Sheboygan Red Skins versus Oshkosh All-Stars - March 17, 1946 - excerpt

Next up on the blog, an aircheck of a National Basketball League game between the Sheboygan Red Skins and the Oshkosh All-Stars heard on March 17, 1946.  The recording features the last ten minutes of the game recorded from WHBL, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and includes a commercial for Friendly Finance with various locations throughout Wisconsin.  You can read an article about the game from the Milwaukee Sentinel here. The National Basketball League was formed in 1937 and would merge with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to become the National Basketball Association.  The NBL was concentrated in the midwest and the league featured corporate sponsored teams.  The League is also notable for helping to break down racial barriers in sports, adding African-American players during the 1942-43 season. I've not researched otr era sports recordings in depth, but have an impression that recordings of professional basketball are fairly rare.  This mp3 was dubbed directly from a home recorded 10" unlabeled lacquer that ran at 33.3 rpm. In the next post, we hear a little something from the other side of the disc.