06/21/2010
By Milan Simonich
El Paso Times
Hidden El Paso is an occasional series on overlooked characters or places that are part of the city's history.
EL PASO -- The first legendary Globetrotter held court in El Paso during the last two years of his life.
Reece "Goose" Tatum, showman, businessman, man of the people, starred with the Harlem Globetrotters for 12 seasons in the 1940s and '50s. After breaking from the Trotters and starting his own team, he died in El Paso on Jan. 18, 1967. He was 45.
Tatum, who served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, is buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery.
An attending physician said Tatum's death was of "natural causes." Slender news accounts of the time stated that Tatum had been hospitalized for "a considerable time" with an illness that was never specified.
Born in Arkansas in 1921, Tatum grew up in a segregated America. This meant that his talent in baseball and basketball was not nearly so important as the color of his skin.
Most professional sports owners of that era wanted all-white teams. So starting in 1940, at age 19, Tatum played on teams such as the Birmingham Black Barons, the Cincinnati Clowns and the Detroit Stars of baseball's Negro Leagues.
He stood 6 feet 6 inches and weighed under 200 pounds, but still made a formidable first baseman. Tatum also possessed a comedic flair and a willingness to interact with black audiences whose members were unwelcome in so many other parts of American society.
His style captivated Abe Saperstein, owner of the Globetrotters, who signed him to the all-black basketball team in 1941.
Tatum played a season before his career was interrupted by war. Drafted by the Army Air Forces, he served as a physical education instructor.
Once back with the Trotters, his deadly hook shot and exaggerated comedic routines made him one of the better-known black athletes in America.
By the late 1940s, a handful of black players such as Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Monte Irvin had been hired in baseball's Major Leagues. Chuck Cooper, of Duquesne University, became the first black player drafted by an NBA team when the Boston Celtics selected him in 1950.
But Tatum, two years younger than Robinson, would spend the rest of his athletic career on black teams that entertained primarily white audiences.
Tatum bolted the Trotters in 1954 and later started his own touring team, the Harlem Road Kings. History, though, regards him as a Globetrotter.
He is one of five players whose jerseys were retired by the Trotters. Tatum wore No. 50. The others so honored by the Globetrotters were Wilt Chamberlain, Curly Neal, Marques Haynes and Meadowlark Lemon.
Tatum had seen the world before settling in El Paso in the mid-1960s. By then, he was running his Road Kings, a lesser-known version of the Trotters. He had planned to join his team in Dallas on the day he died.
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