Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship by David Fleming

Pity poor Pottsville, Pennsylvania...
A proud mining town, one of the most productive of the early 1900s, has little to offer its residents other than work in the mines and an early grave. That all changes when Doc Striegel decides to bring a professional football team to the town. At the turn of the century, college football was considered the true sport, where the pro game was a league of mercenaries and thugs who were paid to injure as many people as possible. It all changed when the Pottsville Maroons formed.
They perfected new strategies and tactics that raised the level of the game. They fielded a team of the wildest characters imaginable, including former baseball stars, monstrous brothers, and one iron-jawed stalwart named Tony Latone, who worked his way out of the mines and onto the field. Latone was dubbed the Human Howitzer, a hard running, hard hitting cannonball that left defenders crumpled in his wake.
The Maroons struggle to stay afloat financially, but put together an incredible record, suffering only two losses heir entire season. They make a few enemies along the way, chiefly in the form of other owners, bitter at Striegel for stealing some of their best players, and large cities who are trying to drum small markets out of the NFL.
At the end of the season, the Maroons are crowned champions, but after they agree to play an exhibition game against a team of Notre Dame All-Stars, a conspiracy is hatched to drum them out of the league and revoke their title. Maroons backers have been trying unsuccessfully since 1925 to have their title re-instated, but through one bad turn or another they've been denied. But for reading this book, you'd have no idea this team existed, so cleanly has the NFL expunged them from the records. This was a team of Hall-of-Famers, a group of men who elevated the game and arguably saved pro football from collapse.

After reading this book, you'll want to give them their due. You can learn how to help the cause of Pottsville Maroons at breakerboys1925.com/