December 1, 1898: The 1st Professional Basketball League

The 1900 Trenton Nationals

December 1, 1898: The 1st professional basketball league debuts. It is called the National Basketball League. The 1st game is played at Textile Hall, in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. The Trenton Nationals beat the Hancock Athletic Association, 21-19. Attendance was estimated at 900.

The 1898–99 season saw 6 teams in the league. Three were in Philadelphia: The aforementioned Hancock A.A., the Clover Wheelmen, and the Germantown Nationals. Three were in New Jersey: The aforementioned Nationals, the Camden Electrics, and the Millville Glass Blowers. Two of the Philly teams folded within days, but the other 4 teams finished the season.

Trenton went 18-2-1, to win the title. Their starting five averaged 5-foot-10, 161 pounds. Needless to say, there was no dunking. No one even took a jump shot or, God forbid, a skyhook. They hadn't been invented yet.

The following season was more stable for the new league. The season was divided into 2 halves. Teams in the first half were the Nationals, the Electrics, the New York Wanderers, the Pennsylvania Bicycle Club, the Bristol Pile Drivers, and the Chester Basketball Club of Chester, Pennsylvania. Chester dropped out, and were immediately replaced by the Millville Glass Blowers, who had originally elected not to participate that season. Trenton and Millville provided the best teams in the loop, with Trenton gaining a disputed championship, in which the team won both halves of the season.

The Masonic Temple, in downtown Trenton, converted its 3rd-floor banquet hall into a home court. The court was ringed by a 12-foot, chain-link "cage" separating players from fans. "The Trentons had conceived the idea that a cage would make the game faster by stopping all out-of-bounds delays," wrote Marvin Riley, the referee at that historic game. "That cage was an object of both interest and sarcasm for a long time. It was called 'Trenton's monkey cage.'"

By the 1920s, the cage had been phased out of the game. Still, headline writers fell in love with the word as a synonym for basketball, and players are sometimes still called "cagers."

When introduced, the cage made pro basketball a rough sport as players engaged in hockey-style body checks against the wire. Frenzied fans would stick hatpins and lit cigars through the cage and into opposing player's flesh.

The NBL began the 1900–01 season with 7 teams and an expanded schedule of 32 games. The Nationals, the Glass Blowers, the Pile Drivers, the Wanderers and the Penn B.C. stayed. So did the Electrics, although they changed their name to the Camden Skeeters. Only the newest team, from Burlington, New Jersey, failed to complete the season. With the split season dropped, no playoffs were necessary, and the New York Wanderers captured the League title by 3 games.

The 1901–02 season may have been the most successful year of the NBL in terms of stability, with six strong franchises, namely the Bristol, New York, Trenton, Camden, Millville, and Philadelphia teams from the previous year. The schedule expanded once again, to 40 games. Every game save one was played as scheduled, no teams dropped out, and there was only one really weak team in the league. Camden finally became more than a .500 team, and lost the league crown to the Pile Drivers by only 3 games.

In 1902-03, the NBL went back to a split-season format. There were 8 1st-half teams: The Camden Electrics (back to the old name), the New York Wanderers, the Bristol Pile Drivers, the Philadelphia Phillies (named for the baseball team), the Trenton Potters (replacing the Nationals), Conshohocken, and the Burlington Shoe Pegs. The 2nd half of the season saw only 6 teams: Camden, Burlington, Trenton, New York, Conshohocken, and the Delaware-based Wilmington Peaches.

Burlington did so poorly that its owner-coach, Frank Reber, fired his entire team, purchased the Bristol franchise, and used Bristol's players to represent Burlington. Phillies manager and future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, Frank Morgenweck, disbanded his Phillies team to purchase the Wilmington team. Camden, coached by Billy Morgenweck (Frank's brother), cruised to 36 wins against only 9 defeats, a winning percentage of .800.

Things did not go very well during the offseason in 1903. Only 5 teams elected to play that year. More importantly, New York, Burlington, and Wilmington, all with experienced owners and coaches, failed to return. The league began the season with only the Camden Electrics, the Trenton Potters, Conshohocken, the Millville Glass Blowers, and St. Bridget's Biddies.

Trenton dropped out on December 26, 1903, and Camden left on December 31. The National Basketball League was disbanded on January 4, 1904, not without controversy, and at least one lawsuit followed its demise. Billy Morgenweck was subsequently sued by investors in the Camden Electrics.

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December 1, 1898 was a Thursday. If any games in the NBL other than the Trenton-Hancock lid-lifter, I can find no record of them. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. And hockey was still all-amateur. So, as far as I can tell, Trenton 21, Hancock 19 was the only score on this historic day.