The Celtics Steal the Show

 

The Night The Boston Celtics Masqueraded As A Newport (Tennessee) Steak House Team (Or So The Story Goes)

Every story has two sides, the old saying goes. But after digging into a tale I heard from an old college friend, I've come to believe there are three sides to every story: each participant's and the reporter's who tells it.

Here's the story as recounted to me by my friend Charlie Hamilton, a well-known character from the UT campus during my grad school days in the early seventies. Charlie grew up in White Pine, Tennessee, and one summer he worked as a gopher for the notable Morristown businessman Z Buda. While moving a file cabinet, Charlie discovered an old newspaper article taped to the back. And that's where this story comes from.

In the 1940s, Z Buda owned a popular steakhouse in Newport and sponsored an independent basketball team, Z Buda’s All Stars. They had a fierce rivalry with another nearby independent team, the Cosby Hot Shots. After losing two straight games to the Hot Shots, Z Buda was determined not to lose again.

After both teams had warmed up for the third  match, they returned to their respective dressing rooms. But when the Z Buda All Stars reappeared on the court, something was different. Now wearing the All Stars' uniforms were five players from the Boston Celtics!

Charlie’s story sounded so fantastic that I knew it had to be true, or at least mostly true. And, as it turns out, it was!

It took some digging through old newspaper clippings, but I finally unearthed this February 29, 1948 column by Knoxville News-Sentinel sports editor Bob Wilson:

 

Newport Cage Team Pulls Big Surprise When Cosby Imports Former Vol Stars for Meet

Best basketball yarn I've heard this season comes out of Cocke County... There was an independent tournament going on at Cosby and the rivalry between the Cosby Hot Shots and Z. Buda's Steak House team of Newport, was keen. The Cosby manager, so the story goes, imported Bill Wright and Ted Cook, two former U-T stars from Knoxville, to play on his team, which probably wasn't exactly cricket, as the boys say... Well, came the night that Cosby's Hot Shots and Buda's Steak House lads faced each other on the court in a crucial tournament game the Hotshots, with Wright and Cook in their lineup, took the upper hand as the firing started... However, after about five minutes of play the Buda team called time out and all five players headed for the sideline, while five towering hardwood performers, who had quietly come out of the locker-room, rushed on the court

It was the New York Celtics' starting quintet and when the Hot Shots took a look at the professional stars, they tossed up the sponge and called it quits. Buda, the restaurant proprietor and sponsor of the Steak House quint, being resentful of Cosby importing Wright and Cook, had engaged the Celtics at a cost of $350 to come unannounced to the tournament and play for his team .. Their appearance on the court was as much a surprise to the spectators as the Hot Shots for only Buda and his players knew they were coming.

 

Holy hoopsters! It was true.

One detail was a little off. It was not the Boston Celtics but the New York Celtics. The Boston Celtics were one of the eight teams that founded the NBA in 1946.

The New York Celtics were even older, founded before World War I as a barnstorming team, and considered one of the first professional basketball teams. But that group had disbanded at the start of World War II and the Celtics that showed up in the Newport gym that night in 1948 was new version created by former Original Celtics player Dave Cullerton, who had been a three-sport star at Centre College. This group had no relationship to the Boston Celtics.

Z Buda didn’t fly them in for his All-Stars game either. They had played two nights earlier against the Morristown VFW and the next night against the Knoxville Globetrotters. For the Celtics five it was a short trip to Newport and an easy payday.

But the story doesn’t end there. A week later sports editor Wilson returned to his typewriter for a follow up:

 

The New York Celtics team of the late thirties

It seems that there is another side to the recent Cocke County Independent Basketball Tournament controversy which resulted in Z. Buda subsidizing the New York Celtics to oppose the Cosby Hot Shots under the name of Buda's Steak House. M. L. Cureton, manager of the Hot Shots, gives the Hot Shot's side of the argument in the following communique, which was passed along to me by the editor:

"In your Sport Talk by Bob Wilson under date of Sunday, Feb. 29, it appears that Mr. Wilson needs some information. This information could change his yarn which he states is the best one he has heard this season to true facts.

"In the first place he is misinformed as to place of play. This tournament was not held at Cosby, but at Newport, the home town of Z. Buda's Steak House.

"It is true that there is considerable rivalry between the Cosby Hot Shots, and Z. Buda's Steak House. It is true that the Cosby manager imported Bill Wright and Ted Cook, former U-T Vol players, to play with his team. It is also true that he imported John Waddell of Greene County to play with the Hot Shots.

"Now: It is also true that Z. Buda imported Gosnell, and Matthews from up Washington College way, and Wolfenbarger from Rutledge to play with his team. Also Mr. Poteet from Johnson City, so if it wasn't exactly cricket for the Hot Shots to get outside players. it wasn't exactly cricket for Z. Buda to get outside players. Both teams imported players so neither team was strictly Cocke County material.

"It is also true that all of Cosby's Hot Shots played the first two games of the tournament, and no new players were added for the final game. All players on both teams were entered in this tournament before playing time, and the bringing of the N. Y. Celtics into this tournament was a violation of rules, and if Cosby had played this team, they would not have been playing Z. Buda, as the New York Celtics are a team all their own.

"As to the Hot Shots looking at the Celtics and tossing up the sponge and calling it quits: Your Mr. Wilson would have been better qualified to write about this game, if he had been a spectator.

"He could have seen the Hot Shots out in front by a score of 10 to 5. He could have seen Mr. Wade Clarke, who has played ball with the Steak House, in action as an official. Mr. Clarke had two fouls on Sutton and one on Templin in around four minutes of play. Sutton and Templin were Cosby players. He could have seen between four and five hundred dissatisfied fans march by the box and receive their $1 admission refunded. In this number was Mr. Alex Buda, father of Z. Buda.

"All bets on this game were cancelled and if Cosby had tossed in the sponge, the manager of the Steak House team would have collected all bets.

"I am writing this to let you know there are two versions of this affair."

 

Ah, but there is a third version of this affair – the third side of the story - and it arrived in the sports editor’s mailbox three days later, from, of course, Z Buda himself.

 

Z Buda had more than one fish story to tell in the winter of 1948

The Cosby Hot Shots-Buda's Steak House basketball controversy, which resulted from a tournament game at Newport, still rages…Z. Buda, who sponsors the Steak House boys, was more or less fuming over a letter written by Manager Cureton of the Hot Shots, and published in this column Sunday....In order to settle the squabble he offers to meet the Hot Shots in a game, both teams using their regular players, with the proceeds going to Bill Wright, who played for the Hot Shots, and who is now ill.

"We will play Cosby any time, any place and spot them 10 points, regular team against regular team," said Buda. "I suggest that we get two good officials out-of-town for the game."

Buda said he was just waiting for the Hot Shots to send in a letter of explanation before he told his side of the story:

"They said I imported players for the tournament, which is not true. Gosnell, Matthews and Wolfenbarger have played for my team for two years," he writes. "Wade Clark, a TSAA and Southern Conference official, officiated when Cosby beat us 36-29 this year, and they picked him to call the tournament along with Webb of Maryville. Cosby wanted me to co-sponsor the tournament with them and we were to split the gate receipts. When I brought the Celtics on the court they refused to play. I was the one who had the official announce a refund of the money to the fans when Cosby didn't want to, for I'm not in basketball for the money, but merely for the sport and sport alone. I might add that Cosby officials told me to get anybody I wanted to for my team as they had the best team there was. They thought I would go to Knoxville and get players and they knew that all the good ones were in Atlanta playing in a tournament. They thought I was sunk.

"Most of the people in Cosby were pulling for my team, for we beat them 59-38 at Cosby two weeks before the tournament. I would like to know where you got your first story, especially about what I paid the Celtics. I got them here with the help of Greeneville and Morristown, and not even close to the amount you said.

"Greeneville barred Cosby from competing in their tournament for using Cook and Wright against them.

"There were no lists of players turned in for our tournament, however, it was agreed that teams would use their regular players. I didn't get in touch with the Celtics until Cosby had used Wright and Cook. I would not have used the Celtics if Cosby had used their regular players."

 

There you have it: the true story of the night the New York, not Boston, Celtics played in Newport, Tennessee, masquerading as a local steak house quintet.

 

If you are curious, here are the New York Celtics players as listed in the Knoxville News-Sentinel story about their game against the Knoxville Globetrotters team:

Members of the Celtics and their former colleges are: Tom Gatzek, Texas Christian; Bob Karstens, Pittsburgh; Frank Horazy, NYU; Tony Crement, Illinois; Jack Jennings, Tennessee; and Junior Kertesz, Manhattan College.

According to the newspaper the Celtics claimed to have won 96 of 104 games at that point in the season.

They frequently toured with the Harlem Globetrotters, usually playing an undercard game against either the Hawaiian All-Stars or Jesse Owens’ Kansas City All-Stars.

 

 

Alex “Z” Buda Jr. was a well-known Newport businessman. He got his nickname in high school from his zig-zag style of running on the Newport High football team. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned to Newport and opened his namesake steak house. (He had learned the restaurant business from his father, who had owned Newport’s popular Busy Bee Café.) Buda went on to own numerous businesses in Cocke and Hamblen counties. He opened the first outlet mall in Pigeon Forge and was instrumental in turning the town into a tourist mecca. His Z Buda’s Smokies Campground is now The Island tourist attraction. At one time he owned Minnis Drug Store in Morristown, where he had worked as a teenager. He was credited with funding over 1,000 scholarships at Walters State community college. He served three terms as mayor of Morristown.

His Celtics shenanigan was just a footnote in a long career.