The 1977-78 Long Island Ducks were a minor league basketball entry that lasted just one season at the old Long Island Arena in Commack. The Ducks were members of the Eastern Basketball Association. Team owner Al Baron previously owned the Long Island Ducks of the Eastern Hockey League who had disbanded four years earlier. Baron re-purposed the old hockey Ducks logo and colors for his basketball team.
Skip Chernov was a scene maker in Providence, Rhode Island during the early 1970’s. He promoted shows by Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Janis Joplin and others. He landed the New England closed circuit broadcast rights to the 1971 Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight title fight. The 20-something hustler owned a nightclub downtown called “The Incredible Organ” and posed nude in Providence’s alt weekly The Point. After a 1977 bid of dubious sincerity to bring the NBA to Providence, Chernov bought an expansion franchise in the Eastern Basketball Association a few months later for the rather more reasonable price of around $3,000. Read more…
Eastern Professional Basketball League (1966-1970) Eastern Basketball Association (1970-1974) Born: 1966 Folded: June 4, 1974 First Game: November 5, 1966 (L 113-106 @ New Haven Elms) Last
The Sunbury Mercuries were a minor league basketball outfit that operated from 1947 until 1971 in the small Eastern Pennsylvania city of Sunbury. The Eastern League was a weekends-only league featuring teams from Pennsylvania a handful of neighboring states. Notable Mercuries players included Jack Ramsay and Jack McCloskey, who both played for Sunbury during the 1950’s before going on to NBA fame in the coaching and executive ranks.
All-but-forgotten minor league basketball outfit that played just a single season in the Eastern Basketball Association in the winter of 1976-77. The Hartford Downtowners were the second Hartford-based entry in the Eastern circuit, replacing the more successful Hartford Capitols (1966-1974).
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