Peter A. Laudati was a sports promoter and a part-owner of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He was also responsible for the construction of the team's stadium, the Cycledrome. Prior to this, he was a prominent Providence real estate developer.
Laudati was an ardent promoter of sports ventures; in addition to the Cycledrome he built Providence's Kinsley Park, home of the Providence Grays baseball team in the 1930s. He was instrumental in bringing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to play an exhibition game at Kinsley Park during their 1927 post-season barnstorming tour. [1]
Laudati established the Steam Roller football team in 1916 with James Dooley and Charles Coppen. The Steam Roller became a member of the NFL in 1925. In 1928, they became the first team in New England to win an NFL Championship. According to a Steam Roller cash book, kept by Laudati in 1927, that was donated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame by Ray Monaco, who also played with the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Rams, after a November 8 game against the New York Giants, brought a total intake of $9,911.51. Added to a $1,000 loan received from Laudati a day earlier, that gave the team a balance of nearly $11,000, more than enough to cover the game's expenses of $5,840.64. The NFL took 1 percent of the gate receipts from each game and the Cycledrome took 15 percent; players’ salaries ($1,972) and the visiting team's share ($2,475) accounted for most of the other expenses.
However, by 1931 financial issues forced the team to go on a hiatus and fold in 1933. Laudati turned this to his advantage. In 1934 he leveled the Cycledrome and built on the site an E.M. Lowe drive-in movie theater. When it opened in 1937, it was only the second drive-in theater in the nation, the first being in Jersey City. Although his name was not used in connection with the Cycledrome in any of the contemporary newspaper accounts, the chief financier and owner of the building was Laudati.
He died in September 1977.
The Providence Steam Rollers were a professional American football team based in Providence, Rhode Island in the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1931. Providence was the first New England team to win an NFL championship. The Steam Roller won the league's championship in 1928, which is the latest NFL championship win by a defunct team to date. Most of their home games were played at the Cycledrome, a 10,000-seat stadium that was built as a velodrome for bicycle races.
The St. Louis Gunners were an independent professional football team based in St. Louis, Missouri, that played the last three games of the 1934 National Football League season, replacing the Cincinnati Reds on the league schedule after the Reds' league membership was suspended. They won their first game against the Pittsburgh Pirates 6–0, and lost the last two to the Detroit Lions (40–7) and the Green Bay Packers (21–14). Six of the Reds players joined the team for the last two games. The team was headquartered at the St. Louis National Guard Armory, which accounts for its nickname the 'Gunners'.
James Gleason Dunn Conzelman was an American professional football player and coach, baseball executive, and advertising executive. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1964 and was selected in 1969 as a quarterback on the National Football League 1920s All-Decade Team.
Anthony H. Latone was an American football player of Lithuanian descent who played six seasons in the National Football League (NFL). Although he never attended college, he is unofficially considered the leading rusher of 1920s. During the six seasons he played in the NFL, Latone out-rushed and outscored the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Red Grange, despite playing 30 fewer games. He was also one of the very few known persons to knock Grange out of a game. Grange later said that, "even though George Halas was paying me, 500 bucks to barn storm the nation, it wasn't enough to be hit by the likes of Latone."
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 based in California. It operated from 1940 through 1948. One of the few minor American professional sports leagues that competed in the years of World War II, the PCPFL was regarded as a minor league of the highest level, particularly from 1940 to 1945, at a time in which the National Football League (NFL) did not extend further west than Chicago and Green Bay. It was also the first professional football league to have a team based in Hawaii.
Henry Louis Gehrig was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned for his prowess as a hitter and for his durability, which earned him the nickname "the Iron Horse". He is widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice, and a member of six World Series champion teams. He had a career .340 batting average, .632 slugging average, and a .447 on-base average. He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 runs batted in (RBIs). Gehrig is one of 18 players to hit four home runs in a single game. In 1939, Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and was the first MLB player to have his uniform number retired by a team when his number 4 was retired by the Yankees.
The Cycledrome was an American football stadium and velodrome located in Providence, Rhode Island. Its name derived from its intended use as a bicycle racing stadium (velodrome) when it was built in 1925.
Arnold A. Shockley was an American professional football player who spent one season in the National Football League (NFL) with the Boston Bulldogs, in 1929. Shockley was an all-conference tackle at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1926 and 1927. He then went on to be a coach and administrator working for more than 30 years in schools at Jackson, Greer and Kiowa counties. He spent his last 13 years working at Mountain View High School before retiring in 1965. He was inducted into the Southwestern Oklahoma State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1965.
Jesse Perry Jackson was a professional American football player who spent three seasons in the National Football League (NFL) with the Providence Steam Roller, from 1928 to 1930. Jackson won an NFL championship in 1928 with Providence.
The 1925 Chicago Cardinals–Milwaukee Badgers scandal was a scandal centered on a 1925 game between the Chicago Cardinals and the Milwaukee Badgers of the National Football League. The scandal involved a Chicago player, Art Folz, hiring a group of high school football players to play for the Milwaukee Badgers against the Cardinals. This would ensure an inferior opponent for Chicago. The game was used to help prop up their win–loss percentage and as a chance of wresting the 1925 Championship away from the first place Pottsville Maroons.
Pearce B. Johnson was a part-time sports editor for the Providence Journal and the general manager of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He was also one of the original founders of the team and served as the team's manager throughout its entire history (1916–1933). He is best known for hosting the very first night game in NFL history. After the team ended play in 1931, Johnson organized a semi-pro version of the Steam Roller in 1932 to play small-scale local teams. He also managed a minor league version of the Providence Steam Roller in the American Association in the 1940s. Later in life, he became a football historian for the Pro Football Researchers Association and was at one time their oldest member.
Charles B. Coppen was an American journalist who was the sports editor for the Providence Journal. He was also a baseball executive and a part owner of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He not only shared ownership of the team with Peter Laudati and James Dooley, but was also a co-founder of the team with Pearce Johnson, the team's general manager. In addition to his duties to the Steam Roller, he also had a budding law practice. His career with the Providence Journal ended with his involvement with the Steam Roller and in managing boxers. Coppen was also the manager of Providence's stadium, the Cyclodome.
Kinsley Park was an athletic field, used for professional football, minor league baseball and pro soccer, located in Providence, Rhode Island at the corner of Kinsley Avenue and Acorn Street, across Acorn from the Nicholson File Company Mill Complex. The field was used primarily by Providence Steam Roller, Providence Grays and the Providence Gold Bugs. The park was built primarily by Peter Laudati, a prominent Providence real estate developer and a part-owner of the Providence Steam Roller. He also built the Steam Roller's second stadium, the Cycledrome.
Joseph Peter "Speed" Breheney was a professional football player and coach with the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League (NFL). Born in Ireland, he later changed the spelling of his name to Joe Braney. In 1924 Braney was the coach of the Steam Roller as they were still an independent team. He was replaced during the team's first season in the league, 1926, by Archie Golembeski just before the season began.
John Grattan O'Connell was an American professional football player and sportswriter. He played two seasons in the National Football League (NFL) from 1926 to 1927. He played for the Hartford Blues during the 1926 season and the Providence Steam Roller during the 1927 season.
George F. Mulligan (1880–1955) was the leading sports promoter in Connecticut during the early 1900s. He was also the founder and owner of the Hartford Blues of the National Football League. The Blues, which were referred to as the Waterbury Blues, began as a semi-pro football team in 1924, before joining the early NFL in 1926.
Arthur Henry Forst was a professional football player in the early National Football League for the Providence Steam Roller. He was also a professional player for the Waterbury Blues, prior to that team's entry into the NFL in 1926.
The Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit was a loose association of American football clubs that operated from 1890 to approximately 1940. Originally amateur, professionalism was introduced to the circuit in 1892; cost pressures pushed the circuit to semi-professional status from about 1920 through the rest of its existence. Existing in some form for 48 years, it was one of the longest-lived paying football loops to operate outside the auspices of the National Football League.
Orland Francis Smith was an American football player.
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a football team that played one season in the minor Continental Football League in 1966. They were not related to the former National Football League or All-America Football Conference clubs of that name.