Here's a really interesting story and look at the Rams' uniform history. It might have been posted before, but its the first time Ive seen it:
St. Louis Rams Uniform and Team History
1937 & 1940
The well-traveled and storied Rams franchise began operations in 1936 as the Cleveland Rams, and was originally part of a league that was known as the AFL (American Football League) – not to be confused with the AFL that started in 1960.
However, in 1937 the NFL granted Homer Marshman an expansion franchise for the City of Cleveland for $10,000, and thus, the Cleveland Rams joined the 9 existing NFL teams to become the NFL’s 10th franchise. Marshman had named the team after one of the top collegiate teams of this era – the Fordham Rams – largely because he liked the school and the team’s nickname.
Playing their home games at ‘League Park’, the Rams had a very trying inaugural season – going 1-10. That being said, players such as rookie sensation Johnny Drake, Ted Rosequist, and Charles (Ookie) Miller looked great in this unique red & blue uniform [PLEASE NOTE: This blog formerly said the 1937 uniform was Red and Black, but I believe it was in fact Red and Dark Blue - see note below for more detail] which was only used for the 1937 season. By 1938, the team would convert the color scheme to the more recognizable and familiar blue & yellow-gold.
Note the red chest number, and the red ‘yoke’ that ran continuously from the neckline – all the way down the length of the sleeves. This is a familiar look to hockey fans, less so to football fans. For a few other football examples, see the 1930’s Giants, the 1960 Cowboys and the 1967 Steelers.
The 1940 Rams, shown here in a beautiful blue jersey with yellow yoke, fared slightly better than their ’37 counterpart – going 4-6-1. As mentioned earlier, in 1938, the franchise converted the uniform’s colors from red & blue to blue & yellow-gold. The jersey’s ‘yoke’ no longer runs the length of the sleeves – rather stopping at the shoulders, and the pants are now white - featuring a slender, dark blue stripe down the leg.
Aug 14, 20013 update:
The nice folks at St. Louis Post Dispatch
wrote a great article about the St. Louis Rams uniform history, including kindly a adding a reference to this blog. When I read the article, I wondered why they were referring to the 1937 uniform as Red and Black, when I have believed it was Red and Dark Blue. I know the uniform image above looks quite black, so at first glance people would naturally think the jersey was red and black, but our intention when painting this image 10+ years ago was for it to be a dark blue. I then I realized that even in my own text above I referred to it as being red and black when I meant to say it was red and blue.
My point is that I am not 100% sure if the color scheme was red and blue (which I believe), or red and black. I have just spent several hours going over Cleveland Plain Dealer articles from 1937 (and 1936) to see if I could clarify, and the closest I could come was this article in the Sept 11, 1937 Plain Dealer reporting on the Rams' opening game the night before (a 28-0 loss to the Detroit Lions). The article says "From the murky depths of the stadium, a drizzling rain glinting from their shiny new uniforms, the Cleveland Rams, newcomers to the National Pro Football League, last night took a good, long look at what lies ahead."
Allow me to expand a bit more on the history of the uniform.
The Cleveland Rams took their colors from the Fordham University Rams football team. Fordham's traditional primary color is maroon, and it's hard to get a complete grasp on what other color besides white may or may not have been used by Fordham in the 1930's (ie on their helmets) - some football programs from the era seem to suggest blue, and that adds to my reasoning why I think blue was the Cleveland Rams other color as opposed to black.
The one other supporting thought I have for 1937 being blue vs black is that between the 1937 and 1938 seasons, the Rams were apparently told by the NFL that their jersey was too close in colour to other NFL teams, and thus they switched to yellow and blue for 1938, ie they "swapped" red for yellow but kept blue. Not proof by any means, but a bit more support for blue vs black.
With respect to Fordham, many readers might say "Fordham - who's that?" Fordham, which is in the Bronx (New York City), was a force to be reckoned with in college football in the 1930's - here's what our friends at Wikipedia have to say about the Fordham football team, especially the teams of the 1930's:
"First recognized as a sport at St. John's College in 1882, Fordham in its hey-day played before sellout crowds at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium. In the mid-1930s, Fordham boasted what might have been the greatest offensive and defensive line in college history — the "Seven Blocks of Granite". Tackle Ed Franco was a consensus All-American. So was center Alex Wojciechowicz who later became an All-Pro with Detroit and Philadelphia. Guard Vince Lombardi later became one of the greatest of pro coaches. In 1937, the team went undefeated and was ranked number three nationally. So popular was Fordham, that the Cleveland NFL franchise formed in the '30s took its nickname from the Rams of the Bronx."
"On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the world's first televised American football game. In front of the sport's first live TV audience, the Rams defeated Waynesburg College, 34–7. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to the University of Alabama, 7–6. It was not for another month that a professional NFL game was televised."
For a fun 2 minute video history of the Rams uniform colors, please
click here. This is me talking in the video, and I say their colors were red and blue, but me saying that's the case is certainly not "proof" that those were the Rams' 1937 colors.
So my question to anyone reading this is: Does anyone out there have "proof" of what the Rams' 1937 color scheme was? By proof I mean something in writing from that era (not something written in the last 10-20 years), or of course even better would be an actual color photograph from a game or of an actual jersey? If you do, please share the info with me and I will update this blog.
Many thanks!
Scott Sillcox