Wednesday pro football the domain of Spartans and Pirates, but rarely in modern NFL

Chris Adamski
Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 4:35 p.m. | Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 4:35 p.m.

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Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr., shown in his later years. Rooney’s team was called the Pirates when it debuted in 1933. Its first four games were at home and played on Wednesdays. Pennsylvania’s “blue laws” at the time prohibited Sunday sports. The franchise wasn’t renamed the Steelers until 1940. By then, it had played 10 Wednesday games, but none since — until, perhaps, the scheduled Wednesday kickoff between the Steelers and Baltimore Ravens.

If you’re younger than 75 years old, you’d at best only be able to recall one NFL game played on a Wednesday. And if you’re significantly older than that, you might be among the select few still left among us who remembers the Portsmouth Spartans.

Yes, playing a pro football game on “hump day” is one for the ages.

A third rescheduling has left us — for now, at least — with a 3:40 p.m. Wednesday kickoff between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens at Heinz Field. Should the game take place that day, it would be only the second on a Wednesday in the NFL since 1949. The Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants opened the 2012 season on Sept. 5, 2012, eschewing the traditional Thursday night season-opening in deference to President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.

That was the 37th Wednesday game in the century-plus of NFL play. The first 36 were played prior to 1950. The franchise Art Rooney founded in Pittsburgh in 1933 played its first four games on Wednesdays that year, all at home.

An explanation? Pennsylvania’s “Blue laws” that prohibited sporting events (among other things) on Sundays. The laws were overturned via referendum that November; the following Sunday after Election Day, the Steelers hosted the Brooklyn Dodgers at Forbes Field (according to pro-football-reference.com).

“You have to be ready for schemes,” @Steelers defensive captain Cameron Heyward said. “We have to understand the personality of (the Ravens), what they like to run."https://t.co/86lZNYRB9e

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Pittsburgh’s pro team played six more Wednesday games over the next three years, its most recent on Oct. 14, 1936 — a 17-0 win against the Philadelphia Eagles at Forbes Field. Interestingly, each of the first four times Pittsburgh hosted Philadelphia, the games were played on Wednesdays.

The use of “Pittsburgh” is necessary because the Steelers were not yet the Steelers. They adopted that name in 1940 and were the “Pirates” prior to that.

The Detroit Lions, similarly, were not the Detroit Lions until 1934, when they relocated and renamed themselves from the Portsmouth Spartans. That’s Portsmouth, Ohio, on the state’s southern border along the banks of the Ohio River and across from Kentucky.

The Spartans played eight of the franchise’s first 15 home games on Wednesdays, according to pro-football-reference.com. They’d play one more Wednesday home game in Portsmouth. Upon moving to Detroit, the Lions played one Wednesday game during each of their first three seasons. That franchise has participated in 13 Wednesday games, the most of any NFL team and the lone team with more than Pittsburgh.

Even if none — until now — actually has involved a team called the “Steelers.”

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Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.