Ciralsky Meats
Location: Toledo, Ohio
Home Court: Indiana Avenue Colored YMCA
Nickname: Ciralsky Meat Packers, Ciralsky Meats
Colors: Black, White, Varsity Red
Manager: Jim Hodges
Coach: Link Stevens
Formed: 1928
In 1942, ten African American players broke the racial color barrier in professional basketball with the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets of the National Basketball League (NBL), a predecessor to the NBA.
It was a historic milestone that is overlooked and forgotten.
Eight of those ten pioneering players were from Toledo. They were Al Price, Al’s brother Bernie, Roscoe “Duke” Cumberland, Bill Jones, Casey Jones, Wyatt “Sonny” Boswell, Shannie Barnett, and Tony Peyton.
What did Toledo have that Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Cleveland, or Columbus didn’t have?
They had the Ciralsky Meats, also known as the Ciralsky Meat Packers, an all-Black semi-professional basketball team that was sponsored by the local Ciralsky Meat Packing Company, which operated its plant there.
Between 1928 and 1935, they achieved an astonishing 246-12 record. Billing themselves as “the snappiest, flashiest and by all odds the most popular traveling quintet in basketball today,” the Meats played against mostly White teams in the Toledo Basketball Federation. They also barnstormed, with games as far away as Colorado.
“The Ciralsky team is perhaps the present sensation of the mid-West,” wrote the Chicago Defender newspaper in 1935. “Their reputation is growing daily.”
The Meat Packers tenderized top competition like the Chicago Crusaders, House of David All Stars, and Harlem’s own New York Rens with a well-done game. They were “masters of the five-man defense, zone defense in all its variations, as well as the more common man-to-man defense.” Their most historic victory was over the world-champion New York Original Celtics in 1934 by a score of 34-27.
Ciralsky’s biggest star was Bill Jones, the team’s elder statesman and captain. The 5-11 guard was one of Toledo’s finest athletes ever, having led local Woodward High School to undefeated city basketball championships in 1929 and 1930.
The Meat Packers were prime cut. They featured Bernie Price, Duke Cumberland, and Sonny Boswell, all former Toledo prep stars, future Harlem Globetrotters stars, and NBL color-barrier breakers. Boswell would be the MVP of the 1940 World Pro Basketball Tournament (won by his Trotters) and later also play for the New York Rens. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
Al and Bernie Price were products of Toledo’s racially integrated Waite High School. In that milestone 1942 breakthrough into the NBL, Al signed with the Jim Whites along with Bill Jones, Casey Jones, and Barnett. Bernie, Cumberland, Peyton, and Boswell joined the Chicago Studebakers.
Al and Bernie also later played for the Harlem Globetrotters, as did Bill Jones, Boswell, and Cumberland. Cumberland would also eventually play for the New York Rens.
Countless youth grew up watching the Meat Packers play at the brand new (1930) Indiana Avenue Colored Y.M.C.A.
“When I was 9 or 10, I was part of a quartet that performed at halftime of those games,” says Roland “Red” Jones, Bill’s younger brother. “They were always sold out and people had a good time throwing us coins.”
Red credits the quality of Toledo’s prep sports, its programs for kids, and its basketball culture.
The Toledo Basketball Federation was formed in 1924, and by 1926 the city had a top-notch pro basketball team, the Red Men Tobaccos. By the time Bill Jones left high school, the Red Men had joined the NBL and were playing in a new civic arena that held 4,000 fans.“Basketball was big, and that Y.M.C.A. was the center of the black community,” adds Red. “Also, the Packers were, to a man, solid citizens as role models in sports and in life.”
Bernie Price, Jr., pointed out other factors that made his father’s hometown an African American basketball incubator. “Toledo was just the right size; enough Blacks to have a Colored Y, but not enough to threaten Whites, and it was on the main railroad between Chicago and New York City,” said Price. “Detroit wasn’t on that line.”
In addition, there were jobs, a large pool of potential players, and big ideas from Chicago and New York City.
Despite its favorable sports culture, racism did exist. “The high school basketball teams had a quota of two blacks,” recalled Red.
After leaving the Meat Packers, Bill Jones became a star guard for the University of Toledo from 1936 to 1938 under future Hall of Fame coach Harold Anderson. “Jones is without a doubt one of the cleverest floor men ever developed in Toledo cage circles or anywhere for that matter,” wrote the Pittsburgh Press newspaper. “His game is always alert, clean, and aggressive.”
Jones was humble about it. “I could score, but I liked to spread the ball around,” he said in a 2001 Toledo Blade interview. “Basketball’s a team game.”
Ciralsky Meats™ is a trademark of Black Fives Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.