1948: Sanders Leads Yankees to Win Over Brooklyn

The All-America Football Conference kicked off its 1948 season with games in Brooklyn and Chicago on August 27. The contest in Brooklyn featured the league’s two New York City-based teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees. Both operated out of single-wing offenses, but the similarities ended there.

The Dodgers had struggled during the AAFC’s first two seasons, losing money while posting identical 3-10-1 records. The franchise had been purchased by the baseball Dodgers at the suggestion of Branch Rickey, the pioneering major league executive who hoped to prove equally adept at operating a pro football team. The Dodgers had a new head coach, Carl Voyles, and a star rookie tailback in Bob Chappuis from Michigan to join holdover Bob Hoernschemeyer.

The Yankees had been much more successful under Head Coach Ray Flaherty, who had led the NFL Redskins to championships, dominating the Eastern Division in 1946 and ’47 while posting a combined 21-5-2 regular season tally. They had lost the league championship game in both instances to the Cleveland Browns, but were a talented team that included small (5’5”, 170-pound) but quick HB Buddy Young, ends Jack Russell and Bruce Alford, and most significantly, tailback Orban (Spec) Sanders (pictured above), an all-around talent who led the AAFC in rushing in each of the first two seasons, including 1432 yards and 19 touchdowns in ’47.

There were 16,411 fans in attendance at Ebbets Field for the game played on a Friday night in 92-degree heat. That it felt far more like baseball than football weather was enhanced by those in attendance who were listening to the game between the baseball Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds on portable radios.

Brooklyn outplayed the Yankees in the first half, although both teams appeared sluggish in the heat. Chappuis and Hoernschemeyer led the passing attack, but the Dodgers managed to score only once, on a 17-yard Lee Tevis field goal in the second quarter to hold a 3-0 lead at halftime.

New York’s offense came alive in the third quarter, and it was Sanders who keyed the rally. Four minutes into the second half, he gained 27 yards on consecutive carries, including an eight-yard run for a touchdown as he powered into the end zone with DB Carl Allen on his back.

Following Brooklyn’s next possession, the Yankees moved the ball to their 40 yard line and Sanders ran off tackle and went untouched for a 60-yard TD. In sudden fashion, New York had taken a 14-3 lead and control of the game.

While Sanders keyed the offense and with the game still in the third quarter, rookie tailback Tom Casey came up with the most sensational play of all when he returned a punt an AAFC-record 94 yards for a touchdown. Harvey Johnson followed with his third extra point of the game, giving him a total of 43 straight to break his own prior record of 42.

There was no further scoring, but the three-touchdown outburst in the third quarter was more than enough to propel the Yankees to a 21-3 win.

New York outgained the Dodgers, 333 yards to 233, with 250 of that total coming on the ground. The Yankees also accumulated 15 first downs, to Brooklyn’s 11. Spec Sanders carried the ball just 11 times, but gained 147 yards and scored two touchdowns.

The opening win was not a prelude of another division-winning season for the Yankees, however. They lost their next four games, by which point the highly-regarded Flaherty was gone and replaced by Red Strader. While the team rallied somewhat in the second half of the year, it could not overcome the 2-6 start and finished in third place at 6-8 – still only a game behind the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Colts, who tied for the division title at 7-7 (the Bills won the playoff, thus earning the dubious honor of being the team thrashed by the undefeated Browns in the title game).

Despite Branch Rickey’s efforts, the Dodgers finished last with their worst record of all, 2-12. The baseball Dodgers sold the franchise back to the league, and it was merged with the Yankees for the AAFC’s last season in 1949.

Running into injury problems over the course of the season, Spec Sanders didn’t lead the league in rushing in ’48, but finished fourth with 759 yards on 169 carries that included nine TDs. Adding in 918 passing yards, Sanders generated 1677 yards of total offense to rank seventh in the league (just behind Brooklyn’s Chappuis with 310 yards on the ground and 1402 through the air for a total of 1712). A knee injury knocked him out of the 1949 season, but he returned to play for the New York Yanks of the NFL in 1950 and, as a defensive back, led the league with 13 interceptions.

1948: Buffalo’s Running Game Prevails Over Brooklyn’s Passing Attack

The November 7, 1948 All-America Football Conference (AAFC) game at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field featured a matchup between two Eastern Division teams, the host Dodgers and visiting Buffalo Bills.

Brooklyn had done well neither on the field nor at the gate in its first two seasons, going 3-10-1 in each and averaging just over 11,000 fans per home game in ‘47. For 1948, the team had been purchased by its baseball counterpart and was run by Branch Rickey, an outstanding major league baseball executive.

Rickey believed that the key to football success was speed and a good passing game, and to that end the Dodgers outbid the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers for Bob Chappuis, an All-American passing tailback who had just led Michigan to a smashing Rose Bowl triumph over USC (Rickey also had to trade three draft choices to the Cleveland Browns for the rights to Chappuis, who had been drafted by the Browns in the AAFC’s draft of college talent).


Chappuis (pictured at left) seemed a good choice to operate in Brooklyn’s single-wing attack. However, he was three weeks late reporting to the team due to participation in the annual College All-Star game and encountered injury problems early on that limited his playing time. While third-year tailback Bob Hoernschemeyer played well, the Dodgers had a 2-7 record (their only two wins coming against the even-more-dreadful Chicago Rockets) coming into the game with Buffalo and Rickey was expressing concern that he had not gotten much return on his $55,000, two-year investment in Chappuis.

The Bills were 4-5 under Head Coach Red Dawson, but in the mediocre Eastern Division that was enough to put them in contention. Second-year QB George Ratterman ran their T-formation offense, which had performed well in wins the previous two weeks, most notably due to the young quarterback’s passing and the play of HB Chet Mutryn (pictured at top).

There was a typically sparse crowd of 7805 at Ebbets Field as Buffalo moved out to an early lead. Mutryn started off the scoring with a 68-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and FB Lou Tomasetti added a 15-yard carry for a TD. The extra point attempt failed after the first score, but not the second, and the Bills were up by 13-0 after the opening period.

Brooklyn narrowed the margin in the second quarter to 13-7 as FB Mickey Colmer, another of the few bright spots on the club, ran for a two-yard touchdown. Buffalo extended its lead to 19-7 in the third quarter as Mutryn ran for a second touchdown, of nine yards, although again the extra point attempt failed.

The game ultimately came down to a contest between Buffalo’s relentless ground attack against Brooklyn’s aerial assault in a bid to keep up. The Bills added another seven points in the fourth quarter, taking advantage of the Dodgers’ need to go to the air, when DB Carl Schuette returned an interception 55 yards and lateraled to end Vince Mazza, who ran the last five yards to score. However, Chappuis filled the air with passes and connected with end Saxon Judd for a touchdown. Wingback Ray Ramsey returned a punt 70 yards for a TD as well, but ultimately the Bills held on and prevailed by a score of 26-21.

George Ratterman completed only 3 of 13 passes for the Bills, but it hardly mattered as Buffalo gained 419 yards on the ground. Chet Mutryn gained 185 yards on 17 carries with two touchdowns and Lou Tomasetti had 141 yards on 15 attempts, including a TD.

The Dodgers went to the air a total of 53 times and had only 15 rushing plays. Bob Chappuis was the headliner in defeat as he completed 26 of 51 passes, both AAFC records (previously set by Glenn Dobbs, also with Brooklyn, in 1946). He accounted for all but 12 of the team’s 265 total yards, with 211 passing and 42 rushing on four carries, and threw for one TD. He played in all but 10 minutes of the game, his best pro performance to date.

“That was as fine an individual performance I have ever seen on a football field," Dodgers Head Coach Carl Voyles said after the game regarding Chappuis.

With the win, the Bills took the lead in the Eastern Division at 5-5, on the way to a 7-7 finish and tie with the Baltimore Colts for first place. Buffalo came from behind to defeat the Colts in the resulting playoff, but was decimated by the undefeated Cleveland Browns, the Western Division champions, in the AAFC Championship game.

Brooklyn finished a dismal 2-12 to rank last in the Eastern Division. Branch Rickey and the baseball Dodgers threw in the towel and sold the franchise back to the league, which in turn combined the team with the New York Yankees for the 1949 season.

Bob Chappuis ended up completing 100 of 213 passes for 1402 yards with 8 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in ’48 while splitting time with Hoernschemeyer (who had identical totals for TDs and INTs with fewer pass attempts). The records he set for attempts and completions against the Bills were broken a few weeks later by Dobbs, now with the Los Angeles Dons. With the demise of the Dodgers, he and Hoernschemeyer both played for the Chicago Hornets (the re-named Rockets) in 1949. Chappuis saw little action with the 4-8 Hornets behind Hoernschemeyer and Johnny Clements and, with the team and league going out of existence following the season, retired from pro football (Hoernschemeyer went on to have a successful career as a halfback with the NFL’s Detroit Lions).

Chet Mutryn ended up ranking third in the AAFC in rushing with 823 yards on 147 carries for a 5.6-yard average and a league-leading 10 touchdowns (tied with San Francisco’s Joe Perry). Lou Tomasetti was fifth with 716 yards on 134 attempts (5.3 avg.) with seven TDs. Despite his poor passing effort against the Dodgers, George Ratterman placed second in the league in passing yards (2577), and while he tossed 16 TD passes, he also led the AAFC with 22 interceptions.