Sidney Harold Tanenbaum (October 8, 1925 – September 4, 1986) was an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. He was twice a consensus first-team All-American (in

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

and

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in ...

) and twice a

Haggerty Award __NOTOC__ The Lt. Frank J. Haggerty Award is given to the All-New York Metropolitan NCAA Division I men's college basketball player of the year, presented by the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and the Met Basketball Writers Association (MBWA) ...

winner (1946 and 1947). He went on to play professionally for the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

and the Baltimore Bullets.

Early life

Tanenbaum was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, grew up in its Brownsville neighborhood, and was Jewish. He was an all-scholastic player at Thomas Jefferson High School. He met his wife, Bobbie Wolfson, in college when he was a junior.

Basketball career

A 6' 0" guard/forward, Tanenbaum played college basketball at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, where he was captain of the team in 1947, and was a two-time All-American and two-time

winner as the outstanding player in the metropolitan area. He also won the 1947 Bar Kochba Award, which honored him as the best

Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...

athlete in the nation, and was named first team All-Met in all four of his varsity seasons."Sidney Tannenbaum"
''Jewish Sports''"Tanenbaum, Sidney Harold"
''Jewish Virtual Library Wilbur Wood, the sports editor of the ''

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'', wrote of Tanenbaum in 1947: "He is the finest all-around basketball performer ever to don Violet livery." He left NYU as the school's all-time leading scorer, with 992 points. NYU annually awards its top student-athlete the Sid Tanenbaum Memorial Award. Tanenbaum played two seasons (1947–49) in the

Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA absorbed most of National Basketball League (NBL) and rebranded as the National Ba ...

as a member of the

and Baltimore Bullets. On February 11, 1949, the New York Knicks traded him to the Baltimore Bullets for

Connie Simmons Cornelius Leo "Connie" Simmons (March 15, 1925 – April 15, 1989) was an American professional basketball player. He was born in Newark, New Jersey. A 6'8" forward/center from Flushing High School in New York City, Simmons played ten seasons (19 ...

. He scored 633 points in 70 games and tallied 162 assists. He was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1997 into the

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere around ...

Personal life

After his basketball career, Tanenbaum lived in

Woodmere, New York Woodmere is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 17,554 at the 2016 census. Woodmere is one of the Long Island communities known as the Five Towns, w ...

, with his wife Barbara and sons Steven and Michael (an optometrist). He owned a machine shop specializing in metal spinning and stamping in

Far Rockaway, Queens Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the eastern part of the Rockaway peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood extends from Beach 32nd Street east to the Nassau County line ...

, known as the Able Metal Spinning and Stamping."Sidney Tannenbaum, Ex-Player", ''The New York Times'', September 5, 1986, page A20

Murder

Tanenbaum was murdered on September 4, 1986, aged 60, when he was stabbed to death by a local 37-year-old woman in his shop. Police described Tanenbaum as "something of a benefactor in his neighborhood" who often gave money to people living in the streets. According to reports, he was stabbed because he decided to stop lending money to his attacker after assisting her many times in the past, and when he turned his back she attacked him. His killer, Molly Dotsun, was sentenced to 21 years in prison. The basketball courts at the park in

North Woodmere, New York North Woodmere is an unincorporated hamlet in the Town of Hempstead, New York, located in far western Nassau County on the South Shore of Long Island in the Town of Hempstead. History Prior to its development in the late 1950s, the land stret ...

, are named after Tanenbaum. Since 1986, they have hosted the Sid Tanenbaum Memorial Basketball Tournament that raises scholarship money for students in the

Five Towns The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Although there is no official Five Towns de ...

BAA career statistics

Regular season

Playoffs

References

External links

Sid Tannenbaum
at ''Jews in Sports'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Tannenbaum, Sid 1925 births 1986 deaths All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players Baltimore Bullets (1944–1954) players Deaths by stabbing in New York (state) Jewish American sportspeople Jewish men's basketball players Male murder victims Murdered American Jews NYU Violets men's basketball players New York Knicks players Basketball players from Brooklyn People from Woodmere, New York Sportspeople from Hempstead, New York Basketball players from Nassau County, New York Guards (basketball) 20th-century American Jews