The Basketball Hall of Fame is largely a mystery to me. I am a bit obsessive about Halls of Fame, as you might have heard, but when it comes to basketball I have absolutely no idea who is in the Hall and who is not. Hint: If you think someone is in it, he or she probably is in it. There are, best I can tell, quite a few more than 325 people in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame … so many that I probably could not put together two plausible sentences about at least half of them.I say "quite a few more" than 325, by the way, because that number includes several teams that were inducted whole. These are: The 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball teams; the Original Celtics; the All-American Red Heads (a woman's team that played against men beginning in the 1930s); the first class of "incorrigibles" that James Naismith taught to play basketball; the New York Rens; the Buffalo Germans, a dominant amateur team started in the late 19th century and the Texas Western team that beat Kentucky in the NCAA Final.More to our point here, the Harlem Globetrotters were also inducted as a team. In addition to this, Globetrotters Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon and Marques Haynes were inducted individually as were other former Globetrotters enshrined for their greater body of work like Wilt Chamberlain, Connie Hawkins and Lynette Woodard (Baseball Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins were also Globetrotters).
Red Klotz and the Hall of Fame
Red Klotz and the Hall of Fame
Red Klotz and the Hall of Fame
The Basketball Hall of Fame is largely a mystery to me. I am a bit obsessive about Halls of Fame, as you might have heard, but when it comes to basketball I have absolutely no idea who is in the Hall and who is not. Hint: If you think someone is in it, he or she probably is in it. There are, best I can tell, quite a few more than 325 people in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame … so many that I probably could not put together two plausible sentences about at least half of them.I say "quite a few more" than 325, by the way, because that number includes several teams that were inducted whole. These are: The 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball teams; the Original Celtics; the All-American Red Heads (a woman's team that played against men beginning in the 1930s); the first class of "incorrigibles" that James Naismith taught to play basketball; the New York Rens; the Buffalo Germans, a dominant amateur team started in the late 19th century and the Texas Western team that beat Kentucky in the NCAA Final.More to our point here, the Harlem Globetrotters were also inducted as a team. In addition to this, Globetrotters Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon and Marques Haynes were inducted individually as were other former Globetrotters enshrined for their greater body of work like Wilt Chamberlain, Connie Hawkins and Lynette Woodard (Baseball Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins were also Globetrotters).
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