Arieh Sclar - a history blog
This is a blog by Arieh Sclar, who has written on Jewish basketball and sports.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Monday, June 25, 2018
Basketball Jews in The Forward, by Arieh Sclar
On November 3,
1929, the English-section of the Yiddish daily, the Jewish Daily Forward,
published “Basketball Jews.” The Forward and other Yiddish
papers served a distinct role in American Jewish life. They provided the daily news that English
readers of the American Hebrew and other weekly Jewish newspapers would
get from the mainstream media. The
Forward contained a full
weekend sports page in Yiddish that provided information on broad athletic
events as well as Jewish athletes, although in general, the Yiddish
press provided little information on sports.
For instance, the same weekend as the publication of “Basketball Jews”
in the English section, the newspaper’s Yiddish sports page contained no
information on basketball.[1] Nonetheless, “Basketball Jews” reflected the growing presence of Jews in a
changing sport.
The Forward article did not view Jewish
participation as illustrative of Jewish acceptance, but rather as a normal
experience within basketball. The author
stated that basketball had become “a major activity among the young Jewry of
New York and the vicinity. In the YMHA’s
of innumerable small cities in the New
York region, regular Saturday night games are staged,
where dancing before and after the games are a feature of the evening.” These “community houses” produced “excellent
basketball players, whose names later appear in the rosters of high school,
college, and professional teams.” The
article also provided the name of 17 Jewish professional players and singled
out Nat Holman, who remained “the greatest basketball player in the country.
…[He] has been taken for granted for so long that one runs the risk of becoming
a bore to repeat his praises.” The Forward
claimed Holman “is as full of deception as the traditional fox,” and praised
the professionalism that made him “a great showman.”[2]
“Basketball Jews”
advanced the notion that basketball “may almost be said to be a Jewish
sport.” Basketball became popular among
Jews because “there are no football fields or baseball diamonds to speak of in
lower Manhattan .” Popularity, however, did not explain success
and Jewish athleticism remained embedded to racial identity. The Jewish professional presence was so great
because basketball “is not essentially a sport where a huge body is a
requisite. Brains, nimble thinking and speedy coordination between mind and
muscle are more important and effective than mere physical brawn and
power.” The ideal player needed
intelligence as much, if not more, than strength. “The average athlete is a chap whose brains
are located in his biceps and whose head is stronger outside than inside. Not
so, however, with the average basketball player. …Of course, a strong and husky
physique is an asset in basketball as in other sports, but in general
basketball players are not so dumb.”[3]
Like previous commentators, the author of “Basketball Jews”
presented basketball as a sport that required certain characteristics. He distinguished Jewish basketball players
from the ‘average athlete.’ The Jew
succeeded because of Jewish intelligence and an unchanged Jewish body. The Jewish athlete did not, and should not,
need to conform to the physical ideal to succeed. Indeed, the body of the basketball Jew could
not change if Jews wanted to maintain their advantage in the sport.
“Basketball Jews” served as the final commentary on Jewish
basketball in the 1920s and within the ABL.
The Celtics broke up in 1928, which led to a declining interest
in the league. After the Celtics
disbanded, Nat Holman and Davey Banks played with the New York Hakoahs (Hakoah
is Hebrew for ‘strength’), but the ABL disbanded in 1931 due to financial
troubles intensified by the Depression.
The league’s ‘national’ model had failed to subdue
the provincial and local nature of traditional basketball. In 1933, promoters established a reformatted
and ‘regional’ ABL in the northeast.[4]
[1]
Oriard, King Football, 34. According to historian Eddy Portnoy, many
immigrants received their sports news from the New York Daily Mirror, whose Jewish readership was large enough
that the paper occasionally printed messages in Yiddish on the sports
page. Portnoy also explained that the
Yiddish press contained virtually no coverage of sport during the interwar
period. The author’s brief examination
of the Forward confirmed this. Eddy
Portnoy, e-mail message to author, October 12, 2006.
[3]
Ibid.
[4] On
the ABL’s rise and fall, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 84-94; Applin, “From Muscular
Christianity to the Marketplace,” 199-205. According to Albert Applin, there were actually two ‘ABL’s’,
the first disbanding in 1928 due to financial difficulties directly related to
the Celtics. Their dominance of the
competition removed spectator interest in other cities. The ‘first’ ABL folded in November 1928 and
the ‘second’ reformed immediately with some of the old ABL teams as well as teams
from the Metropolitan Basketball League.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Jewish 'dominance' in professional basketball, by Arieh Sclar
ABL owners wanted
to leave behind the chaos and instability of Progressive-era professional
basketball where players had more control over their production. The Celtics had illustrated the importance of
continuity in building team success.
Other teams adopted the contractual model that both intensified the
commodification of players and provided a massive salary surge. ABL owners attempted to challenge all aspects
of local basketball cultures, including scheduling, ticket prices, and most
importantly, fan loyalties. In some
cities, fans decried an ABL team’s “unpopular attendance charge” and the
possibility that the league would “unfavorably affect the popularity of local
basketball games.”[1]
The ABL used major
league baseball as a model as owners sought to structure fan loyalty solely
around the team. Ethnic spectatorship
had led New York
baseball managers in the 1920s to hire Jewish players who would attract a specific
audience. Basketball teams had the
opposite problem as ethnic identification competed with the local team
identification that ABL owners desired.[2] The Celtics had succeeded as a multi-ethnic
team and its broad popularity meant it felt little pressure to change its internal
structure. For other independent teams,
however, the ABL exerted a tremendous amount of influence to discard, at least
to some extent, pre-ABL identities.
Teams in Rochester and Philadelphia
altered their identifiably Jewish rosters in the ABL. Rochester ’s
entry in the ABL, the Centrals, had formed at the Rochester YMHA in the 1900s
and the team remained exclusively Jewish into the 1920s. In the ABL, however, the Centrals included
“players of other nationality on its roster, [though] it retains its Jewish
identity.”[3] In Philadelphia ,
promoter Eddie Gottlieb owned the Philadelphia Sphas (South Philadelphia Hebrew
Association), a team that had emerged out of Philadelphia ’s Jewish basketball culture in
the late 1910s. By the mid-1920s, many
commentators considered the Sphas one of the top teams in professional
basketball. Yet, Gottlieb disbanded the
Sphas and formed a new team called the Warriors, which included both Jews and
non-Jews, as Philadelphia ’s
ABL team.[4] In order to successfully compete in the ABL, Rochester and Philadelphia
had to represent the entire city and overcome their traditional identification
as ‘Jewish’ teams.
Other teams
included Jews for other reasons. In
contrast to existing teams, a new team in Washington attracted Jewish fans by
including recognizable players. The Baltimore
Jewish Times celebrated the inclusion of three local Jewish players on Washington ’s ABL entry,
including “’Lefty’ Stern [who] has abandoned college in favor of signing with
the team.”[5] The inclusion of three local Jews indicated
that unlike Rochester , the newly-formed Washington team had to
build a fan base from the ground up. Cleveland owner, department
store magnate Max Rosenblum who humbly named his team the Rosenblums as a cheap
form of advertising, brought in Marty Friedman to serve as player-coach during
the ABL’s first two years. Friedman’s
presence in Cleveland
indicated the true character of the league.
Before he arrived in Cleveland ,
Friedman had played his entire 15-year professional career for northeastern
teams. Friedman’s skill and knowledge as
an ‘old-timer,’ not his identity as a Jew, best served the Rosenblums as he led
them to the first ABL championship.[6]
The ABL provided a central location in which to
examine the Jewish presence in basketball.
By the middle of the decade, many of ‘old-time’ players of the pre-war
era had started to retire, and though a new infusion of Jewish talent began to
trickle into the professional game, only Holman and teammate Davey Banks served
as preeminent Jewish talents. In the
first two years of the ABL, Holman and Banks of the Celtics were joined by
[1]
The ABL owners suspended a Brooklyn player
during the first season for playing with a non-ABL team during the season. See “Brooklyn Basketball Star Suspended,” Washington
Post, November 20, 1925 .
Quote from “Thru Sportdom,” Baltimore
Jewish Times, September 19, 1926. On salaries, see Peterson, Cages to
Jump Shots, 84-94. Holman received
an annual salary of $10,000 from the Celtics during the mid-1920s.
[2]
For other Jewish professionals of the mid- to late 1920s, see “Jewish Sport
Notes,” Philadelphia Jewish Times, January 15, 1926 . The column contained an “All-Jewish
All-American” professional basketball team. Levine explained he used name
identification. See Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbet’s Field, 61. Levine explained he used a similar method as
Paula Fass in her book, Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of
American Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
[3]
Quote from Original Celtics Game Program, 1927-28, Nat Holman file, Edward and
Gena Hickox Library at the Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield , MA .
The Rochester Centrals were mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports,
but strictly as a team that emerged from the Rochester YMHA, with no comment
regarding its connection to the ABL. See
Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia
of Jews in Sports, 91.
[4]
For information on the Sphas, see Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 84, 91;
Also see “Philadelphia Sphas” in Encyclopedia
of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States, eds. George B. Kirsch,
Othello Harris, and Claire E. Nolte (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000),
360-361. A group of young Jews formed
the Combine Club as adolescents. The
members then competed for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, which
eventually broke its affiliation with the team.
The kept the name and began to play in the Philadelphia League in the
early 1920s. The Sphas were first
mentioned in Reach as a member of a local professional league and “the
leading traveling club” of the city. They
were nicknamed the “Wandering Jews” by some locals. During the 1925-26 season,
the Sphas defeated both the Original Celtics and an African-American team, the
Harlem Renaissance in a special series.
The team included non-Jewish players during its participation in the
Eastern League in the late 1920s. The
Warriors played two seasons in the ABL and then moved to the Eastern
League. See Abe Radel, “South Philadelphia Hebrew Association,” Reach Official
Basketball Guide 1924-25 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1925). On the Hakoahs and Warriors, see the files of
Nat Holman and Eddie Gottlieb in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
[6]
Friedman led Cleveland
to the ABL’s first title, called the “world series” in 1925-26, the year before
the Celtics joined. On Friedman’s role
with the Rosenblums, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 85-86. According to Albert Applin,
Rosenblum was the true force behind the league.
Other owners included sport promoters like George Halas and George
Marshall (both NFL owners) or business groups.
See Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 200-204.
[7]
Levine, Ellis Island to Ebeet’s Field, 61.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Jewish Professionals in the 1920s, by Arieh Sclar
In the mid-1920s, Nat
Holman received recognition as the coach of CCNY, a star for the Original
Celtics, and as a prominent Jewish athlete.
The multi-ethnic identity of the Celtics contributed to the team’s
popularity, and reflected the interwar sport culture that brought people of
various backgrounds together. Irish and
German players joined Holman and Davey Banks, the team’s Jewish
representatives.[1] The Celtics’ barnstorming trips served as a
unique attraction in places where few locals had seen quality basketball or had
opportunities to identify with specific players. Fan loyalties and identifications frequently crossed
geographic boundaries and young American Jews who participated in the American
sport culture had a strong desire to cheer for Jewish athletes. Conscious of his status as a Jewish player on
the Celtics, Holman explained that during barnstorming trips, “I was very much aware of the Jewish following that
supported me in a number of cities on the circuit. While I always played at my very best, I
tried even harder when I knew the Jewish community was rooting for me.”[2]
Commentators had nominally
noted basketball’s ethnic presence during the Progressive era, but the
importance of group identification intensified as spectators gained more power
in the 1920s consumer culture. Reach
noted that a Jewish team called the Danbury Separatists “enjoyed a prosperous
season” in 1923 as “one of best attractions” in northeastern basketball. The basketball guide believed that “the
coming season is sure to find them supplanting that great old Roosevelt
team that harbored players like Sedran and Friedman years ago in the hearts of
Hebrew basketball lovers.”[3] Danbury ’s
name did not identify it as a Jewish team, but knowledgeable basketball fans
would have been aware of the team’s makeup.
Basketball’s
growth in urban areas and among immigrant groups attracted both Jewish and
non-Jewish entrepreneurs who sought to expand the sport’s scope. Basketball promoters and commentators had discussed
forming a ‘national’ basketball league in the 1910s and a national commission failed
to control the various professional leagues of the northeast in the early 1920s. In the middle of the decade, however,
promoters formed the American Basketball League (ABL) as a ‘national’ league
and attempted to reconstruct professional basketball into a mass,
commercialized sport.[4]
The ABL attempted
to turn basketball into a respectable sport.
The league banned profanity, used amateur rules, abandoned the ‘cage,’
and played its games in large urban arenas.
Moral condemnations of professional basketball declined as outright
violence occurred less frequently.[5] The ABL became the first league to serve as
the pinnacle of a linear, though unstable, basketball hierarchy as a younger
generation of former college players entered professional basketball. Media attention remained fairly sparse,
however, until the Celtics joined the league during its second season in
1926-27.[6]
[1] On
the Celtics, see Nelson, The Originals.
Neighborhoods, ethnic, racial, and religious groups, unions, department
stores, and virtually every other type of organization developed athletic teams
in order to participate in the broader athletic culture. Communal and ethnic
identification during a fractious and anxious decade likely contributed to the
situation. Lizabeth Cohen explained that
historians assumed consumption encouraged assimilation into mainstream society,
but have provided little evidence. She
explained that there is evidence that during the Depression, mass culture
united previously fractured ethnic and racial groups. See Lizabeth Cohen, “Encountering Mass Culture
at the Grassroots,” in Glickman, Consumer Society in American History, 147-162.
[3]
“Interborough Professional Basketball League of New York ,” Reach Official Basketball
Guide 1923-24 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1924).
[4]
For information on the national commission and discussion of the need for a
national league, which would standardize rules of professional basketball, see
Introduction, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1921-22 (Philadelphia,
A.J. Reach & Co.: 1922); Applin,
“From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 194-196; Peterson, Cages to
Jump Shots, 55.
[5] As
a ‘national’ league, the ABL had teams in New York ,
Brooklyn, Cleveland , Washington
D.C. , Rochester (N.Y.), Fort
Wayne , Boston , Chicago ,
Detroit , and Buffalo . On the ban against profanity, see
“’Oh, Pshaw,’ Limit in Epithets for Pro Fives; $10 a violation,” New York
Times, December 31,
1927 . For sporadic incidents of violence during basketball games,
see “Celtics Win from Rosenblum Five, “New York Times, April 15, 1924;
“Fist Fights as Jewels Defeat Celtics,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November
26, 1932. Jewish players were involved in both fights as Marty Friedman and Nat
Holman squared off in 1924 during a game played for U.S. Olympic fund under the
auspices of the Mayor’s Committee on Municipal Athletic Activity. The 1932 fight occurred during another
fundraiser, this time for a retired player.
[6]
“Youngsters Crowding Cage Pros,” Los
Angeles Times, December 25, 1927 . The article describes the generational
transfer within the professional game as “college-trained youngsters” began to
replace “old-timers.”
Saturday, May 12, 2018
The Jewish Press praises the 'natural' Jewish basketball player, by Arieh Sclar
During the
interwar period, syndicated sports columnists such as George Joel, Harry
Conzel, and others wrote articles, columns, and annuals that appeared in a
variety of Jewish newspapers. Joel, for
instance, wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), which had his columns,
articles and annuals published in the Philadelphia Jewish Times and the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle.[1] These columnists merged the broad outlook of
the distant and lionizing annuals with experiential content of local columns as
they provided information on the accomplishments of well-known Jewish athletes
and identified Jewish athletes to the readership. They infrequently included non-elite athletes
as evidence of Jewish athleticism, but these athletes rarely informed
compilations beyond claims that “Americanized, practically every Jewish
youngster participates in some sport or another.”[2]
Jewish newspapers
rarely contained sport pages, so readers in various cities often received their
information on Jewish athletes from syndicated columnists. Letters from readers countered claims of an
athlete’s Jewish identity or the greatness of a team or individual, but few
challenged the idea that “sport should be encouraged. It is a good school for
life; it prepares us to will and to do.”[3] Yet, some commentators noted that because of
the annuals and columns, “the Jewish reader makes the inference that his strong
brethren have conquered all the American sports and are equally successful at
them all. …Can we, however, honestly claim that the Jewish athlete takes to all
sports with the same degree of success?”[4]
Most columnists asserted
that Jews succeeded in basketball more than any other sport. Outside of Nat Holman, the columnists generally emphasized the collective importance
of Jewish basketball rather than individual
players.[5] Throughout the 1920s, columnists argued, “from
a Jewish angle,” that basketball had become the “the king of sports.” George Joel stated in his 1927 syndicated
annual that, “it is hard to find a college team without at least one Jewish
player on the squad.”[6] The previous year, Harry Conzel boldly claimed,
“it would be useless to list Jewish basketball players. Collegiate and professional basketball teams
all over the country contain almost a majority of Jews.” As late as 1930, columnists continued to
assert that in basketball, it remained “impossible to attempt to name the
Jewish players. This is a sport that Jews dominate.”[7]
The perception of
Jewish ‘dominance’ led columnists to ask “why Jewish athletes show such marked
superiority in basketball above all other sports.” This question “has puzzled the leading
exponents of the game, although some advance the theory that their ability lies
in their brainy playing and their uncanny accuracy in locating the basket.”[8] In 1926, Conzel decided that since “it is a generally
accepted fact that Jewish athletes dominate the sport of basketball,” he would make
“a study of this puzzle.” He concluded
that, “basketball is the least dangerous sport.
Basketball requires more speed and rapid thinking than brute strength.
…Basketball does not necessitate too rigorous training. So there you are. It is not an indictment against Jewish
athletes; it is probably a tribute to their intelligence.”[9]
[1]
Oriard, King Football, 34. According to Oriard, Joel published the first
Jewish All-America football team in 1925.
[2]
“Sports are in the Air,” American Hebrew, June 4, 1937.
[5]
Baseball allowed for more extensive examinations regarding the Jewish place in
the sport and in-depth analysis regarding individual ability. Hank Greenberg’s MVP award in 1935 was
essential in representing his athleticism as a Jew. Likewise, Barney Ross’ success as a boxer was
never separated from his championships.
[6]
“Thru Sportdom,” The Jewish Times, December 3, 1926 . Local papers across the country concentrated
on the activities of clubs, institutions, and organizations that would never
have garnered the attention of the Hebrew; George Joel, “The Year in
Sports,” Philadelphia
Jewish Times, September
30, 1927 . Joel had been a
member of ZBT and wrote for the fraternity’s publications.
[7]
Harry Conzel, “Jewish Athletes of the Year,” American Jewish World, September 3, 1926 .
The annual stated that Conzel was the “foremost American authority on Jews in sports.” “The Year in
Sport,” American Jewish World, September 19, 1930 .
[8]
Sidney S. Kluger, “An Account of Jewish Athletes as Jewish Stars,” American Jewish World, April 18, 1924 .
Thursday, May 3, 2018
'The Racial Traits of Athletes' - anti-Semitism in the 1920s, by Arieh Sclar
In 1922, the American
Physical Education Review published a series of articles entitled “Racial
Traits in Athletics.” The author,
non-Jewish physical educator Elmer Mitchell, wrote: “Nowhere, does it seem to
me, can we find people closer and truer to their fundamental character than in
their free and spontaneous play.” The Eugenical
News printed a summary of the
series, which reinforced the dominant racial paradigm in American
society. Mitchell analyzed fifteen
racial groups, although he arranged Latins, The South American, and The Oriental
into broader classifications than the Irish, Greek, or Jew. Mitchell explained that the ‘American’
athlete, “a composite of many races: conspicuously the English, Irish, German,
and Scandinavian,” had become the “greatest in the world.” Southern and eastern Europeans, however, “are
less ready assimilable” than northern Europeans and they illustrated this on
the athletic field.[1]
Mitchell believed
that Jewish athleticism demonstrated Jews’ racial inferiority. “We see the same
distaste of the Jew for outdoor life, his industry in the intellectual side of
his pursuit, his subtlety in applying social or individual weakness to his own
benefit, and his lack of moral sensitiveness.”
He explained that contradictory to public opinion, Jews possessed both
physical and moral courage, although certain “distinctive qualities cling to
the Jew when he participates in athletics.”
Sport did not change the Jewish temperament: “The average Jew is an
unpopular team-mate; he is assertive, individualistic, and quarrelsome.” Mitchell concluded that any observer would
concur “by watching a group of Hebrew children on the playground.” Even more disturbing, Jews’ ability to “face
adverse circumstances” often manifested itself in “the villain role,” which he
believed they seemed to enjoy.[2]
Mitchell’s imaged Jew
remained physically inferior in the small immigrant body. The Jew had vitality, caused by
“clannishness,” sacred family ties, and adaptability to “the bustle and change
of modern commercial life.” This
vitality was “a wonderful thing,” especially since sport did not produce the
physical change many had expected. “The typical Jew is not robust in appearance,”
explained Mitchell. He used football to
prove his point. Only in “exceptional
cases” do Jews star in this team sport, “where size plays so important a
part.” Yet, a small body could help Jews
succeed in other sports. “Along with
boxing and dancing, gymnastics and basket ball are popular, all of them types
of athletic exercise demanding dexterous footwork and dodging ability and
carried on indoors. Basket ball is
easily their favorite sport.”
The unchanged Jewish body reflected, in Mitchell’s
view, Jews’ unchanged intellectual ability that served as an advantage in the
athletic world. Jews retained their mental
advantage as “quick thinkers, alert to grasp the strategy of the game, both of
their own team and of their opponents.” Yet,
the intelligent Jew corrupted pure sport since his “individualistic tendency”
produced “a spirit fostering the professional game, rather than the game which
is played solely for the joy of participating.”[3] Mitchell did not view Jewish athleticism in
similar terms as Henry Ford’s Dearborn
Independent, but he attached negative characteristics to Jewish
intelligence. Mitchell believed that
when Jews willingly participated in American sport, it resulted in professional
or tricky behavior that reflected Jews’ racial inferiority.
[1]
Elmer D. Mitchell, “Racial Traits in Athletics,” American Physical Education
Review 27, no. 3 (March 1922), 93; The summary was in the Eugenical News 7 (1922). Mitchell cited studies from Charles
Davenport, Madison Grant, and other prominent eugenicists. In the late 1910s, the APER included a
permanent eugenics section under its monthly bibliography.
[2]
Elmer D. Mitchell, “Racial Traits in Athletics,” American Physical Education
Review 27, no. 5 (May 1922): 197.
Friday, April 27, 2018
The continued struggle, by Arieh Sclar
The Metropolitan
League limited the ability of New
York institutions to circumvent the code of amateur
sport, but other YMHA’s felt less external pressure to establish rigid
standards regarding professional behavior.
In the early 1920s, the Hartford YMHA participated primarily in citywide
competitions and won three consecutive city championships. In December 1923, a game against the Original
Celtics caused some YMHA officials to question the commercialism and rumored
professionalism of the basketball team.
With pressure to decrease their commercial activity, the
‘representative’ team declared its intention to break off from the institution
and call themselves ‘City Champs’ as an independent team. Not surprisingly, YMHA officials opposed this
development and insisted that the title belonged to the Association, not the
players. The rift appeared
irreconcilable until a local businessman offered the YMHA $5,000 if the team
again captured the city championship.
Upon this news, the players returned to the YMHA, supposedly on a ‘pure’
amateur standing.[1]
The reconciliation
did not alleviate the concerns of some
YMHA officials regarding the team’s activities. Rumors grew that the manager would pay the
players. The YMHA Advisory Board left
the team’s fate in the hands of the president, who told the Hartford Courant
that the YMHA paid the team’s expenses on out-of-town trips, but “that is
all.” When the Courant reported
that statement, YMHA board members explained that strictly paying expenses was
a “new” arrangement and that players had previously “split the money [profits] amongst
themselves.” This new arrangement,
however, did not stop the team’s professionalism. The Courant also reported that the
team had “three players who live in other cities,” all of whom the manager “paid
by means of padded expense allowances.”
The controversy resulted in the resignation of the Hartford YMHA’s
executive secretary because of “numerous clashes” with the institution’s
president over the status of the basketball team.[2]
The Hartford team’s
recruitment and compensation of star players indicated a complexity not often
associated with YMHA sport. Among the
players on Hartford ’s
team was Sam Pite, the central player in the 1922 Yale controversy. Considering his New Haven origins, Pite’s presence indicated
that a dissatisfaction with members’ talent led YMHA management to search
outside the institution’s local area to find players. The Courant also reported that the YMHA team had a neighborhood following
of over one thousand fans, including non-members. To remedy this situation, and end the
competitive and commercial pressures that had caused the problems during the
1924 season, YMHA officials declared at the end of the season that they would
no longer allow “non-membership players” on the team.[3]
[1]
See the Hartford
Courant, December 25,
1923 ; January
10, 1924 ; January
13, 1924 . In 1921, Hartford joined a YMHA
state league. Five YMHA’s (Springfield , Hartford , New Haven , New London , Bridgeport )
met to organize a state league, “along three lines: athletic, educational, and
camp and miscellaneous.” A basketball league was not initially formed because
“most organizations…made up their schedules.” See “House Notes: YMHA League is
Organized,” Community News, December 1921.
[2]
“Only Remote Possibility that YMHA will have City Series Team Next Year,” Hartford
Courant, March 13, 1924 .
[3]
The Connecticut Hebrew Record simply commented on the initial fracture
between the YMHA and the players over the commercialization of basketball. “Hartford Sports,” Connecticut
Hebrew Record, January
10, 1924 .
[4]
Nat Beckelman to Nat Holman, April
6, 1931 , Correspondence files “Young Men’s Hebrew Association,”
Executive Director records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92nd Street Y Archives, New York . According to the letter, the roster included
one player from Manhattan , three players from
the Bronx, and five players from Brooklyn . In a separate letter, an Association official
indicated to Charles Bernheimer of the JWB that 39.46% of the total membership
was from Manhattan , 46.73% was from the Bronx,
and only 9.28% was from Brooklyn . The sender of the letter is unknown, though
most likely was YMHA executive director, Jack Nadel, September 5, 1931 , miscellaneous folder,
Jewish Welfare Board records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92nd Street
Y Archives, New York .
For information on player movement, which generally did not occur during a
season, see the Y Bulletin in the
1920s and 1930s. According to historian
Beth Wenger, the Jewish population in the YMHA’s Yorkville neighborhood was
only 4%. It is therefore not surprising
that the YMHA sought players from other boroughs, though it is odd that one
player traveled from Coney Island to play for
the YMHA.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)