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The Boston Bears were a professional American football team that competed in the third American Football League in 1940. Owned by Sheldon H. Fairbanks, the team played its home games in the Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
Stories, Photos, Videos, Podcasts, and Publications featuring Boston Bears History. The Boston Bears were a professional American football team that competed in the third American Football League in 1940. Owned by Sheldon H. Fairbanks, the team played its home games in the Fenway Par...
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Aug 9, 2017 · October 9, 1926: Red Grange returns to Boston with upstart pro football league. This article was written by Nelson ‘Chip’ Greene. Less than a year after Red Grange and the Chicago Bears debuted professional football in Boston, Beantown had its own professional franchise. Once again Grange was on the gridiron at Braves Field for one of the ...
The Boston Bears were a professional American football team that competed in the third American Football League in 1940. Owned by Sheldon H. Fairbanks, the team played its home games in the Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
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The Boston Bears were a professional American football team that competed in the third American Football League in 1940. Owned by Sheldon H. Fairbanks, the team played its home games in the Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Coach Eddie Casey’s team was a competitive one, finishing the 1940 season with a 5-4-1 record, good for third place in the AFL, behind league champions Columbus Bullies and second-place Milwaukee Chiefs.
But success on the field did not transform itself into success in the stands. The Bears became the third professional football team to leave Boston in the space of four years (behind the Redskins of the NFL (which moved to Washington in 1937) and the Boston Shamrocks (of the defunct second American Football League, which folded in 1937; the Shamrocks lasted one more year as an independent team before calling it quits). Before the league’s annual preseason meeting, Fairbanks announced the dissolution of the team (in the meeting, the league tabbed Detroit for an expansion team for the 1941 season to replace the Bears; the team later asked the league for a deferment until 1942, which was granted; but the league suspended operations in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack and the U.S. entry into World War II). Boston would welcome the Boston Yanks of the NFL in the late 1940s, but not have a stable major league football franchise until 1960, when the fourth American Football League’s Boston Patriots started play.
1.All Those AFLs: N.F.L. Competitors, 1935-41 Archived November 27, 2010, at the Wayback Machine – Bob Braunwart, Professional Football Research Association (1984)
2.Indians Occupy Faded Spot in Buffalo's Football Scrapbook Archived November 27, 2010, at the Wayback Machine – Joe Marren, Professional Football Research Association (1997)
3.Boston Conquers Yankee Eleven By 20-7 at Stadium – Lewis Funke, The New York Times, November 24, 1940
4.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
5.David L. Porter, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Football (Greenwood Press 1987) ISBN 0-313-25771-X, p. 142
6.George Gipe, The Great American Sports Book (Doubleday 1978) ISBN 0-385-13091-0
Although the AFL lost the Boston Bears franchise prior to the beginning of the 1941 season, its owners were optimistic about the league's long-term future. Although the league's average attendance was less than that of the more-established NFL, the AFL seemed to be on as firm a financial footing as the older league.
Nov 12, 2021 · The Boston Shamrocks played from 1936-1937 in the second league that called themselves the American Football League. Fenway Park was the home of the Boston Bears in 1940 in the third American...
