Review of "The Harlem Globetrotters and Basketball’s Funniest Games," by Clare and Frank Gault

Review of

The Harlem Globetrotters and Basketball’s Funniest Games, by Clare and Frank Gault ISBN 0802762743

Three out of five stars

 While this book does provide a good overview of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, the real significance of the team in the history of basketball is not mentioned. In their early years, the Globetrotters were a very good team, going up and defeating the best competition in the country. The Globetrotters were formed in the late 1920’s, and the first black player was not drafted by the NBA until 1950. Therefore, for decades the Globetrotters were the basketball equivalent of the Negro leagues in baseball.

 None of this is mentioned, although the authors do talk about how good the Globetrotter teams were, regularly defeating the best NBA teams. They brought quality basketball to small towns in the central United States, adopting their clowning antics to keep the crowd interested when they were clobbering their local opponents.

 This is a brief and reasonably good history of the Harlem Globetrotters it would have been better if more about the racial issues had been part of the book.