Who Were The Los Angeles Dons?

The Los Angeles Dons were an American football team in the newly formed football league the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1946 to 1949, and played their home games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Dons were the first professional football team to play a regular season game in Los Angeles, California, two weeks before the first game of the rival Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League, who had moved from Cleveland.

In 1946, a new professional football league was launched to do battle with the long-established National Football League. This new league, the All-America Football Conference, included eight teams, an Eastern Division with three teams based in the state of New York and another in Miami, and a Western Division with teams in Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The AAFC's southern California franchise, which was to compete directly with the newly-relocated Rams of the NFL, was known as the Los Angeles Dons.

The leader of the ownership group was Fernando Gonzalez III, a California businessman & longtime football fan. Other owners included Hollywood notables Louis B. Mayer, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and actor Don Ameche.

The Dons' head coach was "Dud" DeGroot, a Stanford football player who had gone on to earn a PhD from that institution. He was the head coach of the NFL's Washington Redskins in 1944 and 1945 before jumping over to the rival AAFC for its debut 1946 season.

The Dons shared the Coliseum with the Rams for home games. Although never filling the mammoth facility, the club made a show of offering vast numbers of tickets for sale at reasonable prices, including 40,000 reserved seats for each home contest priced at $2.50, 15,000 general admission seats costing $1.50, and 8,000 children's tickets priced at just sixty cents.

The team played its first regular season home game in 1946 against the Brooklyn Dodgers on September 13 in before a Friday night crowd of 18,955, the first time professional football had ever been played in the Coliseum. The Dons took a first quarter lead on a 55-yard pass from quarterback "Chuckin' Charlie" O'Rourke to Bernie Nygren and never looked back, triumphing 20–14 over the visitors from New York. The Dons opened the inaugural season with three wins and a tie before a rough spell; they finished in third place in the AAFC's Western Division with a record of 7–5–2, out of the playoffs.

For most of their existence, the Dons compiled an average record, and never qualified for the AAFC playoffs. This was mainly because they were in the same division as the league's two most powerful teams, the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers. Unlike the Browns, 49ers, and Baltimore Colts, the Dons were not one of the AAFC teams that remained intact when the AAFC merged with the NFL in 1950: they merged with the crosstown Rams of the older league after the 1949 season.

One Dons player, William Radovich, formerly of the NFL's Detroit Lions, filed a lawsuit against the NFL after being blacklisted from playing or working in it afterwards. It led to the Supreme Court ruling, in the case of Radovich v. National Football League, that professional football, unlike baseball, was subject to antitrust laws.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

Jerry Crowe, "The Dons of L.A. Pro Sports," Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2006.

 Ray Schmidt, "Welcome to LA," Archived May 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine The Coffin Corner, vol. 25, no. 3 (2003), pg. 1.

 Ray Schmidt, "Welcome to LA," pg. 6.

 "LA Dons win opener, beat Dodgers 20-14". Oxnard Press-Courier. (California). United Press. September 14, 1946. p. 2.

 "Brooklyn Dodgers 14 at Los Angeles Dons 20: Friday, September 13, 1946," pro-football-reference.com/

 "1946 Los Angeles Dons," pro-football-reference.com/

 James P. Quirk and Rodney D. Fort, Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992; pg. 438.

Who Were The New York Yankees (AAFC)?

The New York Yankees were a professional American football team that played in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1946 to 1949. The team played in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and often played in front of sold-out crowds. They were owned by Dan Topping, who transferred the team from the NFL Brooklyn Dodgers, retaining many of the same players. The team's coach was Ray Flaherty, who had coached the Washington Redskins in the early 1940s. Former NFL player Jim Barber served as an assistant coach under Flaherty.

The Yankees appeared in the 1946 AAFC championship game, but lost to the Cleveland Browns by a score of 14–9. The same two teams appeared in the championship game the following year, with the Browns winning again 14–3.

Before the 1949 season, the Brooklyn Dodgers football team folded and merged into the Yankees, which became the Brooklyn-New York Yankees, but this was the final season of the AAFC, which was then absorbed by the NFL. The Yankees players were divided between the New York Giants and New York Bulldogs, who played as the New York Yanks starting in 1950.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

Who Were The Buffalo Bills (AAFC)?

The Buffalo Bills were an American football team, based in Buffalo, New York, that played in the All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949. During its first season in 1946, the team was known as the Buffalo Bisons. Unlike the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts, the franchise was not one of the three AAFC teams that merged with the National Football League prior to the 1950 season. It was named after Buffalo Bill.

After only one year, owner James Breuil held a name-the-team contest in hopes of choosing a more distinctive nickname; "Bisons" had been the traditional nickname for Buffalo teams for many years. The winning choice was "Bills," which was a play on the name of the famed Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody. Coincidentally a barbershop quartet who would achieve fame a few years later was formed with the same name that year. The team was the successor to the Buffalo Tigers/Indians team from the 1940 American Football League; that league had folded as a result of World War II. Though the 1946 Bisons were not a success, the next three years were modestly successful, with the charismatic George Ratterman at starting quarterback; the Bills finished with a winning record (losing in the AAFC Championship to the Browns) in 1947 and having .500 records in 1948 and 1949.

There was some controversy over Buffalo's exclusion from the enlarged NFL. Buffalo had experienced more success on the field and at the gate than Baltimore, and was also a larger market at the time (and would not have to share their territory with an established team as Baltimore would with the Washington Redskins). Additionally, the original three-team plan would have left the league with 13 teams, not only an odd number and prime number that made making equal divisions impossible, but also one considered to be bad luck. The move had left Buffalo as the only AAFC market without an NFL team post-merger, and one that had outdrawn the NFL average in fan attendance. With that in mind, Buffalo fans produced more than 15,000 season ticket pledges, raised $175,000 in a stock offering,[4] and filed a separate application to join. When the vote to admit Buffalo was held on January 20, 1950, a majority of league owners (including the three already-admitted AAFC teams) were willing to accept Buffalo. However, league rules required a unanimous vote, but the vote was only 9-4 in favor. The opposition to the Bills' entry was led by Chicago Bears owner George Halas (who had a longstanding animosity toward Buffalo's previous NFL franchise) and Los Angeles Rams owner Dan Reeves. League commissioner Bert Bell had already put out a schedule based on the 13 teams, and Reeves cited as his excuse for voting against admission was simply that "it was silly to vote in a new city without first having a good idea where my teams would be playing and when."

Breuil, having lost $700,000 on the team, was instead content to accept a one-fourth share of the Browns; the team did, however, have another potential owner in Pat McGroder, then a successful liquor store owner and an advocate for the NFL's return to Buffalo. The NFL was not inclined to add a fourth team. The American Football League, a minor league formerly known as the "American Association," offered the Bills a spot in their league, but no Buffalo parties were interested in a minor league team. Coming with Breuil to Cleveland were three Bills players; the rest were dispersed in the 1950 AAFC Dispersal Draft among the NFL teams, with the Colts and Green Bay Packers picking up the majority of the Bills' roster and Ratterman going to the New York Yanks. (Ratterman would eventually finish his career with the Browns, as Otto Graham's backup and, briefly, successor.) As it turned out, admitting the Colts over the Bills proved to be a mistake; the Colts folded after only one season.

McGroder would continue to lobby for an NFL team in Buffalo for the next decade. In 1959, when the American Football League proposed establishing the franchise that would ultimately also bear the Buffalo Bills name, McGroder was the first potential owner that AFL founder Lamar Hunt approached. McGroder declined the offer, still hoping that the threat of the new AFL team would be enough to provoke the NFL to stop it with the Buffalo NFL team he had hoped to receive, but Ralph Wilson, whose bid for a Miami AFL team had fallen through, accepted the bid. When it became clear that the NFL would not expand to Buffalo as McGroder had hoped, he took a position within the modern Bills organization, remaining until his retirement in 1983. The Bills entered the NFL with the rest of the AFL in 1970, and are still in operation as an NFL team to this day. During their existence, the Bills played at Civic Stadium, later known as War Memorial Stadium.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 17, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-17.

 Important dates in Bills history: How the Bills got their name

 The Buffalo Bills barbershop quartet.

 The Coffin Corner, Volume 19, 1997, published by the Professional Football Researchers Association, The Other Buffalo Bills, by Joe Marren

 Bailey, Budd (January 20, 2010). This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Not Yet Archived October 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. The Buffalo News. Retrieved January 29, 2010.

Kenneth R. Crippen, The Original Buffalo Bills: A History of the All-America Football Conference Team, 1946–1949. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010.

Who Were The Boston Yanks?

The Boston Yanks were a National Football League team based in Boston, Massachusetts, that played from 1944 to 1948. The team played its home games at Fenway Park. Any games that conflicted with the Boston Red Sox baseball schedule in the American League were held at Braves Field of the cross-town National League team, the Boston Braves. Team owner Ted Collins, who managed singer and TV show host Kate Smith for thirty years, picked the name "Yanks" because he originally wanted to run a team that played at New York City's old Yankee Stadium. The Yanks could manage only a losing 2–8 record during their first regular season.

Because of a shortage of players caused by World War II, the Yanks were temporarily merged with the erratic founding APFA member Dayton Triangles' franchise, then known as the Brooklyn Tigers, for the 1945 season, and styled as just the Yanks with no home city named. The merged team played four home games in Boston and one in New York and finished with a losing 3–6–1 record.

When Brooklyn Tigers owner Dan Topping announced his intentions to join the newly established rival professional football league, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1946, his NFL franchise, which was a founding APFA member that he had moved from Dayton, Ohio in 1929, was revoked and all of its players were assigned to the Yanks, with the original Triangles legacy being carried on by this group. After three continuous losing seasons, Collins finally was allowed to move to New York City. But instead of an official relocation, he asked the league to officially fold his Boston franchise and give him a new franchise, for a Federal tax write off. The League granted his request, and Collins named his new team the New York Bulldogs. However, like many of this franchise's moves, the NFL considers them to have folded, while the players and assets simply moved, ultimately keeping the Dayton Triangles' legacy alive as the last remaining Ohio League member. Despite the franchise's assets moving to a new city and carrying on the team's legacy, The Boston Yanks are the only officially defunct NFL team ever to have the first overall NFL draft pick. They had it twice, in 1944 and 1946, selecting a quarterback from Notre Dame: Angelo Bertelli and Frank Dancewicz, both Massachusetts natives. The team compiled a 14-38-3 record over its lifespan.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

 HOW TO GET FROM DAYTON TO INDIANAPOLIS BY WAY OF BROOKLYN, BOSTON, NEW YORK, DALLAS, HERSHEY AND BALTIMORE By Bob Carroll, THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 17, No. 5 (1995), Originally published in Ragtyme Sports

Who Were The Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC)?

The Brooklyn Dodgers was an American football team that played in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1946 to 1948. The team is unrelated to the Brooklyn Dodgers that played in the National Football League from 1930 to 1943. The team folded prior to the 1949 season and was merged with the New York Yankees to form the Brooklyn-New York Yankees.

The Brooklyn Dodgers of the new AAFC held their first training camp in the summer of 1946 out west in central Oregon in the small town of Bend. Led by head coach Mal Stevens, some 62 members of the team assembled in Bend in the middle of July of that year. The team played two preseason games in the Pacific Northwest, the first in Portland against the Chicago Rockets at Multnomah Stadium on August 18, and the following Saturday night in Spokane against the New York Yankees at Gonzaga Stadium.

The star of the Dodgers was passing halfback Glenn Dobbs, an All-American at the University of Tulsa. The team went 3-10-1 in its first two seasons. In 1948, the Dodgers went 2-12 which led them to merge in the New York Yankees. 1n 1949, the merged team 8-4 but lost in the semi-final round in the AAFC playoffs, this was the last year of the AAFC.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 17, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-17.

 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 17, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-17.

 "Dodgers to Train". Harrisburg Telegraph. Pennsylvania. April 20, 1946. p. 6.

 "Car lights guide Dodgers to field". Bend Bulletin. Oregon. July 15, 1946. p. 1.

 "Brooklyn Footballers Arrive at Bend Field". Albany Democrat Herald. Oregon. July 16, 1946. p. 8.

 "Underdog black team victor in Brooklyn Dodger battle before large crowd in Bend". Bend Bulletin. Oregon. August 3, 1946. p. 2.

 "Dodgers to face Chicago Rockets". Bend Bulletin. Oregon. United Press. August 17, 1946. p. 2.

 "Dodger-Rocket clash is first action by American loop". Eugene Register-Guard. Oregon. Associated Press. August 18, 1946. p. 19.

 "Dodgers, Chicago play 14-14 tie at Portland". Eugene Register-Guard. Oregon. August 19, 1946. p. 5.

 "Dodgers, Rockets tie at 14 to 14". Bend Bulletin. Oregon. United Press. August 19, 1946. p. 3.

 "Top pro teams in game tonight". Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. August 24, 1946. p. 9.

 "Yankees winners; may return here". Spokane Daily Chronicle. Washington. August 26, 1946. p. 15.

 "1946 Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC)". Pro Football Archives. Retrieved March 1, 2025.

 "1947 Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC)". Pro Football Archives. Retrieved March 1, 2025.

 "1948 Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC)". Pro Football Archives. Retrieved March 1, 2025.

Who Were The Miami Seahawks?

The Miami Seahawks were a professional American football team based in Miami, Florida. They played in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in the league's inaugural season, 1946, before the team was relocated to Baltimore. They are notable as the first major league sports franchise in Miami, and the state of Florida's first professional sports team.

The Seahawks were coached initially by Jack Meagher and then by Hamp Pool. The team faced a difficult schedule filled with many early road games, and finished the 14-game regular season at 3-11, last in the AAFC. The franchise, which by that time had accrued $350,000 in debt, was seized by the AAFC after the end of the season after its owner was declared bankrupt, and its assets were purchased by a group of entrepreneurs who reorganized it as the original incarnation of the Baltimore Colts.

Florida did not have another professional football team for 20 years, until the (fourth) American Football League (founded in 1960) added the Miami Dolphins in 1966, while the Seahawks nickname would be revived when the National Football League added the Seattle Seahawks in 1976.

The Miami Seahawks were the last of the AAFC's charter teams to be established: originally, there was a Baltimore franchise which was to have been owned by retired boxer Gene Tunney, but Tunney's bid fell through as he was unable to secure a deal to use city-owned Municipal Stadium on 33rd Street, built in 1922 in the former Venable Park of northeast Baltimore (site of the future Memorial Stadium, rebuilt 1950–1954).

A group of Miami football boosters, led by Harvey Hester, seized on the chance to bring a major league team to their city. The AAFC, needing an eighth team to avoid byes in the schedule, readily granted Hester a franchise: the Seahawks thus became the first major league sports team to be based in Miami. Home games were played at Burdine Stadium, later called the Miami Orange Bowl.

The Seahawks stood out from the other AAFC franchises in three major ways. Firstly, Miami was by far the smallest market in the AAFC, with roughly half the population of most other metropolitan areas with professional football teams: in fact, it was the second smallest city in the NFL and AAFC, ahead of only Green Bay. Secondly, although Miami was beginning a period of growth that continues today, it was only the 42nd-largest city in the United States at the time, while the other AAFC and NFL cities (except Green Bay) were among the fifteen largest in the United States. Thirdly, Hester was substantially less wealthy than the other team owners, and was the only one among them who was not a millionaire. 

Cleveland Browns famed coach and owner Paul Brown remarked that Hester seemed out of his element around the other owners, to the point that he was reluctant to even play poker with them.

The Seahawks hired Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks coach Jack Meagher as head coach. Their schedule was quite difficult from the beginning: they played seven of their first eight games on the road. Their first game was a harbinger of things to come, with a 44-0 thrashing at the hands of the Cleveland Browns.

By the time of their first home game, they had a record of 0-3-0, leading local papers to describe them as "woefully inept". Meagher resigned on October 22 after winning just one of his first six games, with assistant Hamp Pool, the captain of the 1940 and 1941 Chicago Bears NFL championship teams, being forced to take over as head coach.

After a 1-7-0 start, the team were in last place when they returned home to host their final six games, which was a difficult sell to the general public. In any case, fans had quickly lost interest in the struggling team, and a paltry total of 49,151 fans paid to attend the Seahawks' home games: this included a miserable 2,340 against Brooklyn, the second lowest attendance at any professional football game since 1939 (excluding 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic severely limited attendance). Further, Cleveland and San Francisco had completed their 14-game regular seasons before the Seahawks hosted their final two home games.

It should be noted the team also played all of its November home games on Monday nights, the first time in major professional football that such a move had ever been attempted more than once in a year.

At the end of the season, the team was $350,000 in debt, including $80,000 in outstanding travel and payroll expenses. This was well beyond Hester's ability to pay, and to make matters worse, his boosters walked away upon realizing the extent of the debt. Other football boosters in Miami wanted to buy the team, but were unwilling to pay the substantial debt, so they wanted to wait another year to make a bid.

Before the Miami boosters could make a bid, however, Hester was declared bankrupt, leaving AAFC Commissioner Jim Crowley with no option but to seize the team. In January 1947, the AAFC approved a bid by Washington, D.C. attorney Robert D. Rodenburg and four other businessmen; the Rodenburg-led group effectively moved the team to Baltimore and rebranded it as the first incarnation of the Baltimore Colts.

Miami would not have a professional football team again until 1965, when the American Football League awarded an expansion team to lawyer Joe Robbie and actor Danny Thomas, the Miami Dolphins, which would become a far more successful team on and off the field.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

"Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 13, 2014. Retrieved October 17, 2013.

 Whittlesey, Merrell (December 22, 1946). "'Golden Touch' Espey Meets With Ironic Failure in Miami". Evening Star. Retrieved May 16, 2023.

 Coenen, Craig R. (2005). From Sandlots to the Super Bowl: The National Football League, 1920-1967. Univ. of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-447-2.

 Coenen, p. 118.

 Coenen, p. 113; 136.

 Coenen, pp. 140–141.

 Morgan, p. 22.

 Coenen, p. 142.

 Coenen, p. 126.

 Levy, p. 88.

 Attendance 1946, Pro Football Reference

 While various sources report an average of 14,000 fans attended the first two Seahawks home games and an average of 9,000 attended the last five, the Pro Football Reference numbers make it clear that 24,000 of these were admitted for free or at reduced prices.

 An NFL game on Thanksgiving Day, 1952, between the Dallas Texans and the Chicago Bears, which had been moved to Akron, Ohio due to paltry ticket sales in Dallas, drew only 2,208 people.

 Carroll, p. 82.

 Horan, Chance (July 15, 2023). "How the Dolphins became the Dolphins". Phin Phanatic. Retrieved July 11, 2025.

 Piket, Casey (September 9, 2015). "Miami's First Pro Football Team (1946)". www.miami-history.com. Retrieved July 11, 2025.

Carroll, Bob (1999). Total Football: the Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. HarperCollins. p. 82. ISBN 0-06-270174-6. Retrieved September 30, 2010.

Coenen, Craig R. (2005). From Sandlots to the Super Bowl: the National Football League, 1920-1967. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1-57233-447-9. Retrieved September 30, 2010.

Levy, Alan Howard (2003). Tackling Jim Crow: Racial Segregation in Professional Football. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1597-5. Retrieved September 30, 2010.

Morgan, John (1997). Glory for Sale: Fans, Dollars, and the New NFL. Bancroft Press. ISBN 0-9631246-5-X. Retrieved September 30, 2010.

The History Of The 1944 Merger Between The Chicago Cardinals And Pittsburgh Steelers

Card-Pitt was the team created by the temporary merger of two National Football League (NFL) teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Cardinals, during the 1944 season. It was the second such merger for the Steelers, who had combined with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1943 to form the "Steagles". The arrangement was made necessary by the loss of numerous players to World War II military service, and was dissolved upon completion of the season. The war ended before the start of the 1945 season, and both teams resumed normal operations. Card-Pitt finished with a 0–10 record in the Western Division, which led sportswriters to derisively label the team the "Car-Pitts", or "carpets".

The Boston Yanks joined the NFL in 1944, while the Cleveland Rams, who had been unable to field a team in 1943, re-joined the league. This resulted in an 11-team league, and the NFL was unable to devise a schedule that was amenable to all registered teams. NFL commissioner Elmer Layden contacted Art Rooney and Bert Bell of the Steelers to request that their team again merge as a potential solution for the scheduling issue. Rooney agreed, on the condition that at least half of the team's home games would be played at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field.

The choice of a merger partner for the Steelers proved to be a challenging task. Rumors prior to the NFL's annual April meeting indicated that either Cleveland or the Brooklyn Tigers would be the selected partner. Cleveland was considered a logical choice based solely on geographic location, but Layden felt it unfair to ask the Steelers to merge with a team that had been defunct a year earlier. Rooney rejected a proposal to merge with Brooklyn, and was hesitant to merge with the new Boston Yanks. He eventually agreed to combine his Steelers with the Cardinals, who had gone winless in 1943 along with having lost 16 straight games since their last win on October 18, 1942. The merged team would compete in the tougher Western Division, which included the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears.

Training camp for the merged team began in Waukesha, Wisconsin on August 15, 1944, under the direction of co-coaches Walt Kiesling of Pittsburgh and Phil Handler of Chicago. The coaching staff decided before the start of camp to implement a T formation offense. Some of the Steelers' players had been exposed to the 'T' with playing alongside Philadelphia Eagles players the previous year, but the Cardinals had used it very little. Card-Pitt lacked a dependable quarterback, but the team began the season with optimism.

During the team's first game, an exhibition at Shibe Park against the Philadelphia Eagles, that was attended by Babe Ruth, the Eagles scored three first-quarter touchdowns on their way to a 22–0 victory. Card-Pitt regained its footing the following week, but lost 3–0 to a Washington Redskins team that had been predicted to win the game by three touchdowns.

Training camp for the merged team began in Waukesha, Wisconsin on August 15, 1944, under the direction of co-coaches Walt Kiesling of Pittsburgh and Phil Handler of Chicago. The coaching staff decided before the start of camp to implement a T formation offense. Some of the Steelers' players had been exposed to the 'T' with playing alongside Philadelphia Eagles players the previous year, but the Cardinals had used it very little. Card-Pitt lacked a dependable quarterback, but the team began the season with optimism.

During the team's first game, an exhibition at Shibe Park against the Philadelphia Eagles, that was attended by Babe Ruth, the Eagles scored three first-quarter touchdowns on their way to a 22–0 victory. Card-Pitt regained its footing the following week, but lost 3–0 to a Washington Redskins team that had been predicted to win the game by three touchdowns.

Quarterback Coley McDonough was drafted into the U.S. Army two days before the team's second regular season game, a contest against Green Bay. The Pittsburgh Press gave the team little chance to defeat the Packers, who would go on to win that game 34–7. However, John McCarthy, a rookie out of Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, performed well as McDonough's replacement.

Card-Pitt then met the Chicago Bears, a team missing MVP quarterback Sid Luckman and coach George Halas among a roster that had been depleted by the war and injuries, in the third game of the season. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called Card-Pitt's effort against the Bears "pitiful", and the coaching staff became so irate that they fined Johnny Butler, John Grigas and Eberle Schultz $200 apiece for "indifferent play". Upset with the coaches' strict, dictatorial style, the team refused to practice until the fined players received a fair hearing. The players then met with Rooney, and Grigas and Schultz agreed to pay their fines and return to practice. Butler was suspended indefinitely, before being placed on waivers and later claimed by Brooklyn. Rooney eventually rescinded the fines, except for Butler's.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams then quoted a disgusted fan as having written, "Why don't they call themselves the Car-Pits? I think it's very appropriate as every team in the league walks over them." The team lost a rematch against the Giants. Midway through their next game against the Washington Redskins, a brawl between the two teams erupted and had to be broken up by police. Coaches Kiesling and Handler were in the middle of the fight, while Rooney, a former boxer, ran to join his team, until he realized that it would be a breach of protocol for an NFL owner to get into a fight with opposing players. The Redskins would go on to win the game, 42–20. Card-Pitt's Cliff Duggan was fined $200 for his role in the fight, however, Rooney paid his fine.

Losses then ensued against the Rams, Packers and Lions, and Grigas left the team to return home to Massachusetts. He had twice won the league rushing title, but had grown tired of losing and retired. Despite his sudden departure, he was named to the New York Daily News All-Pro team, and finished the season with 610 yards rushing, an average of 3.3 yards per carry. His departure was followed by a 49–7 loss to the Bears. The team's 0–10 season tied the Brooklyn Tigers for the league's worst record. The merger of the Chicago Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers was dissolved the day after the season ended. Only five teams since 1944 have gone winless in the NFL for an entire season: the 1960 Dallas Cowboys (0–11–1), the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0–14), the (strike shortened) 1982 Baltimore Colts (0–8–1), the 2008 Detroit Lions (0–16) and the 2017 Cleveland Browns (0-16).

The Card-Pitt punters averaged 32.7 yards per attempt, which is still the worst mark in NFL history. The team was 0–2 in field goal attempts, while Conway Baker missed four of his 15 extra point tries.
Card-Pitt passers had a 31% completion rate, and threw for just eight touchdowns; their total of 41 interceptions is still the third highest number in NFL history, even more remarkable given the season was incrementally lengthened to 12, 14, 16, and currently 17 games (the 1944 season had 10). McCarthy threw 13 interceptions, had no touchdown passes, and finished with a quarterback rating of 3.0.

Card-Pitt also had the worst run defense in the league, and were outscored 328–108 by opponents.
Eberle Schultz went from a winless 1944 season to an NFL Championship with Cleveland the following year. John Grigas returned to the NFL for three final seasons with the Boston Yanks, and led the team in rushing in 1946. Don Currivan played alongside Grigas for those three seasons, and ranked third in the league in receiving in 1947, and Currivan also saw played with the Los Angeles Rams, being part of the team that lost to Philadelphia in the 1949 NFL Championship Game.
Tackle Chet Bulger and center Vince Banonis would be a part of the 1947 Chicago Cardinals Championship team, while Banonis also played for the Detroit Lions, winning League Championships in 1952 and 1953 (on teams coached by Card-Pitt assistant coach Buddy Parker).

The Cardinals did not win a game again until October 14, 1945 (nearly three years to the day of their last win), when they beat the Chicago Bears 23-14: while it was the Cardinals' only win of the 1945 season, this also ended a 29-game losing streak. This is an NFL record but some people don't count all 29 losses since the team merged in 1944 with Pittsburgh. The Steelers, who had won their last game on November 28, 1943, ended a 14-game losing streak on October 21, 1945, beating the New York Giants 21-7.

In 1947, both teams rose to the top of the league: the Cardinals finished 9-3, beating the Bears in their last game to win the Western Division, their first title since 1925, while the Steelers finished tied with the Eagles for the Eastern Division. The Steelers lost a one-game playoff to the Eagles 21–0 in driving snow and rain, and the following week, the Championship Game saw the Cardinals beat the Eagles 28–21 to win their second NFL Championship (and most recent as of 2021).

In 2009, 65 years after merging for a season, the Steelers and the Cardinals (by then based in Glendale, Arizona) played each other in Super Bowl XLIII.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

Roberts, R. and Welky, D. (Eds.), "The Steelers Reader." University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001, p.61.

 Kiss Em Goodbye: An ESPN Treasury of failed, forgotten, and departed teams, pp.67–68, Dennis Purdy, Ballantine Books, New York, 2010, ISBN 978-0-345-52012-8

 2005 Saint Francis University, Loretto, Pennsylvania Alumni Directory page 307 Class of 1942

 Algeo, Matthew, "Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles--'The Steagles'--Saved Pro Football during World War II." Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006, p. 207–208.

 Abrams, Al (October 20, 1944). "Sidelights on Sports". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 15.

 Kiss Em Goodbye: An ESPN Treasury of failed, forgotten, and departed teams, p.69, Dennis Purdy, Ballantine Books, New York, 2010, ISBN 978-0-345-52012-8

Forr, James (2003). "Card-Pitt: The Carpits" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 25 (3). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–8.

Who Were The Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL)?

The Brooklyn Dodgers were an American football team that played in the National Football League from 1930 to 1943, and in 1944 as the Brooklyn Tigers. The team played its home games at Ebbets Field of the baseball National League's team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1945, because of financial difficulties and the increasing scarcity of major league-level players because of the war-time defense requirements at the height of World War II, the team was merged with the Boston Yanks and were known as the Yanks for that season.

This old NFL franchise was not related to the earlier (second incarnation) American Football League II with a franchise that played as the Brooklyn Tigers for the first half of the 1936 season before moving to Rochester, New York and playing as the Rochester Tigers. Another NFL team that played in the Brooklyn borough was the Brooklyn Lions (which became the Brooklyn Horsemen after merging with a team from an earlier first incarnation AFL of the same name) in 1926.

In 1946, co-owner and partner Dan Topping pulled the Tigers team out of the old NFL and placed it in the newly established rival professional league, the All-America Football Conference, which shortly lasted until 1949, until several stronger teams from the AAFC merged with and entered a reorganized NFL in 1950.

The team began play in 1930 after two Brooklyn businessmen bought the Dayton Triangles for $2,500 and moved the NFL franchise to Ebbets Field. These two individuals were Bill Dwyer, a past owner of the New York Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates of the National Hockey League, and Jack Depler, a player-coach for the NFL's Orange Tornadoes. Dwyer and Depler then renamed the Triangles the Brooklyn Dodgers, borrowing the name of Brooklyn's then major league baseball team.

The 1930 Dodgers were merged with and built largely from the roster of the 1929 Tornadoes, with the Triangles' players likely being on the bench and many not being able to relocate their families during the Great Depression. The Dodgers finished fourth in the NFL with a 7–4–1 record, a massive improvement upon the Triangles' disastrous final seasons in Dayton. The high point of their season consisted of a 7–6 upset over the New York Giants at the end of November. The Dodgers star back was Jack McBride, a former Giant. He led the league in scoring with a total of 56 points in 1930. However, the 1931 season saw the Dodgers post a 2–12 record. Once the season ended, Benny Friedman was brought in as the team's new player-coach.

The 1932 season started off promising with wins over the Staten Island Stapletons and the new Boston Braves (later renamed the Redskins). However, the team soon hit a five-game losing streak. The streak ended with a 3–0 win over the Chicago Cardinals, however that win was followed by four more losses. The Dodgers ended their season 3–9.

At the end of the 1932 season, Bill Dwyer had enough of professional football. His three years with the Dodgers had cost him an estimated $30,000. The Dodgers were then purchased by two former New York Giants players, Chris Cagle and John Simms Kelly for $25,000. Cap McEwen, a successful college football coach, was then brought in to replace Friedman, who would continue to play tailback for the Dodgers through half of the upcoming season. The 1933 season also saw the NFL split into two divisions. The Dodgers were placed in the Eastern Division. Dodgers had a chance for first place, by posting a 5–2–1 record, however a 10–0 loss to the Giants in front of 28,000 Brooklyn fans at Ebbets Field ended that chance in November.

The following season, Dan Topping bought Chris Cagle's half of the team. Topping would later become an owner and president of baseball's New York Yankees. Meanwhile, Cagle continued to play in the Brooklyn backfield. However, the only positive story to come out of the season for Brooklyn was the signing of Ralph Kercheval. Kercheval would go on to become one of the great NFL kickers. He returned to play for Brooklyn for the next seven seasons. He also scored every point for the Dodgers in their last six games as they finished with a 4–7 record.

In 1935, Paul Schissler. the former coach of the Chicago Cardinals, took over as the Dodgers coach. However, the team's stars Cagle, Friedman, and Kelly all retired. As a result, the Dodgers line-up consisted of 15 rookies. The 1935 season did show the team posting a 5–6–1 record and second place in the Easter Division. Over the next four seasons, the Dodgers placed either in the fourth or third place in the Eastern standings. Several of the star players to wear a Dodgers uniform during this time included Harold "Bunker" Hill, Bob Wilson, and Bill Lee. The roster also included future Hall of Famers, Red Badgro and Ace Parker. Both men had played professional baseball in the majors. Badgro played for the St. Louis Browns before playing in the NFL for the Giants and Yankees. Meanwhile, Parker played under Connie Mack, while as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics. He is best known for hitting a home run his first time at bat as a pinch hitter, becoming the first player in American League history to do so. Another future Hall of Famer joined the team in 1938, Frank Kinard. Kinard would play for Brooklyn for the rest of the franchise's history.

The Dodgers made NFL history on October 22, 1939. That day, at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers played the Philadelphia Eagles in the first NFL game shown on television. The Dodgers won the game 23–14.
In 1940, the Dodgers chose Jock Sutherland as their team's next coach. Sutherland brought to Brooklyn the Single-wing formation, which he had used at Lafayette College and Pitt. Under Sutherland, Brooklyn finished in second place in the Eastern standings behind the Redskins. Meanwhile, Parker was awarded the Joseph Carr Trophy as the league's Official Most Valuable Player. During this time, Dodger staples Mike Gussie All American from West Virginia University, Dick Cassiano and Ben Kish, who played for Sutherland at Pitt; George Cafego and Banks McFadden were signed by the team.
In 1941, the team again landed in second place of the Eastern Division, behind only the Giants. Dodger Clarence "Pug" Manders won the NFL rushing title that season with 486 yards. His title still represents the smallest number of yards carried to ever win this title. Warren Alfson and Merlyn Condit joined the team that season. Sutherland's 1940 and 1941 campaigns would be the most successful during the franchise's history.

Beginning in 1942, the team went into a steep decline, as World War II caused a shortage of players and fans. Coach Sutherland, along with Ace Parker and several other players left the team to join the military. Mike Getto took over the coaching duties; however, with the core of the team gone, the Dodgers sank to a 3–8–0 record. A year later, the team ended up winning only two games.

In 1944, the team was renamed the Tigers, but suffered an 0–10 regular season record. In a desperate attempt for survival, the team merged with the Boston Yanks for the 1945 season. The merged team played four home games in Boston and one in New York, but fans from neither city cared as they finished with a 3–6–1 record. The merger occurred on April 10, 1945 after the 1945 NFL Draft.
In December 1945, Topping announced his intentions to accept the All-America Football Conference's New York franchise. In response to this defection, the NFL immediately cancelled his NFL team franchise, and all of its players were assigned to Boston.

Meanwhile, the AAFC planted another team in Brooklyn called the Dodgers, and the two teams would merge in 1949. Topping's Yankees employed several former Dodgers players in 1946 and 1947 such as Parker, Kinard and Manders, and the Yankees reached the AAFC Championship Game in both years (being beaten by the Cleveland Browns in both Games).

The sequence of events begun by the demise of the Brooklyn Dodgers NFL team eventually resulted in the creation of what is now the Indianapolis Colts. The Boston Yanks moved to New York as the Bulldogs in 1949. After the 1949 season the NFL added three teams from the AAFC. The AAFC Yankees players were split between the Giants and Bulldogs. The Bulldogs renamed themselves the New York Yanks in the same season.

After the 1951 season, Yanks owner Ted Collins sold the franchise back to the league. The NFL then sold it to a new owner, Giles Miller, who moved the team to Dallas and renamed it the Dallas Texans. Miller returned his franchise to the league in the middle of the 1952 season, and the NFL operated it as a traveling team before folding it at the end of the season. In 1953, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to a Baltimore-based group and awarded it the remains of the Texans organization. The team, named the Colts, relocated to Indianapolis in 1984. However, the NFL currently does not consider the Colts to be a continuation of the franchise once known as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

"Topping Names Gallery". The New York Times. April 11, 1944.

 Brooklyn Tigers and Boston Yanks may become one eleven, Lawrence Journal-World, April 10, 1945

 Multi-time Pro Bowlers, 1938–1951. Pro-Football-Reference.

Bob Carroll, "How to get from Dayton to Indianapolis By Way Brooklyn, Boston, New York, Dallas, Hershey and Baltimore," Professional Football Researchers Association, Coffin Corner, vol. 17, no. 5 (1995), pp. 1–6.

Roger A. Godin, Brooklyn Football Dodgers: The Other Bums. Haworth, NJ: St. Johann Press, 2003.

Stan Grosshandler, "The Brooklyn Dodgers," Professional Football Researchers Association, Coffin Corner, vol. 12, no. 3 (1990), pp. 1–7.

Jack Ziegler, "Close But No Cigar," Professional Football Researchers Association, Coffin Corner, vol. 12, no. 3 (1990) pp. 1–5.

Who Were The New York Yankees Of The Second AFL?

The New York Yankees of the second American Football League was the second professional American football team competing under that name. It is unrelated to the Yankees of the first AFL (and the National Football League), the Yankees of the third AFL, the Yankees of the American Association (then also called the American Football League) and the (later) Yankees of the All-America Football Conference. The Yankees played their home games in Yankee Stadium and Triborough Stadium in New York, New York. Jack McBride was the team’s head coach throughout its existence; Yankees' president James Bush served as president of the second American Football League in 1936.

Formed by signing National Football League players, primarily New York Giants, the 1936 Yankees (including back Elmer Strong and tackle Jess Quatse) battled the Boston Shamrocks and the Cleveland Rams for the league title (which Boston won). New York Giants-turned-Yankees also included end Les Borden and back Stu Clancy. The 1937 edition of the Yankees was never truly in the running as league newcomers Los Angeles Bulldogs were the only AFL team with a winning record as Los Angeles dominated the league with an unbeaten, untied 8-0-0 record (the Yankees finished in third place for the second straight year, this time with 2-3-1).

While there was no "official" all-AFL team declared for the 1936 season, guard Alex Drobnitch was the sole Yankee to be named to the All-League team in 1937. Other Yankees stars include Dean Nesmith, Charlie Segal, Al Rose, and Irv "King Kong" Klein.

The complete domination of the AFL by the Bulldogs decimated attendance in Yankee Stadium as LA played the second half of its season on the American West Coast (while the Yankees averaged roughly 14,000 in attendance in 1936, the number was cut to about 5000 in 1937). With all the AFL clubs (except Los Angeles) deeply in the red, the second American Football League and the Yankees closed up shop at the end of the 1937 season.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

David L. Porter, editor, Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Football (Greenwood Press 1987) ISBN 0-313-25771-X

 David S. Neft, Richard M. Cohen, NS Rick Korch, The Football Encyclopedia:The Complete, Year-by-Year History of Professional Football From 1892 to the Present (St. Martin's Press 1990) ISBN 0-312-11435-4

 George Gipe, The Great American Sports Book (Doubleday 1978) ISBN 0-385-13091-0

 "KATS Hall of Fame". Kansas Athletic Trainers Society. Archived from the original on July 6, 2012. Retrieved September 14, 2012.

 Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, David Neft, and John Thorn, Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (HarperCollins 1999) ISBN 0-06-039232-0

Who Were The Cincinnati Reds (NFL)?

The Cincinnati Reds were a National Football League team that played the 1933 season and the first eight games of the 1934 season. The football Reds played most of their home games at Crosley Field. Other home games were played at Dayton's Triangle Park, Portsmouth's Universal Stadium and Xavier University's Corcoran Stadium in a rare night game against the Chicago Cardinals.

The team was eventually suspended for failure to pay league dues during the 1934 season and the St. Louis Gunners, an independent team, replaced the Reds on the schedule for the last three games.

The Reds hold the dubious distinction of having the two lowest officially recognized season scoring totals in NFL history. In 1933 they scored 38 points in 10 games, tying the 1942 Detroit Lions for second on that list. In 1934 the Reds and Gunners combined for only 37 points in 11 games with the Reds, themselves, scoring only 10 points in 8 games before their suspension. The franchise was shut out in 12 of its 18 games. By comparison, the 75 points scored by the Reds and Gunners in 21 games over two seasons only exceed the 73 points scored by the Chicago Bears in the 1940 NFL Championship Game by two, and by three the 72 points scored by the Washington Redskins on November 27, 1966, the record for points scored by a team in a regular season game. Further, the 1950 Los Angeles Rams averaged 38.83 points per game, the highest such average in NFL history.

These records, however, only consider NFL seasons going back to 1932, the first year in which official statistical records were kept. Several teams failed to score at least 10 points in seasons of varying length (up to 8 games in some cases) between 1920 and 1931. The team is considered by some as the "Worst NFL Team Ever" because how they typically would get blown out or could not score a single point in most games.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

 "Cincinnati Football Reds". Cincy Sports History. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 13, 2011.

 NFL Record And Fact Book – Team Records section Archived 2013-10-20 at the Wayback Machine Page 3

 NFL Historical Standings

 NFL History by Decade: 1931–1940

 "Former Manhattan Boy Is Cincinnati Reds Coach". The Manhattan Mercury. Kansas, Manhattan. August 1, 1933. p. 2. Retrieved August 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.

 "Cincinnati Reds Team Encyclopedia". Pro-Football-Reference. Sports Reference. Retrieved June 13, 2011.

Who Were The St.Louis Gunners?

The St. Louis Gunners were an independent professional football team based in St. Louis, Missouri, that played the last three games of the 1934 National Football League season, replacing the Cincinnati Reds on the league schedule after the Reds' league membership was suspended. They won their first game against the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) 6–0, and lost the last two to the Detroit Lions (40–7) and the Green Bay Packers (21–14). Six of the Reds players joined the team for the last two games. The team was headquartered at the St. Louis National Guard Armory, which accounts for its nickname the 'Gunners'.

In 1931, the 128th Field Artillery of the Missouri National Guard, announced through its spokesman that it would sponsor a team for the upcoming football season. The club was originally called the Batter A Gunners from its association with the Guard. Future Hall-of-Famer Jimmy Conzelman, was named the team's first head coach. Bud Yates was named the team's general manager.

The Gunners posted a 5–2–1 record in 1931. However, they lost to the NFL's Chicago Cardinals, 26–6. After the game, Cardinals captain, Ernie Nevers, called the Gunners the "best independent club we have ever faced." A game against a second NFL team, the New York Giants, was scheduled and later canceled that season, to avoid conflict with another game involving a team of Notre Dame All-Stars.
For the team's second season, Bullet Baker was named the team's new coach. While most of the core of the team was kept intact, the Gunners brought in Dick Thornton and Mack Gladden from the University of Missouri. Meanwhile, Yates left the team for the season, for a position with the cross-town St. Louis Veterans. The 1932 Gunners posted a 7–4–1 record. The team was able to play its rival, the Memphis Tigers, to a standoff in three games, St. Louis winning 6–0, Memphis winning 12–0, and the third game ending in a scoreless tie. Later that year, the Tigers, Gunners and the Oklahoma City Chiefs each laid some claim to a mythical "independent championship,". Two of the team's losses that season came against NFL caliber opponents, the Cardinals, 20–7, and the Portsmouth Spartans, 12–0.

By 1933, the team had been renamed the "St. Louis Gunners". Most of the ties the team had with the National Guard had been severed. For example, the players were no longer required to stay at the Battery A barracks, as they had in the past. Dick Frahm, Babe Lyon, and Charley Malone were signed from the Washington Redskins. The team posted an 11–2–3 record in 1933. That year it managed to defeat many of the NFL teams it faced. The Gunners defeated the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers 21–2, and the Chicago Cardinals 28–7. The team also held the Chicago Bears to a scoreless tie. The team's only two NFL losses of the year came against the Green Bay Packers and the Cincinnati Reds. The team had also managed to outscore its opponents 297–72.

On August 8, 1934, before the start of the NFL season, St. Louis purchased the NFL's Cincinnati Reds for $20,000. However, the Gunners needed the other league owners to approve the sale. Only then would the Gunners would be official members. On August 17, the other owners decided to reject the Gunners bid to buy the Reds, probably because St. Louis was considered to be too remote from the rest of the clubs, most of which were in the Northeast, and yearly trips there would have increased travel expenses. Meanwhile, the Gunners declined membership in the minor league American Football League. As a result, the new league decided to form the St. Louis Blues. Gunners GM Bud Yates was credited with founding the team. The Blues lured Dick Frahm away from the Gunners and even took over the lease of Public Schools Stadium. As a result, the Gunners moved their home games to Sportsman's Park. Meanwhile, Chile Walsh became the team's fourth head coach in four years.

The Gunners started their 1934 season, 5–0 against several semi-pro teams. The team was searching desperately for decent teams to compete against. However, on November 6, 1934, the NFL finally approved the sale of the Cincinnati Reds to St. Louis for $20,000 – $30,000. The Gunners were now officially members of the NFL and were invited to play the Reds last 3 games of the 1934 NFL season. The Blues then moved to Kansas City two days later in order to avoid fighting the Gunners for control of the St. Louis fan base.

The Gunners defeated their first NFL opponent, the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6–0. However, a week later they were defeated by the Detroit Lions 40–7. The team managed to defeat the Pirates again in a 10–0 rematch, but the game, scheduled while the Gunners were still playing independently, was subsequently ruled an exhibition. The Gunners lost to the Packers a week later, 21–14, before dropping another close game to the Dodgers 17–14. The Gunners ended their 1934 season with a 7–0 win over the Kansas City Blues.

The team then moved to the rival American Football League where it folded after a season  (1940).

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

Carroll, Bob (1983). "The St. Louis Gunners" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 4 (Annual). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–14. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 27, 2010.

Gill, Bob (1982). "Pro Football Spreads South" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 4 (Annual). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–2. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 27, 2010.

Who Were The Cleveland Panthers?

The Cleveland Panthers were a professional American football team. They were an independent team founded in 1919 from the remains of the Youngstown Patricians. The Panthers played, with various degrees of success, continuously from 1919 and eventually, as fewer opponents played them each year after 1926, sputtered to a quiet folding in 1933.

The Panthers competed in the first American Football League (AFL), founded by Charles "Cash and Carry" Pyle (1882–1939), in 1926. The Panthers, owned by General Charles X. Zimmerman (1865–1926) (the vice president of the AFL), played their home games in old Luna Bowl in Luna Park. Coached by Ray E. Watts, the team drew its players from Ohio colleges and universities and raided the rosters of early National Football League (NFL) teams based in Ohio.

The veteran squad led by tailback Al Michaels was one of only two AFL franchises (the other was the New York Yankees) to average more than 12 points per game. Other former Cleveland Bulldogs Dave Noble and Doc Elliott helped provide offensive firepower, while two-sport star Cookie Cunningham excelled at end, scoring twice on long passes in an October 3, 1926, game against the Los Angeles Wildcats.

In terms of fan support, the Panthers appeared to have had a good start, defeating the Yankees in their first game, at Luna Bowl in front of a reported 22,000 people, but after a second home victory (17-13, against the Wildcats) in which the attendance figures were apparently not reported, and a third straight home win (this time 23-7 against the Rock Island Independents) in front of only 7000 people, it was becoming evident that the Panthers were in trouble despite being in first place with an undefeated record. A 19-12 defeat in front of only 3000 spectators in Chicago's baseball Comiskey Park (the stadium of the Chicago White Sox), foreshadowed the inevitable as the similarly-troubled Newark Bears withdrew from the league on October 24, 1926.

The next week, the Panthers returned home to old Luna Park for a rematch with the Los Angeles Wildcats, a hard-fought game dominated by defense, with Cleveland guard Al Nesser dictating much of the game until a fourth quarter fumble by Al Michaels led to the only score of the game in a 6-0 Wildcats win. While the game was stellar, the attendance was not: only 1000 fans saw it. The following week Stearns Advertising Co. sued the team for $1,000, and the court placed it in receivership. The players were stranded on the road in Philadelphia. The team was disfranchised by the league and disbanded.

Four Panthers subsequently found roster spots on AFL and NFL teams to complete the 1926 season, while six who had played in the NFL had their professional football careers end with the demise of the Cleveland Panthers. The exodus from the AFL continued through November 1926, and after the last official game was played (December 12, 1926), the league itself went out of business.

Immediately after the sudden dissolution of the Panthers, four of the team's members managed to join other rosters in either the NFL or the AFL. Doc Elliot found a spot in the eventual AFL champion Philadelphia Quakers, while Al Nesser returned to the NFL, this time playing for the New York Giants. Guy Roberts and Jack Sack both found a new "home" with the Canton Bulldogs. While Sack finished his career in 1926 and Elliott was out of professional football until 1931, the other two former members continued their careers after the end of the first AFL.

The Panthers returned in 1927 but as an independent semi-professional team managed by George T. Jones, who been the secretary for the team under owner Zimmerman (who died in 1926). The team folded in 1933.

After Cleveland received a franchise to play in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1944, the team's head coach, Paul Brown (1908-1991), was reluctant to use his own name, while the Panthers name still had popular support in a newspaper contest.

However, Jones still held the rights to the "Panthers" name, and he demanded several thousand dollars from team owner Arthur B. McBride for the use of the name. However, after Brown told McBride "That old Panthers team failed, I want no part of that name", McBride refused to pay. He reopened the contest, and selected the Browns name for his team; Brown ultimately acquiesced, and so the team would be named the Cleveland Browns. The Browns joined the National Football League (NFL) from the AAFC in 1950, and continue to play in the NFL today.

The Panthers nickname would be revived in the NFL in 1993, when an expansion team was awarded to Charlotte, North Carolina: the Carolina Panthers.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

 "History of Pro Football in Buffalo". Archived from the original on February 14, 2012. Retrieved November 1, 2012.

 Sye, Roy. Cleveland Panthers all known games. Professional Football Researchers Association.

 "A.F.L. Fields Nine Teams", The New York Times, July 17, 1926

 David S. Neft, Richard M. Cohen, and Rick Korch, The Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of Professional Football, From 1892 to the Present (St. Martin's Press 1994), ISBN 0-312-11435-4

 1926 American Football League from Elias Sports Bureau and Pro Football Research Association Linescore Committee Archived June 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine

 "CLEVELAND PANTHERS - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History". Case Western Reserve University and Western Reserve Historical Society. Retrieved May 1, 2017.

Who Were The Staten Island Stapletons?

The Staten Island Stapletons also known as the Staten Island Stapes were a professional American football team founded in 1915 that played in the National Football League from 1929 to 1932. The team was based in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. They played under the shortened nickname the "Stapes" the final two seasons. Jack Shapiro, who was a blocking back for the Stapletons, was the shortest player in NFL history.

The Staten Island Stapletons were founded in 1915 as a neighborhood team. The team was organized by Dan Blaine, who also served as the team's halfback. Blaine later became rich by building up a chain of restaurants. The Stapletons played similar semi-pro neighborhood teams from the New York City area. During those early years the Stapes played more for fun than money. Crowds were small and player salaries averaged $10 per game. The team won several local semi-pro titles before World War I.

The team was inactive in 1918, due to Blaine's service commitment to the military and involvement in the war. However, the team was renewed in 1919. By that time, Blaine was the team's sole owner. He retired as a player in 1924 but continued as owner and manager of the Stapletons, who were commonly known as the Stapes. By that time the team set up Thompson Stadium, a cozy minor-league park in the neighborhood that gave them their name, as their permanent home field. Today the stadium site is occupied by Stapleton Housing located between Broad, Hill and Warren Streets and Tompkins Avenue. Prior to moving into Thompson Stadium, the Stapletons played in two temporary local parks: Stapleton Field and East Shore Oval.

In 1923-24 Daniel Daley manager of Stapes claimed the New York Metropolitan championship by beating the best independent pro teams in the area. However, in 1925, Tim Mara formed the New York Giants who moved into the Polo Grounds. The Giants presence in New York overshadowed the Stapes, particularly with the sell-out visit by Red Grange and the Chicago Bears on December 6, 1925. The Giants and Stapes began their New York rivalry on Thanksgiving Day 1925. The Giants defeated the Stapes in an exhibition game 7–0.

Over the following couple of seasons, the Stapes would play exhibitions against pro teams from the NFL and various other leagues. On November 14, 1926, the Stapes were routed by the Newark Bears, 33–0. The Bears belonged to Red Grange's American Football League, which served as competitor to the NFL during the 1926 season. Unhappy with the defeat, Blaine promptly hired most of the Newark players, including star rookie Doug Wycoff, who were still owed money because the Newark owner was having financial problems. As a result, the Bears went out of business while the Stapletons benefited from Newark's folding. In 1928, Blaine further upgraded the team by signing some players from New York University.

In 1927, the Stapes fielded their ex-Newark Bears squad, although Wycoff signed with the Giants. The Giants would go on to win the 1927 NFL championship and defeated the Stapes twice in non-league games, 19–0 and 18–0. The Stapes though did manage to beat the NFL's Duluth Eskimos, featuring Ernie Nevers 7–6 on November 27, 1927. By 1928, Blaine wanted the Stapes to become an NFL franchise. He bolstered his squad by re-signing Doug Wycoff back as a player-coach and by signing six graduates from the nationally ranked New York University team. The Stapes had their best season on record, going 10–1–1, including a 3–1 record against NFL teams. They even pulled out a 7–0 victory over the Giants on Thanksgiving Day.

After his team rolled up a 10–1–1 record in 1928, Blaine applied for an NFL franchise in 1929. He needed permission from Tim Mara, the owner of the Giants, because Staten Island was in Mara's exclusive territory. But Mara actually had an extra franchise. It had originally belonged to the Brooklyn Lions and had been given to Mara when the Lions folded in 1927, because they owed him money. Mara had then allowed the New York Yankees, owned by Grange's manager C. C. Pyle, to use the franchise when that team moved from the defunct AFL into the NFL. The Yankees went out of business after the 1928 season, so the franchise again went back to Mara and he passed those franchise's rights on to Staten Island.

Blaine promptly hired Ken Strong, who became a Stapletons Hall of Famer. Strong, who received All-American honors while at New York University, was a speedy, powerful runner who was also one of the best kickers of the era.

The Stapletons would never have a winning season in the NFL. During its first NFL season in 1929, the team went 3–4–3, defeating the Dayton Triangles, Brooklyn Dodgers and the Minneapolis Red Jackets. It also managed to tie the Frankford Yellow Jackets once and Orange Tornadoes twice. The team improved to a 5–5–2 record in 1930. That season the Stapes managed to defeat the rival New York Giants 7–6, after a four-yard touchdown run from Doug Wycoff and an extra point kick from Strong.
In July 1931, the team's official name on the league records was changed from the Stapleton Football Club, Inc., to Staten Island Stapes. At this time, Doug Wycoff left the team to rejoin the Giants. In need of a coach, Blaine hired Hinkey Haines, who had played briefly for the Stapes in 1929. The Stapes opened at home by beating the Dodgers 9–7 before 7,000 fans. However a week later at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers forced 3 interceptions to defeat the Stapes 18–6. The team would post a 4–6–1 record in 1931, defeating the Giants (once), Dodgers (twice) and the Cleveland Indians.

In 1932, the Stapes finished last, defeating only the Giants and the Chicago Cardinals. Blaine was allowed by the NFL to suspend league play for the upcoming 1933 season. The team continued to lose money in 1933. While the team posted losses against the Giants, Dodgers, Portsmouth Spartans, and Green Bay Packers, it did manage to defeat the newly established Philadelphia Eagles. Doug Wycoff and Bob Campiglio stayed with the Stapes in 1933, but their star player Ken Strong signed with the Giants and helped them win the NFL's Eastern Division championship that season and the NFL league championship in 1934.

Blaine went through the formality of getting NFL permission to suspend league operations for the 1934 season. The team played one more season of semi-pro football in 1934 before quietly folding a year later. In June 1935, Blaine's franchise was finally declared forfeit. The franchise's failure can be blamed on a combination of the Great Depression and having too small of a stadium that could never accommodate enough fans to make the team profitable. Therefore, Stapes fans could not afford enough tickets to make a team possible.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/

Staten Island Stapletons Historic Football Records

Hogrogian, John (1985). "The Staten Island Stapletons" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 7 (6). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–9. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 27, 2010.

Gill, Bob (1994). "Just Staten Out On The Island" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 16 (3). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–11. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 3, 2013.

Bashore, Mel (1999). ""Cup of Coffee" Players: Jack Shapiro" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 21 (4). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–2. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 7, 2010.

 "Parkhill". Archived from the original on July 3, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2009.

 Robinson, George (February 1, 2004). "F.Y.I". The New York Times. Retrieved May 24, 2010.