Recap
In league play, the Metropolitan Basketball League returned to action with the same six teams that had completed the previous season. Brooklyn was projected as the team to beat for the title. Led by scorers Joe Brennan and Davey Banks, the Visitation returned last year’s championship team intact, with veteran pro star Eddie White added for insurance. The rest of the pack was hard to gauge because of lots of roster changes. Disgusted with last year’s indifferent play, Trenton released its entire squad. Other clubs quickly scampered to sign many of the New Jersey club’s well-known veterans. Kingston secured the services of center Maurice Tome and playmaker Teddy Kearns to help rebuild the team around key holdovers Carl Husta and Charles Powers. Greenpoint added Tom Barlow and speedster George Glasco to its closely-knit squad. When Brooklyn floundered through the first-half of the season at a .500 pace, the two strengthened teams sprang at the opportunity to move up in the standings. Kingston, under the guidance of veteran coach, Pop Morgenweck, took the first-half title, edging Greenpoint by a single game, with Brooklyn trailing behind in third place. Chastised by its lackluster first-half showing, Brooklyn began the second season at a tremendous pace and was never seriously challenged. Paterson, behind high-scoring Benny Borgmann, also showed a renewed vigor and took second place. In the playoff for the league title, both finalists were handicapped. Kingston forward Harry Riconda had departed for baseball spring training, while Brooklyn was without the services of star forward Davey Banks, who had broken his arm late in the regular season. Two youngsters were thrust into important roles to replace the missing stars. Brooklyn signed Willie MacDonald to fill in for Banks, while Kingston recruited 18-year-old Rusty Saunders, a husky Trenton schoolboy star, to replace Riconda. After dividing the first two games of the best-of-three game series, the teams met for the deciding third game at a neutral court in Paterson. Brooklyn overcame a six-point Kingston lead in the final three minutes of the game to take its second consecutive Metropolitan League championship by the score of 33 to 29.
I sincerely appreciate the research work, and the information being shared. It is important and interesting history.