Army-Navy Game: 100 years ago, the Rivals Played in a Baltimore Classic

The ghosts of 33rd Street hark back in time, further than one might imagine. Once, in a stadium since demolished, the Baltimore Orioles won three world championships; the Baltimore Colts did the same.

Dig deeper, still. A century ago, on a cold, gray autumn day, Army and Navy played football at Municipal Stadium before a shivering crowd of 80,000 — the largest ever to watch a sporting event in Baltimore. Standing on the game site, 100 years later, one can almost hear the full-throated whoops and cheers of rabid fans echoing through time. It was, after all, the Roaring Twenties.

On Nov. 29, 1924, Army and Navy met for the 27th time, and the first in a major city other than New York or Philadelphia. As Baltimore had lobbied hard for the game, putting on the Ritz was a given. Out-of-towners streamed in by train and Model-Ts, packing hotels draped with bunting and pennants of the two storied rivals. When hotels filled, city residents offered rooms in private homes, sometimes free of charge.

Before the game, streets were scrubbed of both trash and thieves, The Evening Sun reported:

“Every man with a record as a pickpocket found circulating in the crowd was arrested and locked up until the visiting public left the city.”

The nation’s eyes were on Baltimore; no missteps allowed.  The Yellow Cab Company even placed an ad in The Sun, promising “no increase in rates for the Army-Navy game.”

Making an honest buck off the big game was the American way. Local shops, from clothiers to confectioners, pitched one-time weekend deals. The Hub, a department store on Charles St., offered “field glasses” (binoculars) for $15, and 3-foot Army and Navy felt pennants for $1.50. Nearby, Ortman’s Chocolates hawked “Army and Navy specials” for those with sweet allegiance.

The $4 game tickets set aside for the public went fast. Ten days before the contest, 1,500 seats were sold within five hours at the Park Board office in Courthouse Plaza. Nearly 300 diehards had waited all night — some for 14 hours — in the biting cold to buy two tickets each. By 10 a.m., the queue stretched six blocks long as fans in line argued who would win.

Army entered at 4-1, with two ties; Navy was 2-5. Not that records mattered. Four of the previous five games had been decided by a touchdown or less; in 1923, they’d battled to a scoreless tie before 66,000 at New York’s Polo Grounds.

Army’s team arrived midweek, held secret practices at the stadium and holed up in a dormitory at Johns Hopkins University, with guards stationed outside the building. Navy’s squad came by train from Annapolis on Saturday, save for Bill, their cloven-hooved mascot, who arrived by car, debarking for the public with gold ribbons dangling from his horns.

By mid-morning, crowds lined the streets between the B&O train station at Clifton Park and 33rd St., poised to cheer the 2,000 arriving Midshipmen and 1,000 Cadets as they marched to the ballpark. The uniformed procession didn’t disappoint.

“The parade was as dignified as a procession of Supreme Court justices,” The Sun reported. “In those rigid lines of erect marching men was a dignity that attained to stateliness.”

At the stadium, the Brigade and the Corps took their seats beside diplomats and dignitaries, Congressmen and celebrities, admirals and four-star generals. President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace, arrived — she was dressed to the nines in a fur coat with a fox collar and wearing a black hat with an uncurled ostrich feather. As Coolidge inched toward his seat, the Sun reported, he “tipped his hat to those nearby who cheered him … and then was lost in the mass of humanity that lined the bowl.”

Elsewhere in the stands sat Lieut. Frank Schoble, Jr., an Army veteran who’d been blinded in action during the Great War, and his companion, Lieut. Carl Hatch, of the Cecil Apartments in Baltimore, who’d offered to describe the game to his friend. Outside the gates, several thousand hardy souls stood on a slope overlooking the stadium to glimpse the game, braving the bitter wind. Their views were like those of many others in the vast, packed bowl.

“Out on the field, 22 little men — they seemed almost like puppets from the highest seats — fought to the death for an hour,” The Sun reported. It seemed longer in the cold. Huddled in their dugouts, on the sidelines, players knelt in knee-deep straw placed there to keep them warm.

In truth, the game was fraught with blunders. Army intercepted six Navy passes but missed three early field goal attempts. Eventually, Army’s kicker, Edgar Garbisch, found his mark and drove four drop kicks (including a 44-yarder) through the uprights for a 12-0 victory over the Midshipmen.

At the end, Cadets in the stands swarmed the field, hurled their caps over the bar of the goalposts and broke into an impromptu snake dance, as one, while their band played. The Army mule snorted, kicked his heels and dashed downfield, dragging his handlers, two terrified Cadets, behind.

For the 50 scribes who reported the game, Garbisch proved an enticing hero. Grantland Rice, dean of American sportswriters, wrote the next day that Garbisch “used his right toe as a flaming howitzer … upon the field of war.” Moreover, the Army captain and All-American center cut a dashing figure, The Sun reporting that “young women who visit West Point for the ‘hops’ refer to him as ‘that handsome Mr. Garbisch.’”

That night, the city was awash in revelry. Navy’s team and followers held a ball at the Belvedere Hotel; Army’s crowd partied with a banquet and dance at the Southern Hotel. Baltimoreans flocked to the Fifth Regiment Armory, which was fancied up with flags, potted palms and ferns. There, beneath lights bathed in gauzy red paper, couples danced to the music of two orchestras until 2 a.m. Then everyone left, the decorations came down and the Armory readied for the Baltimore Poultry Show, next up at that venue.

The city has hosted five Army-Navy Games since, most recently in 2016 at M&T Bank Stadium. They’ll play there again next year.

What became of Garbisch, the golden-toed hero of ’24? He graduated from West Point, served in World War II as a colonel and engineer, and got rich in business. Garbisch and his wife, Bernice, heiress to the Chrysler fortune, settled on the Eastern Shore at Pokety, a 480-acre estate near Cambridge. Avid art collectors and philanthropists, they donated several paintings to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

The couple died, within hours of each other, of separate illnesses in 1979. Garbisch was 80 years old.

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