Ron Kantowski on a bunch of hacks who played a small part in shaping hoops history as members of the Butchers Basketball Association in Taiwan

Thursday, July 20, 2006 | 7:29 a.m.

He had been an All-American basketball player at Stanford, good enough to be drafted in the third round by the Los Angeles Lakers. So when Tom Dose found himself in Taiwan in 1974, importing tools for a small company, it wasn't long before he began to long for two things that, at least at that time, were distinctly American:

A McDonald's hamburger and a competitive game of basketball.

He'd have to wait another 10 years for a Big Mac. He'd have to wait for Chiang Kai-shek's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, to liberalize Taiwan's political system and pave the way for the Golden Arches in Taipei - although it's debatable if that was the primary objective.

The arrival of Yao Ming, who is from mainland China but would help grow the game in Taiwan, still was a generation away. But finding a competitive game of hoops still proved to be easier than finding a Quarter Pounder. A group of American ex-patriots had been playing on a U.S. military base and Dose eventually was able to organize them into a "league" that met three times a week to shoot baskets at the Taipei American School Gym - and drink a lot of imported San Miguel beer afterward.

Hence was born the Butchers Basketball Association, so named for the way its members have played defense over the years.

And there have been a lot of years. If you count those early ones, the Butchers have been hacking those in the act of shooting for nearly four decades. To this day, the Association maintains a 20-man roster that gets together three times a week, with the exception of the last one.

The Butchers declared a moratorium on personal fouls so its members, past and present, could meet in Las Vegas for a reunion.

The idea was to play a little golf, drink a lot of beer, and if they were still up for it, shoot a few hoops. They were up for it. By Saturday afternoon, the Butchers were running up and down the court - actually, huffing and puffing is more like it - at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy.

They were in mid-season form, too. There's a reason the official Butchers logo is a basketball with a meat cleaver jammed into it.

"Did you see that last game?" said Dose, who played against Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich and that first great UCLA team and was later inducted into the Stanford hall of fame. "We finished with four guys."

Dose, 64, still huffs and puffs despite two bad knees. He doesn't get up and down the court as well as he used to. Or even as well as Howard Brewer, the beloved "chairman" emeritus and oldest Butcher on the block who still plays - and practices martial arts - at age 78.

"He can take your heart out," said Al Hausske, the historian for the group who organized the reunion.

Not all Butchers, despite their yen for physical play, are amateur heart surgeons. Many came to Taiwan to teach English. Or to learn Chinese to help them take advantage of Taiwan's booming economy as businessmen.

Jim Moriarty is an ambassador to Nepal. Pete Pontacq is the former head coach at Skyline College in the San Francisco Bay area who became coach of Taiwan's national team. Mark Fischer is the NBA's liaison in Southeast Asia. John Brantingham owns an industrial hardware company in Shanghai and played ball with Da Yao (Big Yao), Yao Ming's dad. Dario Benedetti worked for a trading company that sold everything from nuclear reactors to Maidenform bras before semi-retiring to Las Vegas, where he resides in Anthem. Dean Owens once high-jumped 7 feet, 4 inches at USC.

"We've had a few terrific players," Hausske says, "and a lot of average ones."

In a roundabout way, the Butchers also helped shape basketball history. Several workers at a nearby Nike factory became Butchers and brought with them dozens of complimentary basketball shoes for the Americans to try out. Red, white and black ones with a big swoosh on the side.

The first Air Jordans.

"I wish I would have kept every one of those Michael Jordan shoes. They'd be worth a fortune," Hausske said before admitting that he didn't follow the NBA - ever try to get a Bulls-Knicks score in Taipei? - and didn't know Michael Jordan from Michael Jackson.

"When they said, 'Air Jordan,' I thought it was an airline."

Like many of the Butchers, Hausske spent most of his professional life in Taiwan. He married a Taiwanese woman and joked that all of his kids are MIT - "made in Taiwan."

There have been eight Butchers who lived in Taiwan for 20 or more years. Dose still does.

Despite the changes in government and living conditions, Hausske said he never once felt threatened as an American. Or for that matter, as a human being. He spent 27 years in Taipei and said he could not recall a crime being committed with a handgun.

One committed with an errant elbow under the basket many, many, miles from home is another matter.

"We always realized how lucky we were to have such a friendly host country and to be able to have such an active sports life," Hausske says.

"We made lifelong friends."