WEBVTT - The Harlem Globetrotters: American Treasures 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:02.560 Hey, everybody, we want to let you know that that 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.800 great LP, the vinyl record of stuff you should know 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.520 about how vinyl works. It's old so well that Born 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.119 Losers Records has printed more. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.320 Right, Yeah, we're in our second pressing, Chuck, that's how 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.000 great it was. And they're printing five hundred more and 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:19.960 now's the time to go get them. You can order 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.959 them now and they're in two new awesome color slash 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.320 styles that you can go see. Go check out our 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:28.720 website Stuff youshould Know dot com and click on the 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.440 button SYSK Vinyl and it will give you all the 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.120 facts and info you need, or just search stuff you 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.800 should know Vinyl and Born Losers will come up to 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.720 that's the official site. So if you got shut out 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.880 from the last press, well, hallelujah, here's pressing too. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:48.159 You're welcome, Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.080 of iHeartRadio. 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.800 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.760 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.000 shoul no the problem Globe Trotter Edition. It's a little 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.160 on the nose as far as edition names go, but 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:07.520 it is what it is. 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.720 How's that pretty great. Oh are you gonna follow up? 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:17.440 I was just egging you on. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.360 Okay, I feel like I get a little off key 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.280 because it goes in some you know, more subtle directions. 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.440 It does. And what you're referring to is, of course, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.440 the song Sweet Georgia Brown by Brother Bones. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:36.840 Right, Brother Bones, who was a halftime musical act for 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:42.039 the Globetrotters. And as the story goes, it was like, Hey, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.720 I got this banging whistled version of Sweet Georgia Brown 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.640 that I'm doing during your little magic circle routine and 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:53.320 it stuck for seventy years. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.640 Yeah, they decided to make it basically their unofficial official 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.280 team song. And if you remember, that was my first 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:02.520 forty five record ever? 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:04.120 Was it really? 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.680 Yeah? After seeing the Globetrotters, that's that song. So my 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.200 dad took me to probably Peaches Records in Toledo and 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:12.200 I got the forty five. 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:14.959 All right, Well, let's talk real quick. So you saw 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:16.959 the Globetrotters in what year? Roughly? 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.960 My guess is it would have been eighty two, eighty three. 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.040 I mean that's if not, you know, the Golden Era 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.080 just sort of it's just after just after the Golden. 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.360 Era Curly was still there, but Metal Lark left. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:37.760 Okay. I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters on Wide World 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.240 of Sports or wherever they played them on Sunday afternoons. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.440 I thought it was the best thing ever. I loved basketball, 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.280 I love comedy. I thought it was funny. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.560 Oh well, they were right up your alley then. 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.720 But I did not see the Harlem Globetrotters, my friend 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.000 until last year. Oh really, yep. I took Ruby and 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:01.600 Emily and my father in law Steve and Scotty who 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:03.960 you know, sure of course, and we went and saw 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.200 the Harlem Globetrotters here in Atlanta, and I gotta tell you, dude, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.240 I was like a kid all over again. It was 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.920 so much fun. All those old bits they did, and 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.040 it was genuinely funny, like it wasn't like, oh well, 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.840 this is quaint and sort of old fashioned, like I was. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.119 Scotty and I were dying laughing, and we just had 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.000 the best time. I highly recommend you anyone should still go. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:30.320 It's still so much fun. 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.960 Yeah, I would after doing this research, I would definitely 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.560 go to see them. And they have a twenty twenty three, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.480 twenty four World tour plan, which I think is pretty 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.480 much par for the course with them every year. 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:42.080 Yep. 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.880 But if you look, you're like, wow, they're in three 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.240 different cities on this one day. And it's because, which 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.400 is a long standing tradition with the Globetrotters, they have 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.080 so many great players that they'll split them into multiple 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.520 teams and just send them out around the country. So 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.640 there is one hundred percent chance essentially that they are 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.440 coming within probably twenty miles of whatever town you live in. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:07.840 Yeah, go see him. It's a lot of fun. I mean, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.960 they still just have so much personality. I can't remember 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.800 the guy's name, at least at the one I saw 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.240 who sort of is the metal Arclemit who sort of 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.120 is the ringleader, But he was just he had so 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:22.560 much charisma. And they're great basketball players. So it's modernized 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.320 a little bit, but it's still what it always has been, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.200 and it was just so much fun. 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.520 What's funny, is, Chuck, is that them being great basketball 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.440 players is actually a throwback to their original I guess 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:35.320 kind of iteration. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.480 Look at you bringing it all around. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.600 I like to do that sometimes, So. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.280 Are we in the nineteen twenties, then. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.719 Yeah, at the beginning of the Harlem Globetrotters. It's actually 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.120 predates the Harlem Globetrotters, and I think the early to 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:51.360 mid nineteen. 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.479 Twenties, that's right. So we're going to set up sort 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.800 of basketball at the time, which is to say, basketball 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.520 is pretty new. It was not hugely popular as far 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.000 as if you want to compare it to football and baseball, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.320 it was well into third place if that behind you know, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.520 horse racing and I'm sure a lot of other things 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:15.400 are more popular at the Why the NBA didn't even 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:17.680 come around until forty nine, so this was quite a 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.040 while before that. And what they did have though, and 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:25.799 we've seen this in other sports and other sort of entertainment, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.040 it was touring. But they called it barnstormy. It was 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.040 when you traveled around to different small towns and they 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.160 would get teams together to go on these little tours 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.880 and barnstorm and play each other and you know, essentially 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.400 exhibition games because there wasn't a league, but they were 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.120 you know, competitive, real basketball games. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.400 Yeah, they'd be like, hey, you, hay Seeds, look at 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:51.520 this exactly. Sometimes also like there wouldn't even be a team, 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.800 but like some of these teams would go play locals, 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.440 like local groups of farmers or whatever would take these 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.000 teams on. And I don't know why, but I think 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.480 think it was maybe like how sometimes wrestlers will take 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.359 on any comers at like some small town or whatever. Yeah, 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.080 But so that's the beginnings of basketball. And it's really 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.240 interesting that like there were people out there who loved 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.160 the game enough that they made a career for themselves 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.479 for they figured out how to do it. And this 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.320 was really really close to the beginning of the Harlem Globetrotters. 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.760 And in fact, the group that originally formed the first 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.120 Harlem Globetrotter started out as players at Wendell Phillips High 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.680 School and All Black High School in Chicago that said, hey, 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.760 we're pretty good, let's go start a barnstorming team ourselves. 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.520 That's right. And this is either in twenty five or 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.280 twenty six. They didn't have a name at first. They 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.560 were sponsored by the South Side Giles Post of the 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.200 American Legion, so there are some sources that'll say they 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.599 were they were called the Giles Post American Legion quintet Okay, 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.560 But then another thing happened the Savoy Ballroom and Chicago 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.839 in Bronzeville, it was a black owned entertainment venue, very popular, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.480 and on the weekends they would have these big dances, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.480 and they thought, well, hey, why don't we have a 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.239 little opening act and have a basketball game before these dances. 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:16.640 Maybe it'll sell some more tickets and at the very 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.280 least it'll be fun and sort of get people going 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.400 before the big dance. And in nineteen twenty six they 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.840 hired that Wendell Phillips team and they named them the 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:27.160 Savoy Big Five. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:32.600 Yeah, and I don't know how long they played for 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.480 this dance hall, the Savoy Ballroom, but I don't get 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:39.520 the impression knows very long, because I think that they 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.160 weren't moving tickets like the owners thought they would, and 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.080 so they moved on to something else. I can't remember 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.120 what it was, but they basically got rid of the 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:53.480 basketball team, which left them essentially free agents. And it's 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.040 kind of lost to history exactly how this happened. But 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:01.840 a guy named Abe Sapperstein came in and attached himself 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.840 to the Savoy Big Five, scooped them up after they 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.160 were fired, took them away from the Savoy Who knows, 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.880 but this is about the time in the mid to 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.960 late nineteen twenties, about the mid nineteen twenties where Abe 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:19.040 Sapristine comes in, and you can say, like without qualification 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.880 that had it not been for Abe Sapristine entering, there 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:23.960 would be no Harlem Globetrotters. 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.320 Yeah, for sure. He was born in London, but he 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.880 was raised in He was Jewish and raised in an 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.320 Irish German neighborhood in Chicago. And he was a little guy. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.360 He loved basketball. But they say he was like, you know, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.880 five three, five four or something like that, so really 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.400 small to be playing basketball, even at the time when 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.360 guys weren't super tall playing basketball generally. Yeah, or you 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.400 could be, you know, a little shorter and still get by, 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.320 but he would play a little hard out. He tried 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.480 out for the University of Illinois team and did not 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.160 make the team, and then dropped out and worked for 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.679 the Chicago Park Department as a playground supervisor. And if 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.000 you you know, listen to him sort of tell his 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.920 own story of the lore, he's going to say, like, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.280 you know, I saw these guys playing basketball on the playground. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.360 I'd never seen basketball played like this before, and I 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.560 knew right away that you know, I had to get 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.840 these guys and you know, make them like the best 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:22.600 team that they could be. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.640 Right, that's the that's the lore. Again, it's kind of 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.720 lost to history, but the I think by the nineteen 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.200 like nineteen twenty six, nineteen twenty seven, Abe Sapristein was 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:41.640 attached to this group of players from Wendell Phillips High 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.559 School that would become the Harlem Globetrotters. 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.480 Yeah, and one of the first thing he did was 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.280 changed that name because he wanted to take them barnstorming. Yeah, 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.280 He's like, I can make some money here. So he 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.640 named him the Harlem Globetrotters right out of the gate 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.800 because he was a savvy marketing guy, and he's bringing 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.880 this team on the road in the He's like small 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.520 towns and Kansas and Indiana who had never you know, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.720 who knows how much interaction they had with black people 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.439 in rural Kansas at the time, they at the very 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.200 least they probably hadn't seen an all black basketball team 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.400 come through town. So he was like, this is a 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.120 sellable thing, you know, to turn these people onto this, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.719 and so Harlem, like everybody knows what Harlem represents, it's 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.560 the center of black culture in the nineteen twenty So 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.600 if I put Harlem on the name, it's they're immediately 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.199 going to know this is a black team. And if 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.120 I call them the Globetrotters, even though we're really not 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.280 globe trotting yet, they're gonna you know, it's just it's 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:39.880 gonna guss him up to where they sound like this 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.720 sort of worldly team that's been everywhere playing this sport 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.679 and it just has a nice ring together and it 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:46.720 should sell some tickets. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:48.760 Yeah, and I mean he was right, definitely does have 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.240 a nice ring. But it's ironic that this the Harlem 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.320 Globetrotters originated in Chicago, Yeah, and apparently didn't play their 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.720 first game in Harlem until nineteen sixty eight. 0:10:58.080 --> 0:10:59.480 Yeah, I had nothing to do with Harlem. I don't 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:00.160 think it. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.120 Took forty years for them to finally get to play 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.480 in Harlem, right, but it was it was you could 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.600 almost call it today, a dog whistle that would would 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.320 guarantee that no, you know, Kansas Farmer would show up 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.160 at this game thinking he was coming to see a 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.960 white basketball team and giving like racially angry that he 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.520 had been tricked into giving his money to a black 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.800 basketball team. In addition to just kind of signaling that, 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.040 it also did say like, but not only is this 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:30.880 like a black team, this is like a black team 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:35.160 from the greatest black city in America. Yeah, so it's 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.400 prestigious too, but it also was a signal. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.600 Yeah, absolutely so, Saprosine. He coached. He was with the 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.920 team for a long time. He coached them into his sixties. 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:49.560 And he was, you know, criticized many times throughout the 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.840 years for being too controlling, for underpaying his guys, for 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.679 not giving them any say and like what they did 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:58.880 or how they did it, kind of like I'm the boss, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:03.440 and you do what I say, for perpetuating racial stereotypes. 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.520 He was not some perfect guy. But he also, you know, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.320 as we'll see, in his own way, eventually led to 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.400 you know, the integration of the NBA and putting black 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.760 players on a stage that no one had ever done 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.840 before in sort of elevating their perception to the rest 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:23.960 of America and as you'll see the rest of the world. 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.360 Yeah, and he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.640 Fame in nineteen seventy one. And I don't dispute the 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.240 impact that he had on it, but it is he 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.800 definitely it wasn't like mischievous or like in the gray 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.560 area he swindled some of his players. 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:41.360 Oh yeah. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:46.679 He told one star player later on, Marcus Haynes, that 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.960 he believed black players didn't deserve or didn't need as 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.160 much money as white players. They just didn't. Black people 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:54.800 just didn't need as much money, and that was why 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.240 he underpaid his black players. Apparently they found out once 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.000 that a group of college all stars that was touring 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.920 as a warm up act for the Globetrotters was getting 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.240 paid more than the Globetrotters. He did a lot of 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.440 really shady, underhanded stuff. So he's a good study in 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.840 one of those things that's like, okay, this he was 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.440 not like a sterling example of somebody even for his time, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.840 but he also did do some really amazing things that 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:26.880 benefited a lot of black people during his lifetime and 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.240 well beyond today actually, because you can kind of give 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.960 him credit for giving the NBA the stability it needed 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.600 to take off on its own too. 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.959 Yeah yeah, And you know that's also and this is 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.280 not defending him, but this is also the history of 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.800 pro sports ownership, right, Like in a nutshell. This is 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.840 how it was almost with everybody as far as not 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.480 integrating the leagues and sort of the ownership aspect. And 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.560 I mean that's why players still complain about this stuff. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.640 That's why they formed players' unions and banded together for like, 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.200 you know, better treatment and better pay and where you're 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:02.640 not going to just pay us a little bit amount 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.000 of money and you take everything else. Right. Uh, it's 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.199 interesting we should I don't know, maybe there's an episode 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.040 in there somewhere about like the history of sports ownership, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.200 because it's fraught with stories like this. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.600 I could totally see that. I could totally Yeah, I 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.960 think that's a great idea. But to kind of wrap 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:23.440 up Sapirsteine at least his introduction, he owned the Globe Trotters, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.520 not just the team, not just the name like the Globetrotters. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:31.560 He believed not he believed that that if you wanted 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.120 to play on his team, he was the boss. He 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.520 was in charge, He called the shots, he was not 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.520 to be questioned. He even called himself coach to these 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.120 players that did not need a coach, but they kind 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.360 of humored him and played along. But he was in 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.760 charge and his whole jam was I'm creating a place 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.320 where if you're a black basketball player and you're good, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.400 this is the team you want to be on. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.320 Yeah, he created that absolutely. Uh, good time for break, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.360 I think, good setup. And we'll come back and talk 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.600 a little bit about what you were talking about earlier, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:32.440 the fact that they were not comedians at first. All right, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.000 so we are back with promise to talk about the 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.640 Harlem Globetrotters as a serious basketball team, because that is 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.440 what they were for many years. They did not come 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.920 out of the gate doing you know, the confetti and 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.440 a bucket trick. They came out playing some really good basketball, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.200 to the tune of a record reportedly of one hundred 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.880 and one and six over their first one hundred and 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:59.720 seventeen games or so, and they traveled throughout the thirties. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.960 They would pile apparently into Abe Saperstein's giant model t 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.440 and they would play eight games a week for twenty 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.920 five bucks a game for the entire team, sapristein they 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.240 would split it up at Sapristine would get two shares, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.840 and back then that wasn't even a lot of money. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:17.840 But they loved the game and they were getting paid 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:18.400 to play it. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.480 No today, they would be making five hundred dollars a week. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.520 So you had to love the game to be doing 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.600 that for sure, because there was a lot of it 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.720 was hard work in addition to traveling constantly too, So 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:33.880 the people who are playing like really love to play, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.840 and this is the one place they could play and 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.120 make any money at it. And by the way, that 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.920 winning percentage, it's zero point eight sixty three win percentage 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.800 in their first year, and only the twenty fifteen sixteen 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.960 Warriors and the ninety five ninety six Bulls have better 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.920 win percentages and they each only played eighty two games. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.520 These guys played one hundred and seventeen. And it's kind 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.080 of joky now because everyone knows the Generals aren't supposed 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:04.240 to win. But as of twenty twenty two, the win 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.800 loss ratio for the Harlem Globe Charters was twenty seven 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:10.600 thousand to three and forty five. 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:14.800 And by the way, if you don't know, the Generals 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:16.720 are the team that they always play now on their 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.399 road show, right, we kind of assume people know that, 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:20.280 but we'll talk about them. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.840 Yeah, yet not talk about the General Wait everybody, just 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:23.600 wait a second. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.040 So they're traveling around the country. When they play in 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.600 the North, they're playing against white teams and black teams. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.480 There was a team called the New York Renaissance, the Wrens. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.200 They were the first all black professional basketball team. When 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.480 they went to the South, this was the Jim Crow South. 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.359 They would play in front of black crowds and only 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.760 against black teams. And it was rough. You know, they 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.600 were in a South that was obviously segregated, not treating 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.240 them equally, not letting them stay in hotels, not letting 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.200 them eat in restaurants. There was one story. Dave Ruse 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.680 helped us with this. He dug up that in Nebraska 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.359 they had to sleep in the county jail because they 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.520 could not find a hotel that would house them. Yeah. 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:14.480 They also they would play two games a night in 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.320 the South because they would play in front of a 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.280 black crowd and then they would go across town and 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.680 play in front of a white crowd, so they would 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.760 play two a day. I'm not sure if they got 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.800 paid for both games or not, but yeah, it was 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.240 in addition to riding around in a Model T with 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.800 five other people and getting twenty five bucks a game, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.440 you also had to just face blatant, horrible racism every 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.560 day of your life, basically, especially when you were touring 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:43.040 the South. 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.879 Yeah. Absolutely. They were a really good team though, and 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.680 they wanted to prove that they were among the best 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 of any color in the country. And they entered the 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.800 World Basketball Championship in nineteen forty and won this tournament 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.919 was a fourteen team tournament in Chicago, and beat the 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.320 hometown Chicago Bruins to win the title. And this was 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.679 again pre NBA. This is when the only thing that 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.760 was around was the It was called the National Basketball 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.480 League at the time, the NBL. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.919 And it was white teams only, right, All black teams 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.400 were independent. And there were other good black teams too, 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.359 like the New York Renaissance, the Wrens. They were like 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.960 the Globetrotters, but they were serious. They only played serious basketball. 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:30.200 There's no clowning whatsoever. And they actually were huge rivals, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.400 not just on the court, but off the court as 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:37.840 well for players, for advancing their team, for getting crowds. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.400 Like it was, they were both trying to carve out 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.800 a place for themselves in the same space and there 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.320 was not really enough space for both. 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.400 Yeah, for sure. As for how the clowning around started 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:56.119 and the comedy element. It sort of depends on who 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.359 you ask. Some people will say that barnstorming in the 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.600 forties started losing steam, and so Sapristine, as the sort 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.600 of SPINALI, came up with this idea to keep the 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.880 show going by incorporating these funny bits. Other people say 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.520 that it just sort of kind of slowly evolved from 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.440 the fact that they were even before the clowning around, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.159 they were playing a different style of basketball than what 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.239 white teams were playing at the time, which is a 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.560 lot of like, it's kind of funny to look at 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.400 old basketball clips, these little two handed, flat footed set 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.600 shots and lots and lots and lots of passing, not 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.880 a lot of dribbling. All of a sudden, these guys 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.240 come in and they're running fast breaks. Dave said, they dunked. 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.959 I looked into the history of the dunk and it's 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.359 I think that the first dunk was in nineteen thirty six, 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.520 So it is plausible that they were dunking the basketball, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.080 because immediately I was like, I don't think people were 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:52.040 dunking it all back then. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.280 If anybody was, it was them, though. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.520 Yeah, well the first person who dunk wasn't a Globetrotter, 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.359 but it was, you know, it wasn't. I think it 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:01.919 was looked at it as kind of a rude thing to 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.200 do in a basketball game. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.159 Early on, well, it also seemed to be taken as wrong, 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.560 like the right way to do was to pass five 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:13.000 times and then you took your shot. And the Globetrotters 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.560 weren't playing like that at all. They were playing like 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.639 what you see when you watch a modern basketball game. 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.720 And in fact, there was a twenty twenty one letter 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:26.040 open letter from the Globetrotters to the NBA saying, you know, 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:30.240 we basically created the style of play that is like 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.679 the NBA, Now, why don't you let us in and 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.360 give us a franchise. Of course, the NBA just I think, 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.640 completely ignored it, but they make a really good case that, 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.680 like the style of play today dates back to the 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.000 Globe Trotters starting this stuff in the thirties and forties. 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.520 And if you watch like clips of say like Curly 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.639 Neil in like the seventies, shooting like a half court 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:59.320 three pointer, he looks exactly like Steph Curry does today 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.520 when you watch when you watch stuff, Curry do the 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.880 same thing. They have the same exact motion, everything about 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.959 that shot is the exact same, but Curly Neil is 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.320 doing it like fifty years earlier. 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.280 Yeah. Absolutely, And this was way earlier than Curly Neil too. 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.200 Yeah. I mean people didn't take half court three pointers 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.760 outside of the Harlem Globe Trotters. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.200 Yeah, and that was sort of when things started getting 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.520 a little more interesting. Another story is that they were 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:29.720 blowing people out so much they started getting bored and 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.280 kind of just messing around and they would do no 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.240 look passes and they would take these super long hook 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.280 shots and people went crazy for it. Supposedly, one of 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:43.200 the original Savoy Big Five, this guy, Big Jack Johnson, 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:48.000 was the guy who kind of started developing these tricks. 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.480 He was a big, giant of a man, and he's 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.680 the guy who would put another player on his shoulders 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:57.760 to go in and dunk the ball. He's the guy 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.359 who started drop kicking it from the free throw line. 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.040 And so you know, this is sort of the err 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.639 version of what we would later see to be followed 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:11.719 by Reetatum Goose Tatum, who is known as the clown 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.320 Prints of the Globetrotters. He's a guy that really ramped 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:15.040 up the antics. 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.520 Yeah, he apparently got his clowning start on the Indianapolis Clowns, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.399 which was a baseball team which were essentially the Globe 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.879 Trotters of baseball at the time in the Negro Leagues, 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.040 and he was sixteen when he started playing for them, 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.320 so he kind of was already exposed to the idea 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:35.000 of joking around while you're playing serious professional sports by 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:37.000 the time he got to the Globetrotter, so he was 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.280 like kind of a natural person to bring that. So 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:42.520 it makes a lot of sense that he would have 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:46.159 been kind of like the real kernel that created that. 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:50.720 I don't think that those stories of where it came 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.439 from it evolving over time, and Abe sapristein saying we 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.159 need to do some clowning because the crowds are getting 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:01.199 bored are mutually exclusive. I think that they could have 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:05.159 happened together, because apparently the crowds were getting bored, they 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.280 would just blow out the opponent so much that it 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.320 was like, what's what's the point of seeing these games? 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:13.880 So when they figured out that when they were clowning, though, 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:17.800 the crowds really responded to it, and eventually, over time 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:21.120 that would come to serve them well, because as other 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:24.800 basketball players in like the NBA got better and better 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:29.960 and sorted adopting more and more Globetrotters techniques, all the 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:32.880 tech all the Globetrotters had left was the clowning aspect. 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:35.119 So that's kind of what they became. So it's a 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:38.760 really neat evolution that it makes sense that this all 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:41.480 took place over coming up on one hundred years. 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:46.400 Yeah. Absolutely, And interestingly, Gouse Tatum was, you know, sort 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:49.600 of an early example of a two way sports star. 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:53.240 I believe the Globe Shrotters had ended up having four 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:57.280 different former professional baseball players on their team. Wow, So 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.880 there were you know, the Bo Jackson's, the Deon Sanders 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.800 way back then doing their things. So Goose was the 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:06.919 one who came up with some of these gags that 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:11.560 they still hues today, Like they're still doing the same stuff. Man, Well, 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:15.120 if it's funny, it's funny, I guess. So that the spying, 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:17.360 like going over in the other team's huddle, he came 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:20.359 up with that they still do that, hiding in the 0:25:20.400 --> 0:25:22.760 crowd from the ref they still do that. It still 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:27.840 kills hilarious when you faint on the court, and someone waves, 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:30.280 takes off your shoe and puts it over your nose 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:32.679 and you, you know, you start up. They still do that, 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:34.240 and that all came from Goose. 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:39.080 Those things make people from eight to eighty just laugh, 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:41.840 I know. But if you're seven or you're eighty one, 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:42.520 forget it. 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:46.680 Yeah. Marcus Haynes was another guy in nineteen forty six, 0:25:46.720 --> 0:25:50.280 he came along. He was a former college basketball star 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:54.879 and he's the guy that kind of was the inspiration 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:58.119 for Curly Neil. He's the guy that first started doing 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:01.840 like the insane dribbling and sliding around on his knees 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:04.760 and keeping that dribble alive and dribbling between other people's 0:26:04.840 --> 0:26:08.040 legs and dribbling in circles around people. He was the first, 0:26:08.280 --> 0:26:09.560 you know, ball handling master. 0:26:09.720 --> 0:26:13.040 Yeah, that's kind of like one of the Globe Charter 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:16.440 characters that they always kind of filled at one time 0:26:16.520 --> 0:26:20.800 or another. And like today it's Cherrille George, known as Torch, 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:25.640 and apparently she holds the world record for most under 0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:27.880 the leg tumbles in a minute. So it's where you're 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:30.560 dribbling real load to the ground and then you you 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:35.920 basically do a sumrsault while you dribble the ball between 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:39.480 your legs and then when you come up on the sumrsault, 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:41.400 the ball goes right back to your hand. She did 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:44.480 thirty two of those, one after the other in one minute, 0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:48.119 and that's I buy that being the world record for sure. 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:49.480 Did you say she? 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:52.960 I did say she because she is one of three 0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:57.399 women on the the Harlem Globetrotter's team. 0:26:58.040 --> 0:26:58.520 That's right. 0:26:58.600 --> 0:27:01.600 And think about that. If the Globetrotters did somehow get 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:04.960 their own franchise in the NBA, the NBA then would 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:09.320 be integrated among the sexes as well. How nuts would 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:11.359 that be if they not only pushed the NBA to 0:27:11.440 --> 0:27:17.560 integrate racially, but also by sex as well. 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:19.960 Well. I think if they said, you get a franchise, 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:22.160 they wouldn't just bring over these players. They would start 0:27:22.200 --> 0:27:25.000 fresh and draft players. And I don't do man get 0:27:25.000 --> 0:27:27.480 any other expansion team because these players are great, but 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:29.840 they're not NBA. They'd be in the NBA if they 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:35.080 were NBA caliber. It's true, Okay, no, I mean that's 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:37.240 where they get these players, their players from college that 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:39.600 were really good that couldn't go any further. 0:27:39.960 --> 0:27:45.240 Okay, that's new. That's a generally new phenomenon that probably 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:46.360 started in the eighties. 0:27:48.040 --> 0:27:50.919 I would say probably seventies, but sure, okay, but prior 0:27:50.960 --> 0:27:52.359 to that, just fifty years. 0:27:52.400 --> 0:27:55.520 But prior to that, the Harlem and this is significant, 0:27:55.600 --> 0:27:57.960 the Harlem Globe Trotters were a place where you would go, 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:01.800 you could go and and create a career for yourself, 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:05.720 be as good, if not better than the best people 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:08.040 in the NBA. And the Globe Chartters prove that over 0:28:08.080 --> 0:28:09.040 and over and over again. 0:28:09.680 --> 0:28:11.560 Yeah, I mean this was pre NBA, so it wasn't 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:14.479 even a thing yet still at this point. Okay, So 0:28:15.119 --> 0:28:17.480 the magic circle we mentioned with Sweet Georgia Brown, that's 0:28:17.520 --> 0:28:20.800 another thing they're very famous for. It's when they pregame. 0:28:20.840 --> 0:28:23.240 They'll are in at halftime, they'll stand around in their circle. 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:26.960 Sweet Georgia Brown plays on the loud speakers and they 0:28:27.000 --> 0:28:29.960 do that thing where they're going behind their back. They're 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:32.600 doing all these ball tricks. They're spinning it on their finger. 0:28:33.680 --> 0:28:35.879 It's just a little little fun warm up to get 0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:37.240 everybody excited. 0:28:37.680 --> 0:28:41.080 And it works like a charm. It does you want 0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:42.440 to take a break or keep going? 0:28:45.440 --> 0:28:46.040 Let's keep going. 0:28:46.120 --> 0:28:50.200 Okay. So one of the biggest watershed moments in Globe 0:28:50.240 --> 0:28:54.400 Charter history was in nineteen forty eight when the Globe 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:59.120 Chartters challenge the Minneapolis Lakers, whose name makes way more 0:28:59.160 --> 0:29:02.200 sense than the las Ai Angelus Lakers, as I've said 0:29:02.280 --> 0:29:06.600 multiple times on this show, who were the champions of 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:11.080 the World Basketball or National Basketball League at the time, 0:29:11.280 --> 0:29:14.040 challenged them to a game. And the Lakers were all white, 0:29:14.520 --> 0:29:16.760 and their team was centered around a guy named George 0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:21.200 McCann or Miken, and he was six feet ten, wore 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:26.840 glasses and could just he just took shots whenever he 0:29:26.880 --> 0:29:29.080 wanted and he made basically all them. There's just nothing 0:29:29.120 --> 0:29:31.040 you could do to stop him. And he was a 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:36.200 huge reason that Minneapolis were the champs. And in February 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:39.959 of nineteen forty eight, the Globetrotters played the Lakers and 0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:43.280 they beat them, and they beat them like at the buzzer. 0:29:43.320 --> 0:29:48.040 It was like a really dramatic, really amazing game that 0:29:48.160 --> 0:29:51.440 showed the world like, whoa, these guys, who the sports 0:29:51.440 --> 0:29:57.000 writers consider clowns and not serious, just beat the champions 0:29:57.080 --> 0:30:00.880 of a very serious basketball league. What's going on here? 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:04.800 Yeah, And in the pre shot clock era, you could 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:06.520 dribble the ball around at the end of the game, 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:09.600 until somebody fouled you. And in this case they could 0:30:09.600 --> 0:30:13.760 not catch Marcus Haynes, the ball handling master, So with 0:30:13.840 --> 0:30:15.600 less than a minute left in the game was side. 0:30:15.600 --> 0:30:18.160 He was dribbling all over the court, nobody could get 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:21.760 to him. He finally, as the time is expiring, gets 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:24.360 the ball over to Elma Robertson, who drains a twenty 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:28.560 footer and they beat the Lakers. And just to show like, hey, 0:30:28.600 --> 0:30:31.400 this wasn't some fluke, are actually a good team, they played 0:30:31.440 --> 0:30:33.920 them again in nineteen forty nine and beat them again. 0:30:34.120 --> 0:30:37.080 Yeah the following year, and in the Lakers defense, the 0:30:37.160 --> 0:30:39.640 Lakers were leading by ten at the half and the 0:30:39.680 --> 0:30:43.240 Globe Charters were doing zero clowning. They were playing straight basketball. 0:30:43.600 --> 0:30:45.920 Oh yeah, and they still almost lost, but they won. 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:50.520 So by winning those two back to back championships, I 0:30:50.520 --> 0:30:54.720 guess the not just the Globe Charters, but also like 0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:58.000 the Wrens and other black teams showed like we've got 0:30:58.080 --> 0:31:02.320 better players over here. And for you basketball associations that 0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:05.360 are eventually going to become the NBA, like you're shooting 0:31:05.360 --> 0:31:09.000 yourselves in the feet by staying segregated, Like why would 0:31:09.040 --> 0:31:11.000 you do that? Why wouldn't you just want to put 0:31:11.000 --> 0:31:14.960 together the best team you possibly could, regardless of race. 0:31:15.560 --> 0:31:20.680 And the Basketball Association said racism, and the Globetrotter said, yes, 0:31:20.920 --> 0:31:24.880 clearly that's why, but stop doing that. And very quickly 0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:28.080 shortly after those two wins against the Lakers, they did 0:31:28.080 --> 0:31:29.800 start integrating basketball leagues. 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:33.280 Yeah. One of the first guys they signed, actually in 0:31:33.320 --> 0:31:38.080 nineteen fifty was a Globetrotter, Sweetwater Clifton. And so you 0:31:38.120 --> 0:31:41.400 know that what Abe Sabertine set out to do to 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:43.640 prove they were as good or better than anybody in 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:45.880 the pro leagues worked right away. 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:48.120 Yeah, and so he so this was actually like a 0:31:48.160 --> 0:31:51.760 double edged sword that gave Abe Ceperstein like boasting rights, 0:31:51.760 --> 0:31:54.560 which he did a lot about how the NBA wanted 0:31:54.560 --> 0:31:57.600 his players. The first player to ever be signed who 0:31:57.680 --> 0:32:00.400 was black, and the NBA came from the Globe ttris 0:32:00.800 --> 0:32:02.880 at the same time, though it would start to become 0:32:02.920 --> 0:32:06.840 a problem later on as the NBA got better and 0:32:06.880 --> 0:32:09.360 better and stood more and more on its own two feet. 0:32:10.720 --> 0:32:13.560 A great cliffhanger, think so too, All right, we'll be 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:14.040 right back. 0:32:37.920 --> 0:32:40.680 That Sweetwater Clifton, by the way, was one of the 0:32:40.680 --> 0:32:43.680 people who was swindled by Abe Sapristine. He sold his 0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:49.000 contract to I think the Knicks for five thousand dollars 0:32:49.040 --> 0:32:53.960 and gave half of it to Clifton, the player. And 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:55.840 it turns out he had sold the contract for twenty 0:32:55.880 --> 0:32:59.520 thousand dollars and only gave Nat Clifton twenty five hundred 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:02.360 because Clifton thought he was getting half. Like that's the 0:33:02.440 --> 0:33:03.479 kind of stuff he would do. 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:07.200 Yeah, that's not cool. Well, at least Nat Clifton got 0:33:07.240 --> 0:33:07.600 to move on. 0:33:07.880 --> 0:33:09.680 He did move on for sure, and he was ready 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:11.880 to move on too. They were having disputes over things 0:33:11.920 --> 0:33:14.520 like pay and everything yea, and just treatment of players, 0:33:15.240 --> 0:33:18.000 and yeah, Nat Clifton was one of the first black 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:20.080 greats in the NBA. 0:33:20.960 --> 0:33:25.120 Yeah. Absolutely, So early days of the NBA, they're it's 0:33:25.120 --> 0:33:28.280 not Gangbusters right away. They're sort of this new league 0:33:28.280 --> 0:33:33.000 that's struggling to get going. The Globetrotters are huge stars, 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:36.160 way bigger stars than people in the NBA. At the time. 0:33:36.840 --> 0:33:38.440 They were in movies. They were in a movie called 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:42.480 the Harlem Globetrotters, another one called Go Man Go, and 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:46.920 so Sapristine, you know, ever, the businessman in nineteen fifty 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.760 said all right, we're We're named the Globetrotters. We're gonna 0:33:50.760 --> 0:33:53.000 start trotting the globe. And so set off on a 0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:56.480 five month around the world tour. Took places like Rome 0:33:56.680 --> 0:34:00.000 and Paris and London, and they ate it up everywhere 0:33:59.960 --> 0:34:00.280 they went. 0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:04.280 Oh yeah, they were treated like celebrities everywhere, Like they 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:06.840 would just sell out tens and tens of thousands of 0:34:06.880 --> 0:34:09.520 seats in every city that they played a game in. 0:34:10.560 --> 0:34:12.680 People just hadn't seen anything like it over there, and 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:16.440 they were just totally wild and blown over by the Globetrotters. 0:34:17.800 --> 0:34:20.799 The State Department actually got in touch with Abe Saperstein 0:34:21.280 --> 0:34:24.439 and said, hey, you know, we're in a cold war 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:28.600 with the USSR, and they like to basically point out 0:34:28.640 --> 0:34:32.360 how poorly black Americans are treated back home, and the 0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:34.840 Globe Trotters kind of suggest otherwise, So what if we 0:34:34.880 --> 0:34:38.520 make the Globe Trotters goodwill Ambassadors? And so from that 0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:42.640 point on, I think in the early fifties they were 0:34:42.760 --> 0:34:47.960 essentially on the State Department team. They were playing in 0:34:48.040 --> 0:34:50.279 part at the best of the State Department, who was 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:52.880 I don't know if they were helped funding their travels 0:34:52.920 --> 0:34:55.120 or what, but they were definitely good Will ambassadors for 0:34:55.160 --> 0:34:56.080 the United States. 0:34:56.840 --> 0:34:59.040 Yeah. One of the first things they did was they 0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:03.359 played in West Berlin at the Olympic Stadium. There the 0:35:03.520 --> 0:35:09.440 very stadium where Jesse Owens made his name in nineteen 0:35:09.520 --> 0:35:13.200 thirty six at the Berlin Games when Hitler very famously 0:35:13.239 --> 0:35:17.480 refused to shake his hand. He came in, was helicoptered in. 0:35:18.120 --> 0:35:21.440 Jesse Owens dropped in there on the field and he 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:24.960 ran a ceremonial lap to sort of just get everybody 0:35:25.040 --> 0:35:29.200 pumped up before this basketball game in front of seventy 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:30.840 six thousand people. 0:35:31.000 --> 0:35:34.000 Yeah, and the mayor of West Berlin used it as 0:35:34.000 --> 0:35:39.200 an opportunity to reconcile with Jesse Owens on behalf of Germany. 0:35:39.480 --> 0:35:43.319 And I was reading a description of that event, and 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:48.400 supposedly the Globetrotter's game post was delayed by ten fifteen 0:35:48.440 --> 0:35:52.080 minutes because the ovation giving to Jesse Owens and the 0:35:52.120 --> 0:35:55.240 mayor was so long. It just kept going and going. 0:35:55.280 --> 0:35:57.440 So it was neat just to even read about it. 0:35:57.440 --> 0:35:59.000 I can't imagine being there at the time. 0:35:59.560 --> 0:36:02.839 Oh man, So they're on this world tour, they are 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:07.400 celebrities and they're treated as such, and they're having a blast. 0:36:07.440 --> 0:36:10.279 I imagine they come back home to an America that 0:36:10.400 --> 0:36:14.879 is still segregated, and Dave found this one just this 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:19.040 is hard to believe and so shameful. In Jacksonville, Florida 0:36:19.320 --> 0:36:22.840 in the early fifties, a hotel refused them service, and 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:29.000 that same hotel allowed a chimpanzee named Judy, a celebrity 0:36:29.080 --> 0:36:36.080 chimpanzee that bowled on television like Bowling, set Judy up 0:36:36.080 --> 0:36:38.680 in the presidential suite, yet denied the Harlem Globe trotters. 0:36:38.880 --> 0:36:40.680 Yeah, that was an eye opening thing for a lot 0:36:40.719 --> 0:36:43.920 of the globetrotters at the time. It was just that bad. 0:36:44.719 --> 0:36:46.400 On the one hand, they had, like the rest of 0:36:46.440 --> 0:36:49.799 the world to go be received by, and they were, 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:52.200 but just the idea that to have to come back 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:54.440 home to that, yeah, I mean it just had to 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:58.680 be doubly bitter after being treated so well outside of 0:36:58.680 --> 0:37:00.439 the United States outside home. 0:37:00.480 --> 0:37:02.840 You know, of course this would be a good movie. 0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:03.800 I I say that. 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:09.239 Totally for sure. So the late nineteen fifties that the 0:37:09.360 --> 0:37:12.239 NBA started to really come into its own And one 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:14.759 of the reasons why I was saying, Abe Sapristin can 0:37:14.800 --> 0:37:17.160 take a lot of credit for the NBA being around today. 0:37:17.640 --> 0:37:21.160 Is he agreed to help this fledgling NBA make a 0:37:21.239 --> 0:37:24.600 name for itself by playing double headers with them, either 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:28.280 having the Globetrotters play NBA teams or having the NBA 0:37:28.440 --> 0:37:30.600 be like the second the NBA teams were like the 0:37:30.640 --> 0:37:35.320 second game on a double header bill. Yeah, and apparently 0:37:35.520 --> 0:37:37.680 most of the time the crowd would just leave after 0:37:37.719 --> 0:37:40.439 the Globetrotter game, wouldn't stick around for the NBA game, 0:37:40.600 --> 0:37:43.440 But enough people did that the NBA started to catch on, 0:37:43.800 --> 0:37:46.720 and it took about ten years, but it was largely 0:37:46.760 --> 0:37:49.640 thanks to the Globetrotters and Abe Sebristin for getting the 0:37:49.760 --> 0:37:52.439 NBA to a place where it could stand on its own. 0:37:52.560 --> 0:37:55.440 And then once it did, now Abe Sepristin and the 0:37:55.440 --> 0:37:59.040 Globetrotters had a problem because no longer were they the 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:04.279 place where a great black basketball player would aspire to 0:38:04.320 --> 0:38:10.799 go play. They were away station sometimes and then other 0:38:10.800 --> 0:38:14.479 people just went directly around the Globe Charters and straight 0:38:14.520 --> 0:38:15.160 to the NBA. 0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:19.520 Yeah, you know, it was sort of be careful of 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:22.439 what you helped create, because not only like you said, 0:38:22.480 --> 0:38:25.440 are they stealing or not stealing players, but just you know, 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:29.120 signing players away from the Globe Trotters. The Globe Charters 0:38:29.120 --> 0:38:32.720 weren't necessary anymore as this sort of very high profile 0:38:32.800 --> 0:38:36.320 minor league. In a way, Wilt Chamberlain was a Harlem Globetrotter. 0:38:36.400 --> 0:38:39.719 He played for the nineteen fifty eight season. I don't 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:41.480 think a lot of people realize that, you know, one 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:43.960 of the all time great NBA players, Will the Stilt 0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:48.920 was paid six supposedly sixty thousand dollars to play for 0:38:48.960 --> 0:38:51.279 the Harlem Globetrotters for that one season, which would be 0:38:51.280 --> 0:38:53.200 about six hundred thousand dollars today. 0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:55.520 Yeah, which is I think below the minimum for a 0:38:55.560 --> 0:39:01.080 starting salary in the NBA today anyway, but still. 0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:04.240 Yeah, that time a ton of money, and the NBA's 0:39:04.320 --> 0:39:06.440 salaries are very high. 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:09.000 So that brings up something that has nothing to do 0:39:09.040 --> 0:39:11.640 with this, but that came up twice in research when 0:39:11.680 --> 0:39:15.480 they were talking about what the what the Globe Chritters made. 0:39:15.560 --> 0:39:18.680 Initially that like three dollars and fifty cents each per game, 0:39:19.320 --> 0:39:21.880 and how little amount that was is like sixty two 0:39:22.000 --> 0:39:25.279 fifty I think a player a game, and that's a 0:39:25.280 --> 0:39:29.880 small amount of money in today's today's like money in 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:33.600 today's dollars, right, yeah, but that seems to indicate a 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:39.120 trend that even adjusted for inflation, things today are eye 0:39:39.120 --> 0:39:43.520 poppingly more expensive. Like I looked up how much those 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:46.240 players could have gotten for their three dollars and fifty cents, 0:39:46.400 --> 0:39:48.600 and I came across to like a nineteen twenty eight 0:39:49.000 --> 0:39:51.719 menu for like what seems to be a pretty nice restaurant, 0:39:52.040 --> 0:39:55.600 and you could get an amazing dinner with dessert and 0:39:55.640 --> 0:39:57.719 like a couple of soups and salad and all that 0:39:57.760 --> 0:40:03.719 stuff for like fifty sense right, Yeah, today, even in 0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:06.560 today's dollars, that would be something like eight dollars or 0:40:06.600 --> 0:40:10.000 something today. Imagine like having a nice center for just 0:40:10.080 --> 0:40:14.239 eight dollars today. So what happened is my question. I'm 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:18.400 trying to figure out how to how to come up 0:40:18.440 --> 0:40:22.600 with the right question to go research what happened? Like 0:40:22.880 --> 0:40:25.799 why did things get more expensive? Why did people start 0:40:25.800 --> 0:40:30.439 throwing more money at like basketball players, even adjusted for 0:40:30.719 --> 0:40:34.800 today's dollars, Like, what happened? Why did money just blow 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:37.080 up in the last like twenty thirty years. 0:40:37.560 --> 0:40:40.600 Well, in the case of sports, is because players stood 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:42.080 up at one point and we're like, wait a minute, 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:44.640 the owners are making that kind of money we're the 0:40:44.640 --> 0:40:47.000 ones out here that are putting people in the seats, 0:40:47.040 --> 0:40:49.239 and we're making this kind of money. And so they 0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:52.800 unionized and were able to make great deals over the 0:40:52.840 --> 0:40:54.759 year every time they sat down to the negotiating table. 0:40:54.800 --> 0:40:57.879 Okay, but let's say that restaurant that was charging eight 0:40:57.920 --> 0:41:00.760 dollars in today's dollars for a really nice, good dinner. 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:05.840 Sure you would say, okay, well, maybe there's like more 0:41:06.000 --> 0:41:08.360 demand for that. More people have more money to go 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:12.120 out to dinner, so they're doing that. So the restaurants 0:41:12.120 --> 0:41:14.440 are going to charge more because of supply and demand. 0:41:14.480 --> 0:41:17.560 There's a higher demand and thus less supply. I would 0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:19.880 argue there is not less supply. I would say that 0:41:19.920 --> 0:41:22.920 the supply has increased even more than the demand has, 0:41:23.160 --> 0:41:26.080 and yet that same dinner probably costs three to four 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:29.560 times what it should adjusted for today's dollars. 0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:32.840 Why, yeah, I see what you mean. I'm sure that 0:41:32.920 --> 0:41:35.920 somebody will ride in and say, well, guys, it's just 0:41:36.120 --> 0:41:41.280 research the last forty years of the corporatization of whatever 0:41:41.400 --> 0:41:43.680 or something like. There's probably something you can point to 0:41:43.800 --> 0:41:46.160 that made things go really out of whack. And it 0:41:46.160 --> 0:41:50.680 wouldn't surprise me if it was the consolidation of wealth 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:52.600 and corporations in general. 0:41:52.680 --> 0:41:54.759 But that's exactly what I'm hoping for bringing this up. 0:41:54.800 --> 0:41:57.360 I hope somebody who knows what I'm saying but just 0:41:57.400 --> 0:41:58.440 don't know how to say it. 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:02.319 Yeah, like, how can we research this speak exactly? Yeah, 0:42:02.360 --> 0:42:06.400 I'm with you. I'm with you. Thanks back to the 0:42:06.400 --> 0:42:12.240 Harlem Globetrotters, though the NBA is getting these players from 0:42:12.320 --> 0:42:14.799 the Globetrotters, you know, kind of one after the other, 0:42:15.400 --> 0:42:17.719 and so the Globetrotters are like, all right, well, you 0:42:17.760 --> 0:42:20.759 know what that means, Our days are numbered unless we 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:25.600 really lean into this comedy stuff. And from sort of 0:42:25.600 --> 0:42:29.600 the mid nineteen fifties on, it really became the Harlem 0:42:29.640 --> 0:42:34.200 Globetrotters like basketball, fun time comedy show that we all 0:42:34.239 --> 0:42:37.080 know and love today. Starting with their leader who you mentioned, 0:42:37.080 --> 0:42:40.400 metal ark Lemon, who was there from fifty four to 0:42:40.440 --> 0:42:42.280 seventy eight, and he was kind of the central figure. 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:45.319 Yeah, they lucked out that metalw ark Lemon saw a 0:42:45.360 --> 0:42:49.120 newsreel when he was eleven in nineteen forty five at 0:42:49.120 --> 0:42:53.160 his movie theater in Wilmington, North Carolina, and decided like 0:42:53.239 --> 0:42:56.600 he was going to grow up to be a Harlem Globetrotter. 0:42:56.680 --> 0:42:59.480 That was his life's pursuit, and he made it happen. 0:42:59.520 --> 0:43:03.279 I think in his twenties he joined the team and 0:43:03.320 --> 0:43:06.919 became like kind of the ring master of the whole thing. 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:11.160 He became far and away their greatest star, not just 0:43:11.239 --> 0:43:14.479 of his era, but of like all time essentially. Meadow 0:43:14.640 --> 0:43:18.960 arc Lemon is well known even outside of exactly for sure, 0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:24.360 he was the one who led the crew on Scooby Doo. 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:29.920 He was at the heart of the Harlem Globetrotter Saturday 0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:32.600 Morning cartoon like that kind of stuff. Like it was 0:43:32.640 --> 0:43:35.400 all meadow Lark all the time. And I get the 0:43:35.400 --> 0:43:37.319 impression that some of the other members of the team 0:43:37.320 --> 0:43:41.200 were not super happy about exactly how inequitable things were. 0:43:41.239 --> 0:43:44.719 But he definitely brought the crowds and he was a 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:46.200 huge crowd pleaser for sure. 0:43:47.120 --> 0:43:49.600 Yeah, he's the guy who invented the confetti bit, which 0:43:49.680 --> 0:43:52.879 is you're chasing a referee down with what everyone thinks 0:43:53.000 --> 0:43:56.040 is a bucket of water and he throws it into 0:43:56.040 --> 0:43:58.960 the stands and misses the referee and everyone goes crazy, 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:03.040 but it's really confetti still works somehow. He's the one 0:44:03.040 --> 0:44:06.920 that started pulling everyone shorts down and pantsing everybody, referees, 0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:11.000 fellow players, Washington generals. He's a guy that started doing 0:44:11.080 --> 0:44:15.120 that half court hook shot, which a guy still does 0:44:15.120 --> 0:44:17.080 that now they're keeping that traditional alive. But I think 0:44:17.120 --> 0:44:19.440 it was they have a guy from Atlanta because at 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:21.600 least in the one I saw, because it was you know, 0:44:21.680 --> 0:44:23.520 played up that it was a hometown show for him 0:44:23.880 --> 0:44:26.200 and he was the guy that was shooting the half 0:44:26.200 --> 0:44:28.239 court hook shot, and he didn't make any of them, 0:44:28.239 --> 0:44:31.279 but he came really really close. It's very hard to do. 0:44:31.360 --> 0:44:33.719 Supposedly metal Arc Lemon was so good at it that 0:44:33.760 --> 0:44:37.680 he would nail it seventy percent of the time. I'm 0:44:37.719 --> 0:44:38.680 not so sure about well. 0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:40.719 He has a lot of legend around him, like he 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:44.040 even on the Hall of Fame Basketball Hall of Fame website, 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:47.720 he's credited with playing sixteen thousand games as a Globe Trotter, 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:50.680 And all you have to do is the math and 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.759 you'll see that that's basically impossible. He would have had 0:44:53.800 --> 0:44:57.640 to have played. He would have had to have played 0:44:57.960 --> 0:45:02.120 two games a day every day for twenty one years 0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:04.799 to reach that number, and he was only with the 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:07.680 Globetrotters for twenty four years and I'm quite sure the 0:45:07.719 --> 0:45:12.400 math still isn't wash out, but it just kind of 0:45:12.440 --> 0:45:14.480 goes to show like how willing everybody is to go 0:45:14.600 --> 0:45:16.640 along with it. That's how good of a ballplayer. He 0:45:16.880 --> 0:45:20.680 was that they're like, yeah, that's probably not that far off. 0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:25.719 Yeah. Absolutely. As far as sort of the perception and 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:29.719 legacy of the Globetrotters at the time, some looked down 0:45:29.800 --> 0:45:33.359 upon them from the civil rights community and said that, 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:36.959 you know, you guys are perpetuating these stereotypes. You're sort 0:45:36.960 --> 0:45:41.720 of doing a basketball version of a traveling minstrel show. 0:45:42.760 --> 0:45:46.360 Other people said, no, that's not what's going on. No 0:45:46.480 --> 0:45:49.239 less than Jesse Jackson would stand up for them, and 0:45:49.440 --> 0:45:52.840 his quote was the Globetrotters did not show blacks as stupid. 0:45:53.200 --> 0:45:56.640 On the contrary, they were shown as superior. He was like, 0:45:56.680 --> 0:45:58.719 they're you know, they're bringing this to an audience who 0:45:58.719 --> 0:46:02.320 maybe has never seen something like this. It's fun. They're 0:46:02.600 --> 0:46:05.759 really good at what they do, and stop with all that. 0:46:06.239 --> 0:46:09.879 Yeah, So they made it through that really rough time. 0:46:09.920 --> 0:46:14.040 They'd navigate that because they definitely were old school black 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:18.200 comedy in a time where that was increasingly looked upon 0:46:18.400 --> 0:46:24.799 as offensive. To the black community. So they navigated that. 0:46:24.800 --> 0:46:27.560 They managed to and I think I don't know how 0:46:27.600 --> 0:46:30.040 much they changed. I think they made They just weathered 0:46:30.080 --> 0:46:32.279 that criticism and came out the other side, you know. 0:46:33.400 --> 0:46:37.200 So one of the reasons they were superior, though, is 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:41.880 because there was almost always a team in the Globe 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:45.719 chartter history that was paid to lose to them. Yeah, 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:50.000 which kind of explains their twenty two thousand to three 0:46:50.200 --> 0:46:52.520 d and forty five win loss ratio. 0:46:53.800 --> 0:46:56.440 Absolutely, they went by different names over the years, the 0:46:56.440 --> 0:47:00.480 Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Atlantic City See Goals. 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:03.640 But in modern times we all know and love them 0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:06.960 as the Washington Generals. They used to be an all 0:47:07.000 --> 0:47:11.399 white team. Now the Generals are integrated as well. And 0:47:11.800 --> 0:47:14.879 you know, it's a it's a gig where you get 0:47:14.920 --> 0:47:18.000 to keep playing basketball and you get to get paid 0:47:18.080 --> 0:47:22.319 for playing basketball. You gotta be okay with being the 0:47:22.880 --> 0:47:27.520 you know, the sucker sometimes and to be pants and 0:47:27.719 --> 0:47:32.080 to lose. But these guys can play like they always 0:47:32.120 --> 0:47:34.080 could play. But you know this team that I just 0:47:34.080 --> 0:47:36.600 saw last year, like these guys were good. They had 0:47:36.600 --> 0:47:41.160 this they had this point guard that was just draining 0:47:41.480 --> 0:47:45.799 really really long jump shot three pointers like Steph Curry 0:47:45.800 --> 0:47:48.080 style six to seven, Trey Young style eight feet behind 0:47:48.120 --> 0:47:51.640 the three point line, and like, you can't. You can 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:55.560 fake and script things, but you can't, you know, make 0:47:55.600 --> 0:47:58.319 that ball go in nothing but net unless you're really 0:47:58.320 --> 0:47:59.920 good at that. And this guy was awesome. 0:48:00.200 --> 0:48:03.120 So yeah, a handful of them have gone on to 0:48:03.160 --> 0:48:05.600 play in the NBA. So it's almost like the no, 0:48:05.640 --> 0:48:07.359 I'm not giving up yet, I'm going to play for 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:11.120 the Generals and then get back into the NBA, almost 0:48:11.120 --> 0:48:13.839 like playing in Europe. How a lot of people do that, 0:48:13.960 --> 0:48:16.879 whether it's like then doesn't take them up for a year, 0:48:17.000 --> 0:48:18.719 so they go play in Europe somewhere and then try 0:48:18.760 --> 0:48:21.440 again the next season. I think that's kind of what 0:48:21.480 --> 0:48:24.920 the Generals were for a while. But there was one 0:48:25.239 --> 0:48:30.160 instance where the Generals won, And if you go back 0:48:30.200 --> 0:48:34.960 and read the details of this game in January of 0:48:35.000 --> 0:48:39.880 nineteen seventy one, it's not clear whether it was purposeful 0:48:40.040 --> 0:48:44.480 or accidental, but the Globe Triters weren't paying attention to 0:48:44.560 --> 0:48:48.000 the score they didn't need to normally, and the Generals 0:48:48.000 --> 0:48:50.719 were starting to creep up on them, and it came 0:48:50.800 --> 0:48:54.280 down to I think a one point deficit, and somebody 0:48:54.280 --> 0:48:58.239 took a shot, a guy named Lewis Herman Klotz, who 0:48:58.320 --> 0:48:59.600 helped put the Generals together. 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:01.120 He was in his fifties. 0:49:01.200 --> 0:49:04.480 Yeah, he took the last shot and he sunk it 0:49:04.560 --> 0:49:08.080 and won accidentally one. According to a lot. 0:49:07.920 --> 0:49:12.160 Of people, Yeah, amazing. It's like sort of at the 0:49:12.239 --> 0:49:16.080 end of a modern NBA All Star game, when everyone's 0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:18.480 goofing off and having fun until like the last two 0:49:18.600 --> 0:49:20.719 or three minutes, and then they're like, all right, we 0:49:20.800 --> 0:49:23.000 want to win, apparent and things get serious. 0:49:23.040 --> 0:49:26.080 Apparently Klatts's quote was, it was like we had just 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:27.640 killed Santa Claus. 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:34.319 I that's funny. You know Scottie and I who you know, 0:49:34.360 --> 0:49:38.439 a friend of ours. He was the DP for our 0:49:38.600 --> 0:49:40.960 TV show and a very old friend of mine. We 0:49:41.239 --> 0:49:43.880 had written some stuff here and there, screenplays and like 0:49:44.280 --> 0:49:47.120 partnered up here and there, and at one point we 0:49:47.120 --> 0:49:51.719 were writing a script on a Washington General's team. As 0:49:51.760 --> 0:49:54.800 the centerpiece, like thinly veiled, there would be a Globe Trotters. 0:49:54.800 --> 0:49:56.799 They wouldn't be called the Globetrotters or the Generals, but 0:49:57.640 --> 0:49:59.239 we just thought it was a really funny idea to 0:49:59.280 --> 0:50:03.880 follow this team that always has to lose and be 0:50:04.080 --> 0:50:07.080 the sucker of this getting pants, and then they come 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:09.319 up with this plan to like win the game one time. 0:50:09.360 --> 0:50:13.400 So is it gonna be more like a sports movie 0:50:13.440 --> 0:50:17.080 where like it's really about the game, or is it 0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:19.520 gonna be like slap Shot where it's more about the 0:50:19.560 --> 0:50:21.279 lives of the people playing the. 0:50:21.239 --> 0:50:23.840 Game, more slap Shot than Hoosiers. 0:50:23.960 --> 0:50:26.560 Okay, yeah, okay, So but. 0:50:26.520 --> 0:50:29.600 Then Will Ferrell did that basketball movie, and I think 0:50:29.600 --> 0:50:32.080 this is sort of around the time we're thinking about it. 0:50:32.440 --> 0:50:33.439 Oh, is it the same thing? 0:50:34.600 --> 0:50:37.080 No, but it was just I don't know, it was 0:50:37.120 --> 0:50:39.040 sort of like, all right, well, no one's gonna want 0:50:39.040 --> 0:50:40.919 to make this movie because this one just came out 0:50:41.400 --> 0:50:42.719 and did I don't think it did very well. 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:45.400 Yeah, I think that. I think enthusiasm for that particular 0:50:45.480 --> 0:50:47.200 movie is cool. Do you guys can probably take a 0:50:47.200 --> 0:50:48.000 shot at it again. 0:50:49.080 --> 0:50:51.040 Yeah. I mean there's not a lot of great basketball movies. 0:50:51.239 --> 0:50:53.760 Hoosiers is one of the all time great sports movies period, 0:50:55.680 --> 0:50:57.319 but there's not a whole lot else. The Fish that 0:50:57.360 --> 0:51:00.680 say Pittsburgh what you remember that though this is a 0:51:00.680 --> 0:51:02.759 basketball movie, Doctor j was in it called the Fish 0:51:02.760 --> 0:51:06.560 Who Save Pittsburgh. I remember that from when I was 0:51:06.600 --> 0:51:08.760 a kid. But yeah, not a lot of great basketball movies. 0:51:09.239 --> 0:51:10.840 Well, I say you and Scott should get to you 0:51:10.880 --> 0:51:11.279 at Chuck. 0:51:12.080 --> 0:51:14.160 All right, maybe it's time that movie has been forgotten 0:51:14.160 --> 0:51:14.440 by now. 0:51:14.520 --> 0:51:18.120 Well, since Chuck agreed to get back to producing his 0:51:18.200 --> 0:51:21.920 basketball movie with Scott, I think that means that this 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:25.120 episode's over and it's time for listener man. 0:51:29.280 --> 0:51:31.680 Yeah, it was a good one. That was That was 0:51:31.680 --> 0:51:32.960 a fun episode. I enjoyed that. 0:51:33.040 --> 0:51:34.800 I agree completely. It was a good episode. 0:51:34.920 --> 0:51:38.000 Check. Yeah, that was fun. And again go see him everybody. 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:40.760 It's a lot of fun. They're not filling arenas anymore, 0:51:40.760 --> 0:51:42.479 which it makes me sad, but they had a pretty 0:51:42.480 --> 0:51:47.799 good crowd. Good all right. This is just a really 0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:49.640 lovely thank you. We like to read those every now 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:52.279 and then. Hey, guys, you've been by my side for 0:51:52.320 --> 0:51:55.400 fifteen years. You shared your voices, your stories, your laughter, 0:51:55.440 --> 0:51:58.359 and your curiosity with me. You've been with me through 0:51:58.360 --> 0:51:59.840 the highs and the lows of my life, during my 0:52:00.040 --> 0:52:03.520 journey of moving multiple times, changing careers, surviving an accident 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:07.560 where walking after was painful for many years, recovering slowly 0:52:07.600 --> 0:52:11.600 from those injuries, hiking again, and coping with divorce. You've 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:13.760 inspired me to keep exploring the world, to keep learning 0:52:13.800 --> 0:52:16.840 new things, and keep finding joy. And every day you 0:52:16.880 --> 0:52:18.440 make me feel like I'm a part of your family, 0:52:18.680 --> 0:52:21.400 even though we've never met. Look for an episode on 0:52:21.440 --> 0:52:25.640 that coming soon, Danny. You are some of my favorite teachers. 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:30.600 Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes wrong, but always genuine and generous. 0:52:30.760 --> 0:52:32.120 Does Dany's got us pegged? 0:52:32.719 --> 0:52:34.960 I know he didn't have to mention that, but that's fine. 0:52:35.480 --> 0:52:37.600 For fifteen years, you have opened your hearts, your minds, 0:52:37.680 --> 0:52:39.920 under your arms to all of us who listen. For 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:42.399 fifteen years, I've been lucky to know two amazing dudes 0:52:42.400 --> 0:52:44.400 who make the world a better place. I hope you 0:52:44.480 --> 0:52:46.800 never stopped making the show because I don't want to 0:52:46.840 --> 0:52:50.040 stop listening. I know that life is unpredictable, that nothing 0:52:50.080 --> 0:52:52.640 lasts forever, So I'm excited to finally see you both 0:52:52.680 --> 0:52:56.880 at Nashville. In Nashville on the sixth, So Danny was 0:52:56.920 --> 0:52:59.680 at our show and he just finishes out by saying, 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:01.480 thank you. Thank you so much for being the stability 0:53:01.520 --> 0:53:04.319 some of us need, the platform of knowledge that help 0:53:04.400 --> 0:53:06.960 us leap into a land of wonder and learning, and 0:53:07.239 --> 0:53:11.200 just for being there for fifteen years. Seriously, thank you. Yeah, 0:53:11.400 --> 0:53:16.480 and that is Danny Westfall. Danny, you, my friend, are 0:53:16.520 --> 0:53:17.000 the MVP. 0:53:17.600 --> 0:53:19.759 Yeah you are. Thanks a lot, Danny. Those are really 0:53:19.800 --> 0:53:23.120 excellent email and we hope you enjoyed the Nashville show. 0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:25.840 That's a good That was a great one. 0:53:26.000 --> 0:53:27.560 If you want to be like Danny and write as 0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:30.600 a truly great email, we love those. You can wrap 0:53:30.640 --> 0:53:33.680 it up, dribble it on the bottom, and send it 0:53:33.719 --> 0:53:38.160 off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:53:39.280 --> 0:53:42.239 You Know, Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:53:42.760 --> 0:53:45.960 For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:53:46.160 --> 0:53:49.040 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.