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On November 6, 1921, football fans were treated to the debut of the Tonawanda Kardex, also known as the Tonawanda Lumbermen, a squad based just outside of Buffalo, New York. The team’s name came from the American Kardex office furniture company, which was sponsoring them. The Kardex, a.k.a. Lumbermen, were absolutely steamrolled by the Rochester Jeffersons 45 to 0, and promptly folded.
The Kardex were so obscure that NFL.com lists question marks next to the names of some players. In fairness, they played for the American Professional Football Association, which was the precursor to the NFL. And while they dipped out extremely quickly, it was not that uncommon at the time for pro sports teams to form, play a game or two, and then fold due to lack of financial resources, talent, or both. Kardex the company only paid for the team’s uniforms, not for salaries or any other equipment.
With just one football game to their credit and a win percentage of 0.0, the Tonawanda Kardex are the shortest-lived and least successful pro football franchise in history—but they are far from the weirdest. On this episode of The List Show, host and Mental Floss editor-in-chief Erin McCarthy exhausts a lot of sports metaphors running down the most obscure, strange, defunct, and forgotten American sports teams of yore. You’ll learn about teams like the Jacksonville Tea Men, the Macon Whoopies, the Cleveland Spiders, and the Piedmont-Westernport Drybugs.
Watch the full video above, and don’t forget to subscribe to Mental Floss on YouTube for new videos every week.
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