Saperstein, "Abe" (Abraham M.)
Basketball
b. July 4, 1903, London, England
d. March 15, 1966
Though he was only 5 feet tall, Saperstein competed in baseball, basketball, and track as a high school student, but wasn't even given a tryout for the basketball team at the University of Illinois. From 1920 to 1925, he played guard for the semi-professional Chicago Reds.
In 1926, Saperstein took over management of an all-black team that played in the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago. The team was known as the Savoy Big Five at that time. On January 7, 1927, Saperstein collected $75 for a game in Hinckley, IL, the team's first trip outside Chicago.
Saperstein then began aggressively looking for bookings, primarily in Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. He billed as his team first as "Saperstein's New York" and then as "Saperstein's Harlem New York." During the 1930s, they became better as the Harlem Globe Trotters, though their longest trip at the time was to Western Pennsylvania.
The Globe Trotters played 150 to 175 games a year during the Depression, winning well over 90 percent of the time. Because they were often involved in one-sided contests, the players began developing the showboating routines that were to make them popular around the world.
The Globetrotters played in the first World Championship Tournament in 1939, losing to the Harlem Renaissance 27-23 in the second round, but they won the tournament in 1940 by beating the Chicago Bruins of the National Basketball League 31-29.
After World War II, the Globetrotters really began trotting the globe. They went on a European tour in 1951 and drew a crowd of 75,000 to Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The following year, they took a cruise around the world, playing in Asia and Africa.
Saperstein was turned down in his bid for an NBA franchise in 1961, so he formed the American Basketball League. The league folded after eighteen months and Saperstein, who was its chief financial backer, lost more than $1 million. However, the three-point shot, which originated in the ABL, was adopted by the American Basketball Association in 1967 and is now an important feature of basketball at all levels.