Future Baseball Hall of Famer Rube Waddell was with the Philadelphia Athletics, and pitcher Christy Mathewson a fullback for Pittsburgh.

A's owner Ben Shibe fielded a team made up of several baseball players as well as some local football talent.

However, both Rogers and Shibe knew that to lay claim (to what they hoped would be) the "World Championship"; they had to play a team from Pittsburgh, which was the focal point of football at the time.

Because of the animosity that existed between Philadelphia's Shibe and Rogers, Dave Berry was picked to the league's president.

With all the baseball involvement, training did not get underway for the football teams until September 29, 1902, with the season was scheduled to open a week later on October 4.

To make the preseason even less stressful, the average football team in 1902 only used about a half-dozen plays and they were all standard.

On Thanksgiving Day 1902, Berry billed a game between the Stars and the Athletics as being for the championship of the National Football League.

Although a Philadelphia victory on Thanksgiving would give the A's the championship hands down, a win by the Stars could tie the league race tighter.

Mack readied his A's for the big game by playing an exhibition tour through northern Pennsylvania and southern New York.

The Pittsburgh players were too busy suing Temple for their Thanksgiving Day money to do much gloating over their victory, and the story disappeared from the newspapers before the suit was settled.

[3] Meanwhile, several members of the Athletics and the Phillies went on to play in the first World Series of Pro football on a team erroneously named "New York" at Madison Square Garden (the "error" was deliberate as the tournament's founder felt that the combined team was the best in the event, and bestowed upon them home field advantage for the tournament).

Syracuse, with Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner at offensive guard, won the game 6–0 and went on to win the tournament.

While the NFL thrived in Philadelphia, it never took hold in Pittsburgh, where professional football had already had its moment in the spotlight come and go over the previous decade.

Under the proposal, teams would then begin play immediately after baseball season concluded and continue as long "as the weather is favorable."

Comiskey told reporters, "If pro football can be made to pay it will be an answer to a problem that has confronted baseball owners since the game started.

The story was only closely examined by only two national newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Los Angeles Times.

The commentary ended with a statement that college football was too big and would always draw a bigger crowd than the pro game.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times featured two articles on the pros and cons of a professional football league.

He then stated that pro football would have to rely on all-star games, which draw well at first, but fail to hold any long-term interest.

Comiskey's decision to take part in organizing a new professional football league based on the 1902 NFL was never made public.

At war's end, a flu pandemic swept the world, and virtually all of the professional football teams in the country shut down or drastically scaled back operations.