Abe Saperstein was the founder and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, a tireless showman, promoter and scout. In addition to helping popularize and integrate pro basketball, he made a huge contribution to integration and baseball as well. Journalist Mark Jacob, along with his brother Matt, recently published a biography of Saperstein, who (no surprise when you think about it) was good friends with Bill Veeck and Satchel Paige. Today and next Sunday, Mark and Matt Jacob will discuss his promotion of the Negro Leagues, his partial ownership of the Birmingham Black Barons and the complicated racial dynamics involved. (Part 1 of 2)
Q: Abe Saperstein is best known for creating the Harlem Globetrotters, but he was also deeply involved in baseball, right?
Abe’s promotion of baseball isn’t well known, but it was extremely important. He helped keep the Negro Leagues in business when they were struggling in the 1930s and ‘40s. Back then the Black leagues needed to add barnstorming games with non-league teams to stay out of debt. Abe and other white promoters, many of them Jewish, helped arrange those games. Abe also was a part owner of the Birmingham Black Barons. Later he helped break down the color barrier and bring Black players into the major leagues. Abe was friendly with Negro League stars such as Satchel Paige and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and he boosted their careers.
Saperstein, at left, with the Savoy Five (precursor to the Globetrotters) in 1926
Q: Was his association with the Negro Leagues mutually beneficial?
Without a doubt. Abe promoted the Negro Leagues’ all-star games, which drew huge crowds to Chicago’s Comiskey Park and were major social events. Abe took a 5 percent cut, which annoyed some Black owners, but he made sure the games drew big crowds. . The 1939 East-West game drew about 40,000 fans, the most up to that point for a Negro Leagues all-star contest – and roughly double the crowd for the season’s second East-West game, played weeks later at New York’s Yankee Stadium without Saperstein handling publicity. In 1941, Saperstein again managed publicity for the East-West game at Comiskey Park, and made it another record-setter, with 50,256 fans showing up.
While some Black owners resented the fact that they had to go through white promoters like Abe to book games in some stadiums, others recognized how he helped them meet their payroll. Abe’s connections with Black baseball also helped him with his basketball team. A Black Barons first baseman named Goose Tatum eventually switched to basketball and became one of the Trotters’ biggest stars.
The 1946 Birmingham Black Barons
Q. You mentioned some resentment with Saperstein’s activities in Black baseball. Tell us more.
Saperstein came under criticism for booking games for a racially demeaning team called the Zulu Cannibal Giants. The team dressed in grass skirts, face paint and nose rings. Some even played barefoot. Some newspapers accurately reported that the African tribesmen image was hokum, but The Indianapolis News described the players as “real natives of the Zulu colony who have been brought to America and schooled in the American national pastime.”
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