Celebrating Black History Month: New York Renaissance, first professional African-American basketball team

In the first decades of the twentieth century, when black athletes were barred from professional sports, Robert Douglas founded and organized the New York Renaissance, the first all-black professional basketball team February 13, 1923.  He managed an agreement with William Roach, who owned the New Renaissance Ballroom and Casino, to allow the team to practice there.

The New York Ren played its first game on November 3, 1923 and they beat the Collegiate Five, an all-white team 28-22. They played until the last game in 1949.  The NBA had been created by that time.

The Rens team was in ducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1963. 

Come and be a Pirate!

Saturday night, Fuzzy and I attended the Crimson Pirates' CD release party in Suffern, NY just south of the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo. Ireland's 32 hosted the venue which became crowded quickly as the crush of fans filled the small room to capacity and raised the temperature to sauna levels. The restaurant seemed unprepared for the onslaught of hungry patrons since it took 30 minutes to get a club sandwich!

None of this mattered since the Crimson Pirates treated us to three sets of wonderful music. They sang songs from their new release, 'Come and be a Pirate', as well as our favorites from the previous four CD's. They announced at the beginning of the show that the third set would be entirely requests. The Crimsons found out the consquences and fun of singing a final set when the band and the audience are well-lubricated.

Robin's Corsair-esque version of "Pump Shanty" will not be forgotten any time soon. Singing from hand-written lyrics on the back of a crumpled sheet of paper (and still not getting the words right) and Kelly's exhuberant tambourining during short periods of scrutinizing her own heiroglyphics, Robin left her audience in stitches.

But I digress. Back to the new stuff. Ann's rendition of the title song, 'Come and Be a Pirate' sung to the tune of 'Bell-bottomed Trousers' is a bouncy and fun song that's sure to be a favorite sing-a-long tune very soon. (kinda like 'Bell-bottomed Trousers'!)

Don's new lyrics to 'Wild Rover' are hysterical.

My favorite: "Bow to Stern".

After the show which ended just before midnight, Fuzzy and I remained behind to chat with Robin, Dan, Ann, Don and Kelly along with a handful of other devoted fans. As usual in our conversation with such good friends, the time flew past and before we realized it, it was nearly 1:30am!

I am so looking forward to attending the New York Renaissance Faire this year! Having friends such as these, the four-hour drive through Baltimore, Wilmington (construction zones), around Philly and near NYC is but a small insigificant price to pay to spend time with them!

P.S. Thanks for the snog, Barley!