The Steagles were the team created by the temporary merger of Pennsylvania's two National Football League (NFL) teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, during the 1943 season. The two franchises were compelled to field a single combined team because both had lost many players to military service during World War II. The league's official record book refers to the team as "Phil-Pitt Combine", but the unofficial "Steagles", despite never being registered by the NFL, has become the enduring moniker. History The prospect of a unified Pittsburgh-Philadelphia team actually predated World War II by several years. The Pennsylvania Keystoners were a team that was proposed in 1939, conceived with the intention of the Steelers and Eagles owners buying into one of the two teams, then spinning the other off to an ownership group in Boston, Massachusetts. League officials rejected the plan, though it resulted in a convoluted ownership "two-step" that left Eagles owner Bert Bell with a share in the Steelers franchise. America entered World War II on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Most of the young men who were of the age to play professional football were also of the age to fight for their country. Six hundred NFL players joined the armed forces. With the country now at war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt esteemed entertainment and sports as a much-needed diversion. He issued an inspirational letter to Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis which focused on the importance of Major League Baseball to Americans' morale. The address made no mention of football, as baseball was still widely referred to as America's pastime and had not yet been surpassed in popularity by football. However at its 1943 annual spring meeting, the NFL decided to follow baseball's lead and continue play. Other football leagues, such as the 1940–41 American Football League, Dixie League and the American Association, decided to suspend operations instead, leaving the NFL and its West Coast counterpart, the Pacific Coast Professional Football League, as the only leagues playing professional football at the time. Draft deferments The young men who remained in the States to play football were mostly those who were deferred from the draft. The Steagles players were either unfit for military service for physical or dependency reasons, age, or were active servicemen who had obtained leave to play. Three types of draft deferments defined 1943 NFL players. The first