Pacific Coast Professional Football League

The Pacific Coast Professional Football League, also known as the Pacific Coast Football League and Pacific Coast League was a professional American football minor league based in California. It operated from 1940 through 1948. One of the few minor American professional sports leagues that competed in the years of World War II, the PCPFL was regarded as a minor league of the highest level, particularly from 1940 to 1945, at a time in which the National Football League did not extend further west than Chicago and Green Bay. It was also the first professional football league to have a team based in Hawaii.
Formed from the wreckage of a failed California Pro Football League, the PCPFL showcased the Los Angeles Bulldogs and the Hollywood Bears. The league became the “home” of African American football stars as the NFL had developed and enforced a color barrier in 1934 and extended until 1946.
After reaching a peak in 1945, the importance and popularity of the PCPFL declined rapidly in the post-World War years as the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and the All-America Football Conference's Los Angeles Dons established a major league presence with games in the Coliseum. The resulting competition was devastating to the PCPFL: teams averaging over 10,000 spectators per game in 1944 and 1945 and 1,000 by 1946.
In December 1948, the PCPFL folded. The Los Angeles Bulldogs, the only league member to have participated in every season of the league's existence, was in such financial straits that they did not play the last two scheduled games in 1948, and the Hollywood Bears had become a traveling team in 1948.

League origins

History of early professional football in California

Prior to 1936, the history of professional football in California was not a hopeful one. While there were two “major league Los Angeles teams” in 1926, both were actually traveling teams that lasted only one season, but several NFL and AFL teams would also play exhibition contests in the West, sometimes with other NFL or AFL teams, but also against some of the local semi-pro teams in the region, in the following year or two.

Pacific Coast League (1926)

In the wake of two barnstorming tours by Red Grange a league was formed in 1926 and called the Pacific Coast League, but it lasted only one season after drawing an average of 3,500 fans a game.

Team	W	L	T	Pct.	PF	PA
Hollywood Generals	5	0	0	1.000	63	3
Oakland Oaks	3	2	0	.600	36	33
San Francisco Tigers	1	3	0	.250	53	35
Fresno Wine Crushers	0	4	0	.000	9	90

California Winter League (1927–1928)

With an aim to mimic Grange tour success, in January 1927 the Galloping Ghost AFL's Yankees joined by another AFL team – the Los Angeles Wildcats and together with the NFL's Duluth Eskimos and Los Angeles Buccaneers formed the California winter league, following the end of the fall NFL and AFL seasons. The teams also scheduled game against the PCL Hollywood Generals and the California All-Stars. It was the first major league to operate in the West Coast.
The best team in both seasons was the Los Angeles Wildcats, dubbed Wilson's Wildcats by the press and included a few Providence Steam Roller players plus a collection of West Coast stars, was not chosen to play in the champion series, as they did not drew well enough. Instead, Grange's Yankees played against the Buccaneers, winning the first one 14–0 and losing the second one 6–7. The Eskimos finished last, and were known as Nevers-Imlay Giants after getting reinforcement from West Coast colleges.

Team	W	L	T	Pct.	PF	PA
Wilson’s Wildcats	2	0	0	1.000	45	7
Muller's Buccaneers	3	2	0	.600	56	43
Grange’s Yankees	2	2	0	.500	45	7
Nevers-Imlay Giants	2	3	0	.400	39	37

For the 1928 season, the Cleveland Bulldogs replaced the Buccaneers, which lost to the Yankees 6–13 in the 1928 championship game.

Team	W	L	T	Pct.	PF	PA
Wilson’s Wildcats	2	1	1	.667	45	7
Grange’s Yankees	3	2	1	.600	42	39
Friedman's Bulldogs	2	2	1	.500	38	34
Nevers-Imlay Giants	0	2	1	.000	19	33

The league folded after decline in attendance in the second year.

American Legion League (1934–1935)

In 1934, four teams from the Los Angeles area and two from San Francisco formed another Pacific Coast League.

Team	Wins	Losses	Ties	%	PF	PA
California Giants	3	0	0	1.000	41	28
Southern California Maroons	5	1	0	.833	79	13
Westwood Cubs	2	2	1	.500	68	58
Stanford Braves	2	2	1	.500	37	33
Del Rey Shamrocks	0	3	1	.125	33	68
Moraga Wolves	0	2	0	.000	14	28

When the two San Francisco teams withdrew from the league after the 1934 season, the four L.A. teams continued to compete in 1935 as the American Legion League. It folded after one season under the new name.

Team	Wins	Losses	Ties	%	PF	PA
Westwood Cubs	5	2	1	.688	94	51
Los Angeles Maroons	4	2	1	.643	74	68
Hollywood Braves	2	3	0	.400	48	50
California Shamrocks	0	4	0	.000	3	50

After the season, Westwood played an exhibition game against the 1935 NFL Champions, the Detroit Lions, at Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles before 16,000 fans: the Lions beat the Cubs in a rout, 67–14.

The Los Angeles Bulldogs and the formation of the Pacific Coast Professional Football League

The 1930s proved to be a boon for professional football leagues in the United States, but it was a “golden age” for minor league football. The year 1936 also marked the first year of the Dixie League of the American South, the American Association ... and a team that formed for the expressed purpose of joining the National Football League, but was passed over in favor of the Cleveland Rams: the Los Angeles Bulldogs.
Owned by the local chapter of the American Legion, managed by Harry Myers, and coached by Gus Henderson, the fledgling Bulldogs played all the games in its inaugural season in Gilmore Stadium, playing local teams like the Salinas Packers and the Hollywood Stars, but also the Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers. In their six games against the NFL, the Bulldogs compiled a 3–2–1 record while having a 6–3–1 season overall.
Myers was confident of receiving an NFL franchise in the 1937 league owners meeting, but after seeing presentations from Houston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, the owners offered the franchise to Cleveland, then a member of the second American Football League. The Bulldogs were invited to replace the Rams in the fledgling league, and proceeded with the first perfect season in major league professional football: eight wins in AFL games, 18 wins including exhibition games, no losses, no ties. Not even the Miami Dolphins, who lost an exhibition game immediately prior to their "perfect" 1972 season, can make the claim. The Bulldogs' complete dominance of the league exacerbated the financial difficulties of the AFL to the point that the league was forced to fold after the end of the 1937 season.

California Football League (1938)

Another attempt at a league in California in 1936 barely got off the ground. One of the teams, the Hollywood Stars, was sold to Paul Schissler, who coached the Chicago Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers of the NFL. Schissler planned yet another league, this one to showcase the Bulldogs and his Stars. Myers declined the invitation to join the new California and opted for a season in which the Bulldogs were an independent team.
The 1938 league started with teams in Stockton, Fresno and Oakland, in addition to Hollywood and Salinas. The CFL had little importance without the Bulldogs and it canceled after one season, without an attempt to crown a champion.

Team	W	L	T	Pct.	PF	PA
Stockton Shippers	2	0	0	1.000	39	7
Hollywood Stars	4	1	0	.800	103	39
Salinas Iceberg Packers	2	3	0	.400	89	78
Fresno Wine Crushers	2	5	0	.285	51	90
Oakland Cardinals	0	2	0	.000	6	78

Los Angeles Bulldogs finished the season with a 11–2–2 record, including 5–0 record against CFL members.