In 1937, the Los Angeles Bulldogs, the first professional football team to play its home games on the West Coast, also became the first professional football team to win a league championship with a perfect record (no losses, no ties) – 11 years before the Cleveland Browns (AAFC) and 35 years before the Miami Dolphins (NFL) accomplished the same feat.[1]
Within a few months, Jersey City, Providence, and Philadelphia pulled out and Rochester was granted a franchise. Two weeks later, the newest franchise was transferred to Brooklyn even though there was no stadium available at the time.[1]
The league was envisioned to be a "players league", with veteran players involved in the management of the participating teams. March served as the AFL's president until his resignation in October. He was succeeded by James Bush, president of the New York Yankees AFL franchise.
Most of the new AFL franchises were built on the raiding of nearby NFL franchises in the league's first season. While first-season AFL champion Boston did not plunder the roster of the struggling
Redskins team, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Americans had no such qualms with their crosstown rivals, the Giants and the Pirates. Similarly the Cleveland Rams signed their head coach, Damon Wetzel, from the backfield of the Chicago Bears.[3]
Teams
Boston Shamrocks. The offensive powerhouse of the AFL in the 1936 season, the George Kenneally[4]-led Shamrocks were in a three-way battle with Cleveland and New York for the league championship when Boston beat the other two on consecutive weeks at the end of the season. The following year, the Shamrocks were beset with player defections and struggled to a 2–7 record. Playing its home games at Fenway Park and Braves Field, the team folded along with the league at the end of the 1937 season.
Primary locations of the 1936-37 American Football League
Red Wing Stadium despite the failure of another AFL team based in that city mere weeks before.[5] The team limped to the end of the 1937 season before fading into oblivion. The Tigers were coached by Mike Palm, who owned the team along with Harry Newman
.
Houston and Los Angeles). As a result, the Rams left the AFL for 1937 season, to be replaced by the people from Los Angeles whose NFL application was turned down. The 1936 Rams had Sid Gillman as a rookie end in his only season as an active professional player.[6]
Randall's Island
.
Loran Ribble
.
Red Wing Stadium (November 1, 1936) the second half was delayed 40 minutes by Braves players demanding back pay. The game was finished; the franchise folded immediately afterward.[5]
Soon afterwards, another AFL team (Brooklyn) followed the Braves to Rochester in an effort to survive the 1936 season.
Cincinnati Bengals. Not related to the current NFL franchise, the Bengals joined the AFL for the 1937 season. Playing at Crosley Field, the team was a steady draw despite the team having a losing record. When the league folded at the end of the year, the Bengals continued as an independent team for 1938, joined the short-lived minor American Professional Football Association for 1939, and became a charter member of the third AFL in 1940. Hal Pennington was the team's originator; he was also the first head coach and general manager of the Bengals.[7]
the following year), the other four franchises presented problems for the AFL. Pittsburgh drew only 2500 customers per home game, Syracuse drew less than 5000 before moving to Rochester (and folding after one game), and Brooklyn didn't have a home until the team followed the Braves to Rochester. With the departure of two franchises (the Braves and the Rams), it was clear that change was in order for the AFL.
In the beginning of 1937, the league inaugurated its third president in less than 14 months,
Cincinnati) and a touring team based in Los Angeles whose application to join the more established league was turned down in favor of the Rams.[1]
Unlike the NFL, AFL teams tended to have local interest only. Out-of-town newspapers rarely covered the league's activities, and when they did, the coverage was usually a bare-bones mention of the scores inserted as page filler.
Three weeks into the 1937 season, the poorly-drawing Pittsburgh Americans gave up the ghost while the other eastern teams were suffering the results of player raids by NFL teams (defending champion Boston was virtually gutted, leaving it in no shape to repeat its success).
The entry of the Los Angeles Bulldogs into the league also helped lead to the league's demise. The new team simply overwhelmed the rest of the AFL as the only team with a winning record. The Bulldogs played all of its away games in the first half of the season and then finished the demolition as they stayed home for the second half. While the Bulldogs had attendance figures comparable to that of the 1936 Shamrocks and Yankees (about 14,000 per home game), the former eastern powers lost their draw. Shamrocks owner Bill Scully noted that the team lost $37,000 in 1937; the rest of the league (excluding Los Angeles) fared worse.[6]
With the optimism that began the 1937 season gone, the second American Football League closed up shop at the end of the season.
After the second AFL
While the existence of the second American Football League was relatively brief, its influence in American sports was actually more than realized at that time. It introduced
major league football to the West Coast, which had a team based in Los Angeles and played its games there (whereas the Los Angeles Buccaneers
, a prior NFL team, was a traveling team based in Chicago).
The success of the Boston Shamrocks, particularly at the gate, was also a factor in George Preston Marshall moving his Boston Redskins to Washington. The AFL was also the first "home league" of the Cleveland Rams, which exist today as the Los Angeles Rams.
The Los Angeles Bulldogs returned to the independent circuit in 1938, as did the Cincinnati Bengals, which joined the fledgling minor league, the
American Professional Football Association, in 1939 and became a charter member of the third AFL in 1940. The Bulldogs also joined the APFA for 1939 before becoming a charter member of the Pacific Coast Professional Football League
in 1940.
In 1968, 27 years after the collapse of the third AFL, the Bengals name would be revived by Paul Brown for his Cincinnati expansion franchise in the fourth AFL, a team that continues to play in the NFL.
