Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we want to let you know that that
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Speaker 1: You're welcome, Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: shoul no the problem Globe Trotter Edition. It's a little
Speaker 2: on the nose as far as edition names go, but
Speaker 2: it is what it is.
Speaker 1: How's that pretty great. Oh are you gonna follow up?
Speaker 2: I was just egging you on.
Speaker 1: Okay, I feel like I get a little off key
Speaker 1: because it goes in some you know, more subtle directions.
Speaker 2: It does. And what you're referring to is, of course,
Speaker 2: the song Sweet Georgia Brown by Brother Bones.
Speaker 1: Right, Brother Bones, who was a halftime musical act for
Speaker 1: the Globetrotters. And as the story goes, it was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I got this banging whistled version of Sweet Georgia Brown
Speaker 1: that I'm doing during your little magic circle routine and
Speaker 1: it stuck for seventy years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they decided to make it basically their unofficial official
Speaker 2: team song. And if you remember, that was my first
Speaker 2: forty five record ever?
Speaker 1: Was it really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? After seeing the Globetrotters, that's that song. So my
Speaker 2: dad took me to probably Peaches Records in Toledo and
Speaker 2: I got the forty five.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's talk real quick. So you saw
Speaker 1: the Globetrotters in what year? Roughly?
Speaker 2: My guess is it would have been eighty two, eighty three.
Speaker 1: I mean that's if not, you know, the Golden Era
Speaker 1: just sort of it's just after just after the Golden.
Speaker 2: Era Curly was still there, but Metal Lark left.
Speaker 1: Okay. I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters on Wide World
Speaker 1: of Sports or wherever they played them on Sunday afternoons.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the best thing ever. I loved basketball,
Speaker 1: I love comedy. I thought it was funny.
Speaker 2: Oh well, they were right up your alley then.
Speaker 1: But I did not see the Harlem Globetrotters, my friend
Speaker 1: until last year. Oh really, yep. I took Ruby and
Speaker 1: Emily and my father in law Steve and Scotty who
Speaker 1: you know, sure of course, and we went and saw
Speaker 1: the Harlem Globetrotters here in Atlanta, and I gotta tell you, dude,
Speaker 1: I was like a kid all over again. It was
Speaker 1: so much fun. All those old bits they did, and
Speaker 1: it was genuinely funny, like it wasn't like, oh well,
Speaker 1: this is quaint and sort of old fashioned, like I was.
Speaker 1: Scotty and I were dying laughing, and we just had
Speaker 1: the best time. I highly recommend you anyone should still go.
Speaker 1: It's still so much fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would after doing this research, I would definitely
Speaker 2: go to see them. And they have a twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: twenty four World tour plan, which I think is pretty
Speaker 2: much par for the course with them every year.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But if you look, you're like, wow, they're in three
Speaker 2: different cities on this one day. And it's because, which
Speaker 2: is a long standing tradition with the Globetrotters, they have
Speaker 2: so many great players that they'll split them into multiple
Speaker 2: teams and just send them out around the country. So
Speaker 2: there is one hundred percent chance essentially that they are
Speaker 2: coming within probably twenty miles of whatever town you live in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go see him. It's a lot of fun. I mean,
Speaker 1: they still just have so much personality. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the guy's name, at least at the one I saw
Speaker 1: who sort of is the metal Arclemit who sort of
Speaker 1: is the ringleader, But he was just he had so
Speaker 1: much charisma. And they're great basketball players. So it's modernized
Speaker 1: a little bit, but it's still what it always has been,
Speaker 1: and it was just so much fun.
Speaker 2: What's funny, is, Chuck, is that them being great basketball
Speaker 2: players is actually a throwback to their original I guess
Speaker 2: kind of iteration.
Speaker 1: Look at you bringing it all around.
Speaker 2: I like to do that sometimes, So.
Speaker 1: Are we in the nineteen twenties, then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the beginning of the Harlem Globetrotters. It's actually
Speaker 2: predates the Harlem Globetrotters, and I think the early to
Speaker 2: mid nineteen.
Speaker 1: Twenties, that's right. So we're going to set up sort
Speaker 1: of basketball at the time, which is to say, basketball
Speaker 1: is pretty new. It was not hugely popular as far
Speaker 1: as if you want to compare it to football and baseball,
Speaker 1: it was well into third place if that behind you know,
Speaker 1: horse racing and I'm sure a lot of other things
Speaker 1: are more popular at the Why the NBA didn't even
Speaker 1: come around until forty nine, so this was quite a
Speaker 1: while before that. And what they did have though, and
Speaker 1: we've seen this in other sports and other sort of entertainment,
Speaker 1: it was touring. But they called it barnstormy. It was
Speaker 1: when you traveled around to different small towns and they
Speaker 1: would get teams together to go on these little tours
Speaker 1: and barnstorm and play each other and you know, essentially
Speaker 1: exhibition games because there wasn't a league, but they were
Speaker 1: you know, competitive, real basketball games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd be like, hey, you, hay Seeds, look at
Speaker 2: this exactly. Sometimes also like there wouldn't even be a team,
Speaker 2: but like some of these teams would go play locals,
Speaker 2: like local groups of farmers or whatever would take these
Speaker 2: teams on. And I don't know why, but I think
Speaker 2: think it was maybe like how sometimes wrestlers will take
Speaker 2: on any comers at like some small town or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But so that's the beginnings of basketball. And it's really
Speaker 2: interesting that like there were people out there who loved
Speaker 2: the game enough that they made a career for themselves
Speaker 2: for they figured out how to do it. And this
Speaker 2: was really really close to the beginning of the Harlem Globetrotters.
Speaker 2: And in fact, the group that originally formed the first
Speaker 2: Harlem Globetrotter started out as players at Wendell Phillips High
Speaker 2: School and All Black High School in Chicago that said, hey,
Speaker 2: we're pretty good, let's go start a barnstorming team ourselves.
Speaker 1: That's right. And this is either in twenty five or
Speaker 1: twenty six. They didn't have a name at first. They
Speaker 1: were sponsored by the South Side Giles Post of the
Speaker 1: American Legion, so there are some sources that'll say they
Speaker 1: were they were called the Giles Post American Legion quintet Okay,
Speaker 1: But then another thing happened the Savoy Ballroom and Chicago
Speaker 1: in Bronzeville, it was a black owned entertainment venue, very popular,
Speaker 1: and on the weekends they would have these big dances,
Speaker 1: and they thought, well, hey, why don't we have a
Speaker 1: little opening act and have a basketball game before these dances.
Speaker 1: Maybe it'll sell some more tickets and at the very
Speaker 1: least it'll be fun and sort of get people going
Speaker 1: before the big dance. And in nineteen twenty six they
Speaker 1: hired that Wendell Phillips team and they named them the
Speaker 1: Savoy Big Five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know how long they played for
Speaker 2: this dance hall, the Savoy Ballroom, but I don't get
Speaker 2: the impression knows very long, because I think that they
Speaker 2: weren't moving tickets like the owners thought they would, and
Speaker 2: so they moved on to something else. I can't remember
Speaker 2: what it was, but they basically got rid of the
Speaker 2: basketball team, which left them essentially free agents. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of lost to history exactly how this happened. But
Speaker 2: a guy named Abe Sapperstein came in and attached himself
Speaker 2: to the Savoy Big Five, scooped them up after they
Speaker 2: were fired, took them away from the Savoy Who knows,
Speaker 2: but this is about the time in the mid to
Speaker 2: late nineteen twenties, about the mid nineteen twenties where Abe
Speaker 2: Sapristine comes in, and you can say, like without qualification
Speaker 2: that had it not been for Abe Sapristine entering, there
Speaker 2: would be no Harlem Globetrotters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. He was born in London, but he
Speaker 1: was raised in He was Jewish and raised in an
Speaker 1: Irish German neighborhood in Chicago. And he was a little guy.
Speaker 1: He loved basketball. But they say he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: five three, five four or something like that, so really
Speaker 1: small to be playing basketball, even at the time when
Speaker 1: guys weren't super tall playing basketball generally. Yeah, or you
Speaker 1: could be, you know, a little shorter and still get by,
Speaker 1: but he would play a little hard out. He tried
Speaker 1: out for the University of Illinois team and did not
Speaker 1: make the team, and then dropped out and worked for
Speaker 1: the Chicago Park Department as a playground supervisor. And if
Speaker 1: you you know, listen to him sort of tell his
Speaker 1: own story of the lore, he's going to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw these guys playing basketball on the playground.
Speaker 1: I'd never seen basketball played like this before, and I
Speaker 1: knew right away that you know, I had to get
Speaker 1: these guys and you know, make them like the best
Speaker 1: team that they could be.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the that's the lore. Again, it's kind of
Speaker 2: lost to history, but the I think by the nineteen
Speaker 2: like nineteen twenty six, nineteen twenty seven, Abe Sapristein was
Speaker 2: attached to this group of players from Wendell Phillips High
Speaker 2: School that would become the Harlem Globetrotters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the first thing he did was
Speaker 1: changed that name because he wanted to take them barnstorming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like, I can make some money here. So he
Speaker 1: named him the Harlem Globetrotters right out of the gate
Speaker 1: because he was a savvy marketing guy, and he's bringing
Speaker 1: this team on the road in the He's like small
Speaker 1: towns and Kansas and Indiana who had never you know,
Speaker 1: who knows how much interaction they had with black people
Speaker 1: in rural Kansas at the time, they at the very
Speaker 1: least they probably hadn't seen an all black basketball team
Speaker 1: come through town. So he was like, this is a
Speaker 1: sellable thing, you know, to turn these people onto this,
Speaker 1: and so Harlem, like everybody knows what Harlem represents, it's
Speaker 1: the center of black culture in the nineteen twenty So
Speaker 1: if I put Harlem on the name, it's they're immediately
Speaker 1: going to know this is a black team. And if
Speaker 1: I call them the Globetrotters, even though we're really not
Speaker 1: globe trotting yet, they're gonna you know, it's just it's
Speaker 1: gonna guss him up to where they sound like this
Speaker 1: sort of worldly team that's been everywhere playing this sport
Speaker 1: and it just has a nice ring together and it
Speaker 1: should sell some tickets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean he was right, definitely does have
Speaker 2: a nice ring. But it's ironic that this the Harlem
Speaker 2: Globetrotters originated in Chicago, Yeah, and apparently didn't play their
Speaker 2: first game in Harlem until nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had nothing to do with Harlem. I don't
Speaker 1: think it.
Speaker 2: Took forty years for them to finally get to play
Speaker 2: in Harlem, right, but it was it was you could
Speaker 2: almost call it today, a dog whistle that would would
Speaker 2: guarantee that no, you know, Kansas Farmer would show up
Speaker 2: at this game thinking he was coming to see a
Speaker 2: white basketball team and giving like racially angry that he
Speaker 2: had been tricked into giving his money to a black
Speaker 2: basketball team. In addition to just kind of signaling that,
Speaker 2: it also did say like, but not only is this
Speaker 2: like a black team, this is like a black team
Speaker 2: from the greatest black city in America. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 2: prestigious too, but it also was a signal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so, Saprosine. He coached. He was with the
Speaker 1: team for a long time. He coached them into his sixties.
Speaker 1: And he was, you know, criticized many times throughout the
Speaker 1: years for being too controlling, for underpaying his guys, for
Speaker 1: not giving them any say and like what they did
Speaker 1: or how they did it, kind of like I'm the boss,
Speaker 1: and you do what I say, for perpetuating racial stereotypes.
Speaker 1: He was not some perfect guy. But he also, you know,
Speaker 1: as we'll see, in his own way, eventually led to
Speaker 1: you know, the integration of the NBA and putting black
Speaker 1: players on a stage that no one had ever done
Speaker 1: before in sort of elevating their perception to the rest
Speaker 1: of America and as you'll see the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame in nineteen seventy one. And I don't dispute the
Speaker 2: impact that he had on it, but it is he
Speaker 2: definitely it wasn't like mischievous or like in the gray
Speaker 2: area he swindled some of his players.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: He told one star player later on, Marcus Haynes, that
Speaker 2: he believed black players didn't deserve or didn't need as
Speaker 2: much money as white players. They just didn't. Black people
Speaker 2: just didn't need as much money, and that was why
Speaker 2: he underpaid his black players. Apparently they found out once
Speaker 2: that a group of college all stars that was touring
Speaker 2: as a warm up act for the Globetrotters was getting
Speaker 2: paid more than the Globetrotters. He did a lot of
Speaker 2: really shady, underhanded stuff. So he's a good study in
Speaker 2: one of those things that's like, okay, this he was
Speaker 2: not like a sterling example of somebody even for his time,
Speaker 2: but he also did do some really amazing things that
Speaker 2: benefited a lot of black people during his lifetime and
Speaker 2: well beyond today actually, because you can kind of give
Speaker 2: him credit for giving the NBA the stability it needed
Speaker 2: to take off on its own too.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And you know that's also and this is
Speaker 1: not defending him, but this is also the history of
Speaker 1: pro sports ownership, right, Like in a nutshell. This is
Speaker 1: how it was almost with everybody as far as not
Speaker 1: integrating the leagues and sort of the ownership aspect. And
Speaker 1: I mean that's why players still complain about this stuff.
Speaker 1: That's why they formed players' unions and banded together for like,
Speaker 1: you know, better treatment and better pay and where you're
Speaker 1: not going to just pay us a little bit amount
Speaker 1: of money and you take everything else. Right. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: interesting we should I don't know, maybe there's an episode
Speaker 1: in there somewhere about like the history of sports ownership,
Speaker 1: because it's fraught with stories like this.
Speaker 2: I could totally see that. I could totally Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think that's a great idea. But to kind of wrap
Speaker 2: up Sapirsteine at least his introduction, he owned the Globe Trotters,
Speaker 2: not just the team, not just the name like the Globetrotters.
Speaker 2: He believed not he believed that that if you wanted
Speaker 2: to play on his team, he was the boss. He
Speaker 2: was in charge, He called the shots, he was not
Speaker 2: to be questioned. He even called himself coach to these
Speaker 2: players that did not need a coach, but they kind
Speaker 2: of humored him and played along. But he was in
Speaker 2: charge and his whole jam was I'm creating a place
Speaker 2: where if you're a black basketball player and you're good,
Speaker 2: this is the team you want to be on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he created that absolutely. Uh, good time for break,
Speaker 1: I think, good setup. And we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: the fact that they were not comedians at first. All right,
Speaker 1: so we are back with promise to talk about the
Speaker 1: Harlem Globetrotters as a serious basketball team, because that is
Speaker 1: what they were for many years. They did not come
Speaker 1: out of the gate doing you know, the confetti and
Speaker 1: a bucket trick. They came out playing some really good basketball,
Speaker 1: to the tune of a record reportedly of one hundred
Speaker 1: and one and six over their first one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeen games or so, and they traveled throughout the thirties.
Speaker 1: They would pile apparently into Abe Saperstein's giant model t
Speaker 1: and they would play eight games a week for twenty
Speaker 1: five bucks a game for the entire team, sapristein they
Speaker 1: would split it up at Sapristine would get two shares,
Speaker 1: and back then that wasn't even a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But they loved the game and they were getting paid
Speaker 1: to play it.
Speaker 2: No today, they would be making five hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 2: So you had to love the game to be doing
Speaker 2: that for sure, because there was a lot of it
Speaker 2: was hard work in addition to traveling constantly too, So
Speaker 2: the people who are playing like really love to play,
Speaker 2: and this is the one place they could play and
Speaker 2: make any money at it. And by the way, that
Speaker 2: winning percentage, it's zero point eight sixty three win percentage
Speaker 2: in their first year, and only the twenty fifteen sixteen
Speaker 2: Warriors and the ninety five ninety six Bulls have better
Speaker 2: win percentages and they each only played eighty two games.
Speaker 2: These guys played one hundred and seventeen. And it's kind
Speaker 2: of joky now because everyone knows the Generals aren't supposed
Speaker 2: to win. But as of twenty twenty two, the win
Speaker 2: loss ratio for the Harlem Globe Charters was twenty seven
Speaker 2: thousand to three and forty five.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you don't know, the Generals
Speaker 1: are the team that they always play now on their
Speaker 1: road show, right, we kind of assume people know that,
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yet not talk about the General Wait everybody, just
Speaker 2: wait a second.
Speaker 1: So they're traveling around the country. When they play in
Speaker 1: the North, they're playing against white teams and black teams.
Speaker 1: There was a team called the New York Renaissance, the Wrens.
Speaker 1: They were the first all black professional basketball team. When
Speaker 1: they went to the South, this was the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 1: They would play in front of black crowds and only
Speaker 1: against black teams. And it was rough. You know, they
Speaker 1: were in a South that was obviously segregated, not treating
Speaker 1: them equally, not letting them stay in hotels, not letting
Speaker 1: them eat in restaurants. There was one story. Dave Ruse
Speaker 1: helped us with this. He dug up that in Nebraska
Speaker 1: they had to sleep in the county jail because they
Speaker 1: could not find a hotel that would house them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They also they would play two games a night in
Speaker 2: the South because they would play in front of a
Speaker 2: black crowd and then they would go across town and
Speaker 2: play in front of a white crowd, so they would
Speaker 2: play two a day. I'm not sure if they got
Speaker 2: paid for both games or not, but yeah, it was
Speaker 2: in addition to riding around in a Model T with
Speaker 2: five other people and getting twenty five bucks a game,
Speaker 2: you also had to just face blatant, horrible racism every
Speaker 2: day of your life, basically, especially when you were touring
Speaker 2: the South.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. They were a really good team though, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to prove that they were among the best
Speaker 1: of any color in the country. And they entered the
Speaker 1: World Basketball Championship in nineteen forty and won this tournament
Speaker 1: was a fourteen team tournament in Chicago, and beat the
Speaker 1: hometown Chicago Bruins to win the title. And this was
Speaker 1: again pre NBA. This is when the only thing that
Speaker 1: was around was the It was called the National Basketball
Speaker 1: League at the time, the NBL.
Speaker 2: And it was white teams only, right, All black teams
Speaker 2: were independent. And there were other good black teams too,
Speaker 2: like the New York Renaissance, the Wrens. They were like
Speaker 2: the Globetrotters, but they were serious. They only played serious basketball.
Speaker 2: There's no clowning whatsoever. And they actually were huge rivals,
Speaker 2: not just on the court, but off the court as
Speaker 2: well for players, for advancing their team, for getting crowds.
Speaker 2: Like it was, they were both trying to carve out
Speaker 2: a place for themselves in the same space and there
Speaker 2: was not really enough space for both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. As for how the clowning around started
Speaker 1: and the comedy element. It sort of depends on who
Speaker 1: you ask. Some people will say that barnstorming in the
Speaker 1: forties started losing steam, and so Sapristine, as the sort
Speaker 1: of SPINALI, came up with this idea to keep the
Speaker 1: show going by incorporating these funny bits. Other people say
Speaker 1: that it just sort of kind of slowly evolved from
Speaker 1: the fact that they were even before the clowning around,
Speaker 1: they were playing a different style of basketball than what
Speaker 1: white teams were playing at the time, which is a
Speaker 1: lot of like, it's kind of funny to look at
Speaker 1: old basketball clips, these little two handed, flat footed set
Speaker 1: shots and lots and lots and lots of passing, not
Speaker 1: a lot of dribbling. All of a sudden, these guys
Speaker 1: come in and they're running fast breaks. Dave said, they dunked.
Speaker 1: I looked into the history of the dunk and it's
Speaker 1: I think that the first dunk was in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: So it is plausible that they were dunking the basketball,
Speaker 1: because immediately I was like, I don't think people were
Speaker 1: dunking it all back then.
Speaker 2: If anybody was, it was them, though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the first person who dunk wasn't a Globetrotter,
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, it wasn't. I think it
Speaker 1: was looked at it as kind of a rude thing to
Speaker 1: do in a basketball game.
Speaker 2: Early on, well, it also seemed to be taken as wrong,
Speaker 2: like the right way to do was to pass five
Speaker 2: times and then you took your shot. And the Globetrotters
Speaker 2: weren't playing like that at all. They were playing like
Speaker 2: what you see when you watch a modern basketball game.
Speaker 2: And in fact, there was a twenty twenty one letter
Speaker 2: open letter from the Globetrotters to the NBA saying, you know,
Speaker 2: we basically created the style of play that is like
Speaker 2: the NBA, Now, why don't you let us in and
Speaker 2: give us a franchise. Of course, the NBA just I think,
Speaker 2: completely ignored it, but they make a really good case that,
Speaker 2: like the style of play today dates back to the
Speaker 2: Globe Trotters starting this stuff in the thirties and forties.
Speaker 2: And if you watch like clips of say like Curly
Speaker 2: Neil in like the seventies, shooting like a half court
Speaker 2: three pointer, he looks exactly like Steph Curry does today
Speaker 2: when you watch when you watch stuff, Curry do the
Speaker 2: same thing. They have the same exact motion, everything about
Speaker 2: that shot is the exact same, but Curly Neil is
Speaker 2: doing it like fifty years earlier.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And this was way earlier than Curly Neil too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean people didn't take half court three pointers
Speaker 2: outside of the Harlem Globe Trotters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was sort of when things started getting
Speaker 1: a little more interesting. Another story is that they were
Speaker 1: blowing people out so much they started getting bored and
Speaker 1: kind of just messing around and they would do no
Speaker 1: look passes and they would take these super long hook
Speaker 1: shots and people went crazy for it. Supposedly, one of
Speaker 1: the original Savoy Big Five, this guy, Big Jack Johnson,
Speaker 1: was the guy who kind of started developing these tricks.
Speaker 1: He was a big, giant of a man, and he's
Speaker 1: the guy who would put another player on his shoulders
Speaker 1: to go in and dunk the ball. He's the guy
Speaker 1: who started drop kicking it from the free throw line.
Speaker 1: And so you know, this is sort of the err
Speaker 1: version of what we would later see to be followed
Speaker 1: by Reetatum Goose Tatum, who is known as the clown
Speaker 1: Prints of the Globetrotters. He's a guy that really ramped
Speaker 1: up the antics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he apparently got his clowning start on the Indianapolis Clowns,
Speaker 2: which was a baseball team which were essentially the Globe
Speaker 2: Trotters of baseball at the time in the Negro Leagues,
Speaker 2: and he was sixteen when he started playing for them,
Speaker 2: so he kind of was already exposed to the idea
Speaker 2: of joking around while you're playing serious professional sports by
Speaker 2: the time he got to the Globetrotter, so he was
Speaker 2: like kind of a natural person to bring that. So
Speaker 2: it makes a lot of sense that he would have
Speaker 2: been kind of like the real kernel that created that.
Speaker 2: I don't think that those stories of where it came
Speaker 2: from it evolving over time, and Abe sapristein saying we
Speaker 2: need to do some clowning because the crowds are getting
Speaker 2: bored are mutually exclusive. I think that they could have
Speaker 2: happened together, because apparently the crowds were getting bored, they
Speaker 2: would just blow out the opponent so much that it
Speaker 2: was like, what's what's the point of seeing these games?
Speaker 2: So when they figured out that when they were clowning, though,
Speaker 2: the crowds really responded to it, and eventually, over time
Speaker 2: that would come to serve them well, because as other
Speaker 2: basketball players in like the NBA got better and better
Speaker 2: and sorted adopting more and more Globetrotters techniques, all the
Speaker 2: tech all the Globetrotters had left was the clowning aspect.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what they became. So it's a
Speaker 2: really neat evolution that it makes sense that this all
Speaker 2: took place over coming up on one hundred years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And interestingly, Gouse Tatum was, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of an early example of a two way sports star.
Speaker 1: I believe the Globe Shrotters had ended up having four
Speaker 1: different former professional baseball players on their team. Wow, So
Speaker 1: there were you know, the Bo Jackson's, the Deon Sanders
Speaker 1: way back then doing their things. So Goose was the
Speaker 1: one who came up with some of these gags that
Speaker 1: they still hues today, Like they're still doing the same stuff. Man, Well,
Speaker 1: if it's funny, it's funny, I guess. So that the spying,
Speaker 1: like going over in the other team's huddle, he came
Speaker 1: up with that they still do that, hiding in the
Speaker 1: crowd from the ref they still do that. It still
Speaker 1: kills hilarious when you faint on the court, and someone waves,
Speaker 1: takes off your shoe and puts it over your nose
Speaker 1: and you, you know, you start up. They still do that,
Speaker 1: and that all came from Goose.
Speaker 2: Those things make people from eight to eighty just laugh,
Speaker 2: I know. But if you're seven or you're eighty one,
Speaker 2: forget it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Marcus Haynes was another guy in nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: he came along. He was a former college basketball star
Speaker 1: and he's the guy that kind of was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for Curly Neil. He's the guy that first started doing
Speaker 1: like the insane dribbling and sliding around on his knees
Speaker 1: and keeping that dribble alive and dribbling between other people's
Speaker 1: legs and dribbling in circles around people. He was the first,
Speaker 1: you know, ball handling master.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of like one of the Globe Charter
Speaker 2: characters that they always kind of filled at one time
Speaker 2: or another. And like today it's Cherrille George, known as Torch,
Speaker 2: and apparently she holds the world record for most under
Speaker 2: the leg tumbles in a minute. So it's where you're
Speaker 2: dribbling real load to the ground and then you you
Speaker 2: basically do a sumrsault while you dribble the ball between
Speaker 2: your legs and then when you come up on the sumrsault,
Speaker 2: the ball goes right back to your hand. She did
Speaker 2: thirty two of those, one after the other in one minute,
Speaker 2: and that's I buy that being the world record for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you say she?
Speaker 2: I did say she because she is one of three
Speaker 2: women on the the Harlem Globetrotter's team.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And think about that. If the Globetrotters did somehow get
Speaker 2: their own franchise in the NBA, the NBA then would
Speaker 2: be integrated among the sexes as well. How nuts would
Speaker 2: that be if they not only pushed the NBA to
Speaker 2: integrate racially, but also by sex as well.
Speaker 1: Well. I think if they said, you get a franchise,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't just bring over these players. They would start
Speaker 1: fresh and draft players. And I don't do man get
Speaker 1: any other expansion team because these players are great, but
Speaker 1: they're not NBA. They'd be in the NBA if they
Speaker 1: were NBA caliber. It's true, Okay, no, I mean that's
Speaker 1: where they get these players, their players from college that
Speaker 1: were really good that couldn't go any further.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's new. That's a generally new phenomenon that probably
Speaker 2: started in the eighties.
Speaker 1: I would say probably seventies, but sure, okay, but prior
Speaker 1: to that, just fifty years.
Speaker 2: But prior to that, the Harlem and this is significant,
Speaker 2: the Harlem Globe Trotters were a place where you would go,
Speaker 2: you could go and and create a career for yourself,
Speaker 2: be as good, if not better than the best people
Speaker 2: in the NBA. And the Globe Chartters prove that over
Speaker 2: and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this was pre NBA, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a thing yet still at this point. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the magic circle we mentioned with Sweet Georgia Brown, that's
Speaker 1: another thing they're very famous for. It's when they pregame.
Speaker 1: They'll are in at halftime, they'll stand around in their circle.
Speaker 1: Sweet Georgia Brown plays on the loud speakers and they
Speaker 1: do that thing where they're going behind their back. They're
Speaker 1: doing all these ball tricks. They're spinning it on their finger.
Speaker 1: It's just a little little fun warm up to get
Speaker 1: everybody excited.
Speaker 2: And it works like a charm. It does you want
Speaker 2: to take a break or keep going?
Speaker 1: Let's keep going.
Speaker 2: Okay. So one of the biggest watershed moments in Globe
Speaker 2: Charter history was in nineteen forty eight when the Globe
Speaker 2: Chartters challenge the Minneapolis Lakers, whose name makes way more
Speaker 2: sense than the las Ai Angelus Lakers, as I've said
Speaker 2: multiple times on this show, who were the champions of
Speaker 2: the World Basketball or National Basketball League at the time,
Speaker 2: challenged them to a game. And the Lakers were all white,
Speaker 2: and their team was centered around a guy named George
Speaker 2: McCann or Miken, and he was six feet ten, wore
Speaker 2: glasses and could just he just took shots whenever he
Speaker 2: wanted and he made basically all them. There's just nothing
Speaker 2: you could do to stop him. And he was a
Speaker 2: huge reason that Minneapolis were the champs. And in February
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty eight, the Globetrotters played the Lakers and
Speaker 2: they beat them, and they beat them like at the buzzer.
Speaker 2: It was like a really dramatic, really amazing game that
Speaker 2: showed the world like, whoa, these guys, who the sports
Speaker 2: writers consider clowns and not serious, just beat the champions
Speaker 2: of a very serious basketball league. What's going on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in the pre shot clock era, you could
Speaker 1: dribble the ball around at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: until somebody fouled you. And in this case they could
Speaker 1: not catch Marcus Haynes, the ball handling master, So with
Speaker 1: less than a minute left in the game was side.
Speaker 1: He was dribbling all over the court, nobody could get
Speaker 1: to him. He finally, as the time is expiring, gets
Speaker 1: the ball over to Elma Robertson, who drains a twenty
Speaker 1: footer and they beat the Lakers. And just to show like, hey,
Speaker 1: this wasn't some fluke, are actually a good team, they played
Speaker 1: them again in nineteen forty nine and beat them again.
Speaker 2: Yeah the following year, and in the Lakers defense, the
Speaker 2: Lakers were leading by ten at the half and the
Speaker 2: Globe Charters were doing zero clowning. They were playing straight basketball.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and they still almost lost, but they won.
Speaker 2: So by winning those two back to back championships, I
Speaker 2: guess the not just the Globe Charters, but also like
Speaker 2: the Wrens and other black teams showed like we've got
Speaker 2: better players over here. And for you basketball associations that
Speaker 2: are eventually going to become the NBA, like you're shooting
Speaker 2: yourselves in the feet by staying segregated, Like why would
Speaker 2: you do that? Why wouldn't you just want to put
Speaker 2: together the best team you possibly could, regardless of race.
Speaker 2: And the Basketball Association said racism, and the Globetrotter said, yes,
Speaker 2: clearly that's why, but stop doing that. And very quickly
Speaker 2: shortly after those two wins against the Lakers, they did
Speaker 2: start integrating basketball leagues.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first guys they signed, actually in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty was a Globetrotter, Sweetwater Clifton. And so you
Speaker 1: know that what Abe Sabertine set out to do to
Speaker 1: prove they were as good or better than anybody in
Speaker 1: the pro leagues worked right away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he so this was actually like a
Speaker 2: double edged sword that gave Abe Ceperstein like boasting rights,
Speaker 2: which he did a lot about how the NBA wanted
Speaker 2: his players. The first player to ever be signed who
Speaker 2: was black, and the NBA came from the Globe ttris
Speaker 2: at the same time, though it would start to become
Speaker 2: a problem later on as the NBA got better and
Speaker 2: better and stood more and more on its own two feet.
Speaker 1: A great cliffhanger, think so too, All right, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back.
Speaker 2: That Sweetwater Clifton, by the way, was one of the
Speaker 2: people who was swindled by Abe Sapristine. He sold his
Speaker 2: contract to I think the Knicks for five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and gave half of it to Clifton, the player. And
Speaker 2: it turns out he had sold the contract for twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and only gave Nat Clifton twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: because Clifton thought he was getting half. Like that's the
Speaker 2: kind of stuff he would do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not cool. Well, at least Nat Clifton got
Speaker 1: to move on.
Speaker 2: He did move on for sure, and he was ready
Speaker 2: to move on too. They were having disputes over things
Speaker 2: like pay and everything yea, and just treatment of players,
Speaker 2: and yeah, Nat Clifton was one of the first black
Speaker 2: greats in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, So early days of the NBA, they're it's
Speaker 1: not Gangbusters right away. They're sort of this new league
Speaker 1: that's struggling to get going. The Globetrotters are huge stars,
Speaker 1: way bigger stars than people in the NBA. At the time.
Speaker 1: They were in movies. They were in a movie called
Speaker 1: the Harlem Globetrotters, another one called Go Man Go, and
Speaker 1: so Sapristine, you know, ever, the businessman in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: said all right, we're We're named the Globetrotters. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start trotting the globe. And so set off on a
Speaker 1: five month around the world tour. Took places like Rome
Speaker 1: and Paris and London, and they ate it up everywhere
Speaker 1: they went.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they were treated like celebrities everywhere, Like they
Speaker 2: would just sell out tens and tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: seats in every city that they played a game in.
Speaker 2: People just hadn't seen anything like it over there, and
Speaker 2: they were just totally wild and blown over by the Globetrotters.
Speaker 2: The State Department actually got in touch with Abe Saperstein
Speaker 2: and said, hey, you know, we're in a cold war
Speaker 2: with the USSR, and they like to basically point out
Speaker 2: how poorly black Americans are treated back home, and the
Speaker 2: Globe Trotters kind of suggest otherwise, So what if we
Speaker 2: make the Globe Trotters goodwill Ambassadors? And so from that
Speaker 2: point on, I think in the early fifties they were
Speaker 2: essentially on the State Department team. They were playing in
Speaker 2: part at the best of the State Department, who was
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were helped funding their travels
Speaker 2: or what, but they were definitely good Will ambassadors for
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first things they did was they
Speaker 1: played in West Berlin at the Olympic Stadium. There the
Speaker 1: very stadium where Jesse Owens made his name in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six at the Berlin Games when Hitler very famously
Speaker 1: refused to shake his hand. He came in, was helicoptered in.
Speaker 1: Jesse Owens dropped in there on the field and he
Speaker 1: ran a ceremonial lap to sort of just get everybody
Speaker 1: pumped up before this basketball game in front of seventy
Speaker 1: six thousand people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the mayor of West Berlin used it as
Speaker 2: an opportunity to reconcile with Jesse Owens on behalf of Germany.
Speaker 2: And I was reading a description of that event, and
Speaker 2: supposedly the Globetrotter's game post was delayed by ten fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes because the ovation giving to Jesse Owens and the
Speaker 2: mayor was so long. It just kept going and going.
Speaker 2: So it was neat just to even read about it.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine being there at the time.
Speaker 1: Oh man, So they're on this world tour, they are
Speaker 1: celebrities and they're treated as such, and they're having a blast.
Speaker 1: I imagine they come back home to an America that
Speaker 1: is still segregated, and Dave found this one just this
Speaker 1: is hard to believe and so shameful. In Jacksonville, Florida
Speaker 1: in the early fifties, a hotel refused them service, and
Speaker 1: that same hotel allowed a chimpanzee named Judy, a celebrity
Speaker 1: chimpanzee that bowled on television like Bowling, set Judy up
Speaker 1: in the presidential suite, yet denied the Harlem Globe trotters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an eye opening thing for a lot
Speaker 2: of the globetrotters at the time. It was just that bad.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, they had, like the rest of
Speaker 2: the world to go be received by, and they were,
Speaker 2: but just the idea that to have to come back
Speaker 2: home to that, yeah, I mean it just had to
Speaker 2: be doubly bitter after being treated so well outside of
Speaker 2: the United States outside home.
Speaker 1: You know, of course this would be a good movie.
Speaker 1: I I say that.
Speaker 2: Totally for sure. So the late nineteen fifties that the
Speaker 2: NBA started to really come into its own And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why I was saying, Abe Sapristin can
Speaker 2: take a lot of credit for the NBA being around today.
Speaker 2: Is he agreed to help this fledgling NBA make a
Speaker 2: name for itself by playing double headers with them, either
Speaker 2: having the Globetrotters play NBA teams or having the NBA
Speaker 2: be like the second the NBA teams were like the
Speaker 2: second game on a double header bill. Yeah, and apparently
Speaker 2: most of the time the crowd would just leave after
Speaker 2: the Globetrotter game, wouldn't stick around for the NBA game,
Speaker 2: But enough people did that the NBA started to catch on,
Speaker 2: and it took about ten years, but it was largely
Speaker 2: thanks to the Globetrotters and Abe Sebristin for getting the
Speaker 2: NBA to a place where it could stand on its own.
Speaker 2: And then once it did, now Abe Sepristin and the
Speaker 2: Globetrotters had a problem because no longer were they the
Speaker 2: place where a great black basketball player would aspire to
Speaker 2: go play. They were away station sometimes and then other
Speaker 2: people just went directly around the Globe Charters and straight
Speaker 2: to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it was sort of be careful of
Speaker 1: what you helped create, because not only like you said,
Speaker 1: are they stealing or not stealing players, but just you know,
Speaker 1: signing players away from the Globe Trotters. The Globe Charters
Speaker 1: weren't necessary anymore as this sort of very high profile
Speaker 1: minor league. In a way, Wilt Chamberlain was a Harlem Globetrotter.
Speaker 1: He played for the nineteen fifty eight season. I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people realize that, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the all time great NBA players, Will the Stilt
Speaker 1: was paid six supposedly sixty thousand dollars to play for
Speaker 1: the Harlem Globetrotters for that one season, which would be
Speaker 1: about six hundred thousand dollars today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I think below the minimum for a
Speaker 2: starting salary in the NBA today anyway, but still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that time a ton of money, and the NBA's
Speaker 1: salaries are very high.
Speaker 2: So that brings up something that has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this, but that came up twice in research when
Speaker 2: they were talking about what the what the Globe Chritters made.
Speaker 2: Initially that like three dollars and fifty cents each per game,
Speaker 2: and how little amount that was is like sixty two
Speaker 2: fifty I think a player a game, and that's a
Speaker 2: small amount of money in today's today's like money in
Speaker 2: today's dollars, right, yeah, but that seems to indicate a
Speaker 2: trend that even adjusted for inflation, things today are eye
Speaker 2: poppingly more expensive. Like I looked up how much those
Speaker 2: players could have gotten for their three dollars and fifty cents,
Speaker 2: and I came across to like a nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 2: menu for like what seems to be a pretty nice restaurant,
Speaker 2: and you could get an amazing dinner with dessert and
Speaker 2: like a couple of soups and salad and all that
Speaker 2: stuff for like fifty sense right, Yeah, today, even in
Speaker 2: today's dollars, that would be something like eight dollars or
Speaker 2: something today. Imagine like having a nice center for just
Speaker 2: eight dollars today. So what happened is my question. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to how to come up
Speaker 2: with the right question to go research what happened? Like
Speaker 2: why did things get more expensive? Why did people start
Speaker 2: throwing more money at like basketball players, even adjusted for
Speaker 2: today's dollars, Like, what happened? Why did money just blow
Speaker 2: up in the last like twenty thirty years.
Speaker 1: Well, in the case of sports, is because players stood
Speaker 1: up at one point and we're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: the owners are making that kind of money we're the
Speaker 1: ones out here that are putting people in the seats,
Speaker 1: and we're making this kind of money. And so they
Speaker 1: unionized and were able to make great deals over the
Speaker 1: year every time they sat down to the negotiating table.
Speaker 2: Okay, but let's say that restaurant that was charging eight
Speaker 2: dollars in today's dollars for a really nice, good dinner.
Speaker 2: Sure you would say, okay, well, maybe there's like more
Speaker 2: demand for that. More people have more money to go
Speaker 2: out to dinner, so they're doing that. So the restaurants
Speaker 2: are going to charge more because of supply and demand.
Speaker 2: There's a higher demand and thus less supply. I would
Speaker 2: argue there is not less supply. I would say that
Speaker 2: the supply has increased even more than the demand has,
Speaker 2: and yet that same dinner probably costs three to four
Speaker 2: times what it should adjusted for today's dollars.
Speaker 1: Why, yeah, I see what you mean. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: somebody will ride in and say, well, guys, it's just
Speaker 1: research the last forty years of the corporatization of whatever
Speaker 1: or something like. There's probably something you can point to
Speaker 1: that made things go really out of whack. And it
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise me if it was the consolidation of wealth
Speaker 1: and corporations in general.
Speaker 2: But that's exactly what I'm hoping for bringing this up.
Speaker 2: I hope somebody who knows what I'm saying but just
Speaker 2: don't know how to say it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, how can we research this speak exactly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I'm with you. Thanks back to the
Speaker 1: Harlem Globetrotters, though the NBA is getting these players from
Speaker 1: the Globetrotters, you know, kind of one after the other,
Speaker 1: and so the Globetrotters are like, all right, well, you
Speaker 1: know what that means, Our days are numbered unless we
Speaker 1: really lean into this comedy stuff. And from sort of
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties on, it really became the Harlem
Speaker 1: Globetrotters like basketball, fun time comedy show that we all
Speaker 1: know and love today. Starting with their leader who you mentioned,
Speaker 1: metal ark Lemon, who was there from fifty four to
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and he was kind of the central figure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they lucked out that metalw ark Lemon saw a
Speaker 2: newsreel when he was eleven in nineteen forty five at
Speaker 2: his movie theater in Wilmington, North Carolina, and decided like
Speaker 2: he was going to grow up to be a Harlem Globetrotter.
Speaker 2: That was his life's pursuit, and he made it happen.
Speaker 2: I think in his twenties he joined the team and
Speaker 2: became like kind of the ring master of the whole thing.
Speaker 2: He became far and away their greatest star, not just
Speaker 2: of his era, but of like all time essentially. Meadow
Speaker 2: arc Lemon is well known even outside of exactly for sure,
Speaker 2: he was the one who led the crew on Scooby Doo.
Speaker 2: He was at the heart of the Harlem Globetrotter Saturday
Speaker 2: Morning cartoon like that kind of stuff. Like it was
Speaker 2: all meadow Lark all the time. And I get the
Speaker 2: impression that some of the other members of the team
Speaker 2: were not super happy about exactly how inequitable things were.
Speaker 2: But he definitely brought the crowds and he was a
Speaker 2: huge crowd pleaser for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the guy who invented the confetti bit, which
Speaker 1: is you're chasing a referee down with what everyone thinks
Speaker 1: is a bucket of water and he throws it into
Speaker 1: the stands and misses the referee and everyone goes crazy,
Speaker 1: but it's really confetti still works somehow. He's the one
Speaker 1: that started pulling everyone shorts down and pantsing everybody, referees,
Speaker 1: fellow players, Washington generals. He's a guy that started doing
Speaker 1: that half court hook shot, which a guy still does
Speaker 1: that now they're keeping that traditional alive. But I think
Speaker 1: it was they have a guy from Atlanta because at
Speaker 1: least in the one I saw, because it was you know,
Speaker 1: played up that it was a hometown show for him
Speaker 1: and he was the guy that was shooting the half
Speaker 1: court hook shot, and he didn't make any of them,
Speaker 1: but he came really really close. It's very hard to do.
Speaker 1: Supposedly metal Arc Lemon was so good at it that
Speaker 1: he would nail it seventy percent of the time. I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure about well.
Speaker 2: He has a lot of legend around him, like he
Speaker 2: even on the Hall of Fame Basketball Hall of Fame website,
Speaker 2: he's credited with playing sixteen thousand games as a Globe Trotter,
Speaker 2: And all you have to do is the math and
Speaker 2: you'll see that that's basically impossible. He would have had
Speaker 2: to have played. He would have had to have played
Speaker 2: two games a day every day for twenty one years
Speaker 2: to reach that number, and he was only with the
Speaker 2: Globetrotters for twenty four years and I'm quite sure the
Speaker 2: math still isn't wash out, but it just kind of
Speaker 2: goes to show like how willing everybody is to go
Speaker 2: along with it. That's how good of a ballplayer. He
Speaker 2: was that they're like, yeah, that's probably not that far off.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. As far as sort of the perception and
Speaker 1: legacy of the Globetrotters at the time, some looked down
Speaker 1: upon them from the civil rights community and said that,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys are perpetuating these stereotypes. You're sort
Speaker 1: of doing a basketball version of a traveling minstrel show.
Speaker 1: Other people said, no, that's not what's going on. No
Speaker 1: less than Jesse Jackson would stand up for them, and
Speaker 1: his quote was the Globetrotters did not show blacks as stupid.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, they were shown as superior. He was like,
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're bringing this to an audience who
Speaker 1: maybe has never seen something like this. It's fun. They're
Speaker 1: really good at what they do, and stop with all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they made it through that really rough time.
Speaker 2: They'd navigate that because they definitely were old school black
Speaker 2: comedy in a time where that was increasingly looked upon
Speaker 2: as offensive. To the black community. So they navigated that.
Speaker 2: They managed to and I think I don't know how
Speaker 2: much they changed. I think they made They just weathered
Speaker 2: that criticism and came out the other side, you know.
Speaker 2: So one of the reasons they were superior, though, is
Speaker 2: because there was almost always a team in the Globe
Speaker 2: chartter history that was paid to lose to them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which kind of explains their twenty two thousand to three
Speaker 2: d and forty five win loss ratio.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they went by different names over the years, the
Speaker 1: Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Atlantic City See Goals.
Speaker 1: But in modern times we all know and love them
Speaker 1: as the Washington Generals. They used to be an all
Speaker 1: white team. Now the Generals are integrated as well. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a gig where you get
Speaker 1: to keep playing basketball and you get to get paid
Speaker 1: for playing basketball. You gotta be okay with being the
Speaker 1: you know, the sucker sometimes and to be pants and
Speaker 1: to lose. But these guys can play like they always
Speaker 1: could play. But you know this team that I just
Speaker 1: saw last year, like these guys were good. They had
Speaker 1: this they had this point guard that was just draining
Speaker 1: really really long jump shot three pointers like Steph Curry
Speaker 1: style six to seven, Trey Young style eight feet behind
Speaker 1: the three point line, and like, you can't. You can
Speaker 1: fake and script things, but you can't, you know, make
Speaker 1: that ball go in nothing but net unless you're really
Speaker 1: good at that. And this guy was awesome.
Speaker 2: So yeah, a handful of them have gone on to
Speaker 2: play in the NBA. So it's almost like the no,
Speaker 2: I'm not giving up yet, I'm going to play for
Speaker 2: the Generals and then get back into the NBA, almost
Speaker 2: like playing in Europe. How a lot of people do that,
Speaker 2: whether it's like then doesn't take them up for a year,
Speaker 2: so they go play in Europe somewhere and then try
Speaker 2: again the next season. I think that's kind of what
Speaker 2: the Generals were for a while. But there was one
Speaker 2: instance where the Generals won, And if you go back
Speaker 2: and read the details of this game in January of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one, it's not clear whether it was purposeful
Speaker 2: or accidental, but the Globe Triters weren't paying attention to
Speaker 2: the score they didn't need to normally, and the Generals
Speaker 2: were starting to creep up on them, and it came
Speaker 2: down to I think a one point deficit, and somebody
Speaker 2: took a shot, a guy named Lewis Herman Klotz, who
Speaker 2: helped put the Generals together.
Speaker 1: He was in his fifties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he took the last shot and he sunk it
Speaker 2: and won accidentally one. According to a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people, Yeah, amazing. It's like sort of at the
Speaker 1: end of a modern NBA All Star game, when everyone's
Speaker 1: goofing off and having fun until like the last two
Speaker 1: or three minutes, and then they're like, all right, we
Speaker 1: want to win, apparent and things get serious.
Speaker 2: Apparently Klatts's quote was, it was like we had just
Speaker 2: killed Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: I that's funny. You know Scottie and I who you know,
Speaker 1: a friend of ours. He was the DP for our
Speaker 1: TV show and a very old friend of mine. We
Speaker 1: had written some stuff here and there, screenplays and like
Speaker 1: partnered up here and there, and at one point we
Speaker 1: were writing a script on a Washington General's team. As
Speaker 1: the centerpiece, like thinly veiled, there would be a Globe Trotters.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't be called the Globetrotters or the Generals, but
Speaker 1: we just thought it was a really funny idea to
Speaker 1: follow this team that always has to lose and be
Speaker 1: the sucker of this getting pants, and then they come
Speaker 1: up with this plan to like win the game one time.
Speaker 2: So is it gonna be more like a sports movie
Speaker 2: where like it's really about the game, or is it
Speaker 2: gonna be like slap Shot where it's more about the
Speaker 2: lives of the people playing the.
Speaker 1: Game, more slap Shot than Hoosiers.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay, So but.
Speaker 1: Then Will Ferrell did that basketball movie, and I think
Speaker 1: this is sort of around the time we're thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, is it the same thing?
Speaker 1: No, but it was just I don't know, it was
Speaker 1: sort of like, all right, well, no one's gonna want
Speaker 1: to make this movie because this one just came out
Speaker 1: and did I don't think it did very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that. I think enthusiasm for that particular
Speaker 2: movie is cool. Do you guys can probably take a
Speaker 2: shot at it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean there's not a lot of great basketball movies.
Speaker 1: Hoosiers is one of the all time great sports movies period,
Speaker 1: but there's not a whole lot else. The Fish that
Speaker 1: say Pittsburgh what you remember that though this is a
Speaker 1: basketball movie, Doctor j was in it called the Fish
Speaker 1: Who Save Pittsburgh. I remember that from when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. But yeah, not a lot of great basketball movies.
Speaker 2: Well, I say you and Scott should get to you
Speaker 2: at Chuck.
Speaker 1: All right, maybe it's time that movie has been forgotten
Speaker 1: by now.
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck agreed to get back to producing his
Speaker 2: basketball movie with Scott, I think that means that this
Speaker 2: episode's over and it's time for listener man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a good one. That was That was
Speaker 1: a fun episode. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: I agree completely. It was a good episode.
Speaker 1: Check. Yeah, that was fun. And again go see him everybody.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. They're not filling arenas anymore,
Speaker 1: which it makes me sad, but they had a pretty
Speaker 1: good crowd. Good all right. This is just a really
Speaker 1: lovely thank you. We like to read those every now
Speaker 1: and then. Hey, guys, you've been by my side for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. You shared your voices, your stories, your laughter,
Speaker 1: and your curiosity with me. You've been with me through
Speaker 1: the highs and the lows of my life, during my
Speaker 1: journey of moving multiple times, changing careers, surviving an accident
Speaker 1: where walking after was painful for many years, recovering slowly
Speaker 1: from those injuries, hiking again, and coping with divorce. You've
Speaker 1: inspired me to keep exploring the world, to keep learning
Speaker 1: new things, and keep finding joy. And every day you
Speaker 1: make me feel like I'm a part of your family,
Speaker 1: even though we've never met. Look for an episode on
Speaker 1: that coming soon, Danny. You are some of my favorite teachers.
Speaker 1: Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes wrong, but always genuine and generous.
Speaker 2: Does Dany's got us pegged?
Speaker 1: I know he didn't have to mention that, but that's fine.
Speaker 1: For fifteen years, you have opened your hearts, your minds,
Speaker 1: under your arms to all of us who listen. For
Speaker 1: fifteen years, I've been lucky to know two amazing dudes
Speaker 1: who make the world a better place. I hope you
Speaker 1: never stopped making the show because I don't want to
Speaker 1: stop listening. I know that life is unpredictable, that nothing
Speaker 1: lasts forever, So I'm excited to finally see you both
Speaker 1: at Nashville. In Nashville on the sixth, So Danny was
Speaker 1: at our show and he just finishes out by saying,
Speaker 1: thank you. Thank you so much for being the stability
Speaker 1: some of us need, the platform of knowledge that help
Speaker 1: us leap into a land of wonder and learning, and
Speaker 1: just for being there for fifteen years. Seriously, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is Danny Westfall. Danny, you, my friend, are
Speaker 1: the MVP.
Speaker 2: Yeah you are. Thanks a lot, Danny. Those are really
Speaker 2: excellent email and we hope you enjoyed the Nashville show.
Speaker 1: That's a good That was a great one.
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Danny and write as
Speaker 2: a truly great email, we love those. You can wrap
Speaker 2: it up, dribble it on the bottom, and send it
Speaker 2: off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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