December 10, 1939: The Packers' Domination at the Dairy Bowl

December 10, 1939: The NFL Championship Game is played. At the time, the site of the game was alternated between the home fields of the Eastern Division Champions and the Western Division Champions. It was an odd-numbered year, so the Western Champions were set to host. But that was the Green Bay Packers, and Green Bay City Stadium only seated 25,000 people.

So the NFL approved the Packers' request to move the game to the nearest big city, Milwaukee. Specifically, to a stadium built in the infield of an auto racing track at the Wisconsin State Fair Park, in West Allis, 8 miles west of downtown. The stadium was quickly nicknamed the Dairy Bowl.

A year earlier, the Packers had lost the NFL Championship Game to the New York Giants, 23-17 at the Polo Grounds in New York. This time, coach Early "Curly" Lambeau had the home-field advantage -- sort-of, and a full house of 32,379 attended.

The game kicked off at 1:30 PM, Central Time (2:30 Eastern). In the 1st quarter, Arnie Herber threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Milt Gantenbein. The game remained 7-0 into the 3rd quarter, before Engebretsen kicked a 29-yard field goal.

The Packers had 2 good quarterbacks, both throwing passes to the original great football receiver, Don Hutson. Oddly, Hutson didn't catch a single pass during the game. Later in the 3rd quarter, the other quarterback, Cecil Isbell, threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Joe Laws.

Don Hutson

In the 4th quarter, Ernie Smith kicked a 42-yard field goal, and Eddie Jankowski ran the ball in from the 1-yard line for a touchdown. Final score: Packers 27, Giants 0.

Auto racing has been held at the State Fair Park since 1903. The Packers continued to play the occasional game there until 1951, and the Milwaukee Chiefs of the 1940 and '41 edition of the American Football League played there.

In 1954, the stadium was knocked down and the grounds renovated. An asphalt track replaced the dirt track, and a new grandstand was built. The stadium is now known as the Milwaukee Mile, and the finish line is roughly where the 50-yard line was.

The Green Bay Packers have the largest team Hall of Fame of any team in the "Big Four" North American sports: The NFL, MLB, the NBA and the NHL. From their 1939 NFL Championship, they have inducted co-founder, owner, general manager and head coach Earl "Curly" Lambeau; co-founder George Whitney Calhoun; executives Frank Jonet, Gerald F. Clifford, Fred Leicht, Emil Fischer and Lee Joannes; backs Arnie Herber, Hank Bruder, Clarke Hinkle, Joe Laws, Eddie Jankowski, Cecil Isbell, Andy Uram and Larry Craig; ends Milt Gantenbein and Don Hutson, Carl Mullenaux and Harry Jacunski; tackles Charles "Buckets" Goldenberg and Buford "Baby" Ray; guards Paul "Tiny" Engebretsen, Russ Letlow and Pete Tinsley; centers George and Bud Svendsen and Charley Brock; trainer Carl "Bud" Jorgensen and team doctor W. Webber Kelly; band director Wilner Burke; and the team's 1st broadcaster, Russ Winnie.

When the Packers won the NFL Championship again in 1944, these players were holdovers: Laws, Craig, Hutson, Mullenaux, Harry Jacunski; Goldenberg, Ray, Tinsley and Charley Brock. They were joined by backs Lou Brock, Tony Canadeo, Ted Fritsch and Irv Comp; journalist Art Daley; and the earliest Packer fan inducted, Al Schneider.

Lambeau, Herbert, Hutson, Hinkle and Canadeo have also been inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

The Packers wouldn't win the title again until 1961. Playing for them in between, but not on either of, those 2 titles, and inducted into their Hall of Fame have been: Quarterback Tobin Rote; running backs Bob Forte, Fred Cone, Howie Ferguson and Al Carmichael; ends Bob Mann, John Martinkovic and Billy Howton; tackle Dick Wildung; linebacker Deral Teteak; and safety Bobby Dillon.

In 1999, Hutson ranked 6th on The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players, and, in 2010, 65 years after his last game and 13 years after his death, Number 9 on the NFL Network's 100 Greatest Players. In each case, he was 2nd only to Jerry Rice among receivers.

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December 10, 1939 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

There were 3 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. The New York Americans beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium. The Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.

October 21, 1945: Don Hutson Becomes the 1st Player With 100 Career Touchdowns

October 21, 1945: The Green Bay Packers beat the Boston Yanks, Philadelphia Eagles, 38-14 at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. Don Hutson catches  passes for 169 yards and 2 touchdowns, including the 100th touchdown of his career. This made him the 1st player in NFL history to score that many touchdowns. He also kicked the extra point on all 5 Packer touchdowns.

Donald Montgomery Hutson was born on January 31, 1913 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Paul "Bear" Bryant was also born in Arkansas, 8 months later. The two of them were ends on opposite sides of the offensive line at the University of Alabama's 1934 National Championship team.

While Bryant chose to go into coaching instead of playing professionally, Hutson signed  with the Green Bay Packers, starred for 11 seasons, became both the 1st great receiver in NFL history and one of its best defensive backs, and helped them win 3 NFL Championships: In 1936, 1939 and 1944.

He retired after the 1945 season, with 488 receptions, 7,991 receiving yards, 284 rushing yards, and 30 interceptions for 389 returned yards. He had 99 touchdowns receiving, 3 rushing, and 1 on an interception return, for a then-record total of 103. He also had a safety, 172 out of 183 extra points kicked, and 7 out of 17 field goals, for a total of 825 points.

He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, he was a charter inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Packers retired his Number 14. (Alabama does not retire numbers, and so his 14 remains in circulation there.)

Hutson lived long enough to see the growth of the passing game, and the far-surpassing of his receiving records. In 1989, with Jerry Rice in the 5th season of a career that would eventually see him hold most major receiving records, Hutson said that Rice was already better than he ever was. Hutson died on June 26, 1997, shortly after seeing the Packers win Super Bowl XXXI.

He was named to the NFL's 1930s All-Decade Team, its 50th Anniversary Team in 1969, its 75th Anniversary Team in 1994, and its 100th Anniversary Team in 2019. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 6th on their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, 2nd to Rice among receivers, 1st among pre-World War II players, and 1st among Packer players.

In 2010, the NFL Network ranked him 9th on their list of the 100 Greatest Players; and, in 2012, they ranked him 1st on their list of the greatest Packers, probably surprising a lot of people who though that team's history began with the coaching of Vince Lombardi.

Yes, "Boston Yanks." They were founded in 1944, an odd time to begin a sports team, given the manpower drain of World War II, and played most of their games at the Red Sox' Fenway Park, but occasionally at Braves Field. The owner was Ted Collins, husband and manager of singer Kate Smith. He named them the Yanks because he wanted them to play at Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees wouldn't allow it.

So he put the team in Boston, which had been without a team since the Redskins moved to Washington after 1936. Boston fans never took to them, although it's possible that the "Yanks" name and the fans' love of the Red Sox and hatred of the Yankees had nothing to do with it. The team folded after the 1948 season, never having had a winning season.

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October 21, 1945 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 21-7 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 35-17 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Cardinals, 26-0 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* And the Cleveland Rams Browns beat the Chicago Bears, 41-21 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

There were 2 games in college football, which, then as now, rarely played on Sundays. This being the year World War II ended, it was also the last year that the NCAA scheduled military base teams against college teams, to fill out the college teams' schedules due to The War's manpower drain. St. Mary's College of California beat McClellan Field, 58-0 at Charles C. Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, California.

St. Mary's, based in Moraga in the East Bay region, was a football power before World War II, but dropped its program to NCAA Division III in 1973, raised it to Division II in 1980 and Division I-AA in 1993, but dropped its program after the 2003 season. McClellan Field was renamed McClellan Air Force Base in 1948, and was converted into the civilian Sacramento McClellan Airport in 2000.

And in a battle of Catholic schools that would become much better known for their basketball teams, Villanova beat the University of Detroit, 14-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Although Villanova have been playing games on campus at Villanova Stadium since 1927, they played home games requiring bigger crowds at Shibe Park from 1925 to 1953 (the year it was renamed Connie Mack Stadium), at the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field in West Philadelphia from 1948 to 1953, at Municipal Stadium in South Philadelphia from 1953 to 1957 (it was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium in 1964), and at the Philadelphia Union's home in Chester, currently named Subaru Park, since 2011.

The baseball season ended 11 days earlier, when the Detroit Tigers won Game 7 of the World Series over the Chicago Cubs. The NHL season started 3 days later. And the 1st NBA season started 1 year later.