Albert “Runt” Pullins

Albert “Runt” Pullins joined Abe Saperstein’s New York Harlem Globe Trotters as one of the original members of the original team. Pullins grew up in Chicago where he starred on the lightweight team at Wendell Phillips High School. He was fast, quick, a solid shooter, and soon he would become the first in a long line of Globetrotters to entertain fans as The Dribbler. Pullins and his Trotter teammates barnstormed across the Midwest in backwater towns playing local teams eight days a week. The wins often came easy, and so the show expanded, with dribbling exhibitions, fancy passing, and a hint of comic relief to round out a night of first-class basketball. Pullins’ time with the Trotters was cut short when he left the team to form his own outfit. Soon his Harlem Clowns hit the road cross-referencing the blueprint Saperstein set in place. The Clowns played all over the world for parts of six decades. Pullins and his running mates introduced countless fans to the gospel of the game through comedy, showmanship, and some good old-fashioned basketball brilliance.