Many of you probably haven't heard of this guy, but here goes ...
After catching 18 passes for the Cardinals in 1939, Joel Mason jumped to the AFL, a new league, in 1940. The AFL played a 10-game schedule, but since he split the season between two teams (Milwaukee and Boston) Mason managed to get into 11 games, and did well enough that he was chosen as a second-team all-star. Then, in 1941, he had a season for the ages.
Mason started out with the Kenosha Cardinals, an independent team that was sort of an unofficial member of the AFL. In 1940 Kenosha played six games against AFL teams, winning four of them; emboldened by that success, in 1941 the team scheduled a half-dozen games with NFL teams. Several of those games were played in August during training camp. Mason played in two of them, a 35-6 loss to the Eagles on Aug. 26 and a 34-7 loss to the Giants five days later. At that point he left Kenosha -- whether by choice or because the Cardinals let him go, I don't know.
Mason didn't have to go far to find a new job; he caught on with the Milwaukee Chiefs of the AFL and played for them in the regular season opener, a 34-7 loss to the Columbus Bulls on Sept. 14. But a week later he turned up with the Long Island Indians of the American Association. He helped them beat the Wilmington Clippers on Sept. 21 -- and then hit the road again. The following Sunday, Sept. 28, he was back in the Milwaukee, but this time playing for the visiting New York Americans as they handed the Chiefs a 10-3 loss.
Mason seemed to have finally found a home with the Americans. He stayed with them for seven games, through a loss to Milwaukee in a Nov. 2 rematch, but then disappeared AGAIN, only to resurface 3,000 miles away on Nov. 23, playing for the San Diego Bombers of the Pacific Coast League against the Hollywood Bears. He finished the season with San Diego on Dec. 14. Altogether he had played in 12 or 13 games (newspapers printed incomplete lineups for one San Diego game) with five different teams, in three different leagues. If that's not a record, it ought to be.
Mason joined the Packers in 1942 and stayed for four years, never missing a game. No wonder -- he'd done a whole career's worth of bouncing around in 1941.
The Wanderer
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John Maxymuk
- Posts: 123
- Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:23 pm
Re: The Wanderer
[Here are some colorized cards I created for Mason:
- 1942jmason2.jpg (25.74 KiB) Viewed 9395 times
- 1943jmason2.jpg (24.76 KiB) Viewed 9395 times
- 1944jmasonc4.jpg (25.47 KiB) Viewed 9395 times
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John Maxymuk
- Posts: 123
- Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:23 pm
Re: The Wanderer
And one more:
- 1945jmason.jpg (22.18 KiB) Viewed 9395 times
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rhickok1109
- Posts: 1491
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Re: The Wanderer
It might be worth noting that Johnny Blood and Beattie Feathers played for that Kenosha team in 1940. John also played for them in 1941, but I don't believe Feathers did.
Re: The Wanderer
rhickok1109 wrote:It might be worth noting that Johnny Blood and Beattie Feathers played for that Kenosha team in 1940. John also played for them in 1941, but I don't believe Feathers did.
Right. Feathers was gone in Kenosha in 1941. Blood, on the other hand, not only returned to play with the Cardinals again; he also played one game with the Buffalo team in the AFL. Oddly, he played under sort of a reverse alias -- using his real name, McNally.