Manchester’s Pat Doyle, an early ally of Bucky Lew

HISTORY

MANCHESTER, NH – Manchester’s Pat Doyle stood side-by-side with Harry “Bucky” Lew when basketball’s status as an integrated sport was challenged well over 100 years ago.

While not born in the city, Doyle arrived from Northern Ireland as a small child, and Manchester served as his home base for the rest of his life while he chased his pro basketball dreams throughout New England and New York.

Doyle was an early star of the game and the Portsmouth Herald credited him with being “known throughout the eastern states as a sensational basketball player.”

He was there on New Year’s Day in 1903 when Lew made a name for himself in Manchester’s Mechanics Hall by shutting down the game’s best player, Harry Hough. At that time, Doyle played with Hough for Manchester.

However, that team soon disbanded, and Doyle moved on to Haverhill where he became a teammate of Lew’s. Doyle was also there when Hough led his next team in refusing to play against Lew in 1904.

The Newburyport Daily News reported that Hough said it was “against his principles to play a colored man.” His team took the court but refused to engage in any basketball activities with Lew on the floor.

Doyle, now playing with Lew, objected. The Daily News said that he and the others “became disgusted and kept tossing the ball at the visiting player’s heads instead of into the basket with the idea of arousing them to action.”

His actions weren’t surprising given his reputation. According to the Lowell Courier Citizen, “Rough, Doyle of Haverhill may be, but there is one thing certain; there is no more earnest player in the league. He carries himself with the air of a leader…. His work is of the earnest, aggressive style that pleases you very much if he is on your home team, but disappoints you or perhaps causes a groan or jeer if he is with an opponent.”

And the support he and his teammates gave Lew ultimately proved successful. In an emergency midnight meeting after the game, league leaders decided to fine Hough and threaten him with expulsion should he try it again.

Of course, it wasn’t the only time Doyle stood up for Lew. According to the Boston Globe, in a game before the championship series that year when Lew suffered a dislocated shoulder, Doyle was tossed for “improper talk.”

Given his history, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to suppose that Doyle was reacting to Lew’s rough treatment. And it’s especially important since Lew was still the only Black man in the otherwise white league.

Overall, Doyle’s career spanned 12 years and he played with Lew for about half of them. They were teammates for three years in the New England Basketball League and he later appeared with Lew’s independent teams in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Doyle also made the rounds as a free agent, playing in Maine and New York. He capped off his career with a New York State Championship in 1912.

That championship was an impressive achievement no doubt, however it has to rank second on his list of achievements. The first is undoubtedly his work to establish a precedent for basketball as an integrated game.

Chris Boucher is the author of “The Original Bucky Lew: Basketball’s First Black Professional,” which is available at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1613098960. He will be sharing stories and pictures from the book and early basketball at Manchester City Library on September 26 at 6:30 p.m.