1902 MCBL Season
No Champion Declared
League Note
The league temporarily suspended operation and cancelled the remainder of the season on January 25, 1902
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Massachusetts Central Basketball League (MCBL)
1901-02 MCBL Season Overview
During the summer of 1901, the two Lowell-based teams broke away from the three-year old Massachusetts League to organize a new league, which they brazenly called the Massachusetts League, forcing the established league to change its name to the Massachusetts Central League. In addition, the new league recruited the players off the Hudson squad to relocate to South Framingham and added a team in Maynard and two Boston teams, Somerville and Cambridge. Somerville lasted just one game before dropping out of the league, but Cambridge proved to be one of the league’s best teams.
The breakup between the Lowell squads and the Worcester-based teams did not end the acrimony between the two groups. The struggle between the two organizations would go on for years with serious repercussions for all concerned.
With the Lowell contingent out of the picture, the remaining teams in Millbury, Webster and South Worcester, and Worcester regrouped as the Massachusetts Central League. They admitted a new team in Woonsocket, Rhode Island and began play in mid-November of 1901. Serious problems emerged almost immediately. The South Worcester and new Woonsocket teams were both dreadful. The South Worcester team dropped out of the league just a few days after New Year’s 1902. The Rhode Island team, winless in eleven games, dropped out just a week later. The remaining three teams struggled on under constant pressure from the Massachusetts League, which continued to lure players away from the older circuit. The impossibility of operating with just three teams quickly became apparent and with attendance rapidly dwindling, the Massachusetts Central League collapsed at the end of January.