NY Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers

Historian Larry Schmitt from the Big Blue Interactive and the Gridiron-Uniform Database websites joins us once again to talk about the NYC area teams of the AAFC; the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers football franchises.

The Brooklyn Dodgers of the All-American Football Conference were not the best of teams says Larry. The team existed in the AAFC from 1946 through the 1948 season. The football Dodgers were led by head coach Mal Stevens, some 62 members of the team assembled in Bend, Orgeon in July of 1946 for training camp.

According to the Pro-Football-Reference.com here was the record of the Dodgers during these three seasons:

Year    Lg            W    L    T   Div. Finish    PF    PA      PD     Coaches    
                                                                                                                
1948    AAFC       2    12    0    4th of 4        253    387    -134    Voyles        
1947    AAFC       3    10    1    3rd of 4        181    340    -159    Battles           
1946    AAFC       3    10    1    2nd of 4        226    339    -113    Stevens,Scott,Battles  

Glenn Dobbs was the team's Mr. Everything. He ran, passed and kicked his way into the hearts of the Dodgers fanbase. Mickey Colmer and Walt McDonald were also staples of the Brooklyn backfield.

In 1949 the team merged with the New York Yankees. Larry gives us much more detail in the podcast above on the Dodgers of the AAFC.

The New York Yankees football team of the years 1946 through 1949 played in the All-America Football Conference. The team played in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and often played in front of crowds that had larger than or equal to the New York Giants of the NFL at the same time frame. The club was owned by Dan Topping, who transferred the team from the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers, retaining many of the same players from the World War II seasons. The team's head coach was Ray Flaherty, who had coached the Washington Redskins in the early 1940s. 

The Yankees had some success on the field too. In 1946 they went 10-3 and ended up losing to the Cleveland Browns in the AAFC Title game in a close one. In 1947 they did one better finishing 11-2-1 but lost by a wide margin to the Browns for the championship. The last two years were dismal 6-8 and 8-4 records in the AAFC. In 1948 they lost a semi-final playoff game to the San Francisco 49ers.

They had some outstanding players in the four seasons of existence. Brad Ecklund, Tom Landry, Bruiser Kinard, his brother George Scrappy Kinard, Ace Parker, Nate Johnson, Jack Russell, Spec Sanders, Otto Schnellbacher, Frank Sinkwich, Bob Sweiger, Jordan Jenkins, George Brown, and Arnie Weinmeister graced the roster of this popular club.

Larry has some outstanding history that he shares with us about this club in the podcast episode. Here are some images from some old AAFC programs that Larry has in his collection:

From the Sept 14, 1946 Yankees Bisons game program. Courtesy the Larry Schmitt collection.

The banner photo is a cropped and merged images from Larry Schmitt's AAFC game programs collection to share with us some of the nostalgia of the teams.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites mentioned above including the Football Zebras and Fields of Friendly Strife as well asn the Whistle Museum.