contest to be an exhibition game with no effect on the status of the league championship. Final league standings – 1936 Championship: Louisville Tanks 2, Cincinnati Models 0 Beaten by the Models both on and off the field, the Cincinnati Treslers – with quarterback Pete Rose, Sr. (father of baseball's Pete Rose) – left the MFL. That was not the only change involving a Cincinnati professional football team: Models head coach Hal Pennington was enticed by Queen City Athletics, Inc., to form a new team, this time to compete in a major pro football league: the Cincinnati Bengals of the second American Football League. 1937 The Treslers were not the only MFL team to leave the league in 1937. The Springfield Bicos and Columbus Bobos also left, while the Ashland Armcos (named after a local steel manufacturing business) joined. With new player-coach John Wiethe, the Cincinnati Models returned to its winning ways, including a 95-7 demolition of the Indianapolis Indians, which failed to win a game for the second consecutive year. Only a loss to Ashland kept the Models from another unbeaten regular season. The 1937 league championship game was a rematch of the two teams who battled for the title in 1936, with the same result: the Louisville Tanks shut out the Models to win its third title in the Tanks' third season of competition. Final league standings – 1937 Championship: Louisville Tanks 13, Cincinnati Models 0 After the conclusion of the 1937 season, change was inevitable for the MFL as the second AFL imploded. Indianapolis left after two years without a win, Ashland departed after one winning season. The MFL quickly adopted the name of the recently deceased league and expanded its reach by adding teams in East Chicago, Indiana and Nashville, Tennessee. The Cincinnati Bengals (formerly of the second AFL) were asked to join the newly minted American Football League… and opted to remain an independent team instead. On the other hand, Bengals head coach Hal Pennington did return to the Cincinnati Models, just in time to see the team's name change to the Cincinnati Blades. American Professional Football League (1938) The Louisville Tanks won championships in the three years of the existence of the Midwest Football League. Prior to joining the AFL, the St. Louis Gunners were an independent team that actually played three games in the NFL in 1934 as a replacement for the ill-fated