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Chris Boucher, "Harry "Bucky" Lew: A Biography of the First Black Professional Basketball Player" (McFarland, 2026)
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- [00:00]
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- [01:15]
Chris Boucher
And for delivery. Welcome to the New Books.
- [01:21]
Paul Knepper
Hello and welcome back to New Books and Sports. I'm your host Paul Knepper, and today I'll be talking to Chris Boucher about his new book, Harry Bucky Lou, a biography of basketball's first black professional. Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks, Paul.
- [01:36]
Chris Boucher
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Appreciate your interest.
- [01:39]
Paul Knepper
Sure. So, you know, we were just talking before we came on air and I was saying how, you know, I'm a big basketball fan, know a great deal about the history of the game, and I am embarrassed to say I'd never heard of Bucky Lou. So for, for a lot of our readers, can you give kind of a quick rundown of of who was Bucky Lou, what was interesting about him?
- [01:58]
Chris Boucher
Sure, I can do that. So Bucky Lou is basketball's first black professional. He signed a Pro contract in 1902, so integrated professional basketball in 1902. And the next year he coached college at Lowell Textile School, which is now D1umass Lowell. So he integrated pro basketball in 1902 and then college basketball as a coach in 1903. And he wasn't done there. He stayed in the game another 25 years. By the time he was ultimately done, he integrated basically every conceivable role in basketball, from player to coach to manager to referee and Even franchise owner.
- [02:36]
Paul Knepper
And, you know, because. Because Bucky is not a household name, even within the basketball community. How did. How did he come on your radar?
- [02:44]
Chris Boucher
Okay, good question. So that's one thing I never blame anyone for not knowing, because that was me five years ago. Even though I've been a lifelong basketball fan, live most of my life in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is also Bucky Lee's hometown, I had not heard of him prior to five years ago. So I had read a book on early basketball, kind of got interested in it. One of my takeaways was that early basketball was a neighborhood game, an ethnic game. So I decided to look into kind of my own family history. I wanted to know if anyone was playing basketball in the Pawtucketville neighborhood of Lowell, which was a French Canadian neighborhood at that time. That's where my father's grandparents settled after they came down from Quebec to get some jobs. And so I pleased to see, when I looked into it, that there was indeed a French Canadian team at that time. They had started about 1900 or so. But even more important to that, even more significant than that, was the fact that it was the first integrated professional team in basketball history. And I had not known that prior. And once I had learned that, I set out to kind of learn as much as I could about Lou and his impact on the game and his legacy overall.
- [03:56]
Paul Knepper
And how do you go about your research for a project like this where, you know, we're talking over 100 years ago, late 1800s, and then early the first couple centuries of the 20, the first couple of decades of the 20th century. What were your research methods? What did you use to get information about Bucky and basketball in general at that time?
- [04:15]
Chris Boucher
So I really didn't know where to start at first. So I had mentioned I had read a book about early basketball that was the Spas by Douglas Stark, which is a book about early Jewish basketball team, the South Philadelphia Hebrew association basketball team. So I reached out to him because I wanted to know more about what might be happening in my own neighborhood, as I had mentioned. But I didn't know where to start. And I was pleased to see he responded immediately and redirected me to the UMass Lowell center for Lowell History, which actually had an archive on Lou. And so I was able to go through that, dig through that, see some old newspaper clippings. So it was kind of my start. So once I did that, I knew that I had to do more. I think my timing was really good because a lot of the older newspapers, even though we're talking about ones that are 100 plus years ago have now been digitized, so they're pretty easy to access online. So I was able to, through a couple of subscriptions, read the old newspapers through the help of the UMass Low center for Local History, and also able to get in touch with some family members of Lou's, including his granddaughter who still lives in the area, which is really helpful to kind of bring that to life, as well as another son of someone who had played for Lou back in the 20s. So it was mostly reading old newspapers. There's not a lot of books written about Lou. He appears every once in a while as a footnote, as an anthology, but really not a lot of depth there. So it was really old newspapers. And then talking to his granddaughter Wendy Johnson, as well as Jerry o', Connor, who was the son of someone who had played with him.
- [05:52]
Paul Knepper
So let's talk a little bit about Bucky. How did, how did he grow up? What was childhood like? How did he start playing basketball?
- [06:01]
Chris Boucher
Okay, so Lou started playing basketball at the ymca in about 1898. So he. His family had a business, a dry cleaning business in Lowell, Massachusetts. I mentioned, as I mentioned earlier, my hometown and his as well, which explains my interest. Right. And he left school after the eighth grade to work in the business, to land a business. So he played basketball at the YMCA because high school was not an option, but the YMCA was. He was fortunate in that the YMCA was integrated, as many, but not all were in Massachusetts. So there's no barrier for him learning to play basketball as other people like him around the country did not experience. So that was a fortunate factor in his development. He was able to train at the YMCA starting at the eighth grade and played there through until he turned 18 for about four years. And at that point he went pro.
- [06:56]
Paul Knepper
And we should note, I mean, because this is, I mean, 1898, we're talking just. Just seven games, seven years after the game was invented. This is in the very beginning. We, we should note Lowell's proximity to. To Springfield. I think you said the book is about 75 miles, is that right?
- [07:14]
Chris Boucher
Yes, yes, absolutely. Very close. And Lowell was lucky in that because of the proximity. They were one of the early. The Weinstein Lowell was one of the early ones that was actually trained by an instructor from the Springfield YMCA where the game was invented. So they played basketball in Lou's hometown the year after it was invented. So I think it was December 1891. They were playing December 1892 with Lowell. An instructor came out from Springfield to teach the game. It was an immediate hit.
- [07:44]
Paul Knepper
Wow. And so how did he. How did he go from playing at the YMCA to breaking into pro ball?
- [07:51]
Chris Boucher
So he turned 18, and there was actually a couple of teams in Lowell at that point. It was really an early center of pro basketball. That's another kind of part of the story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. There are really two centers of early pro basketball. One in the Philadelphia area, which gets a lot more attention, but then kind of central and eastern Massachusetts as well. So in 1898, when the National League started, there was also a Massachusetts league that started it as well. In about 1901 or so when Lou was still at the YMCA, they split and it became kind of a Central Massachusetts league and then a New England league, which is one that Lou ultimately joined. So kind of Lowell was center of that, had a couple of teams. They added some teams from New Hampshire and kind of northeastern Massachusetts as well. So there were a couple of teams locally that had an interest in Lou. So he got a lot of attention, got a lot of press during his YMCA career. He brought that team to several championships. He was the captain, was really a fan favorite as well. And it sounds like the manager of. The managers of little teams were taking some heat from the press about not signing him. So he actually didn't sign immediately at the start of the season, but as it was about to begin due to injuries. So he started. Because really, it sounds like the press was kind of putting some heat on the low managers to. To give him a chance. The local star, who seemed to be someone who could, despite his young age and small size, could get it down at the pro level as well.
- [09:26]
Paul Knepper
Was. And was this, you know, was this a big splash, you know, you know, black player playing professional basketball? I mean, I know it was a professional basketball, like it was the NBA, you know, it wasn't like it is now. But was that. Were there headlines about that? Was it a big deal at the time? No.
- [09:46]
Chris Boucher
Which is interesting. So he did appear in the headline after his first game, said that he had played well, but no mentioning was made of race or that this line had to cross, which is pretty interesting because at that point, you didn't have blacks able to participate in professional baseball or football really, at that highest level. And while this was a regional league, it is considered a major league of its day. So really, you only had regional pro basketball in those days. As I mentioned, it was kind of a Philadelphia area league. And then there was the ones in Massachusetts as well. So while the teams had kind of a smaller geographic footprint because there was a lot of fan interest. They did import stars from New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So it wasn't a true national league. It's. You can't really compare it to the NBA, but for its time it was considered a major league. So he definitely made a splash. But the splash wasn't because of his race. The splash wasn't this historic integration of pro basketball that he had made happen. It was just that he was a good player.
- [10:51]
Paul Knepper
Right. I wonder, do you have any idea of what the racial makeup of Lowell was at that time? Was there a significant black community?
- [11:00]
Chris Boucher
So it was mostly white. So overall the population, the African American population of New England at that point was about 2%. So it was pretty light, small numbers. There was a significant population in the sense that they were very well integrated into the community. I had mentioned that his family had a dry cleaning business. This is a business they had established. They was in operation by the time Lou was born. Going back through the family history, his great, great grandfather was a Revolutionary War veteran and that. And settled in the Lowell area after he had finished his service and bought a farm with some of the payment, I suppose, that he received for that service. So while small in number, I do think that the black population had a significant impact on the region.
- [11:49]
Paul Knepper
And how was he received by. Well, I mean, let's start with his teammates. How was he received by his teammates?
- [11:58]
Chris Boucher
So there are no issues with his teammates. He seems to have been well received with them. Some he had played with at the ymca. Others may have known of him from training at the ymca, which some of them did as they were playing fro or just from being part of the local basketball scene. So his teammates were very accepting of him on the road. Players and fans. Fans, not so much. And there are kind of a series of incidents that he had to suffer through as he. As his career progressed, but he took them on head on. I mean, he did an interview later in life where he compared himself to Jackie Robinson and he said he had to take the physical abuse. However, he said that once the opposing players knew that he could take it and that he was willing to give it back, that they kind of accepted him. And he said some of those people that had troubled him at first became friends of his later in life.
- [12:51]
Paul Knepper
And did his teammates kind of rally around him when those incidents took place, or do you. Do you have any sense of that?
- [12:58]
Chris Boucher
So I think so. So reading between the lines in his first game, there was none of the Player Skip Field, who was playing center for the Lowell team. Lou had played at the Lowell YMCA with him. In those days, there was a five foul limit per play before a player could leave the game. And while there weren't many fouls called in that game, Skip Field had four. It was actually a note that appeared after the game the next day saying that Skip Field knew how to use his files and he wasn't necessarily an overly physical player, but when he had a message to send, he sent it. So reading between the lines, my interpretation, interpretation of that is that Skip Field helped, helped Lou, helped protect him at his back, especially in that critical first game.
- [13:43]
Paul Knepper
You talk a lot about the book, about early in the book, about, and I'm going to butcher this name, but a Native American baseball player named Sokalexis.
- [13:55]
Chris Boucher
Yes. Lewis Socalexis.
- [14:00]
Paul Knepper
And I mean, you. You seem to indicate that, you know, that, you know, he had played in. Obviously he was Native American and he had played in the area and was a popular player. And you think he kind of paved the way for Bucky a little bit in terms of him being accepted.
- [14:17]
Chris Boucher
So I think it helped. So Louis Socalexis is basically the original Cleveland Indian. So he was the first Native American to play Major league Baseball. He played with the Indians in the late 1890s. He was an immediate star, but then he quickly flamed out. He had issues with alcohol, then a significant foot injury that never healed. So in 1902, which is the summer of the year that Lou signed a contract in the fall, he was attempting to come back in Lowell and actually had his most complete season ever with Lowell's pro baseball team, which is about the Double A level. So he was success on the field for the most part. Fans accepted him. He was a crowd favorite. He was a hit both on the field, pun intended, you might say, and in the stands as well. And his manager, Fred Lake, who had played with soccer lexis, played against him in the majors, was a friend of the manager who ended up signing Lou that fall, James Gray. They're both kind of local sports. Baseball men had a lifelong relationship and friendship. So again, kind of reading in between the lines a little bit. A lot of the stuff wasn't commented on back then. So I'm just going by the facts as they were and trying to read into, read into them a little bit. I feel like he did ease Lou's path because again, Sokoletis was very different from everyone else, yet he was accepted. He was even a fan favorite. So he both helped the team's performance and in the stands as well. That said, he was an example for Lou in that he had to endure a lot of stereotypes and people kind of mocking him. There was a number of reporters on the road who, who made reference to his ethnicity. Basically every time he was mentioned in the press, there was some mention of his ethnicity. And oftentimes it would make silly remarks. He might be wearing feathers or maybe a lot of his work paint on this day, et cetera, and so on. So what are things like that that Lou would know, having watched it, probably following this day by day that he might have to endure as well. So it probably helped his planning, I would think, as well.
- [16:21]
Paul Knepper
Right. You know, one of the things I really enjoyed about the book was just, you know, you writing about kind of the state of basketball at that time, know both from an organizational standpoint that the makeup of the leagues and players jumping teams and stuff like that, and teams jumping leagues, but also, you know, the, the. The ball they used. You know, you're very descriptive about the. You really painted a picture about the type of ball that the, the, the, the. The type of courts that they played on and you know, with, with cages and, and you know, certainly the violence of the game. So can you talk a little bit about that with the state? Because, you know, it's. It's light years away from what we know now as, as again NBA basketball or FIBA basketball, whatever. Talk a little bit about the state of the game in, in 1902 when. When Bucky made his. His debut.
- [17:18]
Chris Boucher
Sure. So I consider it the dead ball era basketball, like everyone knows the dead ball ever of baseball. I think one of the reasons that early basketball doesn't get a lot of attention because people don't realize there was the dead ball era of basketball too, and that really held down the scores. So they're playing with crude equipment under crude playing conditions. So, for example, the basketball, it was nothing like the perfect sphere that players have to use today. It was handmade. The laces were on the outside. The players of the day described it as a lumpy pumpkin. It was bad to start with, and it got worse as the game went along. So it was really hard to dribble and pass when they shot it. Players said that it would like knuckleball in the air as the laces moved around and depending on how hit the rim, you weren't really sure where that was going to ricochet. So that was one issue. It was also a larger ball than they use today and the rims were smaller. So the People running the game in those days were really trying to hold down the scores. And I guess it makes sense if you think about like baseball and football in those days. We're scoring in the teams in 20. So they thought that's what the fans wanted. So they made an effort to kind of keep the scores down. So that was their philosophy too. One factor that really held the scores down was the lack of free throws. So in Lou's New England League, they didn't shoot free throws. Basically, they thought it was a stoppage of play and it inflated the scores. So instead of the team that was fouled was awarded a point for every three times they were fouled. So you can imagine how unlikely it was that anyone would ever get an open shot. So you could allow someone to shoot and take a chance that they would get two points, or you could file them six times before they would get two points. So it was very physical. A lot of filing going on, a lot of fouling that wasn't called. There was only one referee. They could only see so much. And because the fans and the players of those days were pretty rowdy, they were often discouraged from calling anything. So that was another factor as well. As far as the courts go, they didn't have dedicated basketball courts necessarily in the pros. They would rent a hall or an armory or something like that. So oftentimes the floors were slippery, the lighting was uneven, oftentimes with electric, but not always. Sometimes it was gas, so you could have dark pockets, things like that. There were no backboards in the New England League either. And people running the game thought that that was an unnecessary aid to shooters. So if you wanted to score, you had to put that larger ball in a smaller basket with no help from the backboard.
- [19:57]
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- [20:58]
Chris Boucher
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- [21:12]
Paul Knepper
And. And I, you know, based on where they played and how they found places that I assume there was no consistent court dimensions either. Like, I assume that varied by location.
- [21:22]
Chris Boucher
Yeah, that's true. They tried to get a court that was about 60 by 30 in size, that was probably about, I don't know, half or so of the court that players use today. And as you had mentioned, they surrounded the court with fencing. So it was like wire and wood posts around the court. And the reason they did that was that in the way, back in those days, I mean, Naismith's original rules, when the ball went out of bounds, they're the first player to get to it. Their team would retain possession. So you can imagine anytime the ball went out of bounds, there's like 10 guys chasing it wildly. Just go for touch.
- [22:00]
Paul Knepper
It's like a fumble in football. Like, everybody just jumps on the scrum. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:05]
Chris Boucher
And then throw fans in the middle of that. So they. They didn't want to do that. So instead they put up a fence and that kit. That meant the ball was always alive, so there was no out of bounds. So the ball would, like, bounce off the fence and keep going. So they just played continuously. There weren't a lot of timeouts either. So they're playing in a. In a really congested place. Basically, running time was a lot of physicality, a lot of fouls going on as well, so it was really difficult to get open for a free shot. So it really held down the scores. So I think Lou's first team averaged about 20 points a game. When he went on to Haverhill, they were a better team. He played with hall of Famer Ed Wachter. They scored about 30, but it was still way lower than the scores of today. And again, I think that's another reason people don't take early basketball too seriously, are the players. They look at their averages, and it's like, wow, this guy scored three points a game. He averaged five points. A game, you know, it's hard for them to take that seriously. But as I said, there was a lot of reasons for that, from the dead ball to the poor equipment to the, you know, challenging playing conditions.
- [23:10]
Paul Knepper
Right. And, you know, as you. As you note in the book, I mean, a consequence of having, you know, the fouls being relatively meaningless and only one referee. There was a great deal of violence in the game. I mean, I asked Arta. That really jumped out at me. How. How. I wouldn't even say physical, violent, and it was Bucky. Did he receive more than his fair share of that violence because of his race?
- [23:36]
Chris Boucher
Certainly. And he said. He said he did. He kind of acknowledged that when he compared himself to Jackie Robinson and he could go through. And even though he played for 25 years, he was. He was always battling injury. So there was a game where he was right up against the fence and had to leave for stitches. Another game he had to leave because he was kicked in the stomach and couldn't continue. Another game, he was struck in the face and his eye blew up and he couldn't play. He often dislocated his shoulders. That was an injury that became chronic for him, starting in his second year and continuing for the rest of his career. The first time he heard that, it sounded like he was kind of flung around by his arm and that kind of got pulled out of his socket. And that was a continuing issue for him going forward. So he certainly had. He also broke a leg, and maybe he was. He had played 15, 17 years at that point. He wasn't done yet, but it was late later in the career. So it's hard to say specifically, okay, that injury was a result of race because the game was violent anyway. But if we take him at his word, and it certainly makes sense, he got more than anybody else, too, but he gave it back. So in games where followers were limited, he would go. He would have 8, 9, 10 fouls. So he was a physical player, too. So he was certainly willing to give it back. The one thing that's interesting, there were a lot of fights in the game. Fist fights were fairly common and often played up by the press. And while he was the victim of a lot of this violence, Lou never threw a punch in a game, which to me is amazing. You think, 25 years of taking this grief, but he was described as a. Someone who played physical but played within the rules and never threw a punch.
- [25:12]
Paul Knepper
Yeah, I was going to ask you about. I mean, that reminds me again of Jackie, because, you know, they, you know, famously Branch Ricky said to Jackie, I need someone who's not going to fight back. Right. And he wanted the first, you know, the first guy that the guy to break the car line needed. He. I think Ricky and a lot of people I'm sure, felt it needed to be someone who was not. Not a hothead, not. Who was. Not someone who was going to get in fights and stuff like that. So what was. What was Bucky's personality like? I guess, on and off the court.
- [25:43]
Chris Boucher
Yeah, so he was known as a gentleman. He was someone who sounded like, kept his calm, who understood the bigger picture. Another example, I think, that underscores that is the game where Harry Huff was the best offensive player of his day, led his team in a boycott, a move because he didn't want to say he didn't want to play against a black athlete. That game was in Haverhill, when Lou had moved on to Haverhill in his second year in the New England League. So it was a home game for Haverhill. The stands were packed. It was a sellout. Lou's team and Huff's team were the two best in the league. It was basically a championship preview. Huff and his teammates took the floor, but refused to engage in any movement while Lou was on it. The only time they moved was when Lou's two mates took the ball and threw it at their heads. And they had to dodge it in order to avoid that. The crowd was really fired up. They wanted to see Lou play. They wanted to see him match up against Tough, who he always held well under his scoring average. However, Lou sad. And I think part of that was he may have been trying to avoid a riot. Like if he had insisted on playing and. And the fans had continued to grow angry and angrier, it could have gotten ugly. So he decided to sit that game out. He had some inside knowledge, it sounds like, because the league had an emergency meeting after the game, they decided that they would remain integrated. They find Huff's team and threatened to expel them if they pulled that again. And Lou may have expected that outcome. So maybe he was willing to kind of sit that one game out with a bigger view in mind that he could kind of continue on the season in the league, that others like him could as well.
- [27:27]
Paul Knepper
How. How good of a player was Bucky? I mean, you know, compared to his contemporaries, obviously. How. How. How good was he in his prime?
- [27:35]
Chris Boucher
So that's difficult to assess based on the numbers because as his scores were really low in those days, he played a defensive guard. He was kind of the safety, the person at the back, basically, whose role was to stop the other team's offense, to prevent anyone from fast breaking or leaking out, and then to initiate his own team's offense. So based on the stats, it's hard to say. So we have to go by the anecdotal evidence, what the reporters and fans said at the time. So his reputation was that he was the best, if not he was the best defensive player of his day. So he always played the other team's best player. Many speculated that that's why Harry Huff did not want to face him. It wasn't because he really had any concerns about his race. He was more concerned about his defense. So he was known as a defensive stalwart. He was also described as someone who was an excellent dribbler as well as a passer. So one of his nicknames was the original Bucky Lou. And the reporter who gave him that said that he gave it to him after watching him in a game and seeing him perform original stunts in dribbling and passing. Didn't say exactly what those stunts were. I think part of the trouble is that the game was so new, the reporters didn't necessarily know it or how to describe it, but it sounded like he was the guy. He wanted the ball to protect that possession and to kind of like move the. Move the offense along. So he was an excellent defensive player, great dribbler, great passer as well.
- [29:04]
Paul Knepper
And after. After Bucky, you know, broke the curl line, was there an influx of. Of black players in that league or other leagues around the country? I guess the. I guess best wasn't around the whole country at that point, But. But. You know what I mean.
- [29:19]
Chris Boucher
Yeah. So, yes and no. So there were. So. And this is something that I kind of wrestle with, like, what's the legacy? And I'm sure we'll talk about his connection with Jackie Robinson later. And I think that's the larger legacy. But at the time, the participation of black athletes in basketball was slight. So to me, it is interesting, though, that basketball was more integrated than the other sports, but not by much. So you can kind of trace the line from Bucky Lou in 1902 to the start of the NBA in about 1946. And more often than not, there was a black player in the game, but oftentimes it was just one or two. So there was this kind of history of integration that other sports didn't necessarily have. But the question, I guess, to me is were they exceptional or the exceptions that proved the rule? So there wasn't an influx around the country, a lot of black athletes were not able to train and play basketball because they did not have access to the same facilities. So about the 19 teens, the black fives came about. Claude Johnson has written about that extensively. That was all black teams. So those were, well, mostly black teams, I should say. Actually, there were two Jewish players who played for one of those teams, so that was integrated as well. But again, it's one of those things. Where were they exceptional or was that the exception that proved the rule? So there wasn't this flood of black players after Bucky Lou. It still took another generation for that to happen. Basically, it was Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers who made that happen. However, I do think that part of Lou's larger legacy is the influence he had on that.
- [30:58]
Paul Knepper
Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, that. That's. That's a wonderful anecdote in the book about how, you know, about how. How the Dodgers farm team ended up there. Talk. Tell that story, please.
- [31:11]
Chris Boucher
Yeah, and that. That was really. I'm really proud of that discovery because that just happened late kind of in researching this, the second book, but I think makes all the difference. So everyone knows the story that Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers. He started his first season in Montreal, so he's not in the US he was playing at the Dodgers AAA farm team in Montreal. The Dodgers did want to integrate a farm team in the US So they could have a wave of players coming through that Robinson wouldn't be alone, or it wouldn't just be one or two players doing that without, you know, a lot of support, without almost like a feeder system of other players coming through. So the Dodgers made some calls around the country, contacting their farm teams, the people running their farm teams, about taking on their black players and becoming an integrated team. So they received a number of rejections until they reached a newspaper man in Nashville, New Hampshire. That man is Fred Dobins. He apparently assured them that the black players would be welcome in Nashua. And the reason he knew that was because when he was in high school, he was a basketball star and he played at halftime of Bucky Lou's games in the city in early 1920s. So he personally witnessed Lou and his acceptance from both the players and the other fans, because Lou was actually running those teams in those days, and he was a beloved figure. He was. He was one of the favorite players that came through. So, Paul, so. So, Paul. So Fred Doan's had this personal knowledge that in the past that integrated sports had been accepted in Nashville long, long ago. And that they would be again. Yeah, no, that's just history. Yeah. So. So just last thing on that. Sorry. So the Dodgers signed Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. They started in Nashua. Then after a few years, they united with Robinson in Brooklyn. They were a success. They went to a penance. They won a World Series, and then that was it. When the rest of sports saw that that model worked and that those teams were going to win based on. Followed.
- [33:16]
Paul Knepper
Yeah, that was fascinating to me. And as you noted, what a wonderful part of Bucky's legacy, as you alluded to before, he spent much of his life in basketball. Was it just as a player? And so what were the. Some of the things he did in and around the game after he retired?
- [33:34]
Chris Boucher
So he stayed in the game for 25 years. So his playing career did last that 25 years. But as he was playing, he was doing other things as well. So the New England League folded after three years. And really, there wasn't another organized league in New England until really, the Celtics started in the mid-40s. So Lou started an independent team after the New England League folded, and he was running that. He was the manager of that team, so he was kind of managing the roster and the person out as well. In 1915, there was a. There was an attempt to reconstitute the wing lead. Ended up only lasting half a season, but still he had that, and he was the franchise owner of that team. So here was Bucky Louis, integrating kind of franchise ownership ranks. That's an interesting year, because, as you may know, that was the year that Birth of the Nation came out, which led to a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. And here he had Bucky Liu, a black man, running a team largely made up of immigrants that he had drawn from northeastern US People whose family had come here for jobs, for work in the mills. Immigrants, Catholics. He had a Jewish player as well. And this was a team that was touring New England playing these games while the clan was resurging. And even in New England had up to 400,000 paying members. So that was quite an achievement there as well. It was also the first referee, and he did a number of other things. So it's basically, I was involved in the game and buffeting a lot of roles. As far as I can tell, he filled every conceivable role in the game and sometimes all at once. So I did come across an anecdote in doing the research, saying that in the 1920s, a game had to be rescheduled because Lou was set to both play coach and referee on the same night.
- [35:27]
Paul Knepper
That's incredible. And I guess, you know, you didn't come across any, any evidence of, you know, or stories of, of players being unwilling to play for him.
- [35:38]
Chris Boucher
No. So he was really well established in New England as a star and I think his reputation preceded him. Now again, if he's building his own team, he's probably not going to seek out players that don't want to play for him. So I don't see him recruiting Harry Huff. However. I never came across any instance of a player being unwilling to play for him and at least being public about it. But it seemed like he kind of had his core players that he started with and then as he continued, but they retired, he was able to replace them with other local stars without issue.
- [36:14]
Paul Knepper
You mentioned in the book that he, he has been recognized by the Naismith Memorial Basketball hall of Fame as the first African American player in professional basketball. I wonder, was there any kind of large scale recognition in his lifetime? I, I don't remember exactly when he died, but I, you know, I believe it was pre hall of Fame and I don't know if the NBA was around then but by the NBA or by the, by the NBA's, you know, predecessors, the NBA, the NBL, the BAA and any, any kind of, you know, Mass or national organization that, that or newspaper that recognized him as the first.
- [36:51]
Chris Boucher
Yes and no. So there was no large scale recognition of him for that achievement. He died in 1963, which the hall of the NBA obviously was going strong then. The Naismith hall of Fame existed, at least it had for a few years. There was an article that came out in the Springfield, in Springfield Massachusetts newspaper on the run up to the hall of Fame, kind of profiling him, recognize his achievement and even nominating for the, nominating him for the hall and asking for votes. So he was. So that was known. However, there was no, as you asked, no like national organization that got behind it. Even though he may have been the first player nominated for a hall because this reporter asked people to vote for him, he did not make it. The hall has recognized him and his achievement. However, he has not been inducted as a member. When he died in 1963. There are a number of stories about that and it recognizes his achievement as well. But really no, no national organization has gotten behind it. The one exception to that would be the American Basketball hall of Fame which you may or may not have heard of. They've existed for about five years or so. They do plan to induct Lulu in 2026 when they do their induction in April. So that will be the first hall of Fame actually that has recognized him. So it's been slow. Hopefully there'll be more to come. But that is the kind of the state of the situation at this point.
- [38:19]
Paul Knepper
Are you aware, has there any bit, has there been. Has he been nominated in recent times or has there been even any discussion or movement towards a nomination for the, the Naismith hall in recent years?
- [38:34]
Chris Boucher
Yes. So there was a Direct Elect Committee for the Naismith Hall. So the. Let's see if I get this right, because it's kind of a long name. The early African American Pioneers Direct. Direct Elect Committee almost got through it. So, yeah, early African American Pioneers Direct Elect Committee. He was on their eligible list for about eight years. That committee existed for about 10 years. He was not voted in, but he was on the list. So certainly they knew of him. I suspect they didn't know his full achievements because no one really does, to be honest. That said, that committee no longer exists. It was disbanded. They put in a fair amount of players, maybe eight to 10 players, mostly from like the black fives era, players who were portrayed in that book by Clyde Johnson and that was it. So unfortunately, while some of the other hall of Fames continue to work to look to acknowledge folks like Lou, for example, baseball has just decided to include the Negro League statistics in their official statistics. Right. They have added to the hall of Fame a lot of players that to me are comparable to Lou. Unfortunately, it looks like Naismith is going the other direction. They disbanded this committee. There's no active discussion of Louisiana at this point, as far as I know. Like I don't know who those voters are, to be fair. I think it's kind of a secret society, which is probably good for their own safety, especially, you know, these days with all the. Some of the trouble that we have. Right. And media and things like that. But as far as I know, anyway, there's no kind of active discussion about it.
- [40:14]
Paul Knepper
Why. Why haven't more basketball fans heard of Bucky Lou?
- [40:19]
Chris Boucher
I don't know. And I have to go back five years and even wonder how didn't I know. So basically our families are from the same neighborhood in Patunka Bell, in Lowell, Massachusetts. I have lived in Lowell most of my life. I've been a basketball fan most of life, but I have never. But I hadn't heard of him prior to five years ago. So now, five years and two books later, I know A lot. But before that, I knew nothing. And it's interesting because while I consider myself a basketball fan, I. I really didn't know much about the game between its invention in 1891 and the start of the NBA in 1946. Now, I had to know there was basketball happening during that time. That's about 50 years or so. However, I didn't think about it. I never even wondered about it. I think part of it is that the NBA started in 1946, and for a lot of basketball fans, pro basketball fans, that's when pro basketball started. Right. That's the current league. So this early pro basketball stuff that we're talking about isn't part of NBA's history. So they're not really talking about it, as opposed to Major League Baseball, which does stretch way back. So I think that's part of it. It's not very visible. And the other thing is just kind of the nature of the game. Like we talked about it being the dead ball era. If someone did go in and try to research a player that they heard about and saw that their scoring average was, you know, 10 or 20% of what you might expect a star scoring average to be, they're probably immediately move on to the next topic and not understanding, you know, all the factors that we discussed earlier, why that was the case, not understanding this dead ball era, basketball, et cetera and so on. So I think there's a couple reasons. One is, no, no one's pushing it, really, because it's not part of any current organization's history. And neither is any fan who kind of decides to look into it on their own won't necessarily be impressed. Their first impression anyway, of what they encounter might not impress them.
- [42:16]
Paul Knepper
Yeah, and it's hard to look into it. You could pull up. You can't pull up YouTube clips of Bucky Lou. Right. I mean, it's. You have to. You really have to dig. Yeah, that was, you know, as I was asking the question, that. That was kind of my assumption as well, that in a lot of people's minds, it's like James Naismith in 1891 and then the NBA. Right. And, and, and people like Douglas Stark and Claude Johnson have done a wonderful job of trying to fill in those gaps. And years ago, Kareem made a great documentary on the Harlem Rens that did a nice job with that. But, yeah, I think that's just the narrative. And it's. It's hard. It's hard to get past that. But you're doing your part right I mean, you're so. I, I, I applaud you for that.
- [43:01]
Chris Boucher
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. To me, it's fascinating. Like, like, I love it. To me, it's amazing to me that I didn't know about it, but now that I do, I just find that early basketball period fascinating. Just the challenges that they had to go through doing it while they were still trying to learn the game. Right. Obviously, techniques were. Luis knew they were still trying to figure it out. They're only 10 years into the game. One hope I have is that because a lot of these older newspapers are now digitized, it makes it easier for people to find this information.
- [43:27]
Paul Knepper
Yeah.
- [43:27]
Chris Boucher
There's still a lot to sort through. Like, in my book, I have 600 citations, mostly from old newspapers. So one of the things about Lou is, wow, it's great that you played 25 years, but from a researcher's perspective, it's like, wow, 25 years of old newspapers I gotta go through, you know, so hopefully there's enough there to kind of spark an interest and people, you know, start to look at some of these other books you mentioned. The books are out there, so people have written about them. They just haven't necessarily taken off.
- [43:54]
Paul Knepper
Yeah. Yeah. And there's a book, too, about E.B. henderson and what he do with basketball in the D.C. area.
- [44:04]
Chris Boucher
Well, it's been by his grandson. That's another. That's a brand too. And I think it came out last year.
- [44:09]
Paul Knepper
I can't think of the name of.
- [44:10]
Chris Boucher
It, but the grandfather of black basketball. I think it's the grandfather of black basketball.
- [44:15]
Paul Knepper
I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, as I said, I applaud you for bringing Bucky Lou's story to light. And hopefully that could build some momentum and get people talking about him and that era more and hopefully get him in. In. In enshrined in Springfield where he belongs.
- [44:34]
Chris Boucher
I think so. So I feel like he's put in his dues, so he's earned his spot. I feel like he's probably already in basketball heaven, but if the Naismith hall makes it official, that would be nice.
- [44:46]
Paul Knepper
Yeah. All right, I'm going to get you out of here with one final question I'd like to ask all my guests. But first, let me say again, the name of Chris's book is Harry Bucky A Biography of Basketball's First Black Professional. It's a great book. I mean, it's extremely informative and incredibly well researched, and I learned a lot. So I certainly encourage everybody to go out and read it. Chris, my final question for you is what is your all time favorite sports book?
- [45:17]
Chris Boucher
So I actually referenced this earlier in the conversation, so it might be a little bit of a surprise, but it is this Thaws by Douglas Starr. So this was the book that I read. Again, it's about early basketball in Philadelphia. As far as it's an acronym, it's the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. This was an early Jewish basketball team that played in the 1920s. This kind of caught my interest because it made it obvious to me that basketball was an ethnic game, a neighborhood game at its start. And that's what got me interested in looking into basketball in my own backyard. And that's how I discovered Lou and a host of other players as well. As you had mentioned in some of the books by Anderson, Doug Stark's got several others as well, and Claude Johnson. So it's really Mari Nelson is another writer who's got a number of books in the area. But it was really that one that got me started. It was really eye openening, opened my eyes to 50 years of history and some great stories. So that's number one for me.
- [46:15]
Paul Knepper
All right. Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming on and talking about your book and I wish you the best of luck with it.
- [46:21]
Chris Boucher
Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, your interest and appreciate this discussion.
- [46:38]
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