I wasn't going to deal with any of these localized minor basketball leagues, but since I already did the New York State League that had aligned with the Penn State League and Connecticut State League to form the Eastern Basketball Association, it seemed like I should look at the other branches of the EBA. I am not going to spend a lot of time on the Eastern Basketball League of Connecticut, nor am I going to go into depth with the players, but I figured given its ties with the growth of the sport at local levels during the baby boom, I will give it some due.
This is copied from my blog entry about the New York State League:
In
1946, as the BAA and NBL fought for supremacy in the professional
basketball world, the number of minor basketball leagues began to
dwindle as the sport became more popular and the best players headed to
the big paychecks. There were start-up leagues in the Southern United
States (Southern Basketball League) and the Pacific Northwest (Pacific
Coast League), as well as the established but dwindling American
Basketball League now reduced to the Mid-Atlantic States. A few state
leagues existed and tried to compete for the remaining scraps of the pro
(or semi-pro or even amateur) game. Three leagues, the Connecticut
State League, along with the newly-formed Eastern Basketball League of
Pennsylvania and newly-formed New York State Basketball League, formed
the Eastern Basketball Association. With this association, the three
leagues standardized their rules, but more importantly, agreed to
respect each other and not raid each other's league for players and
prevent team jumping. The Connecticut State League, which had formed
around 1945, would eventually become the Eastern League of Connecticut
before disbanding, and the Eastern League of Pennsylvania, would
eventually become the Continental Basketball Association.
The Eastern League of Connecticut was born from the Connecticut State League. The CSL was organized in 1939. Starting with nine teams and playing a 16-game seasons with two halves, it followed this format until 1941, when team the league cut down to six teams and adopted a 20-game season. In the fall of 1942, the war had depleted talent (and fan interest) to the point that only four teams started the season and the league went on hiatus after the New Britain club ceased operations.
The CSL remained shut down for the duration of World War 2, and after the war the league started up again, with seven teams participating in the 1945-46 season. In the summer of 1946, the CSL joined the New York State League and Pennsylvania State to form the Eastern Basketball Association, and this is where I pick it up. A lot of the teams in this league had been in existence for years. Some teams would jump up to the higher-rated American Basketball League as that league began to flounder.
The Eastern Basketball League of Connecticut struggled through five seasons. Talent was getting harder to keep, given options in better-paying leagues. Some teams did well at the gate, while others failed of finish the season or failed to pay their personnel. After a particularly difficult 1950-51 season, the league decided to skip the 1951-52 season, vowing to return in 1952. However, a lot of the teams involved saw no future with the league as it was, and by the time the 1952-53 season came along, the league had withdrawn from the EBA and folded. The Central Connecticut League formed in 1954 but it was strictly a semi-pro circuit and only lasted a couple season. There were other leagues that popped up with the same moniker as the CSL, but none of them were near the level of EBA.
This is going to be a
quick stop. I am not going to do a blog post for every player, but I did
do as good of research as I could to identify the players and their
teams. I am definitely not going to do this for every minor league. If
someone else wants to pick up where I leave off, have at it. Enjoy!
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