Globetrotters vs. The World | Survival of the Misfits | 1

Sports Wars

Wondery

Sports, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.5 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2020

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Before LeBron, and before MJ—before Magic, Bird, and even Bill Russell, basketball was defined by one name. Globetrotters. The Harlem Globetrotters would go on to change the world. But in the beginning, the squad faced an uphill battle. They were an upstart touring team, trying to become a profitable sports organization. Yet few Americans considered basketball a sport worth watching. And the Globetrotters struggled to gain a footing amid a national crisis: the Great Depression.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's 1952.
0:11.0	A breeze carries through the windows of an Italian palace.
0:15.4	Inside a grand hall, five towering basketball players and their tiny coach wait for the
0:21.6	luminary who invited them.
0:24.1	The coach grows impatient.
0:26.6	He's got places to go, a game to prepare for.
0:29.9	Finally, a man enters.
0:32.4	Your holiness may I present to you the Harlem Globetrotters.
0:37.6	Then Pope Pius XII glides in.
0:41.7	The coach of the Globetrotters, Abe Saperstein, who also owns the team, is awestruck by
0:47.7	the Pope's gallant appearance.
0:50.2	Brilliant white robes, a procession of servants, a golden scepter.
0:55.0	Abe's got to hand it to the Roman Catholic Church.
0:58.4	They certainly know how to make an entrance.
1:02.6	Abe steps forward and hands God's representative on earth, an autographed basketball.
1:09.1	His holiness raised a soccer fan.
1:11.6	Apparently, doesn't know what to do with a ball other than to kick it.
1:16.7	He leans over and asks his servant a question in Italian.
1:20.9	The servant translates to Abe.
1:23.4	Did you show him basketball?
1:26.1	Abe grins, takes the ball and tosses it to his superstar player, Goose Tatum, and begins
1:32.2	clapping a syncopated rhythm.
	...

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