Two Down

Three pro football leagues hung out shiny new shingles last fall and announced brave plans for postwar business. In the battle for survival, each was aware that whoever got the playing rights in Yankee Stadium would be the winner.

Last week, two of the projected leagues decided to give up. Said Promoter John F. ("Chick") Meehan of the Trans-America Football League : "With the Stadium I had plenty of ammunition. With out it I just had conversation. . . ." Harold ("Red") Grange, quitting the U.S. Professional Football League, said moodily: "I would not advise anybody to start in pro football now."

Still very much alive, with coast-to-coast plans for teams in seven cities, was the ambitious young All-America Football Conference. But All-America's road looked none too smooth. Moving last week to smother any postwar competition, the long-established National Football League gave its Brooklyn Tigers (dispossessed of their Ebbets Field home) permission to switch to Yankee Stadium in 1946. This left All-America with only one hope in metropolitan New York: Brooklyn's Ebbets Field.

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