Harlem Globetrotters at Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Feb 18. Shows at 2 p.m., 7:30 p.m. Tickets $16 to $130. More information: (714) 704-2420 or www.arrowheadpond.com.
Henry Samueli is bringing a basketball team to the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. It’s not the surging Los Angeles Clippers or even the restless Sacramento Kings. It’s an even older franchise: the Harlem Globetrotters. Now in their 80th season, the “clown princes of basketball” are bringing their basketball hijinks to the Pond on Saturday. Their opponent: the archrival New York Nationals. There’s little doubt who’ll win,the Globetrotters are closing in on their 22,000th win. Sure, the Globies are silly, even hackneyed. But I dare you not to smile at the memory of the team in its 1970s heyday, or at the sound of the Globies’ theme song, “Sweet Georgia Brown.” As sports writing great Frank Deford put it: “As you watch them come out on the floor in those wonderfully garish uniforms of blue and red and white and yellow, and take their position at center court, and flip that ball around you are laughing again, aren’t you.” Gone are stars such as Meadowlark Lemon, Goose Tatum and Curly Neal. In their place is a new crop of players who mix trickery and gags with real skills. It’s a hoot, especially for young sports fans.
,Michael Lyster
RATING : THREE BRIEFCASES
(out of four)
