Goose Tatum

Reece "Goose" Tatum (1921 to 1967) was an American Negro league baseball and basketball player from El Dorado, Arkansas. He played baseball for the Louisville Black Colonels, Memphis Red Sox and Birmingham Black Barons before Abe Saperstein signed him to the Harlem Globetrotters in 1942. He spent 11 seasons with the team and was widely described as the original clown prince of the Globetrotters, building comic routines around his long arms, and he is credited with inventing the hook shot. After leaving in 1955 he formed the Harlem Magicians with Marques Haynes. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1974, the Globetrotters retired his number 50 in 2002, and he entered the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.