For the second consecutive season, McKeesport took the CBL championship, but not before they battled a revitalized South Side squad down to the wire. The two teams featured confrontations between the two greatest offensive stars in the game. Andy Sears, the 5’11”, 180 pound. native of Chicopee Falls, Mass., was the tough, combative leader of the otherwise unheralded McKeesport squad. The superbly gifted Harry Hough was back at the helm of South Side after a one-year stint in the EBL. Hough surrounded himself with a talented team that included Andy Suils, Jimmy Kane, Bobby Mayham, and Bill Powell, but still came up three games short to McKeesport in the final standings. Johnstown finished a disappointing third, despite the presence of such stars as Joe Fogerty, Bill Keenan, and Doc Newman. The CBL continued to enjoy its undisputed status as the best professional league, but financially the season was anything but successful. The escalating cost of importing players from Philadelphia and New York drove teams further into debt. South Side, with its high-salaried squad, suffered the biggest losses. Ironically, last-place Uniontown, with league’s stingiest payroll, was the only team to make money.
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