Tigers

The club had started life in 1905 as the Detroit Heralds and joined the American Professional Football Association (APFA) under that name in 1920, then took the name Tigers for 1921, along with the red and white of the University of Detroit, and settled into Navin Field.

The Heralds had gone 2-3-3 in their first season. As the Tigers they won once in seven games in 1921 and folded before the season was out, unable to pay the players.

Cleveland had carried the same name first, from 1919, after starting out as the Indians under the ownership of Peggy Parratt. Its Tigers played the 1920 and 1921 APFA seasons out of League Park, reverted to the Indians name in 1921, and were gone from the league by 1922. Brooklyn picked the name up much later, in 1944, for a franchise that had begun as the Dayton Triangles and moved into Ebbets Field as the Dodgers in 1930; a year after becoming the Tigers, it merged into the Boston Yanks.

None of the three ever finished a season above.500. Navin Field, home to the Detroit version, held close to 23,000.