"On Basketball Courts"

In my recent searches of the Brooklyn Eagle at the new Brooklyn Newsstand site, I came across an interesting reference to my Mulcahy family.

 

"On Basketball Courts." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 22 Jan 1912

The item, which ran in the "On Basketball Courts" section of the 22 Jan 1912 edition of the Eagle, is advertising for competitors to play against a basketball team called the Nevada Five. (I cannot for the life of me figure out why this team from Brooklyn was known as the "Nevada Five.") These ads were common at the time, though I've seen more of them in the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union than in the Eagle. The team's contact, Mike "Mulcay," is one of my Mulcahys, who lived at 85 Luquer Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I'm guessing that the number "(120)" refers to the weight of the players, as most other similar advertisements refer to teams as "95 pound" teams, or as teams with "135 pound players," etc.

This all leaves one big question: Who was "Mike Mulcay"? The Mulcahy family had two Michaels living at 85 Luquer St., a father and son, and I can't tell from this ad or the other ones I've seen whether these teams were more likely to feature adults, adolescents, or both. Michael Mulcahy, Sr. was approximately 49 in 1912; his son, Michael Jr., was 13 or so. 120 lbs seems somewhat low for a grown man, although I've never seen a picture of Michael Sr.; he could have had a very slight build. Current CDC data, though, says that a 13-year-old boy who weighs 120 lbs is close to the 90th or 95th percentile for weight, and I don't think the Mulcahys tend to run quite that comparatively large.

Michael Jr.'s WWI draft registration card, from 1919, gives his build as "medium."

I have one picture of Michael Jr. as an adult, at his brother Gerard's wedding in 1937. Michael is the man in the gray suit, sitting erect at the center of the table, left side, across from the groom. He is not such a large man as to give the impression that he would have been at the 95th percentile for weight as an adolescent, but none of the brothers at the table are so slight as to give the impression that their father was likely to have weighed only 120 lbs.

Wedding of Gerard Mulcahy and Ann Danaher. Michael Mulcahy at center, left.

As an alternative, it's possible that the Mike "Mulcay" referred to in the paper was not actually a player on the team, but a manager who might have been smaller than the players themselves, or a father who was the coach or contact for a team that included one of his older, larger sons as a player. (That a team of 15- or 18-year-old basketball players would use one of their parents as a contact seems so hopelessly, helicopterously, 21st century though, doesn't it?) Or, of course, I could have completely misinterpreted the number "120" in the ad, as I had no idea what it referred to before looking at other similar items, and the others were all much clearer when stating their weights. I cannot, unfortunately, find much if any information about early 20th century amateur basketball in Brooklyn to inform my interpretations.