We offer an EXTREMELY RARE photo that had been part of an NBL Tri-Cities Blackhawks game program from the 1948-49 season. The photo is signed in pencil by all the National Basketball League Tri-City team members, including player-coach Bobby McDermott, who sits front and center. McDermott, a four-time NBL most valuable player for the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons during the 1940s, died in 1963 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. Tri-City players pictured and who signed the picture are, in front from left, Murray Wier, Dee Gibson (d. 2003), Bob McDermott (d. 1963), Billy Hassett (d. 1992) and Whitey Von Nieda. In back, from left, are team general manager Mike Fitzgerald (D. 1997), Joe Camic (d. 2011), Don Ray (d. 1998), Don Otten (d. 1985, 1948-49 NBL MVP), George Ratkovicz (d. 2007), Luther Harris and an unidentified team official, who may be the owner of the unidentified signature at far bottom left. McDermott began his career with the Brooklyn Visitations in the American Basketball League, joined the barnstorming New York Celtics, then the Zollners, then the Chicago American Gears, the Sheboygan Redskins Red Skins, Tri-Cities and the Hammond Calumet Buccaneers. He then went out East for the 1949-50 season to play in New York and finished up in 1950-51 in the National Professional Basketball League (NPBL) with the Grand Rapids Hornets. Early in his career, his Celtics played all the great barnstorming teams, including the New York Renaissance Rens Harlem Rens, Harlem Globetrotters, Philadelphia SPHAs, Oshkosh All-Stars, Chicago Duffey Florals, Chicago Crusaders, the Original Celtics and more.
In a 1946 poll of NBL coaches and sports editors, Bobby McDermott was voted the greatest basketball player of all-time. HOF George Mikan supplanted McDermott in a 1950 poll. McDermott also won a couple titles with Fort Wayne at the World Professional Pro Tournament at Chicago Stadium and the International Amphitheatre in the 1940s. CONDITION: Actual photo is not a yellowish hue, as captured by my camera; it's closer to pure white of an inside program page. The picture, on game-program paper, has been folded twice vertically in thirds. On the reverse are Moline, Rock Island and Davenport business advertisements and a list of NBL records through 1948. The signatures are made in pencil. Ultra RARE!!!
NOT FOR SALE
Item: 2465
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