Comics

The Harlem Globetrotters Tickets   by Macie Brown

The Harlem Globetrotters is an exposition basketball team that fuses athleticism and comedy. In 1926, it was instigated by Abe Saperstein in Chicago, Illinois, and the team adopted the name Harlem because of its association as a major African-American community. Over the passage of time, they have played more than 20,000 exhibition games in 118 countries. The team’s signature song is Brother Bones’ whistled version of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and Globie has remained to be their mascot since 1993.

There is no apparent accord indicating the very beginnings of the Globetrotters. The official history comprises of several details which are evidently fictitious, such as the team being organized in 1926 in the Savoy Ballroom, which opened in 1927. What is clear is that the origin of the Globetrotters takes place in the South Side of Chicago in the 1920s, where all the original players grew up. Most of the original players, not necesairly all, have attended Wendell Phillips High School. When the Savoy Ballroom opened in November of 1927, one of the leading attractions was the Savoy Big Five, a basketball team that played expositions before dances. In 1928, several players left the team in an argument over bringing back other players who had left the team.

That fall, numerous players led by Tommy Brookins formed a team called the “Globe Trotters” which would tour southern Illinois that winter. Abe Saperstein became involved with the team, although to indistinguishable extent. In any event, by 1929 Saperstein was touring Illinois and Iowa with his basketball team, namely the “New York Harlem Globe Trotters”. Saperstein decided to choose Harlem as their home city given that Harlem was well thought to be the center of African-American culture at the moment in time, and an out of town team name would give the team more of an air of mystery and secrecy. After four decades of subsistence, the Globetrotters played their first “home” game in Harlem in 1968.

Progressively The Globetrotters presented comic routines into their act in anticipation of them becoming more famous for the purpose of entertainment rather than sports. The Globetrotters’ acts often present implausible coordination and adept handling of one or more basketballs, which encompasses passing or juggling balls between players, balancing or spinning balls on their fingertips, and making unusual, difficult shots.

Amid the players who have been Globetrotters are NBA greats Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain, Connie “The Hawk” Hawkins and Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, in addition to Marques Haynes, George “Meadowlark” Lemon, Jerome James, former Temple coach John Chaney, and Reece “Goose” Tatum. Another popular team member in the 1970s and 1980s was Fred “Curly” Neal who was the finest dribbler of that epoch of the team’s history and was instantaneously identified owing to his shaven head. Baseball Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins and Lou Brock also played for the team at one time or another. In 1985, the Globetrotters signed their first female player, Olympic gold medalist Lynette Woodard, and just three weeks later, they signed their second, Joyce Walker.

After being defeated by the Washington Generals in 1962, the Harlem Globetrotters only lost two more games in the next 38 years (12,596 games). More often than not, they played a “stooge” team owned by Red Klotz, which also appeared as the Boston Shamrocks, New Jersey Reds, Baltimore Rockets, or the Atlantic City Seagulls. On January 5, 1971 they lost in Martin, Tennessee in overtime to the New Jersey Reds; the 100-99 score ended an alleged 2,495-game winning streak (which meant that the Globetrotters were playing 277 games per year up until that date).

Over and above to their hundreds of exhibition games, the Globetrotters have faced some competitive action since the mid-1990s. On September 12, 1995, they lost 9185 to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s All Star Team in Vienna, Austria ending a suspected run of 8,829 straight victories in going back to 1971 (despite the fact that 8,829 games in twenty-four years would mean the Globetrotters were playing nearly 368 games per yearor more than one game a day, every day, for twenty four years). The 48-year-old Abdul-Jabbar scored 34 points. The Globetrotters won the other 10 games throughout that European tour.

A shot documentary was also shot on former Globetrotter Mel Davis, which was directed by his son, Hubert Davis. This film was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 2006.

A competitor on the April 6, 2007, episode of the NBC game show Identity correctly identified “Stranger” #12 as being Eugene Edgerson.

The Harlem Globetrotters have made manifold appearances on the animated show Futurama. These episodes feature fictional Globetrotters like Ethan “Bubblegum” Tate (played by Phil LaMarr). In the 31st century, it gives the impression that the Globetrotters have a planet all their own, and in the episode “Time Keeps on Slippin’”, the Globetrotter Homeworld challenges Earth to a basketball game (for absolutely no stakes beyond the shame of defeat). At a certain point in the episode, “Bubblegum” declares everyone in Farnsworth’s Smell-o-scope room (the Professor, Amy, Zoidberg, and Hermes) an honorary Globetrotter. The Globetrotters appear again in Bender’s Big Score, who help out Professor Farnsworth in figuring out the technicalities of Paradox-free Time Travel.

An episode of All in the Family had Lionel Jefferson agreeing with Archie Bunker that racial quotas and affirmative action are not a good idea and making a comment “because 88% of Americans are White, what if there was a law saying the Harlem Globetrotters were forced to have 88% of their team have White players?” Archie makes an expression maybe that idea could mean something.

A 1991 episode of Saturday Night Live presented a satire reconciliation of sports with “The First Black Harlem Globetrotter”. Michael Jordan plays a fictional player called “Sweet River Banes”, who apparently is the first black member of the Globetrotters in the 1920s.

The Harlem Globetrotters appeared briefly in the Simpsons episode namely “Homie the Clown” in which Krusty the Clown idiotically bets all his profits from opening a clown college in opposition to the Globetrotters stating that he “thought the Generals were due.”

The Harlem Globetrotters have also made an outstanding appearance in a special Scooby Doo episode called “Scooby Doo meets the Harlem Globetrotters”. In addition, The Globetrotters also appeared in a commercial persuading benevolent support for the Disabled American Veterans where they are shooting baskets with disabled veterans who are playing wheelchair basketball.
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About the Author

Macie is a staff writer for Ticket Nest
( http://www.ticketnest.com )
and enjoys writing about her travel, theater and concert experiences. She can be reached at macie@ticketnest.com
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