SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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(This is part 2 of a series)
With the collapse of the original ABL in the depths of the depression, professional basketball seemed at a low ebb but, in reality, it was just changing. College basketball surged to the front page of the sports section when sportswriter Ned Irish began scheduling double-headers in Madison Square Garden, beginning with a benefit fin January 1931 that raised $20,000 for mayor Jimmy Walker’s relief fund. The games drew over 16,000 fans. Colleges with good teams came from all over the country to play in these events as it gave them exposure in the Big Apple, which was the biggest thing you could get for your “brand” in those pre television days. The double-headers, in turn led to the NIT, which led to the NCAA tournament.
Many of these ex-collegians found AAU ball a good career path as it involved getting a good job in the depression with a major company. Until the NBA really got going in the 1950’s, the AUU is where many of the nation’s top players went. It was better than barnstorming and passing the hat as a lowly professional.
But professional basketball didn’t go away. The era of the touring teams returned. The original Celtics reorganized around several of their old players: Joe Lapchick, Dutch Dehnert, Pete Barry and Davey Banks and adding in Nat Hickey and Carl Husta. Their problem was that they were getting old. Some new blood was introduced in the form of Bobby McDermott and Paul Birch but the days when the Celtics were dominant were coming to an end.
Other teams from the old days also reformed after the demise of the AVBL. The Brooklyn Visitations, an old rival of the Celtics, took the field as an independent again and do did Eddie Gottlieb’s Philadelphia team, who had been called the Warriors in the ABL days but reverted to their original name, the SPHAs, after the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, which had sponsored the team from its inception in in 1917. Gottlieb had joined them as a player out of high school and advanced to coach and manager very quickly thereafter. He would alter become a founder of the Basketball Association of America, which subsequently became the NBA and he remained one of the most powerful owners until he sold the Warriors in 1962. Even after that he worked for the league until his death in 1979 as a consultant. Mike Lupica wrote at that time: hey joked that Eddie Gottlieb carried the NBA around in his briefcase…Eddie Gottlieb loved basketball. Maybe no one ever loved basketball quite the way he did." (Wikipedia)
Under Gottlieb’s guidance, the SPHAS became one of the top teams of the 30’s, but not the best. The New York Renaissance, Rens for short, deserve that credit. The all-black team was named after their home court, the Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem. The team had 6-6 center Wee Willie Smith, 6-3 Tarzan Cooper and outside shooters Pappy Ricks and Eyre Saitch. They had an 88 game winning streak in 1933, (ended by the aging Celtics). The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball reports that the Rens had a record of 473-49, (.906) from 1931-36 and their overall record in the 27 years of their history, (1923-49), was 2588-539, (.828). When the World Professional Basketball Tournament, a sort of March Madness for professional touring and league teams, was held in 1939, it was the Rens that won the first championship, 34-25 over the Oshkosh All-Stars. They eventually became the Dayton Rens of the NBL.
The All-Stars had been the top team in the Midwest during the 30’s after being founded as a barnstorming team in the Wisconsin area in 1929. They would become one of the founding members of the National Basketball league in 1937. They would reach the finals of the WPBT five times, winning it in 1943.
The second WPBT was won by a team initially called the Savoy Five, back when it was formed in 1927. Like the Rens, they were named after a famous ballroom, The Savoy in Chicago. This all-black team toured first Illinois and then all over the Midwest- as far away as the Dakotas and Montana. Their manager, Abe Saperstein, decided they needed a more interesting name. He wanted to associate the team with a famous black location but also to imply they had and were willing to travel anywhere to play. He came up with: The Harlem Globetrotters. They didn’t play a game in Harlem until 1968 but they played everywhere else.
But we hadn’t seen the end of basketball leagues. There were several metropolitan and regional leagues with limited geographical distribution of their teams. John J. O’Brien had replaced Joe Carr as the President of the ABL in its final three seasons and he brought forward a re-organized ABL in 1933. The teams were located mostly in the New York and Philadelphia areas. Most sources I’ve read tell me that this new ABL was not truly a major league. But the Historical Dictionary of Basketball says: “From 1933-1946, this version of the American Basketball League remained solvent and was the major professional basketball league in the eastern United States until Basketball Association of America was created in 1946. From 1946-53, the ABL was still a viable entity but its quality was diminished as the best players played in the BAA.”
The new ABL certainly gained some prestige when the Brooklyn Visitations and Philadelphia SPHAs joined the league. The Visitations played from 1933-39 as an ABL team and the SPHAs played from 1933-37 as the Philadelphia Hebrews and then reverted to their traditional SPHAs name from 1937-49. The Visitations had won the last title of the old ABL in 1930-31 and won the new league in 1934-35. But the SPHAs dominated the league, winning seven titles from 1933-43. Gottlieb created a new team, the Philadelphia Warriors for the BAA in 1946, (and they won the title). But he continued the SPHAAs in the ABL, eventually selling the team to a former player, Red Klotz, 1950. The SPHAs finally went out of existence when the ABL did in 1953.
I was able to find the ABL statistics for its 1933-53 period at this site:
American Basketball League 1925-26 to 1930-31, 1933-34 to 1952-53
Looking at the statistical standings, (1933-34 is about a third of the way down the page), I see top players in the rankings. Benny Borgmann wins the first scoring title. Bobby McDermott wins the second, Phil Rabin is second and Carl Husta is third. Rabin goes on to win the next two titles. Ed Sadowski, an early BAA star, shows up high in the rankings in 1941-43. Mike Bloom, Art Hillhouse, Stan Modzelewski, Buddy Jeanette were big name sin the 30’s and 40’s. Jeannette and Bloom were stars of the original Baltimore Bullets, who left the ABL after the 1946-47 season to join the BAA and won the title there in 1947-48. I don’t recognize the players after that and the stats aren’t even available for the last two seasons.
My interpretation of this is that the second ABL was a major league by default from 1933-37as they were the closest thing to a major league in that period and that they were a rival, not a minor league to the Midwestern-based National Basketball league until the BAA was set up after the war. Then they were a rival of the BAA for one year, after which they were a shell of themselves. I’ll include their numbers in my rankings for the 1933-47 period but not afterwards. The ABL continued to keep track of just field goals and free throws made and points scored so all I’ve got to work with is the points.
With the collapse of the original ABL in the depths of the depression, professional basketball seemed at a low ebb but, in reality, it was just changing. College basketball surged to the front page of the sports section when sportswriter Ned Irish began scheduling double-headers in Madison Square Garden, beginning with a benefit fin January 1931 that raised $20,000 for mayor Jimmy Walker’s relief fund. The games drew over 16,000 fans. Colleges with good teams came from all over the country to play in these events as it gave them exposure in the Big Apple, which was the biggest thing you could get for your “brand” in those pre television days. The double-headers, in turn led to the NIT, which led to the NCAA tournament.
Many of these ex-collegians found AAU ball a good career path as it involved getting a good job in the depression with a major company. Until the NBA really got going in the 1950’s, the AUU is where many of the nation’s top players went. It was better than barnstorming and passing the hat as a lowly professional.
But professional basketball didn’t go away. The era of the touring teams returned. The original Celtics reorganized around several of their old players: Joe Lapchick, Dutch Dehnert, Pete Barry and Davey Banks and adding in Nat Hickey and Carl Husta. Their problem was that they were getting old. Some new blood was introduced in the form of Bobby McDermott and Paul Birch but the days when the Celtics were dominant were coming to an end.
Other teams from the old days also reformed after the demise of the AVBL. The Brooklyn Visitations, an old rival of the Celtics, took the field as an independent again and do did Eddie Gottlieb’s Philadelphia team, who had been called the Warriors in the ABL days but reverted to their original name, the SPHAs, after the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, which had sponsored the team from its inception in in 1917. Gottlieb had joined them as a player out of high school and advanced to coach and manager very quickly thereafter. He would alter become a founder of the Basketball Association of America, which subsequently became the NBA and he remained one of the most powerful owners until he sold the Warriors in 1962. Even after that he worked for the league until his death in 1979 as a consultant. Mike Lupica wrote at that time: hey joked that Eddie Gottlieb carried the NBA around in his briefcase…Eddie Gottlieb loved basketball. Maybe no one ever loved basketball quite the way he did." (Wikipedia)
Under Gottlieb’s guidance, the SPHAS became one of the top teams of the 30’s, but not the best. The New York Renaissance, Rens for short, deserve that credit. The all-black team was named after their home court, the Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem. The team had 6-6 center Wee Willie Smith, 6-3 Tarzan Cooper and outside shooters Pappy Ricks and Eyre Saitch. They had an 88 game winning streak in 1933, (ended by the aging Celtics). The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball reports that the Rens had a record of 473-49, (.906) from 1931-36 and their overall record in the 27 years of their history, (1923-49), was 2588-539, (.828). When the World Professional Basketball Tournament, a sort of March Madness for professional touring and league teams, was held in 1939, it was the Rens that won the first championship, 34-25 over the Oshkosh All-Stars. They eventually became the Dayton Rens of the NBL.
The All-Stars had been the top team in the Midwest during the 30’s after being founded as a barnstorming team in the Wisconsin area in 1929. They would become one of the founding members of the National Basketball league in 1937. They would reach the finals of the WPBT five times, winning it in 1943.
The second WPBT was won by a team initially called the Savoy Five, back when it was formed in 1927. Like the Rens, they were named after a famous ballroom, The Savoy in Chicago. This all-black team toured first Illinois and then all over the Midwest- as far away as the Dakotas and Montana. Their manager, Abe Saperstein, decided they needed a more interesting name. He wanted to associate the team with a famous black location but also to imply they had and were willing to travel anywhere to play. He came up with: The Harlem Globetrotters. They didn’t play a game in Harlem until 1968 but they played everywhere else.
But we hadn’t seen the end of basketball leagues. There were several metropolitan and regional leagues with limited geographical distribution of their teams. John J. O’Brien had replaced Joe Carr as the President of the ABL in its final three seasons and he brought forward a re-organized ABL in 1933. The teams were located mostly in the New York and Philadelphia areas. Most sources I’ve read tell me that this new ABL was not truly a major league. But the Historical Dictionary of Basketball says: “From 1933-1946, this version of the American Basketball League remained solvent and was the major professional basketball league in the eastern United States until Basketball Association of America was created in 1946. From 1946-53, the ABL was still a viable entity but its quality was diminished as the best players played in the BAA.”
The new ABL certainly gained some prestige when the Brooklyn Visitations and Philadelphia SPHAs joined the league. The Visitations played from 1933-39 as an ABL team and the SPHAs played from 1933-37 as the Philadelphia Hebrews and then reverted to their traditional SPHAs name from 1937-49. The Visitations had won the last title of the old ABL in 1930-31 and won the new league in 1934-35. But the SPHAs dominated the league, winning seven titles from 1933-43. Gottlieb created a new team, the Philadelphia Warriors for the BAA in 1946, (and they won the title). But he continued the SPHAAs in the ABL, eventually selling the team to a former player, Red Klotz, 1950. The SPHAs finally went out of existence when the ABL did in 1953.
I was able to find the ABL statistics for its 1933-53 period at this site:
American Basketball League 1925-26 to 1930-31, 1933-34 to 1952-53
Looking at the statistical standings, (1933-34 is about a third of the way down the page), I see top players in the rankings. Benny Borgmann wins the first scoring title. Bobby McDermott wins the second, Phil Rabin is second and Carl Husta is third. Rabin goes on to win the next two titles. Ed Sadowski, an early BAA star, shows up high in the rankings in 1941-43. Mike Bloom, Art Hillhouse, Stan Modzelewski, Buddy Jeanette were big name sin the 30’s and 40’s. Jeannette and Bloom were stars of the original Baltimore Bullets, who left the ABL after the 1946-47 season to join the BAA and won the title there in 1947-48. I don’t recognize the players after that and the stats aren’t even available for the last two seasons.
My interpretation of this is that the second ABL was a major league by default from 1933-37as they were the closest thing to a major league in that period and that they were a rival, not a minor league to the Midwestern-based National Basketball league until the BAA was set up after the war. Then they were a rival of the BAA for one year, after which they were a shell of themselves. I’ll include their numbers in my rankings for the 1933-47 period but not afterwards. The ABL continued to keep track of just field goals and free throws made and points scored so all I’ve got to work with is the points.
