By Tatiana Ponil

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, entertainment, and comedy in their style of play. Over the years, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories, mostly against deliberately ineffective opponents, such as the Washington Generals (1953–1995, since 2015) and the New York Nationals (1995–2015). The team’s signature song is Brother Bones‘ whistled version of “Sweet Georgia Brown“, and their mascot is an anthropomorphized globe named “Globie”. The team is owned by Herschend Family Entertainment.

The Globetrotters originated in 1926, on the South Side of Chicago, where all the original players were raised. They began as the Savoy Big Five, one of the premier attractions of the Savoy Ballroom; starting in January 1928, a basketball team of Black American players played exhibitions before dances to prop up the ballroom’s cratering attendance numbers. In 1928, several players left the team in a dispute. That autumn, those players formed a team called the “Globe Trotters” and toured southern Illinois that spring. Abe Saperstein became involved with the team as its manager and promoter. By 1929, Saperstein was touring Illinois and Iowa with his basketball team called the “New York Harlem Globe Trotters”. Saperstein selected the name Harlem because it was then considered the center of Black American culture and the name Globetrotter to mythologize the team’s international venues.

RETIRED NUMBERS

The Globetrotters have honored eight players by retiring their numbers:

Upcoming Games

COURTESY THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS AND WIKIPEDIA COMMONS