Spinning the Globe (17 page)

Indeed, America had its own problems to worry about. The Depression still had a death grip on the economy, and a weary public was looking more and more to the entertainment industry to escape the bad news at home and abroad. Hollywood was having a banner year. People were lining up at Chicago’s movie houses to see Walt Disney’s long-awaited
Pinocchio;
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in
Road to Singapore;
Spencer Tracy and Robert Young in
Northwest Passage;
and a bright young star, Henry Fonda, in
The Grapes of Wrath.
Chicago’s Apollo Theater was featuring
Sidewalks of London
with Vivien Leigh and Charles Laughton, but fans were arriving early to see a short entitled
Life of Seabiscuit,
about the knock-kneed racehorse who had just returned from a career-threatening injury to win the Santa Anita Hundred Grander.

In the weeks leading up to the Second Annual World Pro Tournament, the Hearst newspapers had pulled out all the stops to promote it. William Randolph Hearst himself was in financial straits, having been forced to declare bankruptcy and sell off or consolidate many of his twenty-eight newspapers. In Chicago, for instance, his flagship evening paper, the
Chicago American,
had merged with the less popular morning tabloid, the
Herald-Examiner.
Still, the new
Herald-American
spared no efforts to promote the World Pro Tournament, which it was now officially sponsoring. Everything about this second year was on a larger scale. The prize money had been increased to $15,000. The number of teams had been expanded from twelve to fourteen. And whereas in 1939 some of the invited teams had declined to participate, this year over twenty teams were clamoring to get in. Weeks in advance, the
Herald-American
started cranking out stories about the tournament, and the resulting demand for tickets was so great that the box office had to be kept open at night and every game was expected to sell out.

Half of the fourteen teams were returnees, including the Globe Trotters and Rens, Oshkosh All-Stars, Sheboygan Redskins, Fort Wayne Harvesters, House of David, and Clarksburg Oilers. The seven new entrants included George Halas’s Chicago Bruins, the Kenosha (Wisc.) Badgers, Washington (D.C.) Brewers, and two teams each from Ohio (the Waterloo Wonders and Canton Bulldogs) and New York (the Rochester Seagrams and Syracuse Reds).

There were also many familiar faces among the players. Big Mike Novak, the six-foot-nine All-American from Loyola, was playing this year for George Halas, as was his former college teammate Wibs Kautz, a first-team All-Star selection for the National Basketball League. The Oshkosh All-Stars were led, once again, by Leroy “Cowboy” Edwards, former All-American from Kentucky, who had claimed his third consecutive NBL scoring title. As in the previous year, several team owners had beefed up their lineups by signing former college stars, with the most celebrated being Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, a Hindu star for Syracuse University, whom the
Rochester Chronicle
had called “the greatest cage player of all time.”

Abe Saperstein had also attempted to add additional firepower to the Trotters’ lineup, but had been stymied repeatedly. Last year’s high scorer, Larry Bleach, was now a Detroit police detective and couldn’t get off work. At the last minute, Abe had tried to sign Agis Bray, a former Wendell Phillips star, but the tournament committee ruled that Bray was ineligible because Abe had missed the deadline for finalizing team rosters. Making matters worse, the committee also ruled that Hilary Brown, who had been rotating between the Trotters and the Chicago Collegians, was ineligible for the same reason.
This was a catastrophic blow. It was bad enough losing the scoring potential of Bleach and Bray, but the six-foot-three Brown was a defensive specialist who would have been one of the Trotters’ primary bulwarks against the Rens’ big men, Tarzan Cooper and Wee Willie Smith, who had wreaked havoc the previous year.

Abe finally managed to sign one player, Al Fawks, formerly of Western Reserve University in Cleveland. And he asked Leon Wheeler, the coach of Detroit’s Brewster Center, to assist him on the bench. Otherwise, the Globe Trotters would rely on the six players who had carried the team to 98 wins against only 3 losses: Sonny Boswell, Bernie Price, Babe Pressley, Ted Strong, Duke Cumberland, and “Old Ironsides” himself, Inman Jackson.

A year before, the Trotters and Rens had been placed in the same bracket, which ensured that two black teams could not possibly meet in the finals. But this year they were placed in the same
sub
bracket, so they would meet in the second round, if they both won their first game. Once again, the tournament promoters had eliminated the possibility of two black teams playing for the championship.

The Trotters’ first game was on Sunday afternoon, March 17, against the Kenosha Badgers, a team led by three former Creighton University stars. It was no contest. The Trotters annihilated the Badgers in the same fashion they had ninety-eight other teams that year. They jumped out to a 33–20 lead at halftime, then blew the game open in the second half, limiting the Badgers to only 3 points and running away with a 50–26 win. Bernie Price and Sonny Boswell scored 14 and 12 points, respectively, and the Trotters toyed with Kenosha throughout the game. The Globe Trotters had given notice, right off the bat, that they were a team to be reckoned with.

The Rens must have got the message, because they also crushed their first-round opponent, the Canton Bulldogs, by the lopsided score of 42–21, with Puggy Bell leading the way with 13 points.

The long-awaited rematch was at hand.

Over 5,000 fans were jammed into the Madison Street Armory on Monday night to witness the main event. The betting line was 2–1 in favor of the Rens, which was not surprising given their relatively
easy handling of the Trotters the year before. The Rens put the same team on the floor as in 1939, except for Fat Jenkins, who had retired. Tarzan Cooper, Wee Willie Smith, John Isaacs, Pop Gates, Zach Clayton, Eiyre Saitch, and Puggy Bell were no less formidable than in the previous year, but at least they were
familiar.
The Trotters knew exactly what they could do. The Rens still had a height advantage with Cooper and Smith, but the Trotters were stronger inside with the addition of Duke Cumberland. Still, the loss of Hilary Brown, their best defensive center, could prove fatal. The Trotters did have the element of surprise in their favor, as the Rens had never faced Sonny Boswell.

Referee Pat Kennedy, the master of histrionics, once again called the teams to center court for the opening tip, and the game was on. In 1939, the Rens had bolted to an 11–2 lead, but the Trotters were determined to send a message that this was a different year and a different team. Not surprisingly, the Trotters’ primary messenger was Sonny Boswell, who hit a couple of early bombs that showed the Rens why he had been tearing up teams all season long. But the Rens were too good and too experienced to be intimidated by Boswell or anybody else, and they came right back, matching the Trotters basket for basket.

The opening quarter ended with the Rens up by only one point, 12–11. The second quarter turned into a defensive struggle, with the two teams battling like heavyweight fighters slugging it out in the center of the ring. The lead seesawed back and forth, and the half ended with the Rens ahead 18–16.

After one half, two things were clear: the teams were much more evenly matched than they had been the previous year, and Sonny Boswell held the fate of the Trotters in his hands. If he was on in the second half, no one, including the fabled New York Rens, could stop him. If he was off, the Rens would win.

The third quarter was played in an adrenaline-induced fury, with both teams nearly doubling their first-half points in that quarter alone. Boswell was hitting from every angle and the Rens resorted to fouling him, in a desperate effort to stop the onslaught, but he was making them pay from the free throw line. Puggy Bell and Pop Gates were keeping the Rens in the game, however, and despite the frenetic
pace, neither team could pull away. They were matching each other basket for basket, and the quarter ended with the Rens still ahead by one, 31–30.

After three quarters, the game was dead even. The lead would change hands fourteen times during the game, with neither team able to build a comfortable margin. It had come down to a test of which team would crack.

And then, perhaps as a result of the pressure, both teams went cold in the final period. No one could hit a basket. On both ends of the court, the defenses were challenging every pass, every drive to the lane, every shot. The scoring frenzy of the third quarter had been a harbinger of the up-tempo style of basketball that would appear in the 1940s and ’50s, but in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, the Trotters and Rens reverted back to the roots of the game, to the deliberate, ball-control style from the 1920s and ’30s. Both teams were playing conservatively, afraid to make a mistake that would cost them the game. Minutes went by without either team scoring. With two minutes left in the game, each team had scored only 4 points in the quarter, and the Rens were still up by one, 35–34.

As the clock wound down, the tension in the Armory was becoming unbearable. Each possession was critical; any errant pass or shot could determine the outcome of the game. Fans for both teams were up out of their seats. It was almost too excruciating to even watch. The big hand on the scoreboard clock on the wall seemed to be moving in slow motion as it dialed toward zero.

With a minute and forty-five seconds left, the Rens’ Zach Clayton was fouled, and the former Trotter hit one free throw to make it a 2-point Rens lead, 36–34. Now the Trotters had the ball for what could be their final possession. If they missed a shot and the Rens got the ball, they could run out the clock. The Trotters brought the ball across half court. No one in the Armory had any doubts about who would get the ball. Sonny Boswell had carried the Globe Trotters all night, scoring 18 of their 34 points—more than the rest of the team combined.

But the Rens were collapsing their entire defense on Boswell, intent on denying him the ball. The Rens were determined not to let him beat them. The clock was down to one minute. The Trotters
were frantic. Boswell was double-teamed. Someone else would have to step up. Then a pass went in to Babe Pressley in the corner. “The Blue Ox” was a terror on the boards but was not known for his offense. Tonight, in fact, he had yet to score a point. Worse, he had caught the ball in an awkward position, with a difficult angle to the rim, but he threw up a shot anyway and, miraculously, it went in. The score was tied.

The Rens called time-out with less than a minute to play. Bob Douglas substituted Eiyre Saitch, one of his best outside shooters, for John Isaacs. The Rens brought the ball across half court and looked for an open shot. With about thirty seconds left, a Ren player took a shot, but the ball caromed off the rim and the Trotters grabbed the rebound. They would have the last shot to win the game. Again, everyone was looking for Sonny Boswell. If it came down to one shot, there was no question who was going to take it. And this time, despite the Rens’ best efforts, Boswell got the ball. With time running out, the best long-range shooter in all of basketball had one final chance to put the Rens away. This is why Abe had revamped the entire team, why he had brought in Boswell in the first place—to have it all come down to this last shot.

And then, unexpectedly, the Rens did something stupid: Boswell was fouled before he could shoot. It was a boneheaded play. A coach’s worst nightmare. You
never
foul at the end of the game and give the other team a free throw to win. Make them hit a basket, and by all means don’t give them a freebie at the line. But one can almost forgive the Rens for their mistake. Boswell had been killing them from outside all night, and the Rens didn’t want to let him beat them from out there in his comfort zone. They would rather force him to the free throw line, where perhaps, under the scrutiny and pressure of the moment, he would choke.

But Sonny Boswell was an assassin. He hit the shot.

The Trotters were ahead by one, with only seconds left to play. After Boswell’s free throw, the Rens had to bring in the ball from under the Trotters’ basket. There was not enough time to work the ball up the court and run a play. They had to do something desperate. And they did: Puggy Bell turned and sprinted down the court as fast as he could, catching the Trotters off guard. He was streaking
down the sideline like a football wideout on a “Hail Mary” route. And his teammate who was in-bounding the ball saw him break free and heaved the ball as far as he could. Bell ran under it and caught it in full stride. He was all by himself, going in for a breakaway layup to win the game.

There was only one Globe Trotter anywhere near him, and that was Inman Jackson. But there was no way the “old man” of the Trotters could hope to catch the speedy Bell. Inman shouldn’t have been in the game in the first place. He was a relic of the ancien régime, yet Abe still insisted on playing him out of loyalty. But Inman had been completely ineffective, scoring no baskets and no free throws. A younger player could have made a run at Bell and perhaps cut him off, or at least fouled him before he could shoot, but all Inman could do was lumber down the court behind Bell as he went in for a game-winning shot.

Then a wondrously strange thing happened. All Bell had to do was run in for an uncontested layup, the easiest shot in basketball, which he had made thousands of times before. But just before he reached the basket, he heard footsteps, glanced back over his shoulder, and saw Inman rumbling down the court toward him. In that split second of hesitation, when Puggy Bell looked back, what he must have seen was not a thirty-seven-year-old broken-down has been who had stayed out way too long, four years past his “farewell tour,” but the ghost of what Big Jack had once been, the most feared player on the Iron Range and the Pacific Coast, a man who had controlled every tip and intimidated every center he faced. Somehow, on that futile chase downcourt, trying to run down a young blood he could never hope to catch, Inman Jackson had summoned up the last faint aura of his former greatness. And when Puggy Bell looked back and saw him coming, he lost his concentration for just an instant. He lost track of where he was on the court, overran the basket, and when he looked up to shoot the layup he was
under
the backboard. He had gone too far. Realizing his mistake, he compounded it by stopping his dribble. Now he was stuck. All he could do was lean back as far as he could and throw up a clumsy shot off the backboard, trying to bank it in. Incredibly, he missed. The ball hit the rim and bounced straight back. There was still a second or two left, enough time for
Bell to retrieve his rebound and put it back in. He leaped for the ball, but someone beat him to it.