YMHA' continue the struggle to control basketball, by Arieh Sclar

Similar to the 92^nd Street YMHA, the structure of the Metropolitan League, formerly known as the YMHA League, evolved during the 1920s.  The original YMHA Athletic League had member institutions in Westchester (Mt. Vernon and Yonkers), Brooklyn, and New Jersey (Bayonne and Perth Amboy).  Re-named the Metropolitan League to represent non-YMHA members such as the Educational Alliance, the league’s expansion in the 1920s reflected the changing demographic patterns of New York Jews.  Economic prosperity allowed Jews to leave the lower East Side, and by 1925, only 15% of New York Jews remained in the immigrant neighborhood.[1]  The migration to the Bronx and Brooklyn made communal contact among Jews more difficult.  Jewish centers attempted to fill the void caused by the dispersal.  By the mid-1920s, sport served as the “principal means of establishing cordial relations between the members of the YMHA’s in the Metropolitan district.”  In 1925, the Metropolitan League existed as “solely an athletic group,” although officials hoped to “enlarge the scope of activity…to include debates, oratorical and music contests, etc.”  That same year, the league issued a report that asked the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), a national organization that oversaw YMHA’s and JCC’s, to help stimulate “athletic competition on a larger scale.”[2]

In the mid-1920s, the league formed an Athletic Committee to control member behavior, standardize rules and regulations, and encourage league competition by awarding cups and trophies.  Minutes of the league’s various committees reveal an inordinate amount of time spent ruling on the validity of team protests, the suspension and reinstatement of players, the standardization of rules, referees decisions, and decisions regarding awards, trophies, and other minutia.[3]  The Metropolitan League also confronted gambling, which it banned at all events:

No man who has been found guilty of placing or attempting to place a bet or acted as an agent for others in betting on athletic contests in the Metropolitan League shall be eligible to represent a constituent organization in any League activity one year from the date of the occurrence of the act.  The Board of Directors of the organization of which he is a member is to be notified and requested to take similar action.[4]

The wording of the ban indicated the familiarity of such activity within YMHA sport and the mention of ‘agents’ meant players themselves may have gambled.  Jewish institutions outside of New York also confronted gambling.  A reader’s letter in the Baltimore Jewish Times commented that “open gambling is being conducted by Jewish young men.”  During YMHA games in the Baltimore Basketball League, “they flash their money in the open and call aloud for bettors.”  The Times’ columnist stated the gamblers “leave a bad taste in the mouth of the respectable Jewish young men.”[5]  Officials became concerned that incidents of gambling reflected poorly on the larger community.  They also remained concerned about professionalism at Jewish centers and sought to restrain the capitalistic behavior of their basketball champions.

During the early and mid-1920s, Metropolitan League officials had frequent discussions regarding the professional status of individual players.  The league’s Athletic Committee declared: “No man who has ever competed as a professional shall be eligible to play in this League.”  The committee generally gave Centers the benefit of the doubt regarding their ignorance of a players’ professional standing.  The sheer volume of incidents indicated, however, that institutional control and supervision was often lacking.  As a result, the Athletic Committee also “went on record disapproving any YMHA giving out free athletic membership as an inducement to enroll athletes.”[6]

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[1] Beth S. Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 83.

[2] “1925 – Its History, Aims, and Plans,” folder, 1922-26, Metropolitan League Records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Samuel Leff to Jack Nadel, April 29, 1925, Correspondence Files,  Metropolitan League, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  Metropolitan League, “Metropolitan League of YMHAs to Extend Activities,” press release, May 11, 1925.

[3] For minutes of the Athletic Committee, Presidents Committee, Administrative Council, and Physical Directors Society, see Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York at the 92^nd Street YMHA archives.

[4] Report on Minimum Standards of Health Education Recommended by the Metropolitan League, undated, Metropolitan League records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.

[5] “Thru Sportdom,” Baltimore Jewish Times, December 17, 1926.

[6] Report on Minimum Standards of Health Education Recommended by the Metropolitan League, no date, Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  A similar document titled “Athletic Committee Rules” was found in a miscellaneous folder titled ‘1922-26,’ Athletic Committee records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Minutes of the Athletic Committee, September 22, 1924, Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Minutes of the Athletic Committee are located in the Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Though not complete, the minutes provide a good amount of detail regarding the internal workings of the league.  For examples of rulings on the professional status of players, see January 9, 1923.  In these minutes, the Committee ruled on establishing a reinstatement policy for professionals.

Professional basketball declines, by Arieh Sclar

“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.[1]

Within the regional ABL, the Philadelphia Sphas returned to their all-Jewish origins and became one of the best teams in professional basketball.  They won seven ABL championships in a thirteen year period, barnstormed in the off-season, and frequently played non-league opponents during the season.  The team wore Hebrew letters on their uniforms and the mainstream press sometimes mentioned the team’s Jewishness.  More often, sportswriter stated that the Sphas, “don’t need much introduction to basket ball fans.”[2]  Yet, the Sphas’ success and entrepreneurial spirit received very little mention in annuals or nationally syndicated columns in the Jewish press due to the regional ABL’s ‘minor’ status among professional sport leagues.[3]

During the interwar period, other professional basketball leagues existed in the northeast, but the ABL’s semi-professional and often local nature maintained the permeable boundaries between Jewish participation and spectatorship that had encouraged the development of Jewish basketball.  Young players lived in the same neighborhoods as professional players, most of whom had other jobs even during the season.  Former professional stars such as Barney Sedran coached in the ABL and an entire generation of Jewish players made a relatively seamless transition from the streets to the professional game.  In the mid-1930s, Jews made up almost fifty percent of the league, but their meager ‘salaries,’ often only $30-40 per game, illustrated that players happily entered professional basketball to continue playing a game they loved, not to achieve financial stability.  Jewish writers did not celebrate any single player as they had Nat Holman during the 1920s, and unlike Holman, Jewish professionals competed in relative anonymity in a marginal sport.[4]  Jewish players would have an even greater impact on mainstream basketball in the 1930s, but only after college basketball surpassed the professional game in its popularity as a national sport.

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[1] 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.

[2] “Philadelphia SPHA Cagers Tackle Heurich Brewers Today,” Washington Post, February 17, 1935. On the Sphas’ success in the ABL, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 120-123.

[3] The author examined annuals in the American Hebrew from 1920-1945, as well as syndicated annuals published in the American Jewish World, 1920-1939. As a ‘minor’ sport in the 1930s and early 1940s, professional basketball remained on the back pages of sports pages across the country.  Like some other ‘minor’ sports of the era (such as soccer), professional basketball had not attained a level of popularity from which it could withstand a massive economic downturn. 

[4] Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, 65-67.  Levine estimated that in 1938, 45 of 91 players in the ABL were Jewish. Among the New York dailies, the New York Times virtually ignored the regional ABL whereas papers such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Standard Union, and New York Herald Tribune, among others paid some attention to it.  Often, the mainstream media discussed the financial difficulties of the professional game.  Unlike contemporary times, however, the best college players did not automatically turn professional since the financial incentives often could not compare to other vocations. 

A commentary on Jewish basketball success, by Arieh Sclar

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.”[1]

“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.”[2]

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.[3]

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[1] Bob Shelley, “Basketball Jews,” The Jewish Daily Forward, November 3, 1929.

[2] Ibid.

[3] 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.

Basketball Jews, by Arieh Sclar

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 Washington coach Lou Sugarman, also from the lower East Side, as prominent Jewish representatives of the league.  In addition, Eddie Gottlieb owned and Jules Aaronson managed the Philadelphia Warriors.  According to historian Peter Levine, Jews made up 19 of 101 players on ABL rosters during the 1927-28 season.[1]  At a time when American Jews consisted of less than four percent of the American population, such a disproportionate number of Jews in the major professional basketball league would have legitimized the claims of Conzel, Joel, and other commentators that Jews ‘dominated’ basketball.  The notion of Jewish dominance and innate ability also received notice in one of the era’s most thorough articles on Jewish basketball.

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.[2]  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.”[3]

“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.”[4]

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.

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[1] Levine, Ellis Island to Ebeet’s Field, 61.

[2] 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] Bob Shelley, “Basketball Jews,” The Jewish Daily Forward, November 3, 1929.

[4] Ibid.