Recap
On December 20, 1898 at the Sherwood House in Worcester, the Massachusetts Basketball League was formed. The league consisted of six teams in four small towns within a twenty-five mile radius of Worcester. The league announced a ten game schedule.
The league members included squads from Hudson and Milford, along with two teams in both Millbury and Marlboro. Hudson was the only club to average points in double-digits, led by Jack Porter in the backcourt, the league’s best all-around player.
During the summer of 1901, two teams broke away from the three-year old Massachusetts League to organize a new league lnamed the New England Basketball Leageue, forcing the established league to change its name to the Massachusetts Central League. The struggle between the two organizations would go on for years with serious repercussions for both.
By early January of 1904, the early season optimism began to fade as attendance failed to meet the high salary demands of the league’s imported stars. The Massachusetts League began to unravel in mid-January when the players representing the Chicopee club resigned from the league to rejoin the New England League from which they had jumped the previous year. Attendance continued to plummet and the league collapsed altogether the last week in January.
I sincerely appreciate the research work, and the information being shared. It is important and interesting history.