The Mullica Hill library will be the setting for a talk by local author Lenny Wagner about a Moorestown native who was one of the country’s most prolific athletes in the 1920s.
The event is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. Wagner will discuss his latest book, “Playing With the Best: One Man’s Journey Through the Golden Age of Sports,” the story of Walter French.
French played both football and baseball. He was part of a 1925 NFL team, the Pottsville Maroons, who beat the Chicago Cardinals – now the Arizona Cardinals – for the NFL championship. French played halfback.
“He played very well,” Wagner said. “He led the NFL in yards per carry. He scored nine touchdowns in nine games. Only a handful of people in the NFL scored more touchdowns than he did. They beat the Cardinals 21-7.
“Walter French is far and away the star of the game.”
But the championship was stripped from the Maroons, who were suspended by the commissioner of baseball after playing a non-exhibition game in Philadelphia against players from the University of Notre Dame. The title then went to Cardinals.
The league argued that when the Maroons played the non-exhibition game, they impeded the territorial franchise rights of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who would become the Philadelphia Eagles in 1933. To this day, both the NFL and Pro Football Hall of Fame still consider the Cardinals the 1925 NFL champions.
Though French had his title stripped from him, he and his fellow players, the Philadelphia Athletics, would go on to win the 1929 World Series against the Chicago Cubs, with French in the outfield.
Wagner is also a Moorestown native who, at one point, was president of the township’s historical society, where he helped create exhibits such as Sports Legends of Moorestown in 2010. His book on French is his first published title. Copies will be available at the library.
The event is free, registration is required online at the GCLS website.
