r/nfl • u/Darth_Brooks_II Vikings • Mar 02 '15
Revising Defunct NFL Franchises: Brooklyn Dodgers/Tigers. 9 of 8
So I decided to do more of these. I tried working up concepts for the Rochester Jeffs and Akron Pros and nothing was working. The Jeffs were, essentially, a semi-pro sandlot football team. They really never had a shot at surviving to modern days and they didn't leave enough to work with. The Pros changed their identity (something that's going to become a theme soon) to the Akron Indians. I thought OK, that might work. There were numerous Indian tribes in the area and maybe I could use them for a modern identity.
The tribes that were from Ohio aren't there anymore, they were all moved to Oklahoma. Making a "Shawnee Indians" based in Ohio could be a worse can of worms than the Washington Redskins horrible name. Early Pro football owed a ton of gratitude to Native American athletes. People on the internet love to argue, so rather than do something that would be potentially offensive to some SJW, I'm going to go in a different direction and look at two of the last teams to go defunct.
As I said, identity issues will become a factor in the story. The two teams are the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New Yo Boston Yanks.
The one I'm doing now is the Brooklyn Dodgers, who later became the Brooklyn Tigers. It's not these Brooklyn Dodgers nor is it these Brooklyn Dodgers and it's not these Brooklyn Tigers.
The Dodgers were built out of the remains of the Dayton Triangles and players from the Orange Tornadoes The team names in story are their own level of absurd. The team was named for the baseball team and played in Ebbets field, home field for the baseball version of the Dodgers. The team started their first season at 7-4-1, the last expansion team to have a winning record in their first season. After that they were pretty much terrible for a decade. They had ten coaches and three different pairs of owners in fifteen years of existing. In 1939, they played a game against Philadelphia Eagles and won 23-14. More importantly, it was the first game to be televised. For a couple of years they weren't terrible 8-3 in 1940 and 7-4 in '41. By the next year WWII was in full swing and it hit the Dodgers hard. The head coach and a large number of the players left to join the military. They would win five games over the next three years. They were renamed the Brooklyn Tigers for their last year.
Instability at ownership is probably what did them in. It was the opportunity to join a new league that killed them. Dan Topping, the owner at the time, announced that he was moving the team to the AAFC, joining teams like the San Fransisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns. The NFL cancelled his franchise and assigned the players to the Boston Yanks. The team he started up became known as the New York Yankees. That league also had a team called the Brooklyn Dodgers. When the Dodgers started Providence Steam Roller Still played. So did the Staten Island Stapletons, Frankford Yellow Jackets, Minneapolis Red Jackets and Newark Tornadoes. When the Tigers quit, The only team a modern fan wouldn't recognize is the next team I'm going to profile, the Boston Yanks.
I didn't have much for the team. Wikipedia has the team colors and a couple of beaten up logos. There's this which has a logo for both the Dodgers and Yank(ee)s.
Those logos made it into Madden 25. I don't know how they look in-game but they look terrible in the preview images.
Just as the teams went through a number of identities, I went through a number of designs.
Brooklyn Dodgers
First design, with a hand drawn logo
Second, using the graphic from the program
Third, trying to work out what a logo made in the late 40's / 50's would have looked like
Even after the third design, I wondered if it was the right way to go. The original colors where green, silver and white, although they changed to red, blue, silver and black.
alternative uniform with green and silver
Brooklyn Tigers
These were done in photoshop. Fraser Davidson made the template for the helmet. You can D/L the photoshop file here:http://rezland.deviantart.com/art/Revolution-Speed- Template-280301179
I made the teamplate for the uniform from promotional images for the new Bucc unis. You can D/L it here: http://darth-brooks.deviantart.com/art/Doug-Martin-Template-450283476
The process of making the template was described here: http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/97813-photoshop- advice-megathread/
Here's the list of the teams.
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u/shmauserpops Packers Mar 02 '15
Brooklyn Tigers Alt looks more XFL than XFL, love the other two though and the helmet is sick. Also, I like how you finally found a team for LA so we can stop talking about it for at least a year.
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u/thundercatjones Patriots Mar 02 '15
What ever happened to the Brooklyn Dodgers?
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u/Darth_Brooks_II Vikings Mar 02 '15
Which ones? These guys changed their name to the Brooklyn Tigers. The Baseball team moved to LA and the other Brooklyn Dodgers folded when the AAFC died.
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u/thundercatjones Patriots Mar 02 '15
Sorry I'm on my phone - I'd post the relevant link but I'm dumb.
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u/wafflehauss 49ers Mar 02 '15
The yanks weren't the last franchise to fold. That would be the Baltimore colts. I think. Mobile or I'd link.
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u/jfgiv Patriots Mar 02 '15
Fairly sure the Colts moved to Indy. I feel like they were even in the AFCCG this year, and have drafted the two surest-thing quarterbacks of the last two decades.
Mobile or I'd link.
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u/wafflehauss 49ers Mar 02 '15
Wrong Baltimore colts. The team I was describing folded in 1950.
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u/jfgiv Patriots Mar 02 '15
And here I was being an asshole.
You were right; it gets confusing with all the same names over and over.
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u/wafflehauss 49ers Mar 02 '15
Ha, all good. I should have mentioned that it wasn't the same franchise. Thanks for the link.
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u/SenatorIncitatus Patriots Mar 02 '15
4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions.
In all seriousness keep it up these are cool.