Friday, October 20, 2023

Bill Zubic Identified

The fact we did not have Bill Zubic properly identified always bothered me considering how prominent a scorer he was in the Eastern League, ABL and around Pennsylvania. BUt as I suspected years ago, it had to be an issue with his last name being shortened or anglicized. I figured his name may have been something along the lines of Zubyk, Zubak, Zubeck, etc. But I never thought much about "Zubic" being the last portion of a longer last name, and this would be the case. Following a fresh dive into Bill, I stumbled across a William Bezubic from Philadelphia, born in the same year I believed him to be born. Finding Bezubic;s World War 2 draft card, he was listed as 6'5 and 211 pounds which matched our player. To confirm I did some newspaper searches and found Bezubic listed in a story about a basketball game with the Chester Ukrainians (who I knew Zubic was already listed as a player) and his name appeared as "Zubic" in the box score. 

So after a few years, the great Bill Zubic has been properly identified and William Paul Bezubic.

Monday, October 2, 2023

New updates, identifications, corrections, September 2023

 Taking some time and looking back to fill in some holes or close some things out.

DETAILS ADDED:

Morris "Mushy" Silver, ABL-AAU - Died 1980

Whitey Von Nieda, NBL, NBA, EBL-  Died September 6, 2023

PROPERLY IDENTIFIED:

Frank "Speed" Caffey, NYSL

Tee "T-Bone" Connelley, ABL-AAU

Bennie Garrett, NYSL

CORRECTED:


NEW LEADS UNRESOLVED:

Don Hinds "in his 90's" in article published in 2008.