1941 was the sixth and final season for the American Association. In 1946 the league would change its name to the American Football League.  While Tim Mara sold the Jersey City Giants, the team was sold to the owners of the NFL's Cleveland Rams, setting off a sequence of arrangements that tied the membership of the AA (except Providence) with the NFL. The raiding of the AA by the AFL continued, with Wilmington and Providence being particularly hard hit. The Steamrollers loss of seven players forced the team to drop out of the league. The AA found a replacement team with a connection with the AFL: the New York Yankees. The 1941 New York Yankees was not the same team as the 1940 Yankees. The latter was team of the AFL that was sold to Douglas Hertz in late 1940, but the AFL revoked the franchise in August 1941 in response to a financial controversy on the part of Hertz. The team was then sold to a group headed by William Cox (who later became the president of the AFL) as preparations for the new season had begun (under the new regime, the name of the team was changed to the New York Americans). Hertz then formed a new barnstorming team, called it the New York Yankees, and started playing independent teams in the American northeast before accepting the invitation to join the American Association. The team left the League after losing all six of its games and folded after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered in the United States participation in World War II, December 7th, 1941, and making a question in the future temporarily for all professional sports. On the field, it was the Long Island Indians leading the way with an impressive 8-2-0 record, followed closely behind by the Paterson Panthers at 6-2-2.  The top four teams would qualify for the playoffs, which also included the Wilmington Clippers (4-3-2) and the Jersey City Giants (4-4-2). In the first round of the playoffs, it was Wilmington with stunning thrashing of Paterson 33-0, while Long Island would barely get by Jersey City 7-6, setting up the match-up for the 1941 AA Championship Game. The Wilimington Clippers would go on to finish their Cinderella story by upsetting the top seeded Long Island Indians 21-13 to lay claim to the 1941 AA Championship.