Photograph of two men in jackets smiling and looking at the camera. There is a bus filling up the frame in the background. One man is wearing sunglasses. This is part of a photo album created by Joseph Lyles of the 1952 Harlem Globetrotter World Tour. Joe was a member of the U.S. All Stars and the New York Celtics, this team and the Harlem Globetrotters were the first professional basketball teams to ever tour the globe.
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The Harlem Globetrotters were celebrating their 25th anniversary by touring the World. They played in 44 countries in 168 days and covered 58,849 miles! Within the album are pictures of the Globetrotters, including Reese “Goose” Tatum (Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and infamous “clown” of basketball), and the New York Celtics, places visited and people met. Some of the photographs are identified, but most are not. Just some of the places shown are: London, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, the grave of General Patton, St. Peter’s in Rome, Egypt, Hong Kong, Athens, Singapore, Tokyo and Osaka. Joseph Lyles was born on Oct. 28, 1929. He died on November 13, 2012 at the age of 83. Joe coached and taught at Washington and Lee University for 50 years. He was also a minor league baseball player and professional basketball player who toured with the Harlem Globetrotters on their 1952 World Tour. In 1958, Joe earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Springfield College and a Master’s Degree in 1959.
Photograph is among a set of 12 found loose in a scrapbook of photographs bewteen pages, scanned as and named ms517-02-01-22-001-018 and ms517-02-01-22-001-019). It is not clear whether they were meant to be in that location or are related to the images on those pages.
