Eastern Professional Basketball League (1965-1967 & 1968-1969)
Tombstone
Born: May 3, 1965 – EPBL expansion franchise1ASSOCIATED PRESS. “Eastern Cage League Boosts Enrollment”. The News-Dispatch (Shamokin, PA). May 4, 1965
Folded: 1967
Re-Born: April 22, 19682ASSOCIATED PRESS. “New Haven Back in EBL After One Year Absence”. The Courant (Hartford, CT). April 23, 1968
Moved: July 16, 1969 (Hamden Bics)3ASSOCIATED PRESS. “New Haven EBL Entry Transfers to Hamden”. The Post (Bridgeport, CT). July 17, 1969
First Game: November 6, 1965 (W 131-126 vs. Camden Bullets)
Last Game: March 16, 1969 (L 151-139 @ Wilmington Blue Bombers)
EPBL Championships: None
Arena
New Haven Arena
Opened: 1927
Demolished: 1974
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners:
- 1965-1966: Irving Rohinsky, et al.
- 1966-1967: ?
- 1968-1969: Irving Rohinsky, Jim Rosa & Leon Medvedow
Editor's Pick
Boxed Out
Remembering The Eastern Professional Basketball League
In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal “King” Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.
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Background
The New Haven Elms were a hard-luck entry in the Eastern Professional Basketball League during the late 1960’s. Before the debut of the American Basketball Association in 1967, the Eastern League was considered the second best league in the country.
Blackballed Players
Notable Elms included Woody Sauldsberry, a former Harlem Globetrotter and the NBA’s 1958 Rookie-of-the-Year with the Philadelphia Warriors, and Cleo Hill, the #8 overall pick in the 1961 NBA draft.
Sauldsberry and Hill were set to be teammates on the 1961-62 St. Louis Hawks. On October 17th, 1961 the Hawks travelled to Lexington, Kentucky for an exhibition against the Boston Celtics. Five black Celtics players – Bill Russell, Sam Jones, Al Butler, Tom Sanders and K.C. Jones – boycotted the game after being refused service at the Phoenix Hotel’s coffee shop. Sauldsberry and Hill, both black players, joined the Celtics’ boycott in solidarity.
Within a month of the protest, Hawks owner Ben Kerner traded away Sauldsberry and Si Green, leaving Cleo Hill as the Hawks’ only black player. Hill flashed early brilliance scoring 26 points in the Hawks regular season opener. But the rookie’s talent threatened the Hawks’ established trio of white stars Cliff Hagan, Clyde Lovellette and Bob Pettit. When Hawks head coach Paul Seymour resisted pressure to marginalize Hill, Kerner fired him one month into the season. With Seymour gone, Hill’s role and minutes diminished. The Hawks released Hill after his rookie season and no other teams called about the 24-year top 10 draft pick. Hill was blacklisted from the NBA and spent the next five years playing weekends in the Eastern League.
Sauldsberry and Hill reunited briefly with the Elms in November 1965. Sauldsberry only played for the Elms for a week or so in November 1965 before signing with the NBA’s Boston Celtics. But NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy refused to approve Sauldsberry’s contract, ostensibly because the 31-year old big man had court orders outstanding for child support judgments. Sauldsberry was forced to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the NBA in order to force recognition of his contract.
Sauldsberry went on to win an NBA championship ring with the Celtics that spring.
On The Floor
The Elms were one of the league’s weakest entries during their brief run. New Haven finished 8-20 in their 1965-66 debut campaign and 7-21 the following year. The Elms folded at the end of the 1967-68 season.
After sitting out the 1967-68 season altogether, original owner Irving Rohinsky organized a new edition of the Elms for the 1968-69 Eastern League season. Despite another losing record (10-16), the Elms qualified for the Eastern League playoffs for the first time in 1969. They lost in a two-game sweep at the hands of the Wilmington Blue Bombers in the opening round.
Following the 1968-69 season, ballpoint pen manufacturer Waterman-Bic purchased the club and moved the team to Hamden, Connecticut where it became the Hamden Bics for the 1969-70 season.
In Memoriam
Forward/center Woody Sauldsberry died on September 3rd, 2007 at age 73.
Guard Cleo Hill, former Winston-Salem State star and 1st round draft pick on the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks in 1961, passed away on August 10th, 2015 at age 77. Philadelphia Tribune obituary.
Links
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