The Most Transformative Contest in Basketball History

The game that did more than any other to catapult hoops into the modern era did not involve a single future Hall-of-Famer. For that matter, it was played outside the framework of a working league. Nevertheless, the tectonic event at the latter stages of the nineteenth century marked, to the best of our knowledge, basketball’s initial and resounding plunge into a professional mindset.

As described in Hoop Lore, Connie Kirchberg’s illuminating book, “It was the Trentons,” a YMCA squad from the capital of New Jersey, “who became the first team to collect a paycheck for playing basketball. The group squared off against the Brooklyn Y team at Masonic Temple in downtown Trenton on November 7, 1896. The contest had been advertised in advance via a one-column ad in the Trenton Daily True American, another probable first. . . Admission was priced at 15 cents for standing room, 25 cents for a seat on the newly constructed risers.

“By all accounts,” Kirchberg writes, “the top floor of the three-story temple, a social hall that had been converted to a basketball court for the night, was packed to the hilt with some 700 boisterous fans. The court itself featured another first: it was surrounded by a 12-foot-high wire mesh fence. Thereafter known as the cage, the apparatus was intended to speed up the game by keeping the ball in play at all times. Without the fence, play was interrupted each time the ball rolled off the court, as the out-of-bounds rule had yet to be established. Once the ball was considered out of play, possession was granted to the first man who was able to get his hands on it, a situation that often resulted in a frantic free-for-all. Players pushing, shoving, and slapping each other did not make great advertising copy for family entertainment especially when unsuspecting patrons were drawn into the fray. Theory had it the cage would also serve to protect players by preventing overzealous fans from intentionally interfering with game play – a logical assumption, though it proved premature. Sources of the day spoke of rowdy fans who stood at the fence and poked passing players and refs with hat pins and even lit cigars. . . .

“Clad in uniforms of black padded knickers and sleeveless red jerseys,” the hosts “won in their usual fashion, flattening their opponents by a score of 16 to 1. . . . Forward Fred Cooper, the Trentons’ captain and leading scorer, finished with three baskets for a game high six points, an honor which netted him an extra dollar in pay. The amount the players collected that night remains in dispute today, but is believed to have been between $10 and $15 each.

Until that juncture, all competitive basketball teams were affiliated with local YMCAs, which indeed assumed a major role in the blistering early spread of basketball. In fact, James Naismith invented the game on behalf of a training school that was run by the international youth organization. However, the association’s leadership was incensed with the news of players receiving money. As per Naismith’s vision, hoops was meant to be a wholesome and enjoyable pastime. To make matters worse, the game turned out to be more physical and combative than the inventor or the YMCA had envisioned. The organization preceded to ban remunerated players from competing under its aegis and at its branches.

In response, a host of teams broke ranks with the Y. According to Kirchberg, “The players rented whatever facilities where available, mostly assembly halls and dance floors, charged admission to their games, and split the proceeds.” Approximately 26 months after that historic day in Trenton, the National Basketball League, the first professional hoops circuit, would open for business.

Early example of a caged basketball court