Better than a Blaster Bomb(ers) Edition

Growing up I really didn’t follow professional basketball-probably in large part because when I was very young the NBA departed St. Louis with the Hawks to Atlanta in 1968. I do remember the Sprits of St. Louis of the old ABA which ceased playing after the 1976 season. The only professional basketball game I ever attended was the Spirits. I probably will post about the Spirts another time. Thus, we in STL didn’t have a team and I didn’t really pay attention to the NBA until the Jordan years. As a result I can’t recall buying any basketball cards as a kid.

So when I was trolling EBay I came across a set of 1948 Bowman cards for the defunct Basketball Association of America. Who you ask? Well this league existed from 1946 until the end of the 1948-49 season when they merged with the National Basketball League and became the NBA. Some teams from the old BAA you would know are; Boston Celtics, Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers, New York Knickerbockers, Philadelphia Warriors, and the Rochester Royals.  I will let you all figure out what cities these teams are associated with now.  

You may ask what the point of all of this is. Well another team in the old BAA was the St. Louis Bombers which entered the league in 1946 and merged into the NBA but dropped out in 1950. The Bombers had a record of 96-73 over their life in the BAA.  Some famous players and one Hall of Famer played with the Bombers including Edward C. "Ed" Macauley inducted in to the Hall of Fame in 1960, Ephraim J. "Red" Rocha a NBA champion with the Syracuse nationals and two time NBA All-Star, Johnny Orr University of Michigan Coach from 1968-1980, then there was Robert W. "Bob" Doll the subject of this post-or least the subject of the subject of this post.

Bob Doll was born in Steamboat Springs, CO in 1919 and grew up in Ontario, California. He played with the Bombers 1946-1948 and the Boston Celtics 1948-1950. He averaged 8.4 points and 1.4 assists per game for his four year pro-career (Wiki). Unfortunately, he committed suicide in 1959 at the age of 40.

In 1948 Bowman issued a 72 card set of BAA players, each team was given 5 cards plus 12 cards were devoted to basketball plays-note no jump shots.  The key card of this set was the rookie card of George Mikan which in excellent condition will put you back about $2000. There are 7 other HOFers included in this set.

I may try to pick up the other four Bombers’ cards-and I would love some Spirits ABA cards but I don’t see me trying too hard.