Samuel H. Deutsch (April 2, 1892 - September 4, 1958) was a prominent sports franchise owner and jeweler. He is best known as being the owner of the

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 ...

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive Fi ...

, formerly the Cleveland Tigers, in 1923 as well as for moving the Canton Bulldogs to

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

from Canton and renaming the team the

Cleveland Bulldogs The Cleveland Bulldogs were a team that played in Cleveland, Ohio in the National Football League. They were originally called the Indians in 1923, not to be confused with the Cleveland Indians NFL franchise in 1922. However, after team owner ...

Jeweler

He was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, however his family moved to Cleveland, in 1899. After finishing school, Sam began working for his father's jewellery firm, where he learned the art of diamond cutting. He succeeded his father as company president and became chairman of the board in 1956, with his son Robert as president.

Sports

In 1923, Deutsch bought the defunct Cleveland Tigers franchise after it was vacated by

Jimmy O'Donnell James M. O'Donnell (November 3, 1872 - October 1, 1947) was the owner and co-founder of the first National Football League (then called the American Professional Football Association) franchise in Cleveland, called the Cleveland Tigers. He was a ...

, and renamed the team the Cleveland Indians. During the 1923 season, the Indians finished in fifth place in the 20-team NFL. Prior to purchasing the Indians, Deutsch was involved in both minor league

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

in Cleveland. During that season though, the NFL champion Canton Bulldogs lost money, and Deutsch purchased the team for $1,500 from a group of Canton businessmen. He took the team's best players out of Canton and renamed the team the Cleveland Bulldogs, leaving the Canton franchise inactive. The Cleveland Bulldogs won the 1924 NFL championship, and Deutsch sold the inactive franchise back to Canton for $3,000. With key players returning to Canton in time for the 1925 season. The Cleveland Bulldogs though finished the 1925 season in 12th place in the NFL. After a hiatus in 1926, Deutsch revived the Cleveland Bulldogs. Although the team finished fourth in 1927, it was unsuccessful financially, and Deutsch sold the franchise to

Elliot Fisher Elliot (also spelled Eliot, Elliotte, Elliott, Eliott and Elyot) is a personal name which can serve as either a surname or a given name. Although the given name has historically been given to males, females have increasingly been given the name ...

owner of the

Detroit Wolverines The Detroit Wolverines were a 19th-century Major League Baseball team that played in the National League from 1881 to 1888 in the city of Detroit, Michigan. In total, they won 426 games and lost 437, taking their lone pennant (and winning the pre ...

. The 1928 Wolverines roster included 12 former Bulldogs, 8 of whom became New York Giants when Fisher sold the Wolverines to

Tim Mara Timothy James Mara (July 29, 1887 – February 16, 1959) was the founding owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL).''Wellington, the Maras, the Giants, and the City of New York'', Carlo DeVito, Triumph Books, 2006, pp ...

in 1929.

References

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Samuel DeutschOhio History Central: Cleveland Indians (1923)
* *
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Cleveland Bulldogs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, Samuel 1892 births 1958 deaths National Football League owners People from Shaker Heights, Ohio