Stuff You Should Know - The Harlem Globetrotters: American Treasures

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

The Harlem Globetrotters are an American entertainment institution. Their story may not be quite what you think either. Hint, they didn't originate in Harlem. Tune in now to learn their fun, fascinating story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A brand new historical true crime podcast. When you lay suffering a sudden brutal death, starring Allison Williams, I hope you'll think of me. Erased, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl. Let's go up here! Until she met that man right there.

Written and created by me, Allison Flop. Is it possible, sir? We're standing by for your answer. Erased, the murder of El Missance, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I knew all the food. It has no turn it back if we do this.

I've already made my decision. From Interval presents a new romantic thriller podcast starring Jason DeRulo. There's someone about you that I haven't been able to look away from. And Alexandra Ship. Nico, we don't even know each other. Listen to underwater on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Hey everybody, we want to let you know that that great LP, the vinyl record of stuff you should know about how vinyl works. It sold so well that Born Losers records has printed more, right? Yeah, we're in our second pressing chuck, that's how great it was. And they're printing 500 more, and now's the time to go get them. You can order them now, and they're in two new awesome color slash styles that you can go see. Go check out our website stuffyshodo.com and click on the button syskvinyl and it will give

you all the facts and info you need or just search stuffyshodo vinyl and born losers will come up too. That's the official site. So if you got shut out from the last press, we'll holly-luya. here's pressing to, you're welcome. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh and there's Chuck in Jerry's here too. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Harlem Glove Trouter edition. It's a little on the nose as far as edition names go, but it is what it is.

["The Harlem Glove Trotter Edition"] ["The Harlem Glove Trotter Edition"] How's that? Pretty great. Or are you gonna follow up? I was just egging you on. OK.

I feel like I get a little off key because it goes in some, you know, more subtle directions. It does. And what you're referring to is, of course, the song Sweet Georgia Brown by Brother Bones, right? Brother Bones, who was a half-time musical act for the Globe Trotters, and as the story goes, I was like, hey, I got this bang-in, And as the story goes, I was like, hey, I got this bang and whistleed version of sweet Georgia Brown that I'm doing during your little magic circle routine. And it stuck for 70 years.

Yeah. They decided to make it basically their unofficial official team song. And if you remember, that was my first 45 record ever. Was it really? Yeah, after seeing the Globetrotters, I was like, That's right. That's right. So my dad took me to probably peach's records in Toledo and I got the 45. All right, let's talk real quick. So you saw the Globetrotters in what year roughly?

My guess is it would have been 82, 83. I mean, that's, if not, you know, the golden era just sort of. It's just after just after the golden era. Curly was still there, but metal. Larger left. Okay. I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters on wide world of sports or wherever they played them on Sunday afternoons. I thought it was the best thing ever.

I love basketball. I love comedy. I thought it was funny. thing ever. I love basketball. I love comedy. I thought it was funny. Oh, well, they were right up your alley. But I did not see the Harlem Globetrotters, my friend, until last year. Oh, really? Yeah, I took Ruby and Emily and my father-in-law, Steve and Scotty, who you know. Sure, of course. And we went and saw the Harlem Globetrotters here in Atlanta. And I gotta tell you, dude, I was like a kid all over again. It was so much fun. All those old bits they did.

And it was genuinely funny. Like it wasn't like, oh, this is Quentin sort of old fashion. Like I was Scotty and I were dying laughing, and we just had the best time. I highly recommend you, anyone should still go. It's still so much fun. Yeah, I would, after doing this research, I would definitely go to see them.

And they have a, the, 2020, 324 world tour plan, which I think is pretty much par for the course with them every year. Yep. But if you look, you're like, wow, they're in three different cities on this one day. And it's because, which is a long-standing tradition with the Globetrotters, they have so many great players that they'll split them into multiple teams and just send them out around the country. So there is a hundred percent

chance, essentially, that they are coming within probably 20 miles of whatever town you live in. Yeah, go see him. It's a lot of fun. I mean, they still just have so much personality. I can't remember the guy's name, at least at the one I saw who sort of is the metal archa-limin, who sort of is the ringleader. But he was just, he had so much charisma and they're great basketball players. So it's modernized a little bit, but it's still what it always has been and It was just so much fun. What's funny is Chuck is that Them being great basketball players is actually a throwback to their original I guess kind of iteration. Look at you

Bringing it all around. I like to do that sometimes. So are we in the 1920s then? Yeah, at the beginning of the Harlem Globetrotters, it actually predates the Harlem Globetrotters. And I think the early to mid 1920s. That's right. So we're going to set up sort of basketball at the time, which is to say basketball is pretty new. It was not hugely popular as far as if you want to compare it

to football and baseball. It was well into third place, if that behind, you know, horse racing. And I'm sure a lot of other things are more popular. Hi, why? Hi. The NBA didn't even come around till 49. So this was quite a while before that. And what they did have though, and we've seen this in other sports and other sort of

entertainment. It was touring but they called it barnstorming. It was when you travel around to different small towns and they would get teams together to go on these little tours and barnstorm and play each other and you know essentially exhibition games because there wasn't a league but they were you know, real basketball games. Yeah, they'd be like, hey, you hayseeds, look at this. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes also, there wouldn't even be a team, but some of these teams would go play locals. Local groups of farmers or whatever would take these teams on.

I don't know why, but I think it was maybe how sometimes wrestlers will take on any comers at like some small town or whatever. Yeah. But so that's the beginnings of basketball. And it's really interesting that like there were people out there who loved the game enough that they made a career for themselves. Where they figured out how to do it. And this was really, really close to the beginning of the Harlem Globe Trotters. And in fact, the group that originally formed the first Harlem Globe Trotters started out as players at Wendell Phillips High School,

and all black high school in Chicago, that said, hey, we're pretty good. Let's go start a barnstorming team ourselves. That's right. And this is either in 25 or 26. They didn't have a name at first. They were sponsored by the South Side Giles Post of the American Legion. So there are some sources that will say they were the they were called the Giles Post American Legion quintet. But then another thing happened. The Savoy Ballroom in Chicago in Bronzeville. It was a black owned entertainment venue, very popular. On the weekends, they would have these big dances and they thought, hey, why don't we have

a little opening act and have a basketball game before these dances. Maybe it'll sell some more tickets and at the very least it'll be fun and sort of get people going before the big dance. In 1926, hired that Wendell Phillips team and they named them the Savoy Big Five. Yeah and I don't know how long they played for this dance hall the Savoy ballroom but I don't get the impression it was very long because I think that they weren't moving tickets like the owners thought they would and so they moved on to something else. I can't remember what it was, but they basically got rid of the basketball team, which left

them essentially free agents. And it's kind of lost a history exactly how this happened. But a guy named Abe Saperstein came in and attached himself to this Savoy Big Five, scooped them up after they were fired, took them away from the Savoy. Who knows? But this is about the time in the mid-delay 1920s, about the mid 1920s, where Abe Saperstein comes in. And you can say, like, without qualification that had it not been for Abe Saperstein entering, there would be no Harlem Globetrotters.

Yeah, for sure. He was born in London, but he was raised in, he was Jewish and raised in a Irish German neighborhood in Chicago, and he was a little guy. He loved basketball, but they say he was like, you know, five, three, five, four, something like that. So really small to be playing basketball, even at the time when guys weren't super tall

playing basketball generally. Yeah. Or you could be, you know, a little shorter and still get by. But he would play his little heart out. He tried out for the University of Illinois team and did not make the team and then dropped out and worked for the Chicago Parks Department as a playground supervisor. And if you listen to him, sort of tell his own story of the lore, he's gonna say like, I saw these guys playing basketball on the playground, I'd never seen basketball played like this before.

And I knew right away that I had to get these guys and make them the best team that they could be. Right, that's the lore. Again, it's kind of lost a history, but I think by the 19, like 1926, 1927, Abe Saperstein was attached to this group of players from Wendo Phillips High School. That would become the Harlem Globetrotters.

Yeah, and one of the first thing he did was change that name because he wanted to take them barnstorming. Yeah. He's like, I can make some money here. So, he named him the Harlem Globetrotters right out of the gate because he was a savvy marketing guy, and he's bringing this team on the road in these like small towns and Kansas and Indiana who had never, you know, who knows how much interaction they had with black people in rural Kansas at the time.

Right. At the very least, they probably hadn't seen an all black basketball team come through town. Yeah. So he was like, this is a sellable thing, you know, to turn these people on to this. And so Harlem, like everybody knows what Harlem represents. It's the center of black culture in the 1920s. So if I put Harlem on the name, they're immediately going to know this is a black team. And if I call them the globe trotters,

even though we're really not globe-trotting yet, they're going to, you know, it's just, it's going to guessee him up to where they sound like this sort of worldly team. There's been, been everywhere playing this sport. And it just has a nice ring together and it should sell some tickets. Yeah, and I mean, he was right. It definitely does have a nice ring, but it's ironic that the Harlem Globetrotters originated in Chicago and apparently didn't play

their first game in Harlem until 1968. Yeah, I had nothing to do with Harlem, I don't think. So like it took 40 years for them to finally get to play in Harlem, right? But it was a, it was, you could almost call it today a dog whistle that would guarantee that no, you know, Kansas farmer would show up at this game thinking he was coming to see a white basketball team and getting like racially angry that he had been tricked into giving his money to a black basketball team.

In addition to just kind of signaling that, it also did say like, but not only is this like a black team, this is like a black team from the greatest black city in America. Yeah. So it's prestigious too, but it also was a signal. Yeah, absolutely. So Saperstein, he coached, he was with the team for a long time. He coached them into his 60s. And he was, uh, you know, criticized many times throughout the years for, uh, being too controlling, for underpaying his guys, for not giving them any say in like what they

did or how they did it. Kind of like I'm the boss and you do what I say, uh say for perpetuating racial stereotypes. He was not some perfect guy, but he also, as we'll see, in his own way eventually led to the integration of the NBA and putting black players on a stage that no one had ever done before in sort of elevating their perception to the rest of America, and as you'll see the rest of the world. Yeah, and he was inducted into the basketball hall of fame in 1971, and I don't dispute the impact that he had on it, but it is, he definitely, he went, it wasn't like mischievous or like in the gray area. He swindled some of his players. Oh, yeah, he told them one star player later on Marcus Haynes that he believed black players didn't deserve or didn't need as much money as white players

They just didn't black people just didn't need as much money and that was why he underpaid his black players Apparently they found out once that a Group of white college all stars that was touring is a warm-up act for the Globe Trotters was getting paid more than the Globe Trotters He did a lot of really shady underhanded stuff. So he's a good study in one of those things. It's like okay This he was not like a sterling example of somebody even for his time But he also did do some really amazing things that benefited a lot of black people during his lifetime and well beyond today actually, because you can kind of give him credit for giving the NBA the stability it needed to take off on its own too.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, that's also, and this is not defending him, but this is also the history of pro sports ownership, like In a nutshell, this is how it was almost with everybody as far as not integrating the leagues and the ownership aspect. That's why players still complain about this stuff. That's why they form players' unions and banded together for better treatment and better pay, and you're not going to just pay us a little bit of amount of money and you take everything else. It's interesting. We should, I

don't know, maybe there's an episode in there somewhere about like the history of sports ownership because it's fraught with stories like this. I could totally see that. I could totally. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. But to kind of wrap up Sapperstein, at least his introduction, he owned the globe trotters, not just the team, not just the name, like the globe trotters. He believed not he believed that that if you wanted to play on his team, he was the boss. He was in charge. He called the shots. He was not to be questioned. He even called himself coach to these players. I did not need a coach, but they kind of humored him and played along. But he was in charge and his whole jam was, I'm creating a place where if you're a black basketball player and you're good, this is the team you want to be on.

Yeah. He created that. Absolutely. Uh, good time for a break. I think good setup. And we'll come back and talk a little bit about what you were talking about earlier, the fact that they were not comedians at first. Today's episode is sponsored by Airbnb. Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe your place could be an Airbnb. It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're

away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. Maybe a music festival or big tournament is coming to town and you want to get out of town, you could Airbnb get out of town, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money. Maybe you have a vacation plan for this summer. When you're away, your home could be an Airbnb. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little

more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out more at Airbnb.ca slash host. That's airbnb.ca slash host. A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is 1800, a city hall, New York. The first murder trial in the American judicial system. A man-sense trial for the charge of murder. Even with defense lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case, this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden violent brutal death, I hope you'll think of me. Starring Allison Williams.

I don't need anything simplified, Mr. Hamilton, thank you. With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton, Don't be so sad, that's right, it Hamilton, thank you. With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton. Don't be so sad that front. It doesn't suit you. Written and created by me, Alison Flock. Why are you doing that goal, I'm going to be here. Listen to E-Raced, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl.

Until she met that man right there. On the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Apple Podcasts! Apple Podcasts! Apple Podcasts! Fear of the Unknown is the greatest fear of all. And for millions of Americans, there is no greater unknown

than an Alzheimer's diagnosis. My name is Dana Taredo, and my podcast, The Mirrory Whisperer, takes a closer look at Alzheimer's disease and those affected by it. Like many of you, I've experienced the disease firsthand. I've been an Alzheimer's advocate and care partner for years, and have written extensively about the subject. Each week, I'll talk to people who've been personally affected by Alzheimer's and learn how they cope with it.

Folks like TV personality and advocate, Lisa Gibbons. Action is the antidote for fear. And nurse and dementia researcher, Dr. Feyron Epps. We no longer can be silent. We have to speak what we have to share our experiences so we can help each other and learn from each other. Listen to the memory whisper starting on November 9th on the iHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. All right, so we are back with promise to talk about the Harlem Globe Trotters as a serious basketball team Because that is what they were for many years They did not come out of the gate doing you know the confetti in a bucket trick They came out playing some really good basketball to the tune of a record Reportedly of 101 and six over their first 117 games or so. And they traveled throughout the 30s. They would pile apparently into Abe Saperstein's giant Model T and they would play eight games a week

for 25 bucks a game for the entire team. Saperstein, they would split it up, but Saperstein would get two shares. And back then that wasn't even a lot of money, but they loved the game and they were getting paid to play it. No, today they would be making $500 a week. So you had to love the game to be doing that for sure, because it was a lot of, it was hard work in addition to traveling constantly

too. So the people who are playing like really love to play and this is the one place they could play and make any money at it. And by the way that winning percentage, it's 0.863 win percentage in their first year. And only the 2015-16 warriors and the 95-96 bulls have better win percentages. And they each only played 82 games. These guys played 117. And it's kind of joky now because everyone knows the generals aren't supposed to win, but the as of 2022, the win loss ratio for the Harlem Globetriders was 27,000 to 345. And by the way, if you don't know, the generals are the team that they always play now on their road show. Right.

We kind of assume people know that, but we'll talk about them. Yeah, just wait. Yeah, just wait. Wait, everybody. Just wait a second. So they're traveling around the country. When they play in the North, they're playing against white teams and black teams. Those are team called the New York Renaissance, the Rins.

They were the first all black professional basketball team. When they went to the South, this was the Jim Crow South. They would play in front of black crowds and only against black teams. And it was rough. They were in a South that was obviously segregated, not treated them equally, not letting them stay in hotels, not letting them eat in restaurants. There was one story. Dave Rooves helped us with this. He dug up that in Nebraska, they had to sleep in the county jail because they could not find a hotel that would house them.

Yeah. They also, they would play two games at night in the south because they would play in front of a black crowd and then they would go cross town and play in front of a white crowd. So they would play two a day. I'm not sure if they got paid for both games or not. But yeah, it was like in addition to riding around in a Model T with five other people and getting 25 bucks a game, you also had to just face blatant horrible racism every every day of your life basically especially when you're touring the south.

Yeah absolutely. They were a really good team though and they wanted to prove that they were among the best of any color in the country and they they entered the the World Basketball Championship in 1940 and won this tournament. It was a 14 team tournament in Chicago and beat the hometown Chicago Bruins to win the title. And this was again pre NBA. This is when the only thing that was around was the it was called the national basketball league at the time the NBL. And it was white white teams only right. All black teams were independent. And there were other good black teams too,

like the New York Renaissance, the Rens. They were like the globe trotters, but they were serious. They only played serious basketball. There was no clowning whatsoever. And they actually were huge rivals, not just on the court, but off the court as well, for players, for advancing their team, for getting crowds. Like, they were both trying to carve out a place

for themselves in the same space and there was not really enough space for both. Yeah, for sure. As for how the clowning around started and the comedy element, it sort of depends on who you ask. Some people say that barnstorming in the 40s started losing steam, and so saperstein, as the sort of Sven Galley came up with this idea to keep the show going by incorporating these funny bits.

Other people say that it just sort of kind of slowly evolved from the fact that they were, even before the clowning around, they were playing a different style of basketball than what white teams were playing at the time, which is a lot of like, it's kind of funny to look at old basketball clips, these little two handed flat-footed set shots and lots and lots and lots of passing, not a lot of dribbling. All of a sudden, these guys come in and they're running fast breaks. They said they dunked. I looked into the history of the dunk and I think that the first dunk was in 1936.

So it is plausible that they were dunking the basketball because immediately I was like, I don't think people were dunking it all back then. If anybody was, it was them though. Yeah. Well, the first person who dunked wasn't a globe charter, but it was, you know, it wasn't, I think it was looked at as kind of a rude thing to do in a basketball game early on.

Well, it also seemed to be taken as wrong, like the right way to do is to pass five times, and then you took your shot. And the globe charters weren't playing like that at all. They were playing like what you see when you watch a modern basketball game And in fact there was a 2021 letter open letter from the globe trotters to the NBA saying you know, we basically Created the style of play that is like the NBA now

Why don't you let us in and give us a franchise? Of course the NBA just, I think, completely ignored it. But they make a really good case that like the style of play today dates back to the globe charters starting this stuff in the 30s and 40s. And if you watch like clips of say like Curly Neal in like the 70s, shooting like a half court three pointer, he looks exactly like Steph Curry does today. When you watch Steph Curry do the same thing, they have the same exact motion.

Everything about that shot is the exact same, but Curly Neal is doing it like 50 years earlier. Yeah, absolutely. And this was way earlier than Curly Neal too. Yeah, I mean, people didn't take half court three pointers outside of the Harlem Globetrotters. Yeah. And that was sort of when things started getting a little more interesting. Another story is that they were blowing people out so much they started getting bored

and kind of just messing around. And they would do no-look passes and they would take these super long hook shots and people went crazy for it. Supposedly one of the original set, Savoy Big Five, this guy, Big Jack Johnson, was the guy who kind of started developing these tricks. He was a big giant of a man and he's the guy who would put another player on his shoulders to go in and dunk the ball. He's the guy who started drop another player on his shoulders to go in and dunk the ball. He's the guy who started drop kicking it from the free throw line.

So this is sort of the ear version of what we would later see to be followed by Reese Tatum, Goose Tatum, who is known as the clown prince of the Globe Trotters. He's a guy that really ramped up the antics. Yeah, he apparently got his clowning start on the Indianapolis Clown, which was a baseball team, which were essentially the Globetrotters of baseball at the time in the Negro leagues. And he was 16 when he started playing for them. So he kind of was already exposed to the idea of joking around while you're playing serious professional sports by the time he got to the Glo Trotter,

so he was like kind of a natural person to bring that. So it makes a lot of sense that he would have been kind of like the real kernel that created that. I don't think that those stories of where it came from and evolving over time, and Abe Saperstein saying, we need to do some clowning because the crowds are getting bored are mutually exclusive. I think that they could have happened together because apparently the crowds were getting bored. They would just blow out the opponent so much that it was like, what's the point of seeing these games?

So when they figured out that when they were clown, though, the crowds really responded to it. And eventually over time, that would come to serve them well because as other basketball players in the NBA got better and better and sort of adopting more and more Globetrotters techniques, all the Globetrotters had left was the clowning aspect. So that's kind of what they became. So it's a really neat evolution that it makes sense that this all took place over coming

up on 100 years. Yeah, absolutely. And interestingly, Gustatum was sort of an early example of a two-way sport star. I believe the Globeshotters had ended up having four different former professional baseball players on their team. So there were, you know, the Bo Jackson's and the Deon Sanders way back then doing their thing. So Goose was the one who came up with some of these gags that they still use today. Like they're still doing the same stuff, man.

Well, it's funny. It's funny. I guess so. The spying like going over in the other team's huddle, he came up with that. They still do that. Hiding in the crowd from the ref. They still do that. It still kills. It's hilarious. When you faint on the court and someone waves, takes off your

shoe and puts it over your nose and you, you know, you start up, they still do that. And that all came from goose. Those things make people from eight to 80 just laugh. I know. But if you're seven or you're 81, forget it. Yeah. Marcus Haines was another guy in 1946. He came along.

He was a former college basketball star and he's the guy that kind of was the inspiration for Curly Neal. He's the guy that first started doing like the insane dribbling and sliding around on his knees and keeping that dribble alive and dribbling between other people's legs and dribbling in circles around people. He was the first, you know, ball-hailing master. Yeah, that's kind of like one of the the globe-towarder characters that they always kind of filled at one time or another. And like today is Cheryl George, known as Torch.

And apparently she holds the world record for most under the leg tumbles in a minute. So it's where you're dribbling real low to the ground. And then you basically do a summer salt while you dribble the ball between your legs. And then when you come up on the summer salt, the ball goes right back to your hand. She did 32 of those one after the other in one minute. And that's I buy that being the world record for sure. Did you say she? I did say she because she is one of three women on the Harlem Globetrotters team. And think about that. If the Globetrotters did somehow get their own franchise in the NBA, the NBA then would

be integrated among the sexes as well. How nuts would that be if they not only pushed the NBA to integrate racially, but also by sex as well. Well, I think if they said you get a franchise, they wouldn't just bring over these players. They would start fresh and draft players and do like any other expansion team. Because these players are great, but they're not NBA.

They'd be in the NBA if they were NBA caliber. It's true. Okay. No, I mean, that's where they get these players. They're players from college that were really good that couldn't go any further. Okay, that's new. That's a generally new phenomenon that probably started in the 80s. I would say probably 70s, but sure.

Okay, but prior to that, just 50 years. But prior to that, the Harlem, and this is significant, the Harlem Globetrotters were a place where you would go, you could go and create a career for yourself and be as good, if not better, than the best people in the NBA. And the Globetrotters proved that over and over and over again. Yeah, I mean, this was pre NBA. So it wouldn't even a thing yet still at this point. Okay. So the magic circle we mentioned with Sweet Georgia Brown, that's another thing they're very famous for.

It's when they pregame, they'll, and at halftime, they'll stay around in their circle. Sweet Georgia Brown plays on the loudspeakers and they do that thing where they're going behind their back. They're doing all these ball tricks. They're spinning it on their finger. It's just a little,

little fun warm-up to get everybody excited. Right. And it works like a finger. It's just a little fun warm up to get everybody excited. Right. And it works like a charm. It does. You want to take a break or keep going. Let's keep going. Okay, so one of the biggest watershed moments in Globetrider history was in 1948 when the Globetotters challenged the Minneapolis Lakers whose name makes way more sense than Los Angeles Lakers. As I've said, multiple times on this show, who were the champions of the World Basketball or National Basketball League at the time challenged them to a game. And the

Lakers were all white. And their team was centered around a guy named George McCann or Mike and he was six feet 10 were glasses and he just took shots whenever he wanted and he made basically all them. There's just nothing you could do to stop them and he was a huge reason that Minneapolis was were the champs. And in February of 1948, the the globe charters played the Lakers and they beat them and they beat them like at the buzzer. It was like a really dramatic really amazing game that showed the world like, whoa, whoa, these guys who the sportswriters consider clowns and not serious just beat the the champions of a very serious basketball league. What's going on here?

Yeah. And in the pre-shot clock era, you could dribble the ball around at the end of the game until somebody fouled you. And in this case, they could not catch Marcus Haynes, the ball-headling master. So with less than a minute left in the game was side he was dribbling all over the court nobody could get to him he finally as time is expiring gets the ball over to Elmer Robertson who drains a 20 footer and they beat the lakers and just to show like hey this wasn't some flu crack really good team they played them again in 1949 and beat them again. Yeah, the following year. And in the Lakers' defense, the Lakers were leading by 10 at the half and the Globe Trotters were doing zero clowning. They were playing straight basketball. Oh, yeah.

And they still almost lost, but they won. So by winning those two back-to-back championships, I guess, the, not just the Globe Trotters, but also like the Rens and other black teams showed. We've got better players over here. You basketball associations that are eventually going to become the NBA, you're shooting yourselves in the feet by staying segregated. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just want to put together the best team you possibly could regardless

of race? The basketball associations said racism, and the globe trader said, yes, clearly that's why, but stop doing that. And very quickly, shortly after those two wins against the Lakers, they did start integrating basketball leagues. Yeah, one of the first guys they signed actually, 1950 was a globe trader, sweet water clifton.

And so, you know, that what Abe Sapperstein set out to do to prove they were as good or better than anybody in the pro leagues worked right away. Yeah, and so he, so this was actually like a double-edged sword that gave Abe Sapper seen like boasting rights, which he did a lot about how the NBA wanted his players. The first player to ever be signed, who's black and the NBA came from the globe, Trotters. At the same time, though, it would start to become a problem later on as the NBA got better and better and stood more and more on its own two feet. That sounds like a great cliffhanger.

I think so too. All right, we'll be right back. Today's episode is sponsored by AirBnB. Maybe you've stayed in an AirBnB before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe your place could be an Airbnb. It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it.

Maybe a music festival or big tournament is coming to town and you want to get out of town, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money. Maybe you have a vacation plan for this summer. When you're away, your home could be an Airbnb. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out more at airbnb.ca slash host. That's airbnb.ca slash host. A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is 1800 City Hall, New York. The first murder trial in the American Judicial System. A man-sense trial for the charge of murder. Even with defense lawyers, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr on the case,

this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden violent brutal death, I hope you'll think of me. Starring Allison Williams. I don't need anything simplified, Mr. Hamilton, thank you. With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton, Don't be so sad that it doesn't suit you. Written and created by me, Allison Flop. Why are you doing that goal, I'm crazy! Listen to E. Rast and created by me, Alison Flock. Why are you doing like go and bring me here?

Listen to E-Raced, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl. No, no, no. Until she met that man right there. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm a murderer! Fear the unknown is the greatest fear of all.

And for millions of Americans, there is no greater unknown than an Alzheimer's diagnosis. My name is Dana Taredo and my podcast, The Memory Whisperer, takes a closer look at Alzheimer's disease and those affected by it. Like many of you, I've experienced the disease firsthand. I've been an Alzheimer's advocate and care partner for years and have written extensively about the subject. Each week, I'll talk to people who've been personally affected by Alzheimer's and learn how they cope with it. Folks like TV personality and advocate Lisa Gibbons. Action is the antidote

for fear. And nurse and dementia researcher, Dr. Faeron Epps. We no longer can be silent. We have to speak what we have to share our experiences so we can help each other and learn from each other. Listen to the memory whisper starting on November 9th on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Nats, Sweetwater Clifton by the way was one of the people who was swindled by Abe Saperstein. He sold his contract to, I think the Nix for $5,000 and gave half of it to Clifton, the player. And

it turns out he had sold the contract for $20,000 and only gave that Clifton $2,500 because that Clifton thought he was getting half. Like that's the kind of stuff he would do. Yeah. That's not cool. Well, at least that Clifton got to move on. He did move on for sure, and he was ready to move on too. They were having disputes over things like pay and everything and just treatment of players. And yeah, Nat Clifton was one of the first black

greats in the NBA. Yeah, absolutely. So early days of the NBA, there, it's not gangbusters right away. They're sort of this new league that's struggling to get going. The Globe Trotters are huge stars, way bigger stars than people in the NBA at the time. They were in movies. They were in a movie called The Harlem Globe Trotters.

Okay. Another one called Go Man Go. And so, Saperstein, you know, ever the businessman in 1950 said, all right, we're named the Globe Trotters. We're gonna start trotting the Globe. And so set off on a five month around the world tour to places like Rome and Paris and London, and they ate it up everywhere they went. Oh yeah, they were treated like celebrities everywhere. Like they would just sell out tens and tens of thousands

of seats in every city that they played a game in. People just hadn't seen anything like it over there and they were just totally wowed and blown over by the Globetrotters. The State Department actually got in touch with Abe Sapperstein and said, hey, we're in a cold war with the USSR and they like to basically point out how poorly black Americans are treated back home and the Globetrotters kind of suggest otherwise. So what if we make the Globetrotters goodwill ambassadors? And so from that point on, I think in the early 50s, they were essentially on the State Department team.

They were playing in part at the best of the state department, who was, I don't know if they were helping funding their travels or what, but they were definitely goodwill ambassadors for the United States. Yeah, one of the first things they did was they played in West Berlin at the Olympic Stadium there, the very stadium where Jesse Owens made his name in 1936 at the Berlin Games when Hitler very famously refused to shake his hand. He came in, was helicopter dead. Jesse Owens dropped in there on the field and he ran a ceremonial lap to sort of just get everybody pumped up before this basketball game in front of 76,000 people. Yeah. And the mayor of West Berlin used it as an opportunity to reconcile with Jesse Owens

on behalf of Germany. And I was reading a description of that event. And supposedly the Globe Trotters game was post was delayed by 10, 15 minutes because the the ovation given to Jesse Owens and the mayor was so long it just kept going and going so it was neat just to even read about I can't imagine being there at the time. Oh man. So they're on this world tour. They are celebrities and they're treated as such and they're having a blast I imagine. They come back home to an America that is still segregated. And, uh, Dave found this one just, this is hard to believe and so shameful. Uh, in Jacksonville, Florida, in the early 50s, a hotel refused them service.

Uh, and that same hotel, uh, allowed a chimpanzee named Judy, a celebrity chimpanzee that bowled on television, like bowling, set Judy up in the presidential suite yet denied the Harlem Globetrotters. Yeah, that was an eye-opening thing for a lot of the Globetrotters at the time. It was just that bad. On the one hand, they had the rest of the world to go be received by and they were, but just the idea that to have to come back home to that, I mean it just had to be doubly bitter after being treated so well outside of the United States, outside of home, you know? Of course, this would be a good movie. And then I say that.

Totally. For sure. So the late 1950s, the NBA started to really come into its own. And one of the reasons why I was saying Abe Saperstein can take a lot of credit for the NBA being around today is he agreed to help this fledgling NBA make a name for itself by playing double headers with them. Either having the Globetriders play NBA teams or having the NBA be like the second, the NBA teams were like the second game on the double header bill. Yeah. And apparently most of the time the crowd would just leave after the Globetrotter game,

wouldn't stick around for the NBA game, but enough people did that the NBA started to catch on. And it took about 10 years, but it was largely thanks to the Globe Trotters in Abe Saperstein for getting the NBA to a place where it could stand on its own. And then once it did, now Abe Saperstein and the Globe Trotters had a problem because no longer were they the place where a great black basketball player would aspire to go play. They were a way station sometimes, and then other people just went directly around the Globetrotters and straight to the NBA. Yeah, you know, it was sort of be careful of what you helped create because not only like you said, are they stealing, or not stealing players, but just, you know, signing players away from the Globetrotters, the Globetrotters weren't necessary anymore as this sort of very high profile minor league in a way.

Wilts Chamberlain was a Harlem Globetrotter. He played for the 1958 season. I don't think a lot of people realize that. You know, one of the all-time great NBA players, Wilts Estilte, was paid supposedly $60,000 to play for the Harlem Globetrotters for that one season, which would be about $600,000 today. Yeah, which is I think below the minimum for a starting salary in the MBA today anyway. But still the time. Yeah, but that's a ton of money and the MBA salaries are very high. So that brings up something that has nothing to do with this, but that came up twice in research.

When they were talking about what the globe traders made initially, that like $3.50 each per game, and how little amount that was, it was like $6,250, I think a player, a game. And that's a small amount of money in today's like money in today's dollars, right? But that seems to indicate a trend that even adjusted for inflation, things today are eye-poppingly more expensive. Like I looked up how much of those players could have gotten for their $3.50. And I came across like a 19 1928 menu for what seems to be a pretty nice restaurant.

And you can get an amazing dinner with dessert and a couple of soups and salad and all that stuff. For like 50 cents, right? Yeah. Today, even in today's dollars, that would be something like $8 or something today. Imagine having a nice dinner for just eight dollars today. So what happened is my question. I'm trying to figure out how to come up with the right question to go research what happened. Like why did things get more expensive?

Why did people start throwing more money at like basketball players, even adjusted for today's dollars? Like what happened? Why did money just blow up in the last like 20, 30 years? Well, in the case of sports, it's because players stood up at one point and were like, wait a minute, the owners are making that kind of money. We're the ones out here that are putting people in the seats and we're making this kind of money. And they unionized and we're able to make great deals over the year every time they set down negotiating table. Okay, but let's say that restaurant That was charging eight dollars in today's dollar for a really nice good dinner. Sure You would you would say okay, well, maybe there's like more demand for that. More people have more money to go out to dinner. So they're doing that. So the restaurants are going to charge more because of supply and demand. There's a higher demand and thus less supply.

I would argue there is not less supply. I would say that the supply has increased even more than the demand has. And yet that same dinner probably costs three to four times what it should adjusted for today's dollars. Why? Yeah, I see what you mean. I'm sure that somebody will write in and say, well guys, it's just research the last 40 years of the corporatization of whatever or something. There's probably something you can point to that made things go really out of whack. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was the consolidation of wealth and corporations in general. But that's exactly what I'm hoping for bringing this up. I hope somebody who knows what I'm saying, but just don't know how to say it.

Yeah, like how can we go research this? Exactly. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. Thanks. Thanks. Back to the Harlem Globetrotters, though. The NBA is getting these players from the Globetrotters, you know, kind of one after the other. And so the Globetrotters are like, all right, well,

you know what that means. Our days are numbered unless we really lean into this comedy stuff. And from sort of the mid-1950s on it really became the Harlem Globe Trotters like basketball fun time comedy show that we all know and love today starting with their leader who you mentioned metal arc lemon who was there from fifty four to seventy eight and he was kind of the central figure yeah they lucked out that metal arc lemon saw a news reel when he was 11 in 1945 at his movie theater in Wilmington, North Carolina and decided like he was going to grow up to be a Harlem Globetrider. That was his life's pursuit. And he made it happen. I think in his 20s, he joined the team and became like kind of the ringmaster of the whole thing. He became far and away their greatest star,

not just of his era, but of like all time essentially. Metal Lark Lemon is well known. He's the name you think of. Exactly, for sure. He was the one who led the crew on Scooby Doo. He was at the heart of the Harlem Globe Trotter, Saturday morning cartoon, like that kind of stuff.

It was all metal-lark all the time. And I get the impression that some of the other members of the team were not super happy about exactly how inequitable things were, but he definitely brought the crowds, and he was a huge crowd pleaser for sure. Yeah, he's the guy who invented the confetti bit, which is, uh, you're chasing a referee down with what everyone thinks is a bucket of water.

And, uh, he throws it into the stands and misses the referee and everyone goes crazy, but it's really confetti. Still works somehow. Uh, he's the one that started pulling everyone shorts down and pantsing everybody. Referees, fellow players, Washington Generals. He's the guy that started doing that half court hook shot, which a guy still does that now. They're keeping that traditional eye,

but I think it was, they have a guy from Atlanta because at least in the one I saw because it was, you know, played up that it was a hometown show for him. And he was the guy that was shooting the half court hook shot. And he didn't make any of them, but he came really really close uh... it's very hard to do supposedly metal arc lemon was so good at it

that he would nail it seventy percent of the time i i'm not so sure about that he has a lot of legend around him like he even on the hall of fame basketball hall of fame website he's credited with playing sixteen thousand games as a globe trotter and all you have to do is the math And you'll see that that's basically impossible. He would have had to have played He would have had to have played two games a day every day for 21 years To reach that number and he was only with the globe trotters for 24 years

And I'm quite sure the math still isn't wash out, but It just kind of goes to show like how willing everybody is to go along with it That's how good of a ball player he was that they're like, yeah, it's that's probably not that far off Yeah, absolutely As far as the sort of the perception and legacy of the Globe Trotters at the time some look down upon them from the civil rights community and As far as the sort of the perception and legacy of the Globetrotters at the time, some looked down upon them from the civil rights community and said that, you know, you guys are perpetuating these stereotypes.

You're sort of doing a basketball version of a traveling menstrual show. Other people said, no, that's not what's going on. No less than Jesse Jackson would stand up for them. And his quote was, the Globe Trotters did not show blacks as stupid on the contrary. They were shown as superior. He was like, they're, you know, they're bringing this to an audience who maybe has never seen something like this. It's fun. They're really good at what they do and stop with all that. Yeah. So they made it through that really rough time.

They had to navigate that because they definitely were old school black comedy in a time where that was increasingly looked upon as offensive to the black community. So they navigated that. They managed to, and I think I don't know how much they changed. I think they just weathered that criticism and came out the other side. One of the reasons they were superior though is because there was almost always a team in the Globe Trotter history that was paid to lose to them, which kind of explains their 22,000 to 345 win loss ratio.

Yeah, absolutely. They would buy different names over the years, the Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Atlantic City Seagulls, but in modern times, we all know and love them as the Washington Generals. They used to be an all-white team. Now the Gener generals are integrated as well. And, you know, it's a gig where you get to keep playing basketball and you get to get paid for playing basketball. You got to be okay with being the, you know, the

sucker sometimes, and to be panced and to lose. But these guys can play. Oh yeah, they always could play. But you know, this team that I just saw last year, like these guys were good. They had this, they had this point guard that was just draining really, really long jump shot three pointers, like Steph Curry style, six,, Tray Young style, eight feet behind the three point line. And like, you can't, you can fake and script things, but you can't, you know, make that ball go in, nothing but net unless you're really good at that. And this guy was awesome.

So they all work. Yeah, a handful of them have gone on to play in the NBA. So it's almost like the, no, I'm not giving up yet. I'm going to play the the generals and then Get back into the NBA almost like playing in Europe How a lot of people do that whether it's like the NBA doesn't doesn't take them for a year So they go play in Europe somewhere and then try again the next season. I think that's kind of what the generals were for a while but um there was one instance

where the generals won. And if you go back and read the details of this game in January of 1971, it's not clear whether it was purposeful or accidental, but the globe charters weren't paying attention to the score, they didn't need to normally. And the generals were starting to creep up on them. And it came down to, I think, a one point deficit.

And somebody took a shot, a guy named Louis Hermann Klotz, who helped put the generals together. He was in his fifth year. He took the last shot. And he sunk it in one, accidentally won, according to a lot of people. Yeah, amazing. It's like sort of at the end of a modern NBA All-Star game

when everyone's goofing off and having fun until like the last two or three minutes and then they're like, all right, we want to win. A parent and things get serious. Apparently, Clots' quote was, it was like we had just killed Santa Claus. I imagine. That's his quote was it was like we just killed Santa Claus. I imagine. That's funny. You know Scotty and I, who you know a friend of ours, he was the DP for our TV show

and a very old friend of mine. We had written some stuff here and there, screenplays and like partnered up here and there. And at one point we were writing a script on a Washington Generals team as the centerpiece. Like thinly veiled, there would be a globe trodder, say it wouldn't be called the globe trodder to the generals, but we just thought it was a really funny idea to follow this team that always has to lose and be the sucker of this getting panced.

And then they come up with this plan to like win the game one time. So is it going to be more like a sports movie where like it's really about the game or is it going to be like slap shot where it's more about the lives of the people playing the game. More slap shot than Hoosiers. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So but then Will Ferrell did that basket ball movie and I think this is sort of around the like time when we were thinking about it. Oh, is it the same thing? No, but it was just, I don't know, it was sort of like, all right, well, no one's going to want to make this movie because this one just came out and did I don't think it did very well. Yeah, I think that I think enthusiasm

for that particular movie is cool. Do you guys can probably take a shot at it again? Yeah, I mean, there's not a lot of great basketball movies. Hoosiers is one of the all-time great sports movies period. But there's not a whole lot else. The fish that say Pittsburgh. What? You remember that? No.

There's a basketball movie. Dr. J was in it called the Fish You Say Pittsburgh. Nice. I remember that when I was a kid. But yeah, not a lot of great basketball movies. Well I say you and Scott should get to it Chuck. Alright, maybe it's time that movie has been forgotten by now. Well since Chuck agreed to get back to producing his basketball movie with Scott, I think

that means that this episode's over and it's time for Listener Man. Uh, yeah, that was a fun episode. I enjoyed that. I agree completely. It was a good episode. Yeah, that was fun. And again, go see him, everybody. It's a lot of fun. They're not filling arenas anymore, which makes me sad, but they had a pretty good crowd. Good. All right. This is just a really lovely thank you. We like to read those every now and then. Hey guys, you've been by my side for 15 years.

You've shared your voices, your stories, your laughter, and your curiosity with me. You've been with me through the highs and the lows of my life during my journey of moving multiple times, changing career, surviving an accident, where walking after was painful for many years, recovering slowly from those injuries, hiking again, coping with divorce. You've inspired me to keep exploring the world, to keep learning new things, and to keep finding joy. And every day, you make me feel like I'm a part of your family, even though we've never met. Look for an episode on that coming soon, Danny. You are some of my favorite teachers, sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes wrong, but always genuine and generous.

To stand is kind of pegged. I know, he didn't have to mention that, but that's fine. For 15 years, you have opened your hearts, your minds, and your arms to all of us who listen. For 15 years, I've been lucky to know two amazing dudes who make the world a better place. I hope you never stop making the show, because I don't want to stop listening. I know that life is unpredictable and nothing lasts forever. So I'm excited to finally see both at Nashville and Nashville on the sixth. So Danny was at our show and he just finishes out by saying thank you so much for being

the stability some of us need, the platform of knowledge that help us leap into a land of wonder and learning and just for being there for 15 years. Seriously, thank you. And that is Danny Westfall. Danny, you, my friend, are the MVP. Yeah, you are. Thanks a lot, Danny. Those are really excellent emailing.

We hope you enjoyed the Nashville show. That was a great one. If you want to be like Danny and write us a truly great email, we love those. You can wrap it up, dribble it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcast. at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

A brand new historical true crime podcast. When you lay suffering a sudden brutal death, starring Allison Williams, I hope you'll think of me erased the murder of Elvis Haynes. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl. Let it go, I'm here! Until she met that man right there. Written and created by me, Alison Flop. Is it possible, sir?

We're standing by for your answer. Erased, the murder of Elma Sands. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Has no turn it back if we do this. I've already made my decision. From Interval presents a new romantic thriller podcast starring Jason DeRulo.

There's someone about you that I haven't been able to look away from. And Alexandra Ship. Nico, we don't even know each other. Listen to underwater on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, We don't even know each other. Water, water, water! Listen to Underwater on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Paul Muldoon, a poet who, over the past several years, has had the good fortune to record ours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney. The result is our new podcast, McCartney, a Life in lyrics.

Listen to McCartney, a Life in lyrics on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts.