This was part of the evolutionary process of basketball and it’s how many players made a decent living — it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t the big time, but at least they were playing the game they loved to play.
Nevada State Journal
Reno, Nevada, March 16, 1952
Local basketball fans will have at least one more chance to see a hoop contest this season.
The well-known Iowa Colored Ghosts will be in Sparks next Wednesday night (March 19) for a game with the Western Mercantile quint, 1952 Sparks city tournament champion.
Proceeds from the contest will be used for the Sparks high school athletic fund and for the Sparks Athletic Association’s 1952 city sports program.
Admission to the game has been set at $1 for adults and 75 cents for students.
The Ghosts, one of the West’s best-known traveling hopp teams, are currently celebrating their silver anniversary season.
They will bring to Sparks their usual assortment of trick basketball, including marathon dribbling, “football,” “baseball” and slow motion.
Listed on the Ghosts’ roster are such players as Ziggy Marcell, Buck Buckner, Babe Rand, Yippy Garland, Windy Lopez, and Pete Williams.
Prior to their Sparks engagement, the Colored Ghosts will appear in Fallon Tuesday agains the Hudson Hornets, Reno’s 1952 city league champions.
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My thoughts …
I like to share vintage articles like this one, usually to make a point that’s worth noting, and which adds to the long and rich continuum of basketball history.
One of the players mentioned in this piece, Ziggy Marcell, played alongside Jackie Robinson and George Crowe on the Los Angeles Red Devils professional basketball team of the mid-1940s. When serious teams like the Red Devils disbanded, players like Marcell — a second-tier player who had few other remaining playing options — often formed the nucleus of new, peripheral teams that themselves were reduced to the level of requiring sensational names, clowning, and comedic showmanship as a way of getting attention in remote predominantly white havens like Sparks, Nevada.
Men did what they had to do, by seizing (or surrendering to) the moment and creating new opportunities for themselves. This was part of the evolutionary process of basketball and it’s how many players made a decent living – it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t the big time, but at least they were playing the game they loved to play while moving forward instead of standing still.
Thus basketball can serve as a vehicle for re-creation, not just recreation. A great lesson for those seeking to re-brand themselves in the current economy.
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Basketball lends itself to “clowning” better than most sports do — referees can interfere, or not-interfere, much more easily to influence outcomes than in any other team sport except perhaps professional wrestling.
Showing off or being a “hot-dog”on the basketball court enjoys a proud tradition, from Skip-To-My-Lou thru Pistol Pete back at least to Philly’s Jackie Bethards, who I believe was the first hoopster to wear the crown of Clown Prince of BasketBall, way ahead of Goose, Geese, or MeadowLark. The term didn’t exist before Bethards made it his.
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Nice comment Bijan. Very well put.
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