Boston Yanks

In this edition of the Early Pro teams of football, we take a deep dive into the origins and very interesting history of the Boston Yanks franchise.

The Boston Yanks franchise franchise started operations on June 19, 1943. They existed and played in the National Football League from 1944 through the 1948 season. One has to wonder how a team from Boston would gain the moniker of Yanks. After all the Yankees are the biggest rival to the Boston Redsox in Major League baseball. It would be like a pro team in Columbus, Ohio setting up sho as the Wolverines! But the name Yanks in Beantown has a bit of a backstory that is interesting.

The owner of the team was a fella by the name of Ted Collins. Ted is a pretty interesting man, first and foremost he was in show business. Collins was pretty good at managing and promoting stars of the era in the blossoming entertainment industry.  He managed singer Kate Smith, and according to multiple old newspaper article these two had a very unique and special relationship. The Reading Eagle from a 1956 story shares a tale on how the two met. Evidently back in 1930 Collins, then a recording director for Columbia Records, missed a train to get back to his hom on Long Island. Having some time to kill he caught a Broadway show called "Flying High." That show featured a 21-year old singer and dancer from Greenville, Pennsylvania named Kate Smith. Smith was a portly young lady and was at the butt of more than a few jokes during the production of the show. Collins was impressed with the voice of Smith and met with her backstage, sensed her unhappiness with the treatment she received by the producers, and aptly offerred her a recording contract. One that Collins would manage and split everything 50-50 with her for over three decades. Kate Smith became perhaps the biggest female star of the the era! The two were very close as Smith realized that Collins gave her the big break she needed and guided her on to not only a lucrative singing career but also other opportunities such as her own TV show. It is estomated that the partnership earned over $27,000,000 in 30 years! An odd bit of information is that at one point in the 1950's Collins and Smith owned the only two hoouses on an island in Lake Placid, New York.

Well back to the football. Ted Collins decided at some point to use his new found fortune from the Smith partnership to invest in other areas of entertainment. The relationship of Collins and Smith afforded some consultation evidently too as it was Kate Smith that picked the name "Yanks."  The reason was quite simple to answer the earlier question. Collins original plan with the team was that he wanted to have them play at New York City's Yankee Stadium. With a home field in that storied venue the name Yanks would be very befitting. Unfortunately a deal could not be worked out to play in the House that Ruth built, so when he had a chance to strike a deal to play at another legendary baseball stadium up the road in Boston, Collins inked the deal.  According to the Sports Encyclopedia webpages the team played its home games at Fenway Park. Games that conflicted with the Boston Red Sox schedule were held at the Manning Bowl in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, the Yanks could only manage a 2-8 record during its first regular season. According to the Sports Encyclopedia post:

"An expansion team was a surprise for the NFL with player shortages due to war, but eight years after the Redskins moved to Washington, the NFL felt Boston was an underserved market. The Yanks coached by Herb Kopf hosted the Philadelphia Eagles in their first game on September 26th, dropping a 28-7 decision. The Yanks would lose their first four games, before earning their first win on October 29th, the Yanks would beat the Brooklyn Tigers that day 17-14 at Ebbets Field. Following losses to the New York Giants and Chicago Bears, the Yanks would win their first home game, also beating the Tigers 13-6 at Fenway Park on November 19th. The Yanks wins over the winless Brooklyn Tigers would be the only wins for the Boston Yanks all season."

A player shortage caused by World War II, forced the Yanks to merged with those same Brooklyn Tigers for the 1945 season, and stay branded as the Boston Yanks. 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. A season later when Brooklyn Tigers owner Dan Topping announced his intentions to join the All-America Football Conference in 1946, his NFL team was revoked and all of its players were reassigned to the Yanks. Collins finally had his chance to field a team in New York. They tried a stint in the Big Apple but to no avail and they stopped play as the Yanks. Following the season with the permission of the NFL, Ted Collins folded the Boston Yanks for tax purposes and moved the players and league franchise spot to New York, becoming the New York Bulldogs. 

On paper you would think that this might finally workout. However they played home games at the Polo Grounds, sharing it with the football Giants. The team was renamed back to the Yanks in 1950, when they finally were able to reach Collins initial intentions of playing home games at Yankee Stadium. The franchise added many new players, most of them from defunct the All-America Conference teams. It was still not the financial windfall that Collins dreamed of so he sold the team back to the NFL in January 1952. The franchise was then aptly awarded to a Dallas group in 1952 and the team name became the Dallas Texans. (Check out our story on the Texans here) After drawing very few fans to four games in the Cotton Bowl, the Dallas owners gave up and the NFL took the team over for the rest of the season, during which the Texans had to play all their games on the road. At the end of the season the franchise was disbanded. It was time to move again once more. Finally, in January 1953, the holdings of the defunct Dallas Texans were sold to Carroll Rosenbloom and the franchise was moved to Baltimore, Maryland as the Colts.

We know that Rosenbloom would eventually trade the Colts to Jim Irsay in return for the LA Rams. Irsay would then relocate the Colts from Baltimore one dark night to their new and current home of Indianaplois. Whew what a ride! So in essence and by a stretch of the imagination...The Boston Yanks live on as the Blue Horseshoe in the midwest!

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It is a 1953 picture of Kate Smith and Ted Collins taken by an unknown.