Other Team Sports Should Get Their Own Harlem Globetrotters, Too

I have no authority with any of the various leagues or concerns which govern modern sports. No one has to listen to me on this subject. But I believe I speak for people — the people, generally — when I say that it would be a very good thing if other sports, and not just basketball, had their own version of the Harlem Globetrotters. A baseball version of the Globetrotters, an ice hockey version, a football version, and so on. I think people would enjoy it, and that it would be a good idea.

I do not propose a Harlem Globetrotter initiative for any sport where people compete at the individual level. A Harlem Globetrotter doing a wacky run in a marathon, or goofing around with a shotput, or interfering with the other competitors in the 400-meter dash, would arouse too much audience sympathy for the “straight” athletes.

I do propose a Harlem Globetrotter-style barnstorming exhibition group in most sports played by duos, relay squads, and teams. For example, singles tennis, singles ice skating, and competitive swimming would not qualify for the Harlem Globetrotters treatment. Neither would dressage, because I do not count animals towards the final team member count.¹ But doubles tennis, beach volleyball, track and field relay, couple skating, synchronized swimming, softball et al, would qualify, and, I think, benefit enormously from it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention here that I don’t watch a lot of sports, so some of the details of gameplay may escape me. I do like to watch the Olympics when they’re on, because it’s easier to follow one or two athletes for a six-minute burst than to try to keep up with a two-hour game where everybody swarms up and down a field. And I always watch the Harlem Globetrotters if one of their games happen to be on TV.

I think the Globetrotters should extend the franchise. Someone else will have to work out the details — the baseball Globetrotters can juggle bats, or Red Rover the pitcher, the hockey Globetrotters can come out with twelve goalies, what have you; I think the synchronized swimming Globetrotters idea probably writes itself. But ordinary Globetrotter rules of fair play will still apply; they can only disrupt the game using the appurtenances and techniques of the game itself.

By this I mean a Globetrotter might “fairly” disrupt a doubles tennis match by producing and juggling a comical number of tennis rackets, or overload the infield with a cheerleading pyramid, but a Globetrotter could not disrupt the same game by suddenly appearing on roller skates, or producing a flamethrower. Showmanship, ball-handling, gymnastic ability, glad-handing; these are the tools of the Globetrotter, but he always fights in a technically fair fashion. He does not use anything that the game does not already provide him with.

I’m entirely agnostic on the question of whether the other sports should also produce their own Washington Generals, whose job it is to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters, or whether the Harlem Globetrotters may choose to “strike” an ordinary team unawares.

In that case, for example, a football game might be scheduled between the Minnesota Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles next week, but come Thursday night, and surprise! The Vikings have been comically waylaid at the airport, and the Eagles will be facing the Harlem Globetrotters, who have stolen their shoes, instead. Or you watch the St. Louis Cardinals run onto the field, only to find it’s a team of all relief pitchers. How will they work their way out of this mess, et cetera.

I think people would really get a kick out of this. Picture, for example, an ordinary beach volleyball team facing off against a team of beach volleyball-playing Harlem Globetrotters. You are smiling already! They would have so much trouble getting the game back on track, et cetera. The mascot for the beach volleyball Globetrotters could be a cartoon alligator wearing sunglasses, possibly. I hope you’ll consider it.

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1. This is not because I do not respect animals as athletes. I do! But I am not sure how you could train, say, a horse in something like “clown dressage” in the first place, and in the second place I worry the non-clown horse might become confused or upset by the Globetrotter horse’s antics. So I think it’s better to leave the horses out of it.