Recently, ESPN’S ’Outside The Lines’ contacted a man named ’Pops” Bundy from Fargo, North Dakota. Bundy is 98 years young, and claims to have actually played FFB during the last Great Depression.
“Sure we played FFB, Bundy told ESPN. What else was there to do?. There was no television, no computers, no alcohol, no speakeasy’s, we couldn’t afford a fishing rod, Charlie Chaplin movies sucked. We peddled apples all week on the streets just to defray our 3-cent transactions. In the Great Depression we had to walk 8 miles, uphill both ways, to our Commish's tenement, just to give him our waivers and transactions. Sometimes, barefoot in the snow.
I remember we had this one team who never stopped griping about the harsh times. You can't ever get that stuff out of your head. 1929 was a good year in FFB for ’Pops’ Bundy, though. We stole RB Red Grange in the first round that year, and our 12-0 Green Bay Packers hook-up of QB Red Dunn and WR Verne Lewellen was virtually unstoppable. Our Frankford Yellow Jackets Defense was legit until financial hardships ended their season early.
But, we did ok with our Staten Island Stapletons defense/special teams pick-up after sloshing 16 miles in a Nor’easter to get them. I could have really used a rain coat that day. My FFB team was loaded. I had Pop Warner, Paddy Driscoll, Mule Wilson, Tillie Voss, Two-Bits Holman, Spin Roy, Earpe Blood, Gibby Welch, Patsy Giugliano, and an upstart rookie TE named Sarra Paylin. I battled a team named Grips of Despair, I recall. I blew by Despair when he had 5 Dayton Triangles out on a bye week, and I never looked back .
Our league was called Twelve Angry Men. It’s still called that today. The Twelve Angry Men trophy was made of cardboard. It’s all we could afford. The trophy got pretty nasty though, after 1931 winner Joe Rockbottom Heads, imbibing in some bootleg champagne, urinated in it. Rockbottom Heads had simply had enough of the Great Depression. He always wondered what was so great about it.
But, we all survived the last Great Depression, much of it thanks to our ability to escape into FFB. We just tried to shrug off the issues and have some fun. I swear I reckon my 1929 squad could put a lickin’ on the this 3-0 team I own this year. It would be close!
Those guys never had agents, they didn’t believe in bail outs…That Sarra Paylin was a great pick!”