The 1939

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

All-star Game was the professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

league's first-ever

all-star game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...

, sponsored by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' as a charity game to benefit the

Salvation Army Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

. It pitted the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

, the league's

champion A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, an ...

for the 1938 season, against a team of all-stars. The game was played on Sunday, January 15, 1939, at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in front of 15,000 fans; although 30,000 spectators were expected, bad weather led to the poor attendance. The Giants defeated the all-stars by a score of 13–10. The players on the all-star squad were selected by fan balloting. For the only time in the game's history, players from teams outside the NFL were invited; five players from the

Los Angeles Bulldogs The Los Angeles Bulldogs were a professional American football team that competed from 1936 to 1948 (the last year as the Long Beach Bulldogs). Formed with the intention of joining the National Football League in 1937 (and turned down in favor of ...

and Hollywood Stars, two local teams in what would eventually become the

Pacific Coast Professional Football League The Pacific Coast Professional Football League (PCPFL), also known as the Pacific Coast Football League (PCFL) and Pacific Coast League (PCL) was a professional American football Minor league football (gridiron), minor league based in California. ...

, were among the members of the All-Star team.

Rosters

The players involved in this game were:

All-American All-Stars roster

New York Giants roster

References

{{New York Giants Pro Bowl

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...

National Football League All-Star Game National Football League All-Star Game 1939 in Los Angeles National Football League in Los Angeles New York Giants January 1939 sports events