The Green Bay Packers started out the 1944 season by dropping the opening exhibition game to the Washington Redskins, 20-7, with Fritsch scoring the lone touchdown for Green Bay.
“Green Bay took an early lead, when Ted Fritsch rammed over from the three-yard line early in the first period, but the Packers were stymied from there on out as (Sammy) Baugh’s passes found Steve Bagarus and Joe Aguirre with unerring regularity,” the Stevens Point Journal reported.
The Packers ended the regular season at 8-2, grabbing first place in the Western Division — two games ahead of the Chicago Bears.
Fritsch played his role in earning that top spot, leading his team in rushing at 322 yards — 115 yards ahead of (Don) Perkins.
He also tied for second in scoring and led in interceptions and kickoff returns that season.
“Endowed with a running style once likened to a ‘berserk billy goat’ by Chicago Tribune sportswriter Ed Prell, Ted Fritsch led the Packers in rushing during the regular season and then scored both of their touchdowns in the title game en route to their winning the 1944 NFL championship,” wrote Packers Historian Cliff Christl.
“In the Packers’ 14-7 victory over the New York Giants in the 1944 NFL championship, Fritsch flashed his power by scoring on a one-yard, fourth-down plunge and also showed how surprisingly nimble-footed he was for a low-slung, bull-like runner by turning a pass in the flat into a 28-yard touchdown reception.”
“Unlike the Packers’ previous five championships, this one was not greeted with a huge celebration,” Christ wrote in The Greatest Story in Sports. “Only about 1,500 fans met the team at the Milwaukee Road’s small Oakland Street railroad station on the west side late Monday night, while a dinner that had been planned was cancelled because a number of players headed directly to their homes in other cities.”
“There was no formal speech-making at the station, but there was plenty of cheering, back slapping, music and noise as the members of the championship 11 came home,” the Dec. 19, 1944, Green Bay Press-Gazette stated.
“The returning contingent was led by Assistant Coach Don Hutson, in the absence of Coach Curly Lambeau, busy in New York at a meeting of the owners and officials of the National Football League.”
To be continued
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