In 1927, a young Chicago promoter named Abe Saperstein took five former basketball players from Wendell Phillips High School, named them the Savoy “Big 5” and molded them into what eventually would become the Harlem Globetrotters.
Only 5 feet 3 inches tall, Saperstein lived large-as coach, promoter, sports innovator, owner and ambassador of good will. Now, almost 29 years after his death, the Globetrotters are still drawing fans (the team appears Friday night and Saturday at the Rosemont Horizon) and Saperstein and his teams are the subjects of a possible movie and Broadway musical.
“The public has a huge fascination with basketball,” says Gail Stayden, the producer of a musical based on Saperstein’s life. “Hoopz,” as the show is being called, has a score written by Smokey Robinson.
“That a little Jewish guy from Chicago created a team of big black basketball players was, to me, a great idea for a musical. There is a market for this type of story.”
Mannie Jackson, the producer of the yet-unnamed movie about Saperstein and the Globtrotters, says, “Basketball is a multimillion-dollar global industry. It is the best managed and most viable sport from both an entertainment and economic standpoint.”
Though the movie is still in the development stage, film rights have been bought by Columbia Pictures. (There have been three previous films, “1951’s “The Harlem Globetrotters,” 1954’s “Go, Man, Go!” and 1981’s “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island”). According to Jackson, “Our movie deals with black-white relationships and the personal lives and feelings of the players. It is told from different historical perspectives. The time is good for the movie.”
Jackson, whose home base is Minneapolis, has a dual interest in making the movie: Since 1993, he has been the Globetrotters’ new owner, and he is a former Trotter player.
“Abe was quite unusual. It’s amazing how this white man controlled black ballplayers,” he says. “I was right out of college when I came to the Globetrotters in the early ’60s. Immediately, Abe sort of adopted me. Why? I never knew. He saw how others fit into his grand plans. And if they fit, he could be very generous and thoughtful, as he was to me.”
Born in 1902 in London to Polish Jewish immigrants, Abe, the eldest of eight boys and girls, came to Chicago in 1907 with his mother, Anna. His father, Louis, a ladies’ tailor, had arrived earlier to set up business.
“As early as 13, Abe could hardly wait until summer vacation from school, so he could run off to the apple orchards in Wisconsin to pick apples,” recalls Chicago resident Leah Raemer, now 91, and Abe’s sister. “When he was going to (Lake View) high school, he hitched a ride on a freight train and went out west to pick apples (the name of the school as published has been corrected here and in a subsequent reference in this text). At that time, uppermost in his mind was to make money.”
(Apples remained a favorite with Saperstein. After becoming successful, he would send boxes of Washington State apples at Christmas to a lengthy list of his friends and business associates all over the world.)
“In high school, Abe was into all kinds of sports. He was more or less a promoter and wanted to start a basketball team,” Raemer says. “When he was in school, he worked for a Mr. Schiller, a florist, delivering flowers. When he started his first team Abe approached Schiller with a promotional idea: If Schiller would sponsor the team, the team would advertise his business on the back of their jerseys. Schiller agreed. Abe gathered five fellows, and they played basketball at various North Side fieldhouses.”
At first, the games were serious affairs.
“But things changed during one game when one of the fellows suddenly became ill,” Raemer said. “There were no substitutes, so Abe had to get into the game. Abe was very short; the others were tall. One of the players was standing with his feet apart. Abe took the ball and ran through his legs. The audience burst out laughing. That was the beginning.”
He had a hand in baseball, too
Basketball did not at the time consume Saperstein. During the 1930s he was also working for the Negro American Baseball League.
That’s when Bill Margolis first met him.
“I was working as a sports writer for the Chicago Evening American when Abe came to see me,” Margolis said. “He introduced himself as the owner of the Harlem Globetrotters-nobody had heard of the Globetrotters at that time.
“He was doing promotion for the 1933 East-West Negro All-Star Game-the first annual game of its kind to be held in Comiskey Park-and had come to sell me on the idea of writing about it. This was Abe’s start in big time. We became fast friends. I wrote the copy-and before I knew it, I did copy on Satchel Paige and other players. I ended up working with Abe on promotion for 37 years.”
During his time with Negro American League, Saperstein booked the Chicago American Giants, Birmingham Black Barons, Kansas City Monarchs, Memphis Red Sox-and later the Cleveland Buckeyes and Cincinnati Clowns, the latter having started as the Miami Ethiopian Clowns, an independent traveling team.
“Abe was instrumental in getting some of the players into the majors leagues,” Margolis says. “Especially the great Leroy `Satchel’ Paige, whose sale to the Cleveland Indians from the Kansas City Monarchs was the most outstanding deal Saperstein arranged.”
The tireless Saperstein also promoted the House of David baseball team from Benton Harbor, and had interests in some major-league teams.
On the road with the Trotters
But the Globetrotters-barnstorming from small town to small town-soon became the focus of Saperstein’s life.
“The Globetrotters played hard and fast, traveling by day and playing by night,” says Fay Saperstein, the youngest of Abe’s siblings and his business manager on the East Coast.
“In the early days-when the team traveled around the Midwest-they didn’t make much money; whatever they made was divided between Abe, the players and car expenses,” says Fay Saperstein, who lives in New York. “Abe’s goal then was to travel with the team around the country-and eventually, to play Madison Square Garden. It took a long time to achieve that goal, but he finally achieved it in 1950.”
Bernie Price of Chicago never made it to the Garden. He played with the Globetrotters from 1936 to 1948 and was with the team that won the professional championship tournament in 1940, sponsored by the Chicago Herald-American.
Price recalls that the team used to sleep in sleeping bags in transient hotels, “because the respectable ones wouldn’t let us in.” Still, says Price, “being on the team was a fun thing. We were a group of 19- and 20-year-olds, who traveled to places we had never been before, or probably never would.”
When they first started to travel, Price says, they went with two cars, their baggage on the roof. “As things got better,” he says, “we got an eight-passenger van, then graduated to a bus.”
When Abe was with them-he didn’t always travel with them because there were two teams then, three from 1950 to 1963-he took care of the gasoline and all the arrangements.
What was Saperstein like as a boss?
“Abe was generous with people who helped him,” says Price. “One of those people was Irman Jackson, an original Globetrotter, who helped him put together the beginning team, and was a big support to him after. When Abe died, he left Irman 4 percent of the team.
“He was good to me, too. I never went to college; as a result I couldn`t find a job during the summer. Whenever I needed money, Abe gave it to me.”
In Price’s time, the Globetrotters played a different team each night. In later years the Globetrotters played only their traveling squad of opponents, the proverbial doormats called the Washington Generals.
A man of many friends
Saperstein’s pleasing personality made him attractive to celebrities, who flocked to see his games. Many became friends-Carol Channing, Grace Kelly, Isaac Stern, Louis Armstrong and Danny Thomas.
“In the early years,” Margolis says, “we would get calls from his Hollywood friends for tickets when we played in that part of the country. One time, the place we were playing was packed to capacity. People were waiting outside. We had to close the front doors. Danny Thomas called and asked if he could get in to see the game. Since the front doors were closed, we let him in the back door.”
Another of Saperstein’s friends was Chicago broadcaster Jack Brickhouse.
“Abe never forgot a friend,” Brickhouse says. “Even when the Trotters became successful, he would remember friends who helped him in the earlier years. And so, he would book the team to play in small towns-even at a loss of money-in order to provide them with a full house.”
Add to Saperstein`s litany of contributions to the sport of basketball: founder. In April, 1960, he founded the American Basketball League. His team was the Chicago Majors.
Brickhouse remembers: “Abe became upset with the NBA. He wanted the L.A. franchise, and they wouldn’t give it to him. That’s why he created the ABL.”
Though the league eventually failed in late 1962, one of its innovations flourishes.
“The three-point shot was introduced in the American Basketball League, and is now standard,” Brickhouse says.
Another of Saperstein’s innovations was the creation of his World Series of Basketball: Each year he took the best college stars of that year, after the college season, and traveled with them coast to coast to big crowds.
“It began” says Ray Meyer, coach emeritus of DePaul’s Blue Demons basketball team, “when (Chicago’s NBA entry) the Stags was playing at the Chicago Stadium drawing only 3,000 to 4,000 persons, while the Globetrotters were drawing sellout crowds. Arthur Morse was general manager of the Stags and needed help to keep the franchise going, so he called on Abe. Abe consented and originated the idea of bringing in his team to play a group of college all-stars as a preliminary game to a Stag game in the Stadium. The game drew 19,000 people and created an interest in professional basketball, besides saving the Chicago franchise from bankruptcy.”
Meyer was called in to coach and help put the team together.
“The funny thing about that first game,” recalls Meyer, “was that the college all-stars won. But the game was so well received by both the press and the fans that Abe decided to keep a good thing going.” And they did-from 1948 to 1958.
Kings, queens and crowds
Looking back on those days, Meyer recalls, “Abe would bring in vaudeville acts from Europe and the Ed Sullivan Show for the halftime shows. It was like a carnival, a real extravaganza!”
Saperstein was always pulling off some kind of shtick. During games, he would bring in a football or baseball player for a skit with the players. Ernie Banks was playing for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues in 1950-three years before joining the Cubs-when the Globetrotters came calling.
“I got a call asking me to play in the game,” Banks says. “I was put into a Globetrotters uniform, and went in and played with Goose Tatum for two minutes. It was all in fun.”
Saperstein and the Globetrotters traveled to some 89 countries, always carrying with them their portable basketball court; in some places, such as the Philippines and Monaco, outdoor courts were built especially for the team.
They entertained royalty, dictators, popes, ordinary people and stars. In Scotland, they met Judy Garland, who was performing and staying at the same hotel. She was mobbed by fans, and in order to get her out of the hotel, the Globetrotters formed a phalanx. The next time they caught up with Garland was in the south of France; she threw a thank-you party for the team.
Prince Philip once invited the Globetrotters to play in a charity event against a team of British celebrities. The game was held in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House.
“It was a fun fest,” Margolis says. “Men were stationed at the baskets at both ends of the court. When the home team came to its basket, a man would pull a cord which lowered the basket, so that the ball could be placed right in. When our team came to its basket, a man pulled the cord and the basket was hoisted, so that we would miss.
“During intermission the Prince, with a towel draped across his arm, wheeled out a cart with champagne glasses. He poured champagne for us and water for his team. Later that evening, Abe presented the Prince with a Globetrotter jersey. He was delighted, and said that he would wear it during polo practice.”
A daughter’s memories
“My father traveled a lot, but he made sure to arrange that my mother (Sylvia, who died in 1993) would receive a greeting card and a bouquet of flowers from him every Thursday,” says daughter Eloise, who’s brother Jerry lives in New York. “He was also a very thoughtful person.”
She remembers that when he was home he kept a legal pad by his bedside and would stay up nights trying to think of new plays and endings for games.
“One night, my mother, who knew nothing about basketball, was trying to get him to go to bed, so she came up with an idea,” Eloise recalls. “She said, `Why don’t you put one player on top of another player’s shoulders and have him dunk the ball?’ My father liked the idea so much he used the play from then on to end all his games.”
Eloise traveled with her father all over the world-and followed in his footsteps, so to speak: She is a sports agent. Affectionately describing her father, she refers to him “as a short, pudgy man with a full head of fine hair, who never drank or smoked and always wore black mohair custom-made suits and nylon white shirts, with both a belt and suspenders.”
Her dad’s favorite moment in sports, she says, occurred in 1952 in Berlin. A record crowd of 75,000 had come to see the Globetrotters play in the same stadium in which Jesse Owens had captured a gold medal during the Olympic Games of 1936.
“My dad arranged for Jesse to land by helicopter in the middle of the field,” Eloise recalls. “When he exited the helicopter, the crowd went wild. I’ll never forget the sound of the crowd. It was deafening. The mayor of Berlin came to greet Jesse, and he said, `In 1936, Hitler refused to shake your hand. Today I give you both of mine.’ “