Today's Tidbit... 100 Years of Football: The 1870s

This is the first in a series looking back at “100 Years Of Football,” syndicated cartoons published by Jerry Brondfield and Charles Beck in 1969. Today's version covers the 1870s.

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Tidbits are scheduled for release at 7:00 PM Eastern time each day, but yesterday, I skipped the scheduling step and inadvertently released the Today's Tidbit intended for today at 11:45 PM last night. (That Tidbit concerns athletes at Eastern Michigan in 1911 and is here.)

Since I mistakenly doubled your pleasure yesterday, I initially planned to skip posting today. However, I realized a few of you might go into Tidbit withdrawal, and rather than potentially kill off a paid subscriber, I opted to start a new series one week earlier than planned. The series is a rerun of a 1969 syndicated cartoon series by Jerry Brondfield (author) and Charles Beck (illustrator) called 100 Years Of Football, which they also released in book form.

The book is available on eBay, Amazon, and other used sources. (Brondfield, Jerry and Charles Beck. 100 Years Of Football. 1969)

The series included six cartoons per week during the 1969 season since even cartoonists rested on the Sabbath, with each week covering one decade of football history. I have not yet reviewed the full series of cartoons, so we may be in for a surprise or two as the season progresses, but let's take that risk.

Each week, the focus will be on the images and information Brondfield and Beck provided. Brief notes follow each cartoon, mostly so the cartoon's contents are discoverable from an indexing and search perspective. Additional commentary will be provided only if new information and views have emerged in the 50+ years since they published the series.