Mel Hirsch

Melvin M. Hirsch was an American professional basketball player. He played for the Boston Celtics of the Basketball Association of America, which would later become the National Basketball Association, for 13 games in the 1946–47 season. At 5 feet 6 inches tall, he was the shortest player in NBA history until Muggsy Bogues 40 years later. He is the List of shortest players in [National Basketball Association history|third shortest NBA player of all time], after Bogues and Earl Boykins.
A stand-out player at Brooklyn College, Hirsch graduated in 1943 and served in the US Army Air Corps as a Navigator on Douglas [C-47 Skytrain|C-47 aircraft] in the 913th [Air Refueling Squadron|13th Troop Carrier Squadron] in the South West [Pacific theatre of World War II|South Pacific]. He played on the squadron's officer's basketball team.
Hirsch died in December 1968, aged 47, from leukemia.