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Hard to fathom for younger generations of Western New York sports fans is the fact that NBA legends such Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, Pete Maravich and Luke Walton used to routinely come through town.
Local people such as myself who were born after the demise of the Buffalo Braves pro basketball franchise have heard the stories, but we don’t have any first-hand memories or tangible proof in our minds that The Association actually operated here three decades ago.
Two local brothers have done something to close that gap in history.
Former Lockport residents Tim Wendel (author) and Chris Wendel (editor) collaborated on “Buffalo, Home of the Braves,” which offers a detailed written and pictorial glimpse into the brief period when Buffalo was a three-sport town (sorry, Bandits), as well as the exciting period when both pro hoops and hockey debuted in the same year in the area. Their book takes a season-by-season look at the Braves’ eight-year run here, chronicling the team’s rise and fall in a thorough if not overly gripping fashion.
The first chapter of the book (one chapter was assigned to each season) outlined a mistake that, if handled correctly, might have allowed the franchise to prosper. The Braves passed on drafting Niagara University legend Calvin Murphy in the first round of the 1970 draft, instead choosing Princeton forward John Hummer. Murphy went on to a hall of fame career with the San Diego/Houston Rockets, while Hummer was gone from Buffalo after only three seasons.
Player movement was perhaps the main theme of the Braves’ existence, especially in the franchise’s later years when ownership seemed more interested in the bottom line than the on-court product. Bob McAdoo, Adrian Dantley and Moses Malone were among the all-stars who were shuffled out of Buffalo as times got tougher. Controversial owner Paul Snyder ended up selling the team to John Y. Brown, who had owned an ABA franchise in Kentucky but quickly set his sights elsewhere, eventually settling on San Diego (where the team became known as the Clippers).
By far, the most interesting part of this book was the appearance of Phil Ranallo’s columns about the Braves. I’d never before heard of the longtime Courier-Express columnist, but it was a treat to get to know the writing of perhaps the franchise’ biggest local champion.
Also of note, it’s hard to fathom a time when local college basketball was truly relevant, but the book chronicles the Braves’ struggle to wrestle premium game dates away from Canisius College, whose men’s basketball team at the time dominated the local winter sports landscape and had free run of the Aud. The addition of the Sabres in the 1970s made the arena that much more crowded and often relegated the Braves to option No. 3, which ownership said hurt attendance.
As for the rest of the book, it provided plenty of historical context and information with which I was not familiar (Bills fans might recognize the pain involved with the Braves’ decision to play some games in Toronto in order to grow the regional market).
A wealth of photos — of game action, team pictures, memorabilia and even trading cards — certainly ratchet up the nostalgia factor of this book. Hard to look past, though, were the frequent formatting errors (paragraphs not properly indented, etc.) and the occasional punctuation and grammar error. Of great value were the in-depth interviews with numerous former coaches and players, including the late Randy Smith, who joined the team out of Buffalo State College and was here until the bitter end of the team’s existence.
The team’s performance on the court, much like its existence off the court, represented a great what-if — one playoff series won in three trips to the postseason, with the Boston Celtics eliminating Buffalo in two of those seasons.
Whether the team could have survived in subsequent decades is unknown, but the thought of the Braves still being here is an interesting one to entertain, and the Wendels do a good job of summing up the past while allowing the reader’s mind to wander about what could have been.
Contact Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116.
IF YOU READ
• WHAT: “Buffalo, Home of the Braves”
• BY: Written by Tim Wendel, edited by Chris Wendel
• DETAILS: Published by Sun Bear Press, 216 pages
• GRADE: B-
