Ernie Nevers played professional football as a fullback for the Duluth Eskimos and Chicago Cardinals of the NFL. He started his sports career as a professional baseball player for the St. Louis Browns. In 1927, he overlapped sports by playing for baseball’s Browns and football’s Eskimos in the same year.
Nevers had better success playing football. He would play both offense and defense and in every minute of all games. This is unheard of in today’s game. He once set a record for most points in a game by a single player when he scored 6 Cardinal touchdowns and kicked 4 extra points; a total of 40 points against the crosstown-rival Chicago Bears.
At Stanford University, in a 1925 battle against the University of California, Nevers ran the ball on every Stanford offensive play except for three.
In baseball, Nevers gave up 2 home runs to Babe Ruth during Ruth’s record-setting 60 home run season. Nevers soon made people forget those home runs when he turned his sight to the NFL!