Three Unique Chicago Bears: John “Bull” Doehring, Lloyd “Shorty” Burdick, and George Trafton

Trafton claimed to be good with his fists, both on and off the field. Once he was suspended by Halas for taking on a late-night intruder who was sitting on his car. Halas didn’t mind the fight, but since the altercation took place in the wee hours of the morning according to police reports, Trafton was breaking training rules. Anyway, Trafton loved the night life in Chicago and was never reluctant to pursue any drunken bar room challenges.

At this point, we’re going to call on the great Red Grange to describe the short-lived pugilistic career of his teammate, George Trafton, which began in 1929 with a bout scheduled with husky Art Shires of the Chicago White Sox baseball team. Grange recalled the events in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1968:

“I actually helped promote it,” Grange said. “On this night we were helping Trafton celebrate his birthday. He had never lost a fight in a night club. After midnight, someone brought in a copy of the Chicago Tribune. Its big sports story announced that Art Shires, then trying to make some extra bucks in the ring to carry him through the winter, had signed to fight some chump. ‘I can beat him with one hand,’ Trafton snorted. Why not we thought.” 

“My brother Garland was in the party and he was a neighbor of Jim Mullen, who was promoting the Shires’ bouts. So, along about 2 am he called up Mullen. ‘Great,’ Mullen said, ‘we’ll sign the contracts tomorrow.’ Next day, we’d forgotten all about it, but not Mullen. And Trafton suddenly remembered when he was offered a $1,000 guarantee for three rounds. A few days later, when Trafton was going through the motions of training, a couple of harsh looking characters walked into the gym. ‘Who’s going to win?” one of them asked. ‘Trafton,’ one of our group replied. ‘He’d better not,’ one of them growled.

A day or two later, a slick young fellow walked in and asked the same question. My brother replied: ‘Up until yesterday, we thought Trafton was’ and then told him about the visitors the day before. ‘Forget ‘em,’ the guy told us. ‘They’ll never bother you again. I’ll take care of them. All I want to know is the fight on the up and up. If it is, I’ll bet on Trafton.’ We learned later who the young man was: it was Machine Gun Jack McGurn [one of Al Capone’s leading henchmen].”

By the way, Trafton did end up winning that battle with Shires, which some called the “Laugh of the Century.” But the bout did attract 5,000 spectators, including it was rumored, Al Capone himself. Trafton continued boxing until making the mistake of fighting talented heavyweight prospect Primo Carnera on March 26, 1930. Trafton lasted less than a minute.

This was the middle of three first round knockouts that Carnera won in an eight-day span in March of 1930. Eventually, he became the world’s heavyweight champion while Trafton wisely returned to playing pro football. And by the way, all three of our featured players were all members of the NFL champion Chicago Bears in 1932 when the NFL crown was captured during the first NFL game played indoors.

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Please join us next time for a review of the NFL’s first-ever draft which was held in 1936 and we’ll examine why the first player picked never played pro football. Or did he?