NEW YORK, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Former New York Knicks player Ralph Kaplowitz, who appeared in what is considered the NBA's first game in 1946, has died at 89, his daughter says.
Kaplowitz died Feb. 2 at his home in Floral Park, N.Y., of kidney failure, daughter Barbara Kaplowitz told Sunday's New York Times.
The Knicks and Toronto Huskies, both members of the NBA forerunner Basketball Association of America, squared off at Maple Leaf Gardens on Nov. 1, 1946, before an estimated crowd of 8,000 in what is considered the league's first game.
Kaplowitz played in an era when Jewish players were often assailed with anti-Semitic catcalls, his daughter said.
"My father often told us that the first Knicks team, which had other Jewish players on it, was broken up because fans, especially on the road, would often chant nasty things," Barbara Kaplowitz told the Times. "But my father was too self-confident a man to ever let stuff like that bother him."
