The New York Giants (informally known as Brickley's Giants and Brickley's New York Giants) were a professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team with the American Professional Football Association (now the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

) whose only season played was in

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in Brazil. ** The Spanish liner ''Santa Isabel'' bre ...

. The team has also been referred to as the Brooklyn Giants and Brickley's Brooklyn Giants. The Brickley's Giants were the first of 17 professional football teams to represent New York City at one time or another. The team was founded in 1919 by Charles Brickley, who received All-American honors while at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Brickley's Giants played two games in their only season, losing to the

Buffalo All-Americans Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under multiple names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL-era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from ...

, 55–0, and the Cleveland Tigers, 17–0. It was the second-shortest-lived franchise in APFA/NFL history, behind only another former New York APFA team, the

Tonawanda Kardex Tonawanda may refer to: * Tonawanda (CDP), New York, consisting of the Town of Tonawanda less the Village of Kenmore *Tonawanda (city), New York, officially City of Tonawanda, bordered on three sides by the Town of Tonawanda *Tonawanda (town), New ...

, who played only one game in the same 1921 season.

History

1919 team

The team was sponsored by the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team, and coached by Brickley, a halfback who was generally considered the finest kicker of his day. Home games were to be played at the baseball Giants' home field, the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

. The team was formed with the intent of competing in 1919. However, after the team's first practice, the 1919 schedule, that began with an opening day game against the Massillon Tigers, was scratched because of conflict with New York's

blue law Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws and Sunday closing laws, are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for religious reasons ...

s. In 1919 the city allowed professional baseball on Sunday and the Giants thought the law would also apply to football. However, it was ruled that professional football was still outlawed on Sundays, so the team disbanded.

1921 team

The APFA had played a showcase game between the

Canton Bulldogs The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football Lea ...

and the

at the Polo Grounds in December 1920; 20,000 spectators witnessed the contest, a strong crowd for the nascent league. The success of that game prompted the league to seek a New York City-based team for the 1921 season. The Giants thus reformed with the financial backing from boxing promoter, Billy Gibson. Aside from Brickley, the team had no college stars. Joining Charles with the Giants was his brother George Brickley, who played baseball as an

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...

with the

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oakla ...

. The 1921 version of the team played several exhibition games, but only two league games, losing to the Buffalo All-Americans in October, and again to the Cleveland Tigers that December. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported that the game against

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native ...

and his Cleveland Tigers, "was lopsided and had little to excite even the most rabid of rooters." In between games between APFA clubs, the Giants played a number of non-league games against lesser teams. The franchise played two seasons as an independent and folded after the 1923 season. During their 1921 season, the Giants played their home games at Commercial Field and

Ebbets Field Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. It is mainly known for having been the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League (1913–1957). It was also home to five pr ...

, both located in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, and the Polo Grounds, located in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Legacy

In 1925, with the NFL in need of a franchise in a large-city market that could be used to showcase the league, NFL President Joseph Carr traveled to New York City to offer Billy Gibson, the owner of the Brickley Giants, a new franchise. Gibson declined Carr's offer for a new franchise, but instead referred Carr to a long-time friend of his,

Tim Mara Timothy James Mara (July 29, 1887 – February 16, 1959) was the founding owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL).''Wellington, the Maras, the Giants, and the City of New York'', Carlo DeVito, Triumph Books, 2006, pp ...

: Mara accepted the offer, and established the modern-day

franchise. Other than the name, there is no relation between the Brickley Giants and the modern New York Giants franchise.

Season-by-season

References

External links

Team history
{{Defunct NFL teams American football teams established in 1919 American football teams disestablished in 1921 Defunct National Football League teams American football teams in New York City Defunct American football teams in New York (state)