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It all started in 1946, when the New York Knickerbockers matched up against the Toronto Huskies for the first game of a brand new professional league. Back then the league was called the BAA?the Basketball Association of America.
There were no African-American players at that time; the color barrier was not broken in the NBA until the 1950-51 season. And half a century ago, the game looked very different.
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Piece Description
It all started in 1946, when the New York Knickerbockers matched up against the Toronto Huskies for the first game of a brand new professional league. Back then the league was called the BAA?the Basketball Association of America. There were no African-American players at that time; the color barrier was not broken in the NBA until the 1950-51 season. And half a century ago, the game looked very different.
Transcript
The Starting Five
Produced by Joe Richman
Broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered 6/5/1997
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: The NBA has spent this season celebrating its 50th anniversary with numerous events, including naming its all-time 50 greatest players. Back in 1946, when the league was known as the Basketball Association of America, all the players were white; many of them from poor, immigrant neighborhoods; the color barrier was not broken in the NBA until the 1950-51 season.
Reporter Joe Richman talked to some of the men who were there at the beginning.
[sound of crowd at restaurant]
JOE RICHMAN, REPORTER: Just outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a mall on Oakland Park Boulevard there's a little breakfast spot called "Bagels and Lox." Most mornings, it's a quiet place. But every Tuesday a group of men in their 70s and 80s gather around a large table with coffee, hash browns,...
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Hans Anderson
Posted on December 22, 2003 at 05:22 AM | Permalink
Review of The Starting Five
I do like the piece, and obviously all of those who have a hand in it are excellent at what they do. I have a question, though: Should a story be told only by it's content, or does a producer still have room to play with it when the story is known? I'd like to hear a neoteric storytelling version of "The Starting Five".