The 1923 Hammond Pros season was their fourth in the National Football League (NFL). The Hammond, Indiana team followed their winless 1922 season with another debacle, winning just one game â leaving them in 15th place in the 20-team league.
Three of their four scheduled home games were canceled, only one of which was weather-related.
The Pros' second game of the season was the only one they ever played in their home city of Hammond. For four years the club had been unable to play a true home game due to lack of a suitable venue. A local banker, A. Murray Turner, constructed a workable athletic grounds, Turner Field. The stadium, with a capacity of only a few thousand, would be the site of Hammond's only win in 1923 â a 7âÂÂ0 victory over the visiting Dayton Triangles.
The game's only score came in the fourth quarter when left end "Ink" Williams scooped up a fumble at the Dayton 25-yard-line and returned it for a touchdown. Future Pro Football Hall of Famer Fritz Pollard kicked the extra point to finish the day's scoring. Three additional games scheduled for Hammond would be canceled â one due to torrential rain and two for financial reasons, owing to poor fan support for a poorly performing team.
The October 7, 1923, game with the Triangles would also be the last regular-season NFL game played in Indiana for over 60 years, until the Indianapolis Colts arrived from Baltimore in 1984.
The Pros would have a fine opportunity to put together back-to-back wins the following week, during a trip to Missouri to play the short-lived St. Louis All-Stars, but Hammond's two black stars â Fritz Pollard and "Ink" Williams â would not be permitted to take the field. Playing in the rain in front of a pathetic crowd of 719 fans, the teams mucked out a 0âÂÂ0 tie, in which the punting battle between Hammond's Wally Hess and Pete Casey of St. Louis was the main attraction.