The New York Times (Vincent M. Mallozzi) reports: Ralph Kaplowitz, who appeared as a member of the Knicks in what is considered the National Basketball Association’s first game in 1946, when Jewish players were often showered with anti-Semitic catcalls, died Feb. 2 at his home in Floral Park, Queens. He was 89. The cause was kidney failure, said his daughter Barbara Kaplowitz. “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 said. “But my father was too self-confident a man to ever let stuff like that bother him.”
