As part of Major League Baseball’s upcoming event at Rickwood Field, AL.com and The Birmingham News will be producing weekly stories that showcase the history of Rickwood Field, and history of baseball in the state of Alabama.
“Rickwood: The legacy of America’s oldest ballpark” takes a deep dive at stories from the Negro Leagues to MLB icons playing at the historic venue, and how things are progressing as “MLB at Rickwood Field” takes place on June 20, 2024, between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.
When Reece Tatum came to Birmingham in March 1953, he was the star attraction for the Harlem Globetrotters whose antics were the main reason why 5,000 white spectators filled the auditorium.
“We want Goose, we want Goose,” a continuous chant erupted during the third period of the Globetrotters game while Tatum sat on the bench, according to a Birmingham News account.
“And who could blame them?” the newspaper report continued. “The game lost much of its luster without the Goose.”
By then, Tatum was an international star and arguably one of the most popular and highest paid Black athletes in the country. He was in the middle of a career that would eventually put Tatum in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, earn him a reputation as the pioneering “clown prince,” and make him the subject of ESPN films and other documentaries.
But what the 1953 newspaper account omitted was a key fact that links the Magic City, the Black Barons, and the Negro Leagues to the integration of professional basketball: Twelve years earlier, Tatum’s basketball skills were first discovered inside a Georgia gymnasium while he was a member of the Birmingham Black Barons.
“The (Globetrotters) began in Chicago but one of the glorious elements of the team began in Birmingham,” said journalist and author Matt Jacob who, along with brother Mark, wrote the forthcoming book, “Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook up the World of Sports.” The book will be released in October.
‘Marriage of geniuses’
Tatum, sometimes likened as the Jackie Robinson of basketball, was the first crossover star in professional basketball who was popular with both white and Black fans more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act of 1965. He was also the first true superstar of the Globetrotters, whose act continues nearly 100 years after it was founded in 1926.
The legendary player was discovered while he toiled the Negro Leagues dugouts while playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1941. Tatum, as a member of the Black Barons, first connected with renowned Harlem Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein, then a Black Barons executive.
The Tatum-Saperstein connection, discovered in Birmingham, is arguably the most consequential athlete-executive partnership in professional basketball history.
It’s another fascinating storyline in the history of the Negro Leagues and the Black Barons, both which will be honored during Major League Baseball’s “Tribute to the Negro Leagues” game on June 20 at historic Rickwood Field. The game will feature the San Francisco Giants against the St. Louis Cardinals, with both teams wearing period uniforms honoring the Negro Leagues and the Juneteenth holiday.
“It was a marriage of two geniuses in their own field,” said author Ben Green in the 2012 ESPN Film, “Goose,” which is about Tatum. Green wrote about Tatum and the Globetrotters in the 2005 book, “Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters.”
“They created the synergy that changed the world in sports and entertainment,” he said.
Birmingham’s discovery
Tatum, an El Dorado, Ark., native, arrived at Birmingham in 1941 as a gangly first baseman for a Black Barons team that was on the move. Two years prior, Black businessman Tom Hayes purchased the team. Saperstein – long described as a “short-statured Jewish” guy from Chicago’s North Side – served as his partner whose work included marketing the Black Barons outside the Deep South.
Saperstein was already a dozen or so years in as the owner and promoter of the all-Black Harlem Globetrotters and was utilizing the Negro Leagues to recruit talent into his basketball team.
“It was not like he was in the front office,” said John Klima, author of the 2009 book, “Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend.”
“But he was Tom Hayes’ man,” Klima said. “He was Hayes’ connection on how to get booked on the road. For a booking agent, that comes with access to players. He knew his way around the South. He wanted guys who were athletic enough and who could play both sports.”
Saperstein found that in Birmingham. One of his star dual-sports hopefuls was Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, whom Saperstein signed to play for the Globetrotters and Black Barons simultaneously for an extra $50 per month. Davis was the manager of the 1948 Black Barons World Series team and played for both the baseball and basketball teams from 1943-1946. But Davis found the year-round competition grueling and dropped from the basketball team.
Tatum did the reverse, but first had to be discovered on the basketball court. That discovery occurred in 1941, while Tatum was a member of a Black Barons team managed by Winfield Welch, who was also a road manager for the Globetrotters during the offseason.
According to Green, there are conflicting reports on how Tatum’s basketball skills were discovered. Tatum credited Welch for the discovery while “fooling around with a basketball one day in Fort Benning, Ga.,” after the Black Barons had their game rained out, according to Green’s book.
Tatum began his Globetrotters career in 1941, learning the game from Inman Jackson who taught him ball-handling tricks, according to Green. Jackson would later say that Tatum was “one of the finest players” he had ever seen.
In fact, the Goose’s talent was so raw that he “would play sparingly, if at all, for the Globe Trotters that first season,” Green wrote.
Jacob said that Tatum was an “above average hitter” with the Black Barons, where he was moved from the outfield to first base where he became a “fantastic fielder.”
Tatum was also able to be more of a showman as a first baseman. It’s where he was closest with the crowd, and where he could entertain.
“Tatum would juggle the ball, to the delight of the crowd,” Jacob said. “His hands were huge, and he rarely let a batted ball behind him. These were things that stuck in Saperstein’s mind.”
He added, “Tatum had two critical ingredients – the raw athletic talent and the showmanship. Saperstein saw it. It’s quite fortuitous for basketball fans that Saperstein happened to be in Birmingham at a time when someone like Goose Tatum came along. I think that was such a pivotal moment.”
Welch also deserves credit, Jacob said, in first eying Tatum’s basketball skills.
“Welch was the one who first noticed the wingspan,” Jacob said.
‘The master’
Tatum’s physical attributes helped mold him into a professional basketball talent. Actor Anthony Mackie describes Tatum in Goose as someone whose “hands are so large that basketballs looked like grapefruits in its grasp.”
Tatum’s wingspan was 86 inches – more than 7-feet, 1-inch. By comparison, Michael Jordan’s wingspan was an impressive 6-feet, 11 inches.
Tatum played in Birmingham for the Black Barons in 1941 and 1942. His emergence as a basketball player occurred in 1942-43, when he moved from a reserve to a starter on the team, according to Green’s book.
Tatum’s talent would progress on the court while he continued to play in the Negro Leagues. By 1943, his reputation for showmanship was starting to get national attention, with a Time Magazine story about Tatum that “strayed close to the line of racial stereotyping.”
But Tatum’s skillset continued to improve and combined with the showmanship, he became a total Globetrotters package.
“Goose, I guess you could say, he was the master,” said Curly “Boo” Johnson, a member of the Harlem Globetrotters from 1988-2007. “He was the one who started the Globetrotter comedy. But he could’ve done anything. With his physical attributes, he could have done anything. He was one of those guys that is an enigma in a sense.”
Legendary basketball coach Jack Ramsey, in the ESPN “Goose” film, called Tatum a “legitimate All-Star player.”
“In games that meant something, he could make that shot,” Ramsey said.
Tatum’s skills and his team’s reputation became mainstream thanks to two games between the all-Black Globetrotters and the all-white Minnesota Lakers of the National Basketball Association, before the NBA integrated.
The games occurred a mere six years after Tatum’s time in Birmingham. By then, he was considered the team’s star player and attraction.
The Globetrotters won both games – 61-59 on Feb. 19, 1948; and 49-45 in the Feb. 27, 1949, rematch.
“They didn’t just beat whitey,” Green said in the “Goose” documentary. “They danced on his grave.”
Saperstein’s role
Saperstein, meanwhile, remained the managerial and marketing force behind the Globetrotters. Saperstein and Lakers general manager Max Winter, who were friends at the time, are credited with putting together one of the most historical games in professional basketball.
The 1948 game drew 18,000 fans to Chicago Stadium at a time when an NBA game was lucky to draw a couple thousand fans.
“There are a lot of people who look at the 1948 Globetrotters-Lakers game for when the seeds were really planted for integrating professional basketball,” Jacob said.
The emergence of the Globetrotters – a box office draw – helped to bolster the NBA.
“The NBA, even when it existed in the early years, the attendance figures were dismal,” Jacob said. “Saperstein would have double headers in which his Globetrotters team would play someone, and a second game was an NBA regular-schedule game. What they quickly found was that people would show up for the Globetrotters game and then left and didn’t stick around for the NBA game. So, they switched orders. The NBA game went first followed by the Globetrotters. Saperstein really gave the NBA a chance to nurture public interest and put itself on a path toward stability and longevity.”
With the Globetrotters on the rise, Saperstein — in 1947 or 1948 — sold his interests in the Birmingham Black Barons, Jacob said. It was at this time that a 17-year-old Willie Mays would star on a Black Barons team considered the greatest in the franchise’s history. They advanced to the Negro League World Series before losing to the Homestead Grays, led by future MLB Hall of Famer Buck Leonard.
“It’s not clear which year it was, but he did divest himself of it,” Jacob said.
Saperstein’s influence was good business for the Black Barons. He would book barnstorming games for the ball club and brought the team to glorious venues like Yankee Stadium.
Hayes, the Black team owner, was Saperstein’s connection to Alabama and the partnership helped the ball club flourish through the 1940s.
“No Jewish promoter from New York City can come into Birmingham, Alabama, unless he had some friends,” said John Klima, author of the 2009 book, “Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend.”
“That was Tom Hayes and the players who were important to him. But Saperstein is the conduit to the world,” Klima said.
He added, “There were ballplayers in Birmingham. This is Alabama. It’s the cradle of Black baseball civilization. You go where the players are. That’s why Abe was here. That’s why he recruited Birmingham all through the 40s.”
In fact, Klima credits Saperstein for having influence and helping Mays get out of Birmingham into New York.
“No player in the 1940s could get out of Birmingham without help from the North, period,” Klima said. “I wish I didn’t have to say that. But Abe was Tom’s guy. I don’t think (Saperstein) was close to anyone else like he was with Tom Hayes.”
Rise and fall
With Birmingham behind him, Saperstein’s Globetrotters, through the 1950s, became a box office hit. And Tatum was the star, appearing in movies like “Harlem Globetrotters” in 1951 and “Go Man Go” in 1954.
The team also became an international draw. According to Julius “Dr. J” Erving, in ESPN’s “Goose,” Tatum and Saperstein “were the pioneers of taking the game abroad.” Tatum, himself, became an “icon in China,” according to Marques Hayes, in the “Goose” film.
“The State Department, for a period of time, viewed the Globetrotters as among their best goodwill ambassadors,” Jacob said. “They really felt the Globetrotters … put a good face on the race issue at the time when there was a lot of turbulence domestically.”
Tatum was earning over $50,000 a year – by far, the most well-paid basketball player at that time.
“The only people making more than Goose were Ted Williams and Stan Musial,” Green said in “Goose.”
He added, “The difference, I think, was that Stan Musial and Ted Williams were famous in this country. But if you went to Italy and Portugal, no one knew who they were. Goose was treated like a king everywhere he went in the world.”
The Saperstein-Tatum relationship began disintegrating in 1955, when Tatum abruptly left the Globetrotters following a nationally televised game that reached 26 million households.
Green, in “Goose,” said Tatum scored 34 points and “did the greatest show” in that game before disappearing “into the night and never returned” to the Globetrotters.
“To walk away at that point, some said he was crazy as a Black man (doing so) in 1955,” Green said. “But he did.”
Jacob said Tatum had become an erratic star, who would often disappear during world travels.
“One evening, Tatum disappeared and wondered off into a Moroccan city and no one could find him,” he said. “They spent hours looking for him and into the wee hours of the morning. He comes back then driving a horse-drawn carriage. He was high maintenance. But he was a terrific asset to the team that Saperstein was more than willing to deal with initially.”
Saperstein criticism
There are other opinions about Saperstein, which might suggest Tatum’s abrupt exit from the team.
According to an A&E biography, “Harlem Globetrotters: America’s Court Jesters,” past Globetrotters grew frustrated with how Saperstein treated and paid them.
Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton, a former Globetrotter who was one of the first Black NBA players in 1950, realized a group of white college all-stars were “being paid more than his own players,” according to the biography.
Marques Hayes, who played alongside Tatum, said in that biography that Saperstein “said negroes didn’t need as much money as the white man needed.”
“I asked Abe to never say that to me again,” Hayes said in the documentary. “I had a family. If buy a bottle of milk for my family, it would cost the same thing as it does him.”
Curly “Boo” Johnson, the former Globetrotter, told AL.com that the A&E documentary was eye-opening toward Saperstein and not in positive manner.
“When I joined the Globetrotters, the story was that Abe Saperstein was the great emancipator of the Black basketball player,” said Johnson, a Scottsdale, Ariz., resident who hosts a basketball camp in his hometown of Peoria, Ill. “Abe Saperstein was instrumental in them going to the NBA. But when you find out the true story, he was also angry that the NBA would allow Black players and no longer would he have his monopoly on the best basketball players.”
Johnson said he can recall the A&E biography first being shown to a group of former Globetrotters including the oldest living player at the time, Bernie Price, who played with the Globetrotters from 1934-1942 and died at age 96 in 2011.
“We’re sitting there and watching it and Saperstein is shown and Bernie Price was like, ‘look at that no good, cheap …’” Johnson said. “I’m sitting there looking and thinking, ‘what’s going on here?’ The dude was in his 90s. It was like a roast.”
Jacob said Saperstein could be “tough on players” and “very insistent about team rules and procedures,” but doubted that his actions were racially motivated.
“I don’t think we live in a world with heroes and villains,” Jacob said. “Abe Saperstein is a man whose thoughts and word did reflect his era. At the same time, he clearly felt incredibly comfortable about Black people at a time when most white people were not hobnobbing with them. His best friend was Inman Jackson, a Globetrotter player who later became the team’s coach and his most trusted lieutenant.”
Tragic endings
Tatum, after his Globetrotters split, started up his own traveling team, the Harlem Stars. But in the coming years, faced a downward spiral as he owed back taxes to the IRS. But he was also able to turn things around in the early 1960s and traveled the country with his sons. Tragically, his son, Goose Jr., was killed in a car crash in 1966.
“It tore my dad apart,” said Reece Tatum III, in the “Goose” documentary.
Tatum died a year later in 1967 at age 45.
Saperstein moved on from the Globetrotters and became the first commissioner of the American Basketball League (ABL) in 1961. It was during this time that Saperstein introduced the three-point shot to the game of basketball.
Saperstein continued to work tirelessly – reportedly only taking off work once a year, for Yom Kipper – until his death from a heart attack in 1966, approximately 10 months before Tatum died. Saperstein was 63.
The legacy of that connection is what propelled the Globetrotters into sports history, Jacob said.
“You think of the other greats in Globetrotters history, who lean on the skill side or showmanship, and there is Meadowlark Lemon, who was a wonderful player to watch and a true showman,” Jacob said. “But most observers would not compare him in terms of raw talent. There was Marques Haynes who was an incredible ballhandler, but he was less of a showman in a broader sense. Tatum would talk into the stands, find some kid, pick him up into his arms, sit him on the bench courtside and give the kid a thrill of his life.”
Jacob added, “He was a guy who managed to play the game very well, but he really enjoyed engaging with the fans, especially kids and teenagers. And what a fortunate thing that was for Saperstein.”
Globetrotters in Birmingham
Jacob said the Globetrotters, during the Saperstein and Tatum heyday, did not venture into the Deep South often.
But they did hold exhibitions in Birmingham, even if the white newspapers didn’t recognize their historical origins linked to the Negro Leagues and the Black Barons.
Tatum played with the Globetrotters during trips to Birmingham in February 1952, March 1953, and March 1954.
A game as also held on July 5, 1954 – nearly 70 years ago – outdoors at Rickwood Field. According to newspaper accounts, Tatum was not in the city for the game.
That game was a double-header, with separate games played before white and Black fans.
“They would play a game for white fans only and at 5 p.m., there was a game for Black fans,” Jacob said. “In other cases, there’d be a single game with segregated seating. I think along the way, there were a few places that their presence did change hearts and minds. Saperstein believed that sports could bring people together in a way that nothing else could. And Goose Tatum, for so many years, was the face of the Globetrotters.”