those.)