The Boston Yanks were an NFL team that played at Fenway Park from 1944 to 1948. Games that conflicted with the Boston Red Sox schedule were held at the Manning Bowl in Lynn, Mass.  Team owner Ted Collins, who managed singer Kate Smith, picked the name "Yanks" because he originally wanted to run a team that played at New York City's Yankee Stadium, and as a result, never won over the fans right from the beginning, because of his love for the New York Yankees. 

The green and gold team colors were not picked as a tribute to Boston’s Irish heritage, but because of his love for the Irish from Notre Dame.  The team never had the class of the New York Yankees, nor the appeal of Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish and could only manage a 2-8 record during its first regular season.

Because of a shortage of players caused by World War II, the Yanks were merged with the Brooklyn Tigers for the 1945 season. The merged team played four home games in Boston and one at Yankee Stadium. But fans from neither city cared as they finished with a 3-6-1 record.  When Brooklyn Tigers owner Dan Topping announced his intentions to join the All-America Football Conference in 1946, his NFL franchise was revoked and all of its players were assigned to the Yanks.

After three continuous losing seasons, Collins finally was allowed to move to New York in 1949. But instead of an official relocation, he asked the league to officially fold his Boston franchise and give him a new franchise, for a tax write off. The league granted his request, and Collins named his new team the New York Bulldogs and played their home games at the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants.  The All-America Football Conference merged with the NFL following the 1949 season.  Their New York Yankees team merged with the New York Bulldogs and were renamed the New York Yanks for the 1950 season.  The New York Yanks were not a success and the team declared bankruptcy following the 1951 season.  The league took over the team and moved them to Dallas for the 1952 season, renaming the franchise the Dallas Texans. 

On January 23,1953 the franchise was sold to Carroll Rosenbloom who moved them to Baltimore and named them the Colts to replace the old Baltimore Colts, one of the teams from the All-American Football Conference that was absorbed unsuccessfully into the NFL for the 1950 and 1951 seasons.  The new Baltimore Colts kept the present day uniform blue and white colors of the Dallas Texans. 

The Colts remained in Baltimore until 1984 when they were moved to Indianapolis. The Boston Yanks are the only defunct NFL team ever to have the first overall NFL draft pick. They had it twice in 1944 and 46. Both times they selected a quarterback from the University of Notre Dame: Angelo Bertelli and Frank Dancewicz.
 

ACE PARKER (1945) ... Parker is the only member of the Boston Yanks to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (1972).  He never really intended to play pro football when he completed his career as an All-American tailback at Duke University in 1936. His ambition was to be a major league baseball player and he signed a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics. But after the 1937 baseball season, he obtained permission from the Athletics to give pro football a try.  He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National Football League, still really expecting to play out just one pro football season and then call it a career. Ace stayed with the Dodgers until World War II military service interrupted his career in 1942.  He returned to the pros in 1945 with the Boston Yanks then added a brilliant final campaign with the New York Yankees of the All-America Football Conference in 1946.  Ace wasn't exceptionally fast anyway, but he continued doing just what he had always done – running, passing, catching passes, punting, placekicking, returning punts and kickoffs and playing defense.